“Cassie… Cassie, wake up!”
Ugh. Wake up? But I wanted to hold onto the delicious dreams of me and my boyfriend Patrick, his soft hands on my neck, his fingers behind my ear, pulling me into him for a slow, smoldering kiss just a little longer…
“Get up. We have to go.” Janet’s voice was flat, groggy, pissed off. The usual.
My eyes acclimated to the light and I groped at the window sill for my phone. 2:43 am. Right on time.
The routine was simple. Janet and I’d had about six years to perfect it. As soon as I got my legs over the side of the bed, my dad’s girlfriend went to start the car. Then it was my turn to spring into action.
I grabbed the nearest jeans from the floor and pull them on. Most times, thankfully this morning among them, I was able to only trip a little and ultimately stay on my feet. I threw off my nightshirt, pulled on a t-shirt (sweater in the winter) from the closet. Feet into Uggs or Birks or whatever was nearby and seasonally appropriate. Make sure my phone was in my pocket. And go.
As we pulled out of the driveway, I checked my phone. 2:55 am. I was slipping. I could usually be fastening my seatbelt in Janet’s Malibu less than ten minutes from the time she woke me up.
Please don’t let this be indicative of how this will go. I sent up a little prayer to whatever god was still listening as we drove.
All too soon, we pulled into my dad’s body shop. In the dark of the morning, the only light came from the moon and the yellow box sign on the roof of the shop:
A+ Auto Body Restoration & Repair – Your car will make the grade!
I blinked against the brightness of the sign and stepped out of the car with Janet.
Silently, we both walked into the shop’s office. My dad’s friend Larry greeted us with a grunt from where he was sprawled in the office chair behind the desk, cigarette dangling out of his mouth. An all-too-familiar drunken haze filled his eyes.
Janet, however, was all business. “Where is he?”
It took Larry a few seconds to process Janet’s question, but once he did, his head jutted toward the shop area. Janet strode through the door, but I felt rooted to the spot.
I was really tired. My entire body felt like jello. Heavy jello that really wanted to sleep. Weird jello. My brain got kind of loopy sometimes when that happened.
Larry’s scratchy voice drawled out a greeting once he saw me. “Hey, kiddo! Come to get yer old man? He’s in here…” Again, he jerked his head toward the shop. “Wanted to paint a car but couldn’t get the damn can open.”
Oh, thank God. The last time he tried to do something productive when he was like that, a newly finished car wound up sanded down.
Just as I was about to head into the shop, the door flew open again. Janet yelled at me, “What the hell is taking you so long? Your father needs you. Let’s go!”
She reached forward to grab my arm, but I jerked away and pushed past her into the shop. I didn’t have to go far. Five feet in front of me, my dad sat hunched over on a filthy milk crate. His head in his hands, he sat stone still. I hated when he stopped moving like that. It scared me.
At his feet were eleven empty beer bottles and an unopened paint can.
“Dad?”
Janet snapped, “Just get him up…”
“I’m trying. Just leave me alone,” I said. “I’ll get him.”
She glared at me and stomped into the office.
I looked back at my dad. He hadn’t moved. I tried again.
“Daddy? Please answer me.”
No response. I walked over to him, snagged the can of paint, and brought it back to the paint wall. I turned back to my dad to try yet again.
“Daddy? We have to go home now.” My voice quivered. I detested myself for still getting upset after all this time. At sixteen, shouldn’t I have been more together than that?
My dad needed me, though.
I squared my shoulders, grabbed a bottle, and walked back over to the paint wall. The metal trashcan there was empty so I dropped the bottle in with a loud clang. It didn’t break which just made me mad. I spun on my heel to head back, to grab another bottle.
My eyes met his startled, bloodshot ones. “Cassie?” He said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Daddy, we have to go home. I need to say my prayers.” Straight to the ace in the hole.
He looked around confused. “You ain’t said your prayers yet? It’s late…”
“Yes, please, let’s just go home.” That stupid quiver was back and I cursed it down. Not now!
“Okay, baby,” he said. “Let’s go.” Dad lurched to his feet and slowly stumbled towards the shop door.
