Chapter XI – Short Stories about Anthony
The following short stories wouldn’t really tie in with the rest of the book so I have added them here.
One weekend in March 2001 Eddie and I took the boys to the Smokey Mountains. We had our honeymoon there and we loved it so much we wanted the boys to see it. The boys were ages thirteen, seven, and five at the time so they were all old enough to enjoy the trip.
On the way we stopped by Ruby Falls to show the boys the cave. To my knowledge none of them had ever been in a cave so we thought this would be a neat experience for them. We bought our tickets and were walking around the gift shop to kill time when Brett popped off something smart to me. He was five at the time and had never spoken like that to me before so I told him he wasn’t to talk to me like that ever again and we kept walking. Anthony was walking behind me and very sarcastically said, “If Tyler or I would’ve talked to you that way you would’ve slapped our face.” Before I knew it I had spun around and slapped Anthony’s face right there in the gift shop in front of God and everybody for talking to me that way. This embarrassed Eddie very badly and he made us all go outside to calm down. We were going to leave without seeing the cave but Anthony and I worked things out so we were able to see the cave after all.
When we got to the Smokey Mountains there was snow on the ground. It doesn’t snow much in Mississippi so this was a treat for us all. We stopped the car by a mountain side so the boys could play in the snow. The boys climbed up the mountain side and when they got to the top decided to slide down. However, they had nothing to slide down on so they took their coats off and slid down that way. When they got to the bottom, Eddie and I started hitting them with snowballs. The boys joined in and we had our first ever snowball fight. That was a lot of fun.
Later that day we were driving around the Smokey Mountains and we saw herd after herd of deer and a black bear. With Anthony being the avid hunter he was, he was in Heaven. He really enjoyed the trip. I am so glad he got to see the Smokey Mountains.
During this time in his life, Anthony would live back and forth between my parents and me. He loved being with his mom and brothers but he also loved being an only child so when he got tired of all of us he’d go live with my parents.
When Anthony would stay at my parent’s house he would sneak out during the night and come back in during the early hours of the morning. My parents got tired of this so they put those battery operated alarms on the windows so they’d know if he snuck out. They thought this was a smart idea but Anthony was smarter. He’d remove the batteries from the alarm, sneak out, come back in and put the batteries back in the alarm so they’d never know.
One night mother went in Anthony’s room to check on him only to find him gone. She woke my father up and they put the batteries back in the alarm then lay on his bed and waited for him to come home. When Anthony tried to sneak back in the house the alarm went off and scared him half to death. They all got a good laugh out of that one.
Since Anthony failed the seventh grade and had repeated the third grade Mother decided to homeschool him. He stayed out for the year and still didn’t pass the seventh grade so Mother put him back in public school. His third year in the seventh grade he spent most of his time working for the ladies in the office and didn’t go to class a whole lot, therefore he failed the seventh grade yet again.
One of the years Anthony was in the seventh grade, he asked me to go to the fair with him so I did. While we were there, he begged me to ride the Gravitron with him. For those of you that have never ridden the Gravitron it is an enclosed ride in which you go so fast gravity pins you against the wall. While you are pinned against the wall you can climb up and down the wall. We had a lot of fun on this ride and when the ride was over the carnie asked the group if they wanted to ride again. Anthony along with everyone else said, “Yes”. This concerned me a little because I didn’t know if he would be able to handle it. He was fine at first and as the ride got faster he climbed above me. All of a sudden he decided he felt sick. This wasn’t a good thing because the ride still had a long way to go before ending. Not only that but he was above me so if he threw up it was going to run down on me when the ride stopped.
He kept saying, “Mom, I’m going to be sick” and I kept saying, “You are going to have to hold it”. We did everything we could to get the carnie’s attention to stop the ride but it didn’t work. Finally the ride came to an end, Anthony ran out the door, ran to a nearby garbage can, you guessed it, and threw up everywhere. Thank goodness the ride ended when it did or I would’ve been in trouble.
One night around 11:00 p.m., I was lying in bed when Eddie came in the room and told me Anthony was on the phone so I answered it. I’d always answer the phone no matter what time Anthony would call because I never knew what was wrong. He told me he was at the movie theatre and he’d just been stabbed. I sat straight up in bed and asked him if he was alright. He told me he was fine but if he ever found out who stabbed him he would kill them.
