Chapter 1

I suppose to understand where I am now you need some idea of what brought me here. It isn't a pretty story – not by a long shot – but then how many stories really are.

Ty – short for Tyler (That's me – Tyler Braxton Bragg) was not the product of a loving marriage. I was the product of an evening (or several evenings) of unbridled lust. The story, as I got it later, began one night when my dad stopped at The Silver Spur for a couple of drinks. It was a Friday night and the Spur had a live band.

He saw three girls sitting at a table; a blond, a brunette and a redhead. Dad had a thing for redheads so he went over to the table and asked the redhead to dance. After dancing the redhead the redhead invited him to join the girls at the table. After several drinks and several more dances dad had a date for the next night. A couple more dates and then one led to some back seat time in a 65' Pontiac Catalina which in turn led to sometime at the Bide A Wee Motel which in turn led to a quickie civil wedding following which – eight months later – I drew my first breath.

I got this story from the redhead who was not my mother by the way. Cora, she of the red hair, was my mother's cousin. My mother was the blond who had been sitting at the table with Cora and Audrey who was Cora's best friend.

Mom and dad's marriage could best be described as 'rocky'. Dad was a long haul truck driver; one of that breed known as owner/operators. That meant that he owned his own Peterbuilt and Dorsey Trailer and was for hire to anyone who had a load that needed to be moved. Actually he had more than one trailer. He also had a Load King flat bed.

Being an over the road trucker meant that dad was away from home a lot and mom was not a stay at home kind of girl. Most of my evenings while dad was gone were spent in the company of babysitters. Also when dad was gone mom had a lot of male company at the house many of whom were still there when I got up in the morning. Of course I was too young at the time to understand what that meant, but as I got older I came to realize that what mom was not doing right by dad. Once mom saw that I was starting to realize what was going on she had a mother/son sit down with me.

"I'm not a bad woman Ty, but with your pa gone so much I get lonely and I have needs that need to be taken care of. What I do doesn't hurt your pa because he doesn't know about it. So it needs to be our secret okay? Neither one of wants to hurt him right? He is still my man baby and I spoil him rotten when he is home."

I really didn't understand any of it at the time, but I didn't want to hurt my dad so I told mom I would keep things secret. Funny thing about secrets. They can only be secret as long as only one person knows it. Maybe in the case of mom and me two could keep it, but mom had too many male friends and one or two (or maybe six or a dozen) liked to brag about their sexual conquests. Since the men mom spent her time with did their drinking in the same bars that dad frequented when he was home it was inevitable that he would hear some things that didn't set well with him.

The story, as told to me later, is that dad overheard two men discussing the fun they had with mom. They either didn't know who dad was or they didn't care if he knew they were fucking his wife. Whatever it was there was no doubt in dad's mind that they were talking about mom. No doubt at all because apparently the two didn't know they were doing the same woman until they started comparing notes. When one of them mentioned our address is when the other one said:

"That's the bitch I'm doing!"

When dad was finally pulled off the two men they were on their way to the hospital and dad was on the way to jail. By the time dad called mom to come down and bail him out she had received several phone calls filling her in on what went down so instead of mom bailing him out she bailed out. Flat took off and left me there. I was fourteen at the time and didn't have a clue as to what was going on.

After two days alone in the house I called Aunt Cora (she was only mom's cousin, but I had grown up calling her Aunt Cora) and asked her if my mom was there. She told me no and I asked if she knew where my mom was.

"I need to find her. She's been gone two days, there is no food in the house and I'm real hungry."

"Don't go anywhere Ty. You stay right there and I'll be right over."

She showed up about a half hour later and I got a lot of "Oh you poor baby" and "How could she do this to you" from her. She had brought some food with her and she fixed me something to eat and while I ate she started calling around trying to find mom, but with no luck. During the calls she found out that dad was in jail and why. She told me pack some things and she took me home with her.

Meanwhile dad got someone to go his bail and when he got out he went looking for her. Unfortunately for all concerned he found her.

True or not the jury bought most of his story. His story is that he found out where she was and he had gone there to get her and take her home where she belonged. The man mom was with pulled a gun on him and dad tried to take it away from him. In the struggle the gun went off and the bullet hit mom and killed her. Dad got the gun away from the man who then pulled a knife out of his pocket and came at dad. Dad was forced to shoot the man to keep from being stabbed. He shot to wound the man, but unfortunately the bullet hit a major artery and the man bled out before help could arrive.

As I said, the jury bought most of the story. The gun had both dad's and the man's fingerprints on it and the knife found on the floor next had only the man's fingerprints on it so dad did beat the murder charges. But there were some things that the prosecutor and the jury didn't like. The fact that he had kicked in the man's front door to get into the apartment was a contributing factor to the two deaths so the jury did find him guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter. He got eight years and could possibly gotten out in three with good behavior, but unfortunately dad was not a model prisoner. He would not take shit from anybody and was involved in several fight and in one of them he badly hurt one of the guards who was trying to break up a fight. Hurting the hired help in prison is a big no-no and dad got another five added to his eight. There wasn't going to be any early release in dad's future.

