On an April day in 2019, my father and I stepped out of his house in rural Osage County to take a walk around his property. As we stepped onto the gravel 20 feet in front of his house, two sheriff’s deputies pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of us.
Given my dad’s criminal history, even though that was 50 years ago, I wondered what the hell was going on. I could see the look of concern on the old man’s face as he walked toward the deputies.
“Are you Ernest Webb?” one of the officers said.
“Yes, sir. How can I help you?”
We soon learned that the deputies were there because my Uncle Wayne had passed away. I will always remember the look on my father’s face when the officers gave him the news and paperwork.
By this point, it had been nearly 10 years since my father and uncle spoke. I could see the sadness in his face. Sadness because another sibling was gone – his sister Ginger passed a few months before – and sadness because he was very aware that the end was near for him after a terminal cancer diagnosis.
“Uncle Wayne and I were really, really close at one point,” the old man said as we embarked on one of our last walks together. “It’s too bad things didn’t turn out differently.”
My father had little tolerance for bullshit for all of the 43 years I knew him. If somebody crossed him too many times – sometimes one time was enough – he simply cut them out of his life. Unfortunately, my father had enough of his brother in 2010 and moved on.
“I’ve lived a full life. The older I get, the less I want that in my life,” he said.
Even though Uncle Wayne was eight years younger, Dad was closer to him than any of his siblings. It was right around when Wayne was born in 1952 that the old man started running away from home.
When he was home, however, he tried to pass his education via hard knocks to his brother, especially when Wayne had trouble with a bully from his school.
“Your uncle would come running home every day, crying, and the bully was chasing him to the corner before he turned toward our house,” Dad said. “I told him he was going to have to fight him, and he was really upset. I practically made him fight that kid, and he ended up kicking his ass. He never got bullied again.”
Unfortunately, Wayne and Dad also had a shared passion for taking things that didn’t belong to them. In fact, they pulled burglaries together after my father moved to California.
“I could have been a better brother,” the old man said. “Hell, he even took the fall for me one time, or I would have been in prison for a lot longer.”
Like my father, Wayne calmed down, though not as much as the old man, as he aged. My brother and I have fond memories of visiting our uncle, aunt and cousins in Missouri. My aunt took us to our first college basketball game in 1992 and Uncle Wayne took us on numerous adventures. He also loved pro wrestling and introduced me to the great Ric Flair.
“Wayne was good to you guys,” Dad said. “He worked on your car a lot. He took you junking. We had some good times.”
Ironically, Uncle Wayne had a hand in my love for writing true crime. For several months after he and my aunt divorced, Wayne lived on my father’s property in Quenemo. I visited the property often to fish and hunt, and on one trip came across the collection of detective magazines he was storing in my dad’s trailer.
I spent hours poring over those magazines, developing a keen interest in the genre. Little did I know at the time that I’d write a true crime book 30 years later. Of course, the next book I write – about the old man’s life – will detail his early transgressions.
“Your Uncle Wayne had a good side,” the old man said. “That’s what I choose to remember.”
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART VII: Christmas away from home
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART VI: Remembering “Woody” and Lebanon
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRSTMAS 2024, PART V: Video games then and now
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART IV: Dad and Uncle John Henry
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART III: How the old man finally found his way
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART II: How I came up with “Goodbye, Butterfly” for the book title
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024, PART I: The first Christmas I can remember
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2023 SERIES