He told me he and some friends of his were standing outside the movie theater when this guy walked up to him and said, “Are you Anthony Crabtree?” and Anthony said, “Yes”. The guy then pulled out a knife and went straight for Anthony’s heart. Anthony put his hand up in front of the knife to keep from getting stabbed in the heart and got stabbed in the hand instead. He said the guy then took off running and Anthony pulled the knife out of his hand and chased the guy. The guy jumped the fence and Anthony threw the knife as hard as he could at the guy.
The police arrived soon after that and asked Anthony what happened. He told them his side of the story and he was going after the guy when four police officers held him down and told him to let the law take care of things.
One of the police officers made a comment to Anthony about how strong he was and said the sticker in his truck window that said, “Fear This” fit him well. I don’t know how true the above story is because Anthony had a tendency to make up things but he did have a cut on the inside of his hand in the fat part underneath his thumb.
One day Anthony was telling me a story about him beating a guy up outside the movie theatre and the guy almost died. I don’t remember what the fight was about but Anthony said he had the guy pinned up against the wall by the throat and was beating him to death then he drug the guy through the ditch. Anthony blacked out from anger and when he came too, his friend was calling his name. Anthony looked down and saw the guy lying underneath him unconscious and bleeding very badly. He said that seeing the guy that way scared him but the guy shouldn’t have done what he did to make Anthony mad. I don’t guess the police were called because Anthony didn’t go to jail that time and he most definitely would’ve if the police had gotten involved. Again, I don’t know how true this story is just repeating what I was told.
Long before the age of eighteen, Anthony wanted a tattoo and I refused to let him have one. So unbeknownst to me he and his friends were giving each other homemade tattoos with an ink bottle and a needle. One day he came home and said, “Mom I have something to show you”. As he rolled up his shirt sleeve I saw this cross but it looked really weird because the cross was under his skin and his skin was raised up around it. I asked him how he did that and he told me he used a needle and thread and he threaded a cross under his skin. I’d never heard of that nor seen anything that looked like that and still haven’t to this day.
Not long afterwards Anthony came home with three dots on his knuckle and explained to me he would never be able to go to Mexico because of those three dots. I asked him where he got them and he told me his Hispanic friends tattooed them on him. He then explained to me that was a symbol the Mexican mafia used. I thought he was lying to me but I later found out he was telling me the truth. Great, now my son was in a Mexican mafia and would never be allowed in Mexico if he valued his life.
One night Mother called me and told me Anthony was acting crazy and she wanted me to talk to him. When he got on the phone I asked him what was wrong and he told me there were demons in his room under his bed and he was afraid of them. I told him there was nothing in his room and he would be fine. He insisted on the fact there were demons under his bed. I said, “Son, I need you to tell me the truth, what have you taken or smoked because it sounds to me like you are hallucinating and if something happens to you I need to be able to tell the hospital what you took.” He swore to me he hadn’t taken anything. I told him to put Mother back on the phone and I told her I was pretty sure he’d taken something but he wouldn’t tell me what and for her to keep an eye on him. The next morning he was fine. I will never know what really happened. Maybe he really did see something under his bed that night, who knows.
In December of 2002, Anthony, fifteen at the time, got in trouble again with JP. Remember I told you earlier in the book about the picture of Anthony and JP behind bars. Well, this is that story. Mother and I were at her house when she got a phone call from Debbie, Justin’s mother, telling us we needed to come to her house. When we got there she told us Justin and Anthony had stolen a lot of fireworks and she wasn’t sure if she should call the police or not. She said she, her ex-husband, her current husband, and Justin were outside shooting fireworks and she noticed Justin was shooting off a lot of very pretty, very expensive fireworks. She assumed he got them from his father until his father asked her why she bought all of those fireworks for him. It was then they both realized neither of the parents had bought the fireworks and they wondered where Justin got them from.
They started searching the house and found nothing until they went up in the attic and found a backpack full of fireworks, not only that but they also found one of the big yard size garbage cans overflowing with fireworks. They both confronted Justin about this and he told them he and Anthony stole the fireworks from the firework stand up the street.
When she asked us what she should do Mother and I both told her she should call the police because what they did was wrong. Debbie called the police and we all waited on them to get there. I’m not sure where Justin and Anthony were when Debbie was telling us the story but they were there when the officers arrived.
