THE FATBACK CHRONICLES: Fatback's Near Miss

Both brothers were near the get away car when Fatback fired the shot. Eyewitnesses to tragic events often report that gunfire mimics firecrackers or backfiring combustion engines. In previous uncertain situations, like barroom altercations, the older of the Inseparables had counseled his younger sibling: “If you hear firecrackers get under a car.”

It was just late morning, mid-July, but the heat and humidity on the south-central Texas plains were already at record levels. There was eeriness at play. The heavens had sealed themselves. The black dirt was parched, fractured. Air off the gulf was like opening an oven to check on the Sunday roast. It hit you in the face, took your breath away. The younger brother, in a rare moment of seriousness, candor said, “Something feels strange today…like when Granny died.”

By mid afternoon the Inseparables had consumed some vodka and a flat of 24 beers, smashing the aluminum cans and throwing them into or near Fatback’s rusty trash drum just outside the kitchen door. Fatback’s children and assorted nieces and nephews, who had been told to stay clear of the visiting kin, peeped saucer-eyed into the kitchen where they sat on chrome kitchen chairs, talking loudly as drunks do. The brothers—said members of the family through back channel phone calls to each other—were out of control. An upshot was that they had created an unknown unity in the far-flung family. A loose-knit alliance had coalesced whose sole purpose was to, as another male member of the family said telephonically to Fatback, “Do something about those fools.” Many a grave discussion was held on long distance about precisely what could be done about the Inseparables. One wing of the family called for special prayer and fasting; another lobbied for blunt force trauma. Fatback was securely in the latter camp.

They, however, had not the faintest notion that their behavior brought tribulation to the family; they were just wandering, lost in the wilderness of south Texas and in their muddled thinking, mostly unaware of time and space. And no pastoral sibling seemed disposed to leave his 90 and 8 in search of the two.

They worked sometimes—usually on itinerant oil rigs or as roustabouts—but only when absolutely necessary. In a general alcohol stupor, they were not happy but showed no signs of understanding their misery. The beer was their self-medication. Everything was hilarious—to them.

When Fatback arrived home late that afternoon and found them soundly ensconced in his kitchen slurring loud, obnoxious jokes he turned on heel and went directly to his gun safe. He might have offered a temporary reprieve had they not been drinking his beer. In spite of their semi-capacitated mental states, they became alarmed when Fatback, not only ordering them out of his house, had also followed them out onto his crushed seashell driveway. The older one saw a glint as the sun caught the gun. Before he could react, the younger ran fast and low, zigzagging toward the car, having been taught well. The older held his ground for a few beats, making the mistake of wagging a finger in Fatback’s face. He had done it, he said later, simply to give the younger a chance to either get under the car or to start the engine, whichever seemed more appropriate.

But the wagging digit set Fatback off. And when enraged, Fatback acquired a high, squeaky voice, his dark face became the color of blood sausage and his hands shook. And when an enraged person—a not rational person—with shaky hands is also holding his .357 nickel-plated Magnum, there is a distinct possibility for trouble.

He’d lost a kneecap in Vietnam and limped to the right. The gimp was slight, but the older Inseparable had always said he would never feel comfortable shooting quail or deer with Fatback. “Sometimes he slips, the leg gives out,” he told the younger Inseparable.

As the younger nearly reached the car the older had the presence of mind to dart, too. Fatback tripped and as he hit the gravel a single shot was expelled from the gun. And the projectile took a cantaloupe size gash out of the fiberglass near the bumper of the get away vehicle.

Years later Fatback declared that it was an accident; that he had never intended to pull the trigger. But perception is paramount. And as any freshman law school student required to interview eyewitnesses to a mock crime knows, the sequence of fast-moving events, let alone motive, is sometimes impossible to ascertain. According to Fatback's laughing confession, the shot, and the concomitant assumption that it was premeditated on his part, had had such a broad theatrical effect that he had allowed it to stand, if for no other reason than the creation of familial folklore.

But this was no diminutive firecracker. To the fleeing brothers, the sound of the .357 Magnum’s lead piercing the air behind them was more like the concussive burst of cannon fodder, something felt more than heard. Other exhilarating incidents would come and go and the Inseparables would drift apart over the years. But in general terms it was a turning point in their lives. And specifically, it was the capstone on their realization that, wherever else they might wander, they were no longer welcome at Fatback’s Goliad, Texas, residence.

Fatback stood and dusted off. Building a legend, he drew a deep breath and blew the smoke wafting out of the barrel. Attempting to cool the still heated tube he waved it in the air knowing that they would see him in their rear view mirrors. Satisfied it had cooled, and that he had made his point, he tucked it into his Levis 501’s at the small of his back. Standing, arms akimbo, on the sea of crushed shells he watched the long, black Chevy Malibu as it rifled out between distant cornfields, trailing a white cone of dust as the Inseparables got out of Dodge.

The little children looked on in wide-eyed wonder from the large picture window. A broad grin washed over Fatback's face as he turned and limped back toward the ranch house. He cocked his head to one side, musing to himself, the all-wise older sibling. In his mind he was Marshall Matt Dillon. But when the kids became teenagers, and were no longer afraid to say so, they said he seemed more like Chester.