Looking back on my life, I agree with those who believe that
Native American’s go berserk when they drink booze. I was an Osage Indian. My people migrated from Kentucky to settle in Western
Missouri near the Osage and Missouri Rivers
where we were discovered by the Frenchman, Jacques Marquette. He wrote, “These are the tallest men in North America ranging from six feet to six and a half
feet tall and have both white and red skin.
I was born in 1922 and was never given a first name, just
the initials M. W. Cooper. Some people
said the initials stood for Mad Wolf. I
was tall, fair skinned, good looking and charming. Men liked me.
Women adored me until I had a few drinks. I was already drinking by the age of fifteen
and when I drank I became a cruel SOB. The
SOB came naturally. Known as Ms. Walker,
my mother was the local Madam. Each of
her ladies had their own one-room crib in the trashy little town of Weedpatch, California…the town
where Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was filmed.
In 1938 my grandmother literally followed me, with a
horsewhip in her hand, to the Selective Service office where she swore I was
seventeen years old. The army became my
career. In 1941 I made friends with a
fellow about my age who introduced me to his teenage sister. I was smitten but she refused my marriage proposal.
During World War II I fought in Europe. In Germany I lost
part of my skull. They replaced it with
a metal plate. In Germany I also took
a wife. I was stationed in Japan during
the U.S. occupation and saw the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between the occupation of Japan and
serving in Korea
I married my friend’s sister. By then
she was 24 years old. I now had a wife
in Germany
and one in California. In Korea necessity forced me to finish
cutting off my severely severed left leg. I spent months at Letterman’s
Hospital in San Francisco
and occasionally experienced bouts of severe headaches.
After being released from the hospital and receiving a
medical discharge, I lived in an alcoholic haze and would disappear for days at
a time. During those times, using my crutches, I was
known to viciously beat anyone who made me angry. But the police always let me go.
When my California
wife went into labor with our first child I dropped her at the door of the
hospital while I went to park the car and I didn’t return for two weeks. Many times, when I was on a drinking binge
she and the children had to hide from me.
Once, to get away, she jumped through a large plate glass window. Why did she keep taking me back?
For my military service I was awarded the WW II Victory
Metal, Army of Occupation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, with three
bronze stars, and the United Nation’s Service Medal. One never gets over the fear, the sights,
sounds and experiences of war; but, some seem better able to live with
peace. I never knew peace.
At the age of 40 the headaches became debilitating I prayed
for relief and begged others to pray for me. A cerebral hemorrhage ended my life. Not until several years later did my California wife learn of
my German wife. I am buried near
Weedpatch where, though no longer in use, my mother’s seven little shacks still
stand.
Rachel Nemitz, March 2013