There were two officers and one of the officers asked them what happened and how they got that big garbage can of fireworks to the house because it was at least five blocks from the firework stand. Anthony told the officers he and Justin were riding their bikes and ditched them before getting to the firework stand. They quietly cut the tent because the owner was sleeping in a nearby camper and they didn’t want to wake him. Once inside the tent they filled the garbage can full of fireworks along with the backpack and then left.
The officer asked him how they got the garbage can home because it was very heavy. Anthony told him they started out with a garbage can handle on each boy’s handlebar but that was too wobbly so Anthony carried the fireworks home. The officer laughed at Anthony because he didn’t believe Anthony carried the garbage can home because it was way too heavy. The officer tried to lift the garbage can and struggled to get it off of the ground to prove a point to Anthony about how heavy it was. He then told Anthony to pick up the garbage can and Anthony reached over and very easily picked up the garbage can as if it weighed nothing. I turned my back to them because I didn’t want them to see me smiling. I had no doubt Anthony carried that garbage can and it made the police officer look very weak.
Well they took both boys to jail and this time Anthony spent a week in jail. The sad thing was he spent Christmas in jail and no one was allowed to call or go see him. That was a very sad Christmas for both families.
When they got out of jail they both had to wear an ankle bracelet and they had to go to counseling weekly. If Anthony stepped out of the yard the anklet would go off and the police would call me to see where he was. I think I was the one in jail having to take him everywhere he went plus taking him to the counselor weekly.
Eddie and I were big into buying animals at one point in time so I bought this Cockatoo named Bob for Eddie. This was a very large bird and had very powerful jaws if he bit you. For some strange unknown reason Bob couldn’t stand Anthony and would bite him every chance he had. One day Eddie had Bob out and they were sitting in Eddie’s chair when Anthony walked by. Bob flew off of the chair and landed on Anthony’s shoulder, leaned over and bit a plug out of Anthony’s ear. Anthony was screaming, “Get him off!!! Get him off!!!” When we finally got Bob off of him we noticed Anthony’s ear was bleeding and it had a hole that went all the way through. Anthony had been bugging me for months to let him pierce his ear and now it was pierced, just not the sterile way.
His fourth year in the seventh grade Anthony didn’t go to class at all because he spent all of his time helping the ladies in the office. I guess they thought they may as well use him if he wasn’t going to class. Anthony was the tallest child in the seventh grade. He wanted to play football this time around but because he was so much taller than the other students and he was older than they were he wasn’t allowed to play. That was very disheartening to him. The children in the seventh grade are usually twelve years old and Anthony was now sixteen.
Because Anthony was now sixteen my father allowed Anthony to drive his truck around town. There was a little convenience store up the street from where we lived and one day Anthony and I took Charlie’s truck and went to the store to pick up some drinks. When we left I got in the driver’s side and Anthony got in the passenger’s side of the truck. My father’s truck was a standard. As I pulled out of the parking lot, because I was pulling out in front of a car, I squalled the tires and Anthony looked at me and said, “Go Mom. I didn’t know you knew how to squall tires on a truck. Especially a standard one because I didn’t think you could squall tires on standard!!!” I let him go on and on about how excited and proud he was of his mother for squalling the tires on his grandfather’s standard truck, I never told him it was an accident.
One time Anthony begged me to go to the deer camp with him and go 4-wheeler riding so I agreed to go. He got on the 3-wheeler and I got on the 4-wheeler and we took off. Anthony was driving through all this brush and jumping things. I was getting hit in the face with all kinds of limbs but I was right behind him. After about thirty minutes of riding and getting hit in the face repeatedly I looked down and just below us to the left was the actual 4-wheeler path. I stopped dead in my tracks and Anthony stopped to see what was wrong. I pointed down to the actual 4-wheeler path and said, “We aren’t on the path are we, you are taking me through the woods and I am getting hit in the face with all kinds of limbs.” He just looked at me while laughing and said, “It’s more fun this way you have to admit.” I just looked at him, shook my head and off we went.
It was during this time Anthony started leaving the house on Friday nights and wouldn’t return until Sunday evenings late. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going so I had no idea if he was alive or dead until he came back home. I made a comment to him one Friday that he was to call me and let me know where he was going because he could be lying in a ditch somewhere and I wouldn’t know it until Sunday evening when he didn’t return home. He promised me he would but he never did.
