Two years ago
Dad came stumbling out of the woods right after I hung up on Oscar. His zipper was down, and he had some woman wrapped around him.
“Damn, Dad. Where have you been? Where’s Tom?” I asked.
Before answering me, he made out with the woman. They squeezed each other’s butts and growled after the kiss ended. “You like that, Growler? We sound like you!” he said.
My best friend had seen my dad tanked before so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t that freaked out by the show going on in front of us. More groping and moaning.
“Dad!” I shouted. “Growler’s gonna get grounded if we don’t get the hell out of here. His mom has already called three times. He can’t hold her off any longer. Is Tom gone?”
The woman giggled. My dad giggled. I wanted to tackle both of them to the ground.
“Fine. Just give me the keys. Stay here in the parking lot for all I care,” I said.
Dad shook his head and came at me, like, in anger. Since I was fully sober by then, I was able to quickly move out of his way. He stumbled into our car.
My mouth unhinged. I was shocked. He’d never tried to hit me before, not even when I was little. He seriously looked like he was going to take me down.
Dad took his time turning around, and when he did, his face was wrinkled in disgust. “You sound just like your mother! So why don’t you just shut the hell up, Vance? I’m living my dream, remember? I own a bar. I did that. This is my life! My! Life!” He grasped the door handle so he wouldn’t fall.
The woman staggered to his side. He ran his hands through her long, brown hair. “I’m living my dream, right, baby? Everyone needs to leave us the fuck alone.” She cooed in his face and then licked his neck.
Taking advantage of his preoccupation, I marched over and said, “Just give me the keys, Dad. Right now.” Both of their eyes were slits. They were sweaty and red-faced. They were on more than weed. Shit. Even though he was being a dick, I didn’t want to leave him there. Who knew if this lady even had a car, and there was no way either of them was driving.
I held out my hand, and Dad smacked it down. My first reaction was to take a step back. I had no idea if he’d actually take a swing at me. But instead of anger, the two of them burst into laughter.
That was it. I’d had enough. I didn’t care if Dad would be pissed or not. “Hey!” The volume of my voice snapped them out of their giggle fit. “I swear to God, Dad, if you don’t put the friggin’ keys in my hand right now, I’m gonna freak out!”
He dropped them into my waiting palm. Growler somehow talked them into the backseat, and I drove as fast as I could without getting a ticket. Thankfully, the two of them passed out as soon as we hit I-95. Growler’s mom fell for the story that my dad had struck up a conversation with our waitress at the diner (the imaginary diner we told her we were at for the last two hours) and that he may have made a real connection. It calmed her right down.
We decided to drop the wasted lovebirds off at our house first. We didn’t want to run the risk of Growler’s mom coming out to the car—which she did, by the way.
As soon as she walked back inside, Growler said, “If he were my father, I’d be really pissed off. You are allowed to be angry with him, Vance. It’s not fair that he’s out of control all the time.”
What the hell did he know? His mother was alive and breathing and calling him every five minutes to see if he was okay. He had no idea how it felt to watch his father try to fill a hole that would never be full. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and gripped the steering wheel. “Well, he’s not your father, so…”
Growler got out of the car and walked inside.
On the ride home, I replayed Dad lurching for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his face had looked, or the way he’d talked to me. He’d sounded like he hated me. Losing Mom was clearly eating him up inside. His drinking was at an all-time high. And this anger was new. There was no way I’d survive him turning on me.
Who would I hang out with at home? Watch sports with? Dance around the kitchen with? Who would I talk to about lacrosse and college? Dad was all I had left.
Oscar hated sports and reggae. Pretty sure Oscar hated me.
I pulled the car into the garage and sat thinking for a while. What else was Dad on? He reeked of alcohol, so there was that. And I know he got high. He did that almost every day lately. I hoped it wasn’t something bad like heroin or crack. That lady did look kind of messy. What if she was a drug addict? And she was in my house.
Oscar sat at the kitchen table looking like a scared toddler.
“They’re up in his room and…” his voice trailed off.
“And what? They’re having sex? News flash, little brother, that’s what guys do.” I was still angry with him for being such a selfish baby on the phone. Boo-hoo, you’re scared. Join the club. I tossed the keys onto the counter and opened the fridge. An extremely loud scream or moan stopped me in mid-grab.
“They’re up in his room, and they’re loud. They’re in Mom and Dad’s bed,” Oscar said.
Crap, I hadn’t thought about it like that. I knew Dad played around with women after Mom died. I’d watched him go for it at the bar sometimes. But this was the first time he’d brought someone to the house. In Mom’s bed. I never expected him to stop living or anything, and it was perfectly normal for him to be with other women, but like this? It felt all wrong.
I stood up straight and listened. Grunts, groans, and profanity assaulted our ears. My palms went slick. There was no way I’d be able to sleep up there. My room was right across the hall, and our walls were thin.
Oscar played with the salt shaker on the table. “How could he do that with someone else where she slept?”
Dad was self-destructing, that’s how.
“What are we going to do?” he said.
I poured myself a huge glass of chocolate milk and drank half of it down. “I don’t know what you’re going to do.” A decent burp crawled out of my mouth. “But I’m sleeping in the basement.”
Oscar stood up. “There are two sofas down there. I’m coming with you.”
“I call the maroon one.”
“Whatever, Vance.”
We got settled on our sofas and eventually the only sound was our breathing. I tossed and turned. I didn’t like the quiet. Hadn’t liked downtime since Mom died—it was too easy to get lost in the bullshit sadness of it all. I’d rather keep moving and talking and partying. And living. Way more fun.
I could tell Oscar was asleep. His nose made this little whistle. Normally I found it to be the most annoying sound in the world, and I’d typically throw a pillow at him to make him stop. But I didn’t. I lay in the dark and listened to that whistle for a very long time.
Each whistle-y exhale lowered my heart rate. It took me back to when we were little and we’d fall asleep down here. On the weekends, Mom and Dad wouldn’t even try to bring us up to our rooms. They’d just leave us be. They were too busy having fun up there dancing and drinking wine.
Those memories made me ache, like, my brain hurt. Everything was so destroyed. I readjusted my position again and turned on my side. My brother slept on his back, and I watched his chest rise and fall. Maybe being with Oscar back then didn’t suck that much. We used to spread out our Yu-Gi-Oh! game mat down here and duel with our cards for hours. Oscar had way better monster cards than me so he’d win a lot. Now that I think of it, I don’t know why I even liked playing Yu-Gi-Oh! with him. I hate losing almost as much as I hate the quiet.
So being in the basement with Oscar and his quiet-crushing nose whistle felt safe, like when I had two parents and my world was innocent. Back then, death meant nothing to me. I didn’t fear it. I didn’t think about it.
Sometimes after mom died, I wondered if Death had me and Oscar and Dad trapped, like he was trying to choke the last bit of life from us.