The Day I Was Almost Murdered

Only once that fall in 1963 did my twelve year old neighbor, Georgie Milovich, try to murder me. Literally. Let me first say that I think I inherited my tendency to be very ornery from my mother. Being a product of the Great Depression in Oklahoma, my mother, Pauline Williams, had a lot of spunk, grit and a major chip on her shoulder, and no one dared try to push her around. Stubborn, prideful and bellicose, my mother could ruffle even a meek parson’s feathers with her straight-forward opinions and vitriolic fulminations. In fact, whenever I looked through all the old family photographs and cards, my father, Frederick Vincent Hunter would refer to his war-time sweetheart as “old hateful,” and that gave me a clear picture of just how bullheaded my mother was even as a young high school girl back in the late 1930’ s.

And whenever the family made those long vacation treks in the Impala up highway 395 to Reno, my mother would always tell us the same story about the time she was a senior at uptown High School when she and her sister Imogene angrily walked out of the classroom in protest because her classmates during a discussion one day poked fun at all the “dumb and ignorant Okies” who migrated to California in the 1930’ s. “I got right up and told those kids, ‘no you are the ignorant ones’ and my sister and I walked out with our middle fingers raised high. And you know what?” she would say with great pride in her voice, “I told that jerk teacher Mr. Jones who allowed those things to be said that we would not return to his class until everyone apologized to us. And sure as the world they did.”

My mother had two other sisters; Ruby and Rosie, and it was my Aunt Rosie who was even more pugnacious and stubborn than my mother. And I never met anyone more foul-mouthed. For it was my Aunt Rosie who encouraged me to give the middle finger to anyone who gave me “any crap. Jus' give em the bird Mickey,” she would tell me, demonstrating the right way to do it. And up that middle finger would go, and she’d fling it forward with great gusto. “Fudge em all!”

Even though Georgie Milovich had recurring attacks of asthma, he loved to play basketball and throw the football, and play “over the line” baseball and he absolutely loved to chase Carol Sue Johnson and Janice Patty from front yard to front yard under all those Oleander trees playing energetic games of freeze tag. I remember as our games became more intense and competitive, tiny beads of sweat would begin to appear beneath his nostrils like a string of transparent pearls, and then the wheezing would commence. And when that happened, I knew one of two things was about to happen. Either Georgie would have to stop playing to catch his breath by using his decongestant spray, or if I happened to be winning at the time, he would become totally frustrated with himself and then all hell would break loose and he would lose that very bad temper of his.

And so it happened in early November of 1963 when asthmatic Georgie Milovich lost his temper and almost killed me. To this day I don’t know why I found great joy and satisfaction in purposely getting Georgie all riled up and watching him go literally crazy losing his temper. Whenever he did I would just stand there, laugh at him and taunt him by saying: “Comon Georgie . . . get madder! You’re not mad enough. Come on!” Usually he would scream “Hunter . . . you damn bastard!” and would angrily go inside his green Spanish-tiled house, slamming the screen door behind him. If he happened to be down at my house, he would straighten his back, tuck in his tee shirt and silently but lividly march home, and I wouldn’t see the kid for a few days. So I guess I had it coming to me on that November afternoon while playing catch with Georgie in my backyard.

That day he had rung the doorbell holding his bat, hardball and his black Stan Musial glove, and when I answered the door, there he was with those black glasses on and all his baseball equipment, and I knew what he wanted to do. As usual he would say: “Comon, let’s play.” “Okay,” I always said. “Let me get my glove.” And as always, our game of catch at first was seriously done with straight throws, and our conversation that day concerning the 1963 World Series was very agreeable as we both felt Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers was the obvious hero and that Joe Pepitone of the Yankees was the obvious “goat.”

But then after about a half hour, I became bored with our game and conversation, and decided I wanted to stop and go back inside the house and continue to do what I had been doing before he rang the doorbell. Now this wasn’t an easy thing to do because Georgie Milovich liked to play for three or four hours at a time, and if I ever wanted to stop prematurely, he would absolutely refuse to go home. So I figured the only way to get Georgie to go back home and leave me alone was to purposely goad him into losing his temper.

And so I began to intentionally throw that hardball high over his head and far to the left and right of where he was standing. “Comon Stark,” he said with exasperation, “throw it straight!” Well, after about ten minutes of terrible throws, it happened. Georgie Milovich became unglued. “Hunter, you damn bastard! I know you can throw better than that! Play right you damn idiot!” As I elevated my middle finger straight up and thrust it forward just as my Aunt Rosie had taught me, I yelled: “Stop cussing at me! I’m going inside right now!” And that’s when my twelve year old neighbor, Georgie Milovich, grabbed his baseball bat which had been lying harmlessly still on the pavement beside him and threw it as hard as he could in the direction of my head.

Well, my guardian angel must’ve been with me that day, for as I watched in amazement the bat flying end over end toward me, I figured I was going to be hit as sure as the world turns, and I remember I closed my eyes, ducked a little and just waited for the painful impact. But it never happened. Instead, Georgie’s bat missed my head by an inch and harmlessly sailed over the low brick wall and into the Guidi’s backyard. And there that bat remained for at least a week, hidden in the shrubbery. Eventually Georgie and I made up, like always, went next door and asked Ruth Guidi if we could go into her backyard to retrieve it. After that harrowing experience I decided I would never purposely get Georgie Milovich angry again, at least while his baseball bat was nearby.

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