One day Anthony and I drove past the convenience store just up the road from our house and as we passed the store he looked at me and said, “Did I ever tell you about the time I bummed money from people to get gas to get home?” I just looked at him and asked him, “Why did you do that when you were within walking distance from the house and you could’ve walked home and gotten the money to get the gas to get home?” His answer to me was, “I wanted to see how many people would give me money and guess what I got enough for a full tank of gas.” I just looked at him and shook my head.
Anthony knew I was a huge fan of Steve McNair, the quarterback for the Tennessee Titans. They were opening a new Carnival Shoe store in Jackson and Steve McNair was going to be there signing autographs. I was so excited because I was going to get to meet him but Eddie decided we were going to the Smoky Mountains instead. I was so disappointed because this was probably the only chance I’d ever have to meet him.
When we got back from our trip Anthony came to the house and told me he had a gift for me. My son had stood in line at Carnival Shoe to get Steve McNair’s autographed picture for me. I was so excited and so blessed to have a son that loved me enough to fight that crowd for an autograph for me. He knew how much it meant to me and I wasn’t going to be able to get it myself. Thank you again son, I love you.
January 2003 Eddie and I had a Super Bowl party and Eddie invited his brother-in-law, Pete, to come over and watch the game with us. Anthony invited a friend of his that lived a couple of streets behind us to come over and watch the game as well. Eddie pitched a fit when he heard this because he didn’t want a bunch of kids at the house. I explained to him we had enough food to feed an army and had only invited Pete to join us. We got into an argument over something so petty and I told Anthony to go ahead and invite his friend. He not only invited that friend but he invited Shocoby as well so now Eddie was really mad.
When Anthony’s friends came over Eddie started pouting but I really didn’t care because that is what a Super Bowl party is all about, inviting a lot of friends over and watching the game. Anthony and his friends went in his room and Eddie, Pete, and I stayed in the Living Room. It was funny because Anthony, his friends, and I were for the same team and Eddie and Pete were for the same team. So if my team scored you would hear me in the Living Room and Anthony and his friends in his bedroom cheer and if Eddie’s team won you would hear Eddie and Pete in the Living Room cheer. It got to the point where Anthony’s friends would walk in the Living Room when our team scored and rub it in Eddie’s face, needless to say that didn’t go over to well but I thought it was hilarious.
One Saturday morning around 2:00 a.m. someone was ringing and ringing my doorbell. I got very aggravated that someone could be so disrespectful to ring my doorbell at 2:00 in the morning so when I answered the door I was not happy to say the least. When I opened the door someone was shining a flashlight in my eyes so I put my hand in front of my face and asked them to put the light down. Once the light was removed from my face I realized the person shining the light in my face was a police officer. He shown the light in Anthony’s face and asked me if that was my son. I told him, “Yes” and he told me he saw Anthony walking down the street with a friend of his and they had just left a party. He took both boys home because there was a midnight curfew and both boys were underage and shouldn’t have been out at that hour. He then shown the flashlight on Anthony’s big toe and told me I needed to get that looked at because it looked like it was getting infected.
A couple of days before this Anthony was cleaning out his truck and it was parked on our driveway which is a hill and the truck door shut on his big toe. I told the officer I would have it looked at and I thanked him for bringing Anthony home. I told him to go to bed and I would deal with him in the morning.
The next morning he told me who the boy was he was walking with and it was the same boy that came over to watch the Super Bowl with us. After that night the boy was no longer allowed to hang out with Anthony. That boy’s father made a good decision in my opinion. I also took Anthony to the doctor that day and the doctor burned a hole in his toe nail and drained the blood and puss out of it. It looked like it would hurt but Anthony didn’t even flinch when the doctor burned a hole in it. I guess since the pressure was released his toe no longer hurt.
One of Kevin’s fondest memories of Anthony was when Anthony would take him and Brett in my father’s truck to the Jitney Jungle parking lot and do doughnuts with them in the truck. Kevin thought that was the coolest thing in the world to go around and around in the truck.
