Father’s Day and the Week After
1.
It
was Father’s Day and I had run out of old blues records to buy my old man. There’s only one place in town you can get CD’s
or vinyl from anymore. My old man, being
the horrible, bitter curmudgeon he was wouldn’t give me any clues or hints as
to what to give him. He always would say
the same thing, whether it was Christmas, his birthday or Father’s Day.
“I
don’t want anything.”
It
was useless, but my mother and I would always ask him what he wanted and he
never gave in. He was happy making us
believe that he was miserable.
I did
the only sensible thing and walked down to the yuppie grocery store. They always had special deals for losers like
me with mean Dads and sure enough, as soon as I walked in there was an end cap
filled with scores of stacked bottles of Bulleit Rye and Bourbon. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven
before the promotional tags reminded me who the whiskey was for. I thought maybe I’d snag a bottle for myself
since the shit was marked down so low but I knew what the problem would
be. I’d give myself away. I’m sure if anybody noticed me and knew who I
was they’d think I was just taking advantage of the situation to give myself a
discount on my alcoholism but I’d be able to tell them with a straight face
that the booze was for my Pops.
I was
surprised when my father took up the challenge.
Maybe he was in a good mood, maybe he was sick of all my shitty
behavior. Maybe he wanted to put me in
my place, show that snotty little twerp of a son he had what drinking was all
about. He probably figured he could
drink me under the table and make me look silly in front of my mother. Yeah, he’d show her who the real man of the
house was.
Of
course, I was genuinely happy he was taking such a liking to his Father’s Day
gift. He almost immediately poured a
shot as he began to create a marinade for some chicken he was going to barbeque
for the three of us.
I
eyed the shot before looking back at the old man. There was a twinkle in his eye. It was easy to suppress any sort of greed or
envy that could have overtaken me.
Something was up and I decided to be patient. I cracked one of his beers and he didn’t
mention it.
My
mother was out in the living room watching television, grading her student’s
papers and drinking a glass of wine. I occasionally
went out there to entertain her and watch whatever internet video of cute
animals she wanted me to see. I had to
keep up appearances if I was going to start sneaking some of her rum.
He
pretended not to notice as I reached up into the liquor cabinet to grab her
booze. He was even kind enough to take a
trip to the bathroom to let me fetch a shot glass and pour a couple for
myself. I chased them with the beer.
As
was typical in my family, we didn’t eat until my mother was ready. My dad didn’t hound her to take a break from
work as he usually did. He just kept
pounding shots of the Rye I had given him.
I
kept pace with the rum, and he half-heartedly told me to quit stealing my
mother’s liquor but I kept at it. It was
what he wanted. He was going to show
me. He was going to drink me under the
table.
Something
some people may not know is that Bulleit is 90 proof. There’s a drastic difference between 90 proof
liquor and 70. Meyer’s Rum happens to be
70 proof.
“It’s
not a contest,” I warned him and took another shot of rum.
“That
rum belongs to your mother,” he said, loud enough for her to hear, swaying a
bit. “Put it back in the cabinet.”
“Is
he drinking my rum?” my Mom wailed from the couch.
“No!”
I shouted back. “Dad’s drinking a lot of
the whiskey I got him and he’s confused.
I’ve had one beer, that’s it.”
She
didn’t look at us, just kept watching Game of Thrones. “Make him put it away!”
“You
heard her,” he said quietly, narrowing his eyes.
I
poured and pounded another shot.
“You’re
going to see,” he said and went back to stir the mashed potatoes on the
stove. “One day you’ll see you’re in way
over your head. You think you can keep
behaving this way, but you’re wrong.”
With
his back still turned, I poured another and drank it. He turned around to face me and I took a sip
of his beer. Half of my mother’s bottle
of rum was gone.
Not
to be outdone, my father filled his giant, wide shot glass he had been using up
to the brim with Rye. He considered it
carefully for a moment before taking entirely too long to gulp it down.
Something
in him stirred and I saw a look in my father’s eyes I had never seen
before. He was surprised he had lost.
He
ran to the bathroom and I put down my beer, knowing this was it. My victory was not as glorious as I had
predicted and suddenly I knew we weren’t going to be eating dinner together for
Father’s Day.
Mom
threw a shit fit but you had to give the old man credit. He didn’t puke, not once. I begged him over and over again to just
drink some water, told him we could induce vomiting and he’d be feeling better
sooner rather than later. He refused and
just laid there on the bathroom floor for twelve hours.
