I was adopted by Leonard and Ilo Pullen in 1965. Leonard and Ilo were foster parents to 48 children through the years. They raised two boys, Slim and Stan, along with their two sons before my adoption. Slim and Stan both moved to Montana where they both died in workplace accidents. Thereafter, Ilo only accepted babies that were waiting for placement. Leonard was a civil servant who took blind people grocery store shopping and fishing on his boat. Fred Zine was totally blind. Fred amazed my father and me by being able to give the grocery clerks the right amount of money and tell if the clerk had given the right change back. You could hand Fred a bill and he by feel would tell you the denomination.
Leonard and Ilo had lived through the Great Depression. As a result, I saw how those years had affected them. It was more so with Leonard than with Ilo. Ilo had been raised on farmland her father rented. Leonard was raised in town. Ilo’s parents had little money but they always had plenty to eat. Whereas, Leonard and his three brothers often went hungry to bed. Both Leonard and Ilo were intelligent. I marvel at what they accomplished for their lack of education. Ilo only completed the sixth grade. Ilo had the most beautiful cursive handwriting I have ever seen. Ilo could spell and cipher too. She was also well-spoken. Talking to her, one would have never guessed she had only a six-grade education. Leonard did complete high school. Leonard was a great speller and a cipherer too, handwriting, not so much. He used his Underwood typewriter almost exclusively for his correspondence.
When WWII broke out, Leonard and his three brothers received their notice to report to the induction center in Hutchison Minnesota. The oldest brother, Lloyd was judged to be too valuable brain-wise and he was sent to work on classified government research. As a child, I never lost a chess game to Uncle Lloyd, to the delight of dad. Eventually, Uncle Lloyd refused to play chess with me. Richard was sent to the army air corps to become a B-17 pilot. Larry was sent to the army where he saw combat in Europe. Leonard was assigned 4-F because he had lost most of his hearing from his bout with German measles. But for Leonard’s German measles, he would’ve been inducted into the army and possibly died in combat. Leonard married Ilo. He was twenty-six and she was only seventeen.
Leonard took a civil service exam and he scored well. Leonard was asked if he was willing to relocate to California. Dad told me he said yes before the person could finish his sentence. Leonard and Ilo settled in Sacramento after the war ended. Leonard had worked in San Diego all through the WWII years. After the war ended, he was transferred to McClellan air force base. About a mile from the air force base, Dad and mom bought a half-acre lot which they traded to a developer, Jim Bohannon, for a brand new house which was the biggest he built. Dad and mom took possession of their new home in 1960. By this time, Leonard’s and Ilo’s sons, Lee and Larry were already grown. The biggest gift Leonard gave me was the recounting of his mistakes he had done throughout his life. Dad said, “I tell you these mistakes to give you a head start in life. Don’t repeat my mistakes, Markie.” Randomly through the years dad would give these talks to me. I didn’t repeat those mistakes. Also, dad counseled me on the impending danger after graduation. He said I had been protected by the school’s structure. He correctly predicted the deaths of my classmates in senseless accidents. My friends dropped like flies for the next two years after graduation.
I was born on May 17th, 1961 in the Sacramento county hospital. I was put up for adoption. The second twist of fate; the foster mother who had me became ill. She had two babies and asked Ilo to take one of them. The foster mother offered the baby girl. Ilo told the foster woman she would only take me or nothing as the girl was a constant spit-upper. As it turned out, Ilo had her hooks in me and she would never let me go. I always knew I had been adopted. Either mom or dad or in unison told me often, “We picked you out. You are special. We do for you what we didn’t do for Lee or Larry. We expect more from you.” There was no hiding the fact I had been adopted. Leonard and Ilo were pale white people with blue eyes. I appear to be of Middle Eastern descent with my brown eyes, black hair, and dark skin. In fact, in my travels, the people of Iraq and Iran have mistaken me for being one of their own. Meeting anyone for the first time, Ilo would tell them, “We adopted Mark.” After Ilo’s passing, I took possession of her correspondence. I had wrongly thought despite what my parents had told me that nobody had wanted me. I saw babies come and go, but never did someone come to see me.