As I have mentioned several times, Anthony was a little on the wild side. One of the things I found out from Kevin after I started writing this book was that when Kevin and Brett were very young Anthony would get on the 4-wheeler and make them lay down on the ground while holding on to the rack on the back of the 4-wheeler. He would then do donuts in the dirt and sling the younger boys around in circles. They thought that was the coolest thing. Good thing I didn’t know about it!!!
One day while at the deer camp, Anthony and Justin left on the 4-wheeler to go joy riding. It was after dark and the boys were nowhere in sight so the adults at the camp started getting worried about them. Charlie and several of the men got on their 4-wheelers and went looking for the boys. After searching and searching for the boys they finally came upon the 4-wheeler stuck in some mud, but the boys were nowhere in sight. At this point they became worried about the boys so they continued searching for them. When they finally found the boys they had ditched the 4-wheeler and walked to the sand bar where there were a lot of people having a party. Anthony and JP had no idea who those people were but they joined the party and were having a good ole time when my father and the other men found them. Needless to say, the boys got in trouble. They were just boys being boys and never thought about how worried they were back at the camp.
Being the older brother, Anthony tended to bully his younger brothers. You would think that after Tyler bullied Anthony he wouldn’t do that but….Years after it happened, Kevin told me about an incident at the pool when we lived in Castlewoods. He said, “One day Anthony had a friend over and we all went swimming in our backyard. Anthony and the friend kept dunking me over and over until I couldn’t fight anymore and I ended up swallowing a lot of water. Anthony and his friend realized I was in trouble and they pulled me out of the pool. They rolled me over on my side and I threw up a lot of water. Anthony and the boy told me not to tell. The boy told me if I didn’t tell I could play Nintendo at his house all I wanted. I must not have told on them because I remember going to the boy’s house all the time and playing Nintendo.”
When Kevin was six and Brett was four, Anthony took them fishing on a pier across the street from my parent’s house in Mississippi. While they were fishing, Anthony took out a cigarette and said to each of the boys, “Smoke this.” Kevin took a puff and got sick. Brett however kept puffing on the cigarette but didn’t inhale it so he wasted it. Anthony got mad at Brett because he wasted his cigarette. For a long time after that, Brett would “smoke” Anthony’s cigarettes.
Anthony had a black and yellow king snake named Oreo. One day while I was at work I got a phone call from Anthony and he was laughing hysterically. He told me I needed to come home immediately because he was sitting in a desk chair and the chair broke. He fell backwards, landed on Oreo’s aquarium breaking it and now Oreo was loose. When I got home, Anthony and Wyatt had managed to catch Oreo but he had to show me his behind where the glass from the aquarium cut him. For some reason or another that was the funniest thing in the world to Anthony. When he showed me the cut I started laughing because it was a very small cut and was not bleeding at all.
Towards the middle of the school year Anthony and I got into a physical fight. Not long before we got into this fight I had broken my left ankle and I was still going to physical therapy for it because it was very stiff and wouldn’t bend. I’m not really sure what started the fight but I think it was over doing the dishes. I remember him calling me a bitch and I slapped him so he called me a bitch again and I slapped him again. He told me to quit slapping him and I told him to quit calling me a bitch and I would. He called me a bitch again and I started slapping him over and over and backed him up against the refrigerator. When he couldn’t back up any further he took his hands and pushed me off of him. Anthony was about 5’11” and weighed about 220lbs. I was 5’9” and weighed about 200lbs. We had tile floors in the kitchen and I had on socks so when Anthony pushed me I slid across the floor and because my left foot wouldn’t bend I was unable to balance myself. I hit the floor and slid on my back holding up my head to be sure I didn’t hit my head on the hard tile floor. When I got up Eddie was holding Anthony and told me to call the police. I already had in mind to call the police so I picked up the phone and dialed 911, told them what was going on and asked them to send someone to the house.
We all just sat there and waited on the police to arrive. When they finally arrived I told my side of the story and the police officer told Anthony if he’d pulled up and saw me hitting on him for calling me a bitch he would’ve turned his back and pretended nothing was happening because he should never call his mother a name like that.
Anthony and the officer went outside and talked for a few minutes and when the officer came back in the house I told him about the problems I’d been having with Anthony, how he was in the seventh grade for the fourth year in a row and I was going to try to get him in Camp Shelby. The officer told us he knew someone at Camp Shelby and he could probably get him in. That whole incident was a blessing because that very year Anthony went to Camp Shelby and graduated six months later.