I was in a discussion on a message board about functioning alcoholics. It made me realize that I don’t really talk about my childhood with my dad very often.
In a way, I had the “ideal” alcoholic dad. He had the money (at least after my early childhood) so that his drinking never endangered us financially. He was a kind, gentle, man so there was no violence of any sort. He was very loving, decent, smart, considerate, all of the things that make a great dad.
And at the same time, he was unpredictable and strange. He’d get home and I wouldn’t know if he would be sober. Would he be happy? Would he be furious? Would he be angry that no one started dinner or angry that someone started a dinner he didn’t want? Would he go straight up to bed? Would he give everyone the silent treatment or would he bounce around like a puppy?
I always knew he loved me. I always knew where my next meal was coming from and that I had a car and parents who were together and everything enviable. I just had to change my personality every day to fit whatever it was he wanted that day, and I had to tread very carefully all the time to avoid setting him off.
It’s funny to remember it now, and know how much I have been shaped by him, but at the same time I just accept it as what happened. Life happened. Alcoholism happened. Stuff happens.
Struck
He used to stroke my hair. How can a word
that feels so gentle starve my father’s brain?
And what new pill can make him whole again,
will peel paralysis from fists, or slurred
invectives from his clumsy lips? He strikes
a match, still. Holds a pipe to suck. And when
his mouth can’t clamp itself around the stem
he clucks and dribbles smoke, a leaking dike
with only palsied thumbs for help, and dutch courage.
Toast
I might as well get him another drink
and hope he finds a worm. I think his joints
must creak in thirst, so like the cedar joists
that lift this house from mud. If anything
were to be gained by fighting him on this
I’d pour the liquor on the hosta’s leaves
and watch it drown, and watch my father plead
like Mary Magdalene for one last sip.Or I could learn to drink it all myself.
Small sacrifice. My liver should hold true
for twenty years. Hell knows my father’s health
has lasted longer than he could expect;
and if I trace his steps, at sixty-two,
someone can drink me down from my neglect.