Drunken Assholes

 

Gaming system from 2015

The yelling. If there's one thing I remember when growing up, it's either my mother, father, or one of her boyfriends or step-dad yelling. Continuously. Loud voices on the telephone, loud music, people swearing at each other, and in some cases, objects were thrown against the wall. The alcohol would flow, usually a 24 of Labatt's blue, followed by continuous smoking. It stunk like cigarettes and stale beer in the kitchen.

Loud playbacks of movies or that awful Elvis Hawaii Christmas special would play on the repeat. I remember being slapped across the face by my mother for lighting a match in the apartment building hallway. I simply lit a match, I wasn't going to burn anything. Brutal.

Back when I was 6 - or maybe 5? I sang F-U-C-K-O-F-F using a Mickey Mouse song from Disney. That got me a bar of soap in the mouth.

Even better, I was forced to stand in the corner of the dining room for misbehaving or not 'listening' to my mother. Those Sunday family meetings were more like the Spanish Inquisition. "Tell me the truth!" or "What did YOU do this week?" were normal questions from my mother. I felt like I was being accused of a crime. When in truth, I was just a poor young Winnipeg child who was trying to survive the brutality of school. 

That music and yelling would continue.

For hours.

In so far as the regularity of alcohol became a normal thing in my life. Dad too drunk, stumbling in front of a 7-11? Check. Passing out or too drunk to pick up his kids? Check that too.

I remember one year, my mother said "go outside and wait for your father to arrive.". It was a snow storm. My dad never showed up. I spent 3 hours outside, shivering, before my mother finally got my grandmother on the phone who confirmed my useless father was passed out drunk, and not visiting this weekend.

That's a fairly normal thing in alcoholic families. Anger was a common feeling from my family. Alcohol began to work it's awful tune against my brother and some other people I knew. Fairly soon, they would become trapped by alcohol in one way or another. My brother's relationship with alcohol became a serious addiction. Some people can manage their alcohol, and in that, others became functional alcoholics. I somehow avoided both traps. And still now, I think back.

The arguments were constantly happening. I learned to walk on eggshells around my father, mother, and stepdad. And when my useless father died in 1987, I took it hard, but never drank alcohol. I swore never to turn into the man he did. 

One year, we pulled out 6 garbage bags full of Beefeater gin. An incredible amount of empties were yanked from grandma's basement. Then finally, my stepdad Bert died in 2005 unexpectedly. I felt sad at the funeral. He had quit drinking, but honestly, it was too little, too late. His body and cardiovascular system was already ruined by years of alcohol and tobacco use. And God knows what else. The picture, below, was taken in 2005 of August. In a few months after, Bert would die from a heart attack while in his taxi cab.

The years had not been kind to him. Burned by the sun and driving a taxi for 16 hours a day did hell on his body. And you know what? Not much has changed from his classic picture since 2005 when it was taken. In that time, more people would die around me.

And although Bert and I got along, it was clear we were never really family. I treated everyone with respect. The same cannot be said for the other way around.

I come back to this picture often. It's a small collection of Theresa's clothes. I don't know why, but it comforts me. She mattered, and I will always remember her. She would die from bad lungs in 2019.

My how quickly time flies. And if there was one think I truly know, its that people never change. 

Longing and wishing for those days won't bring them back.

I know, I tried.

Chris