I admit that I forgave you, Dad, for your mistakes very early in life. Any other woman for a wife and you never would’ve cheated, I know that. Your flaws never affected me. You always kept yourself in control. Mommy, on the other hand, even though you didn’t hit as much, you never had any control of yourself. I remember one time you got angry and actually went at me with a fork. Maybe I was bad that day. I don’t know. But why couldn’t you just hit me and send me to my room? Why’d you have to go crazy like that? And that’s no exception to the rule. That shit happened day-in and day-out. You couldn’t control her mouth, either. All the moms on TV would ask nicely for something the first time, and then yell later if the kid didn’t do it. Not you. You’d yell the first time, or even curse, and never asked nicely for anything.
Most of the time, I guess, it was the alcohol talking. When you were sober, you weren’t as bad. You always bought me and Tracy clothes, and gave us tons of presents for Christmases and birthdays. As a matter of fact, you gave us too many presents. If I were a parent, I’d never waste so much money on buying so many goddamn toys each holiday. But that’s the thing—you’d shower us with gifts all the time, but all I ever really wanted was for you to be nice and stop drinking and cursing. You never understood this. And I never bothered explaining it to you, because I didn’t know how to back then.
It’s not like I never loved you. I did. But when I was a kid I hated you more often than loved you. I loathed you for having no control over yourself when you drank. I know that soon you’ll start seeing your shrink every day, instead of just once a week, after all that you’re going to discover about your beloved son. Take this journal to your shrink, mommy. This is my official statement.
Growing up with an alcoholic, I came to recognize and anticipate your routine. One rum and Coke induced a few moments of passivity. Two, and you started to talk a lot, with a look in your eyes that said, “Why isn’t anyone listening?” By your third your eyes were glossy and your voice spewed quick and obtrusive half-sentences. By your fifth rum and Coke you were loaded: One hundred and nineteen pounds of simulated supremacy, like when Charlie Chaplin dressed up as Hitler and kicked a globe around. You’d screech petty orders and hurl ugly expletives at me, Daddy, and Tracy. Six or seven drinks and you were gone, passed out, occasionally in a puddle of vomit in the bathroom, but usually on your bed. The sound of your bedroom door slamming shut never came too soon.
Occasionally, when you drank and lost all control of yourself, Dad would glance in my direction and nod furtively as if to say, “Hey, kiddo, I know she’s messed up. Don’t worry, she’ll be asleep soon.” Amazing, but you never let her bother you too much. You gave Mom’s drunken ravings as much attention as I give a strong breeze, allowing it to take its course and then settle down. And no matter what she did, no matter how crazy she was, you always took Mom’s side. I never liked that, of course. But, looking back on it now, I understand why. You didn’t want to make her even more crazy by siding with me. You always knew how wrong she was, but you tried to be a good husband and father.
Tracy never flinched when Mom went berserk. Two years younger than me, she was still sharp enough to realize early on that Mom was unmanageable. She never reacted the way I did. For some reason or another, Tracy never seemed to be bothered by that type of stuff. But I always was. Sometimes Tracy would say to me, “Hey, A.J. , why do you let mommy bother you like that? Just ignore her when she drinks.” It was good advice, I guess, but easier said than done.
Rum and Coke and Smoke—that’s what I called you one day. I was eight years old, and I suppose the rhyme sounded cute to me. You mashed your cigarette into a crystal ashtray and called for Daddy to reprimand me. As punishment, dad smacked me with his belt. To a little kid, watching your father unbuckle his belt—hearing the clank of the brass and the rip of the leather—was like having a cocked revolver put to your head. The sounds hurt more than the leather. Nevertheless, Mom, you always accused Daddy of going soft on me. God, I despised you for wanting to see me punished more severely. And I always wanted to say or do something that made you rethink your behavior and grasp how viciously you treated us all. But nothing ever got through to you, sober or otherwise.
As I thought about all this, overlay images of Maria, and the life we could spend together if I only could forget my own past. I kept watching the poster like it was a movie, and then switched back to the photo. First one, then the other, and then back again. I smoked a few more cigarettes, and cried one more tear for you, Dad.
I thought a lot that night. I thought about this guy named Richard that I worked with in an office the summer before. Richard was a short little man with thick black glasses and a big shaggy beard. He was a real slob, even more of a slob than my friend Kyle. Hell, he practically never had his shirt tucked in. And, even though he never wore a tie, he always kept his shirt buttoned up to the top. Fucking weird. Worse, sometimes he’d tuck the front part of his shirt into his underwear and then his belt-less pants would fall a few inches, displaying an elastic band that read Hanes. He was thirty-five, unmarried, and living with his mother when we met. He hadn’t shaved his beard for almost twenty years, and he hadn’t left the island of Manhattan since he was eighteen. I once asked him why he hadn’t gotten married, and he responded: “Because I don’t want to lose my freedom.” What freedom? I thought.
I used to pick on this guy non-stop. It’s not like I made him cry or anything; he always knew that I was just busting his balls. I started little arguments with him about everything. I argued for everything that he was against. He was one of those orthodox Jews who justified moral righteousness by quoting Biblical passages.
I also busted his balls every time he asked me for help. At least once daily, he'd approach me timidly and say something like, "A.J., can you show me how to use the photocopy machine?" or "Please help me turn on my computer. I forgot how." My response was always the same: "You've been here fifteen years and you can't operate the copier? Yeah, right!" I thought he was trying to unload his work on me, the bastard.
Despite these exchanges, we were friends in the office, and he knew I never meant any harm. But one day, about halfway through the summer, my supervisor pulled me aside and said something like, “Don’t be so hard on Richard. He’s retarded, you know.” At first I thought this was funny, because everyone knew that Richard was more than a little retarded. But then I noticed the somber look on my supervisor's face, and suddenly it all made sense. Richard had been working at the same office job for almost fifteen years; he lived with his Mom; he acted like a weirdo; he dressed like a hobo with bad taste. It hit me: Shit! I've been making fun of a retarded guy! A guy with actual Down’s Syndrome! My stomach sank like the Titanic and my mouth went dry. I couldn’t believe that I’d been making fun of a real retarded guy all along. Poor Richard! I thought. I had been dissing the weakest person available. I don't think I spoke to him once after I found out what he was.
I thought about all this stuff for a while. Finally, after an hour or so, I regained my composure.
I smoked a few more cigarettes, wrote about the dance in my journal, and I fell asleep right there in my clothes and sneakers. Lucky it was a Friday night, because I didn’t wake up until around noon the following day.