Outside the prison walls I was having my own problems and they somewhat mirrored dads. I had dad's attitude – I wouldn't take shit from anyone either. Most of my problems came from the name my dad hung on me. Tyler Braxton Bragg. My dad's family was from the deep South and "Save your Confederate money boys; the South shall rise again" was buried in the psyche.

I was named after the Confederate Civil War general because he was supposedly somewhere in our family tree. I say supposedly because I never bothered to find out for sure. All I had to go on was what I was told and I didn't care enough about it to waste my time trying to work through the family tree. Besides, from what I'd read on the War of Northern Aggression (as it was referred to in dad's family) Braxton Bragg was pretty ineffectual as a general and I didn't care to know any more about him anyway.

When Aunt Cora took me in I had to change schools because she lived in a different district. On my second day in the new school I became acquainted with the three assholes who were going to cause me more trouble in the coming year than the law should allow. I say it that way because the law DID allow it. The three were bullies and the school administration and the local law did not do anything to put a stop to their bullying.

Several parents had complained to the school and the local law about what the three had done and they were all pretty much ignored (it came out later that the uncle of one of the bullies was on the local police force). Anyhow, on my second day the three of them started picking on me. Bear in mind here that all of them were older and bigger than me. Older by two years and bigger by three or four inches and twenty to thirty pounds. I tried to ignore them, but all that did was make them bother me more.

At first it was just verbal taunting; making fun of my name and calling me the son of a murdering asshole and things like that. I ignored it. I had a "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me" kind of attitude. But then after a bit it got physical. They would get in my way and block me from trying to go in a room or stand in front of my locker to keep me from going into it and pushing or shoving me when I tied to get around them.

Shortly after my fifteenth birthday it came to a head. I needed to pee real bad and they blocked the door to the boys bathroom. They wouldn't get out of the way and I needed to go real bad so I tried to push them out of the way. One of them punched me in the mouth as he snarled:

"Keep your hands to yourself faggot."

He had hit me and so I hit him back and that got all three of them thumping on me. I had no chance against three of them so I ended up getting beaten pretty badly and I also ended up pissing my pants. When I got home that evening Aunt Cora asked me why I had a black eye and I told her. She called the school and talked to someone who told her they would look into it.

The next afternoon the three of them beat me up again for trying to get them in trouble. Once again I had to tell Aunt Cora why the other eye was black and I had bruises. She got on the phone to the school again and got another "We will look into it." It happened three more times over the next month and when the school did nothing Aunt Cora called the cops and they did nothing.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that if you fight back the bullies will leave you alone because screwing with you just wouldn't be worth the effort. I fought back every time and all that it did was encourage them.

I finally decided that I'd had enough. If they were going to keep fucking with me I was going to fuck them up. I got a piece of iron pipe, pushed it down between my belly and my belt, covered it up with my shirt which I didn't tuck into my pants and waited for the next time they decided to mess with me. It came on the afternoon of the day I first took the pipe to school with me.

It was at the boy's bathroom again. The three were in the hallway and saw me heading for the restroom. I saw Tom say something and smiles appeared on all their faces and they laughed and moved to cut me off. They got to the doorway first and blocked me from going in. I told them to get out of my way and they laughed and Stan said:

"We ain't moving dude. We want to see you piss your pants again."

I went right at them. Joe was in the middle with Tom on his right and Stan on his left. I pushed Joe and he stumbled backwards, tripped and hit his head on the wall. Stan grabbed me and punched me. I dropped my book bag, pulled out the pipe and smacked him hard on his right knee. He screamed and fell to the floor holding his knee. I felt Tom grab my shoulder and I spun swinging the pipe as I turned and I hit him on the side of the head and he went down. I turned to see Joe getting up and running at me, but instead of backing away or standing and waiting for him I went forward swinging the pipe as I went. It hit Joe on the side of his neck and when he screamed and lifted his hands I poked him hard in the stomach with the pipe and as he doubled up I hit the side of his head and he went down.

I looked around and saw all three of them on the floor and groaning. I also saw a half dozen or so other students watching and some of the clapped and one called out:

"Way to go Ty."

I went over and knelt down next to Tom who I guessed was the ringleader of the group and said:

"You are bigger and older than me so I ain't never going to fight you fair. I won't fight you at all. What I'll do is every time you fuck with me I'll get even with you by creeping up on you with a ball bat or a piece of pipe and busting your head open. Leave me the fuck alone or grow eyes in the back of your head."

I stood up and went into the bathroom and took my whiz.