At my house growing up as a child, it was always confusing and chaotic, full of uncertainty and trepidation – like living in a demilitarized zone, never knowing when a grenade might get lobbed at me or a snipper shot would ring out narrowly missing my head.Īt least my parents were “happy drunks.” They just wanted to get loaded and go to sleep. And then the pattern would repeat all over again. Then she’d sober up and be my mom and my best friend for a day or a couple of days or a week or a couple of weeks or a month or a couple of months. She would stay drunk for a day or a couple of days or a week or a couple of weeks. If Dad was what you’d call a functioning alcoholic, them Mama was a binge drinker. Dad got drunk every night, and at least I could count on his consistency. He didn’t care who was around, who saw him, or who knew what he was doing. There were people over, so for the sake of appearances, as usual, she wanted to act respectable. My mother was on her best behavior the night of my party. Ah, the inestimable gift that would be to me now, to have been born on February 29th and only be 13 years old at this point. My mother, presumptively sober on that day of my birth back in 1960, always claimed to have held out through excruciating labor pains all day the day before on February 29th, just so that I would have a real birthday to celebrate more often than only once every four years. I also remember that my sixteenth birthday was on a Saturday for several other reasons. The Saturday night of my surprise party, however, I did drive groups of my classmate guests back and forth to the end of the driveway – as far as the legalities of my world would allow me to go independently until the following Tuesday. So I had to wait until Tuesday, March the 4th, in the afternoon after school to go get my license, the longest waiting time period possible. Much to my dismay, the Driver’s License Office was closed on weekends as well as on Mondays. Looking back, the car was a bitter consolation prize to my parents’ demonstrative love and affection. The car was a gift from my parents – a tacit apology of sorts, I suppose, to make up for their years of absentee child rearing, selfish neglectful behavior, and mutual abandonment of me to their shared preferential treatment of a liquor bottle and their common downward spiraling addiction ever deeper into alcoholism. I also remember it because there was a brand spanking new Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Coupe sitting in the driveway at my house waiting for me and, as was I, for the freedom that would be afforded by the procurement of my driver’s license just as soon as possible. I remember my birthday fell on Saturday that year because some of my friends from high school threw me a surprise party. My sixteenth birthday was on a Saturday – Ma– the same year America turned 200.
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