Thank you, God.
“Just let me get my keys,” he said as he pushed into the office.
No. No, no, no! Not tonight.
“No, Janet’s here. We’re going to go home with her,” I said. Forget the quiver. Now it was just desperation, which was much harder to fight.
“Janet…” Dad slurred his words as he said, “Why’s-she-here?” He looked at her like he hadn’t seen her in years.
I said, “So we could bring you home.”
“Nah, I gots to take my truck. They’ll break into it if I leave it here.”
I said, “Dad, it’ll be fine.”
Janet chimed in, “Bill, it’ll be fine here. It’s only a few hours until daylight.”
He whirled on her, ready to scream her quiet, and almost fell over from the force of the attempt. The wall caught him in a cold embrace. I wasn’t sure if he knocked himself out or not until I saw him take a deep breath. He felt along the wall to the key hook.
Somehow, even inebriated, he knew his own set of keys. Twenty or so years of finding them like this at the end of most nights will do that to a man, I thought, bitter and afraid of what would come next.
I was only mildly surprised that it came so quickly this time.
“Cassie, you go with him then. Make sure he gets home okay,” Janet said, decisively. “Larry, lock this place up for him, will ya? All right, Bill?”
Why doesn’t she ask me if it’s okay? I can’t go with him again tonight. I just can’t.
Of course, I say the same friggin’ thing to myself every time it gets to this point: I can’t do it.
And yet, every time, they tell me to get in the car with him. To make sure he gets home safely. And I do.
The first time it happened, I was ten years old. Dad refused to get in Janet’s car. He’d taken a swing at Larry for daring to try physically forcing him into the car. Larry left cursing everyone, everything, and their mothers, his car swerving angrily up the road. I was foolish enough back then to pray that the cops would stop him. Then I remembered that Larry was a cop.
He joined my dad just about every night at five o’clock, a six-pack of beers under his arm. A few other friends would come by after work, when they’d all sit, drinking and smoking until the bar up the road closed and they couldn’t buy anymore beer.
At some point after two a.m., my dad would either drive himself home or refuse to go anywhere. On occasion, he simply passed out.
My mom tried to get him to stop. They’d had fights when I was little about how he was an “alcoholic” and he “had a problem”. He would scream how she was crazy if she thought a little drinking made him an alcoholic. He’d say that, if she had a problem with it, she could just leave.
When I was nine, she finally did.
So far, in six years, we’ve only grazed a tree and that wasn’t my fault. I would’ve warned him if we were veering, but Dad thought he saw something and swerved too quickly for me to stop him. Thankfully, he swerved back really fast so we only clipped the corner of his front bumper. Convenient that he owned a body shop and could fix the physical damage himself.
Too bad we didn’t have a shrink in the family to fix all the emotional damage. Just about this time every night, I needed something to keep from getting hysterical.
Call Patrick. He’ll come get you. No, he couldn’t. Not without him mom. Like me, my boyfriend only had his provisional license. He had just started to learn to drive and wasn’t allowed out after midnight alone. And really, how would I explain a call at three-thirty in the morning? We’d barely just started dating… I hadn’t told him about these joy rides with my dad yet. He knew a little bit about the drinking, suggesting Alateen for me to find some online support, but he had no idea the full scope of it. No one did.
It’s amazing what you think you can’t do until you’re doing it. Until you’re clutching the “Oh God” handle on the ceiling of a truck careening towards your home, driven by your drunk-off-his-ass father, pointing out when he’s getting too close to the tree line on the side of the road, or when he’s not from England and therefore shouldn’t be driving on the left side. Until he’s laughing in that sickening way, telling you not to worry. Everything’s going to be fine, he told me. We were going home to say our prayers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Genalissa Smith recently relocated from the deep South back to her home state of New Jersey. Her passions include singing, dancing, cuddling, theater, reading, writing, and driving. It is a distinct dream of hers to one day have tea and chocolate with Darren Criss, Crystal Bowersox, and RuPaul.
Does someone in your life have a problem with drinking? Check out http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/for-alateen for more info about Alateen, a fellowship of young members whose lives have been affected by someone else’s drinking.