Dear Marc,
I don’t blame you—I would have done the same as you. After
all, there was nothing pleasant about either the journey or the task last
Saturday.
I still don’t know why Mom didn’t just drive me up here
herself. I mean, why stick you with the task? I know, we’re best friends and
all, but it’s not like you’re the father of my child. And don’t tell me that
Mom couldn’t face the shame of facing a couple nuns with her pregnant daughter.
After all, it took her about five minutes to make the plan, to call you up, to
haul you in, and to send me up—a day later—to what has to be the ugliest part
of Wisconsin.
If anything, I was the one who was strung out about it all.
Remember when I told you, about three weeks ago, that I might be pregnant?
Well, that took me days to get up the courage, and you’re my best
friend. And if I still worried about how you would take it, can you imagine
what it was like for me to tell my mother?
She says she cares, but don’t let it fool you. She’s a
phony, just like all the rest. Oh, she’ll come to all the band concerts at
school, and she’ll lie about how Dad couldn’t make, due to his work.
Work—that’s a good one! Like draining a bottle of whisky every night is work!
And she goes to all the parent / teacher nights, and talks
to all the teachers, and they all tell me, the next day, how wonderful my
mother is—she never misses an event!—and how lucky I am to have such a devoted
parent. A father who works so hard to provide a good life for his family!
Second in his class at Dartmouth Medical School, fellow of the American College
of Neurosurgeons, head of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin! And there
his wife is, taking care of their children, go to parent / teacher conferences,
volunteering for the PTA! What a wonderful family!
On the outside, sure. But maybe somebody should talk to the
garbage man, who can tell you that the bag of bottles makes a quite distinct,
quite unmistakable clang every Wednesday morning. Do the neighbors hear? Do
they know what life is like?
The trick, if I can manage it, is to get in as soon after
school, grab something to eat, say hello to mother, is she’s around, and then go
to my room. Why? Because I don’t want to be around when he’s downstairs,
drinking.
Have you ever lived with a drunk? The thing is, 99% of the
time, they’re fine. You play by their rules, you make yourself scarce, you have
homework in your room, or are reading a book in bed, or you’re doing
something—anything—to be where he won’t be. Because he will have stopped by the
liquor store on the drive home, and the first thing you’ll hear, when he gets
home, is him going to the kitchen and getting a glass. No, he doesn’t take off
his coat, doesn’t change out of his work clothes, doesn’t go to the bathroom
and wash his hands.
He also doesn’t open the refrigerator door to get anything
to eat, because he stopped eating a long time ago. Did you know that? He’s
getting all his calories from alcohol, which is also the reason his belly hangs
over his belt. That’s not fat, that’s liver.
He’s made it through the morning by having a glass of vodka,
which he keeps in the freezer. Why vodka? Because it’s not supposed to leave
any scent on the breath—but let me tell you, any alcohol leaves its mark
on the breath. So then he drives the half mile to his office, and spends the
morning shuffling papers.
He isn’t, thank God, seeing patients, though he did for
years, and God knows how many of them knew, or cared, how drunk he was. Because
he had two things going for him: breath mints, and a very gruff bedside manner.
Oh—and a third thing: the patients were both in awe of him,
and terrified for their own lives. You don’t go to a neurosurgeon for a tetanus
shot: you go because your regular doctor has decided he can do nothing for you.
Then, you get into the car, drive two or three hours from your small town into
Madison, Wisconsin. Have you ever been there? Probably not, and even if you
have, that was thirty years ago, for state basketball tournament. You were with
friends then, it was late, you had had your first beers….
Maybe you remember that—that first exhilarating time out
with friends in one of their cars. The big city—or so you imagined it. No
cares, no worries. Life opening up, and this night was the very first taste of
it. You imagined your life unfolding as beautifully as the lotus flower, and
there would never be blight on the blossom, or a petal that would not unfold.
But it’s thirty years later, now, and you’ve done pretty
well with your father-in-law’s car dealership in Antigo, or Colby, or Necedah.
Never had time to get to Madison, and you wouldn’t be here, either, if the
double vision hadn’t started. Or your speech became slurred. Or suddenly, your
left foot seemed heavier, and then people began to notice it, and your wife
told you—time to go to the doctor. You do, and you see his face, as he taps you
left ankle repeatedly. You have perfect reflexes on the right foot—nothing on
the left.
How do I know all this? Because my father used to take me
into his clinic, when he worked Saturday mornings. Then, my mother would be
sleeping, and my father would load me into the car, and we’d drive down to the
hospital.
We must have made a pretty picture: the young, good-looking
neurosurgeon, fresh from the Ivy League, with his little daughter in tow. OK—I
admit, I idolized him. He knew things without anyone telling him.
“How long has it been since your wife left you?” he’d ask
some farmer.
“Have you switched crops on your fields?”
“Why did you think a new pair of shoes would help?”
They would always be astonished. Later, he told me his
tricks. Many were just guesses, but he got a surprising number right. A farmer
comes in with smooth hands—well, what farmer has those? Unless, of course, he’s
been washing dishes, since his wife up and left him.
So yes, he got away with it, in those early years when he
was still seeing patients. There was the god-like status, there was the fear,
there were the distractions of breath mints and little girls.
He was a God to me, then—if I saw him drink, I never saw him
drunk. All right—I remember late at night, hearing him talk angrily to my
mother. But why was she so cold to him? Why, when everybody else was in awe of
him, why did she nag him, scold him? He had the admiration of the entire world,
but there was no love for him at home, at least from her.
Or so I thought. I went on loving him, admiring him, for
years, until one day I came home late from a concert, and found him asleep in
his chair in from of the television. The bottle was empty, the glass was half
empty.
And he had wet his pants.
I know what I should have done: tiptoed out of the room, let
him sleep in his filth until morning. Then, he would have gotten up, realized
his predicament, and crept to the shower and cleaned himself up. But I was
horrified. Was he sick? What had caused him to wet himself? Had he blacked out?
I knelt next to him, I shook him, I called his name. For the
longest time, he didn’t respond, and then he did. And even I, who had never
seen a drunk before, knew that he was wasted.
Wasted and embarrassed. So he tried to cover himself, and
when that didn’t work, he tried to get up. But he had wrapped a throw around
his lap: it was January, and the night was cold. As he stop up, the wrap fell,
and he tripped on it, falling to his left against the side of a glass coffee
table.
“How dare you,” he shouted at me. “Can’t you see I was
sleeping? You should have woken me up gently, and not forced me to get to my
feet at once!”
The words were a slap. No, not the words, but the anger in
his voice, the defiance, and the unjust accusation. I had done no such thing,
and I stood there with my mouth agape. And that only made him angrier.
“Know where you’ve been,” he said. “Out with boys, likely.
You give ‘em what they want? You putting it out good? Hah—how many boys did you
let feel you up tonight, hunh? Five? Ten? Put out for the football team?”
I could only gape in horror, turn, and race up the stairs.
Sorry—dinner now. More when I can.
Love,
Joan