You
shouldn’t be proud of drinking anybody under the table, it’s just poor
sportsmanship. Even if it’s your old man
you should be a gracious winner. I made
sure he didn’t throw up and choke on it, kept checking on him all night and
just chalked it up to my old man being out of practice.
You
win some, you lose some, I told myself, and I laughed the whole thing off after
my father recovered.
2.
Bill
and J.D. came over one Friday while I was sitting by my lonesome in the garage,
smoking cigarettes and drinking a 750 milliliter bottle of Wild Turkey 101. Bill had a bottle of fireball and J.D. had a
bottle of Cuervo.
I don’t
know what happened that night after the pizza arrived. I woke up in my bed, so I had at least had
the sense to find my way back to my room before I passed out on the couch or
anything embarrassing like that.
J.D.
was sleeping on the couch when I came to and I asked him what went down.
“Things
didn’t go so well for Bill last night,” he said sadly.
“Oh,
no,” my face dropped. “What happened?
“He didn’t look good when
he left.”
I
rushed over to his place and found the door unlocked. I called his name but he didn’t answer and I
made my way to his room. He was lying in
bed, dusted. It was three in the
afternoon.
“Do
you need anything? Water, something to
eat?”
“No,”
he muttered into his pillow and began snoring again.
I checked back that night and he
was still out like a light. Sunday
morning came and I headed over there. He
was bent over at the bathroom sink pouring water on his face.
“I have alcohol poisoning.”
“You going to be okay?” I asked.
“I’m never drinking again.”
“Aren’t you glad you know me?” I
said and laughed, rubbing his back. “I’m
a doctor. I healed you!”
“Go away.”
3.
I told him I didn’t want to go
bike riding. I told him I didn’t want to
go to the store, but Dillon had a way of dragging me into situations. We rode our bikes to the shopping center
before he explained to me how important it was for us to get a few drinks at
the bar. I finally gave in.
I smoked a few cigarettes in
between a couple beers and a shot of Jameson. Unbeknownst to me, Dillon had been taking
shots every time I went out for a smoke.
By the time we got out of the place, it was closing down and Dillon had
done his best to embarrass himself by hitting on all the waitresses and
bartenders. He was really down for the
count.
So naturally, when he asked for a
cigarette, I felt like I’d be helping the guy out. He could use something to even him out for
the bike ride home. He was swaying and I
was reminded of my old man.
I handed him the cigarette and
winced as he ripped the filter off. We
shot the shit for awhile and just had a good time laughing and smoking.
“Cigarettes are bad!” he
exclaimed.
“Yeah,” I said, searching his
eyes with my own for signs of competency.
“So is alcohol.”
“This is the last cigarette I
ever smoke.”
“Good,” I replied, nodding.
Dillon wasn’t a smoker. It was good he wasn’t going to go down that
road, down the path of doom. It’s one
thing to slowly murder yourself, but it’s quite another to pay three dollars in
taxes for every twenty cigarettes you buy.
That’s the sort of humiliation only the lowest sort of masochist will
take.
We talked a bit more and Dillon
stomped his cigarette out on the concrete.
“Give me another cigarette.”
“Um,” I laughed nervously before
complying.
He ripped off the filter and lit
up. I put mine out and began smoking
another.
“Let’s ride,” he said after we
had finished our second round of cigarettes.
He held up the rear, following me
along the sidewalk through the pitch black night. It was a poor neighborhood, and there weren’t
always street lights to help out drunk bastards like us. I kept my wits about me and straightened out
any wobble in my balance.
Then I heard the crash. Dillon cried out and soon I was on the phone
asking Patrick to come pick up poor Dillon who was lying on the sidewalk,
writhing in pain. He had hit a wooden
telephone pole.
I found out the next day he had
broken his wrist and fractured his shin.
I sighed after Patrick told me and I thought back over the past
week. My dad strung out on the bathroom
floor, Bill telling me what an asshole I was before falling back asleep, the
sound of aluminum slamming against wood and Dillon crying out into the lonely,
unforgiving night.
“Patrick,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“This is all my fault, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, bro,” Patrick said,
matter-of-fact. “You’re fucking
toxic. I forgive you though. I didn’t get sick and I have no broken bones.”
I walked into the garage and
grabbed my bottle. I carried it back to
the kitchen and poured the rest of the shit down the sink.