There were numerous letters from social workers telling Ilo she needed to provide me to prospective couples for viewing. Looking back, I now know why mom took me for long walks and later car rides to friends after the phone rang. No how, no way was Ilo going to let me go. There was a law against foster parents adopting their charges. Leonard and Ilo hired a lawyer and fought it and won. Dad and mom taught me to read before I entered elementary school. This is the only instance where Ilo may have lied to me. I had gotten a chair to stand upon to reach treats in the cabinet above the refrigerator. To the left of the chips were the medicines. I read the bottle’s label. The prescription was for a person named, Mark Marlow. I read the name aloud and Ilo became very angry. She said, “Markie, your last name is Pullen. That’s a mistake.”
The incident.
It was 50 years ago, come this July. My parents and I were slated to visit Lee and his wife, Connie, over the weekend in Gerber California. They had two monsters named David and Steven. They pulled my hair to no end and I wasn’t allowed to smite either of them. I asked to remain on my own. Mom fixed some meals for me. The house had a covered patio that was eight feet wide and fifteen feet long. A sliding glass door exits to the patio. My bedroom window looks at a right angle to the sliding glass door down the patio. We kept a woodpile under my window for the fireplace. Rodents came from the field behind our house to live in that woodpile. I would hear the rodents scurrying about in the mornings and most of the time I looked out of my window to see nothing.
However, the Sunday of my seclusion, this wasn’t the case at 5:47 in the morning. The woodpile racket was especially loud which prompted me to peer from my window. I pulled back the drapes and saw a shirtless man staring at me. His face was marked deeply with acne scars. He appeared to be sunburned. I ran to my parents’ bedroom. I open my father’s closet and grabbed his single-shot 22 caliber rifle. I wasn’t supposed to know where dad kept the rifle bolt. I had discovered it in a strongbox under the house just a few months prior. While I was under the house, I saw there was an access door. Dad had covered the access door in his closet with a piece of cardboard.
I retrieved the strongbox. I put the bolt in the rifle and loaded it. I put a round in my mouth too for just in case. Just then, I heard the kitchen floor creak. He was inside the house! I screamed, “I have my dad’s rifle! I’m going to shoot you!” I moved toward the kitchen. I then entered the family room. I saw him running toward the back fence. Just as he reached the fence, I propped the rifle against the jam of the sliding glass door just as I had done with my pellet gun for years. Just as his hand reached the top of the fence, I fired. He screamed, I reloaded. He made it over the fence and I charged toward the fence. Upon reaching the fence, I peeled back one of the fence lats to see where he was, I saw he was still running. The field was about 250 yards wide. I then climbed on top of the fence. I straddled the top cap of the fence and raised the rifle. By this time, the man was about 50 yards from me. I was shaking so badly, lucky for him, I didn’t take a second shot at him. Afterward, I did look for blood. I didn’t find any. It’s not uncommon to not find a blood trail from a small-caliber bullet wound. Surely, I must have scored a hit in that I regularly picked off birds from the top of the fence from the sliding glass door with my pellet gun.
Aftermath
I was on edge for more than six months. Every time the doorbell rang or the phone rang, my heart raced. Not until the winter before Ilo died at 83 years of age, I didn’t breathe a word to anyone about this event. In front of Lee, I told Ilo what had happened and thanked her for adopting me. About those polygraph tests; I took one as a condition for employment, I passed it with flying colors and I didn’t reveal this event. Not that this employer would have cared. So why now do I make this public now, you may ask? Well, I have one foot in the grave from my ALS. There is nothing that can be done to me for punishment. To recap, fate placed me in that house to shoot that man. But for Leonard’s German measles taking most of his hearing, Leonard passing that civil service exam, the baby girl spitting up, and Ilo’s tenacity to keep me, I wouldn’t have been in that house. If you wish to substitute God for fate, I would be agreeable. Lastly, the events that caused me to be in that house had no bearing on the shirtless man. Regardless if I had been in the house or if my parents had owned that home, the shirtless man would have trespassed on that property. It really begs the question if free will is a thing or not.
Published by Sammy Campbell. Written by Mark Pullen.