All that changed after the goddam bridge. He was drunk after the funeral （as a skunk）， drunk on Christmas, and drunk on New Year’s Eve （which, I found out later, people like him call Amateur Night）。 In the weeks and months after we lost her, he was drunk most of the time. Mostly at home. He still didn’t go out to bars at night （“Too many assholes like me,” he said once）， and he still never laid a hand on me, but the booze was out of control. I know that now; then I just accepted it. Kids do that. Dogs, too.
I found myself getting my own breakfast two mornings a week, then four, then almost all the time. I’d eat Alpha-Bits or Apple Jacks in the kitchen and hear him snoring in the bedroom—great big motorboat snores. Sometimes he forgot to shave before leaving for work. After dinner （more and more that was take-out）， I’d hide his car keys. If he needed a fresh bottle, he could walk down to the Zippy and get one. Sometimes I worried about him meeting a car on the goddam bridge, but not too much. I was sure （pretty sure, at least） that both of my parents couldn’t possibly get wiped out in the same place. My dad worked in insurance, and I knew what actuarial tables were: figuring the odds.
He was good at his job, my dad, and he skated along for over three years in spite of his boozing. Did he get warnings at work? I don’t know, but probably. Was he pulled over for driving erratically, once the drinking started in the afternoon? If he was, maybe he was let off with a warning. Make that probably, because he knew all the cops in town. Dealing with cops was part of his job.
There was a rhythm to our lives during those three years. Maybe not a good rhythm, not the sort you’d want to dance to, but one I could count on. I’d get home from school around three. My father would roll in around five, with a few drinks already under his belt and on his breath （he didn’t go out to the bars at night, but I found out later he was a regular at Duffy’s Tavern on his way home from the office）。 He’d bring a pizza, or tacos, or Chinese from Joy Fun. Some nights he’d forget and we’d order out… or rather, I would. And after dinner the real drinking would start. Mostly gin. Other stuff if the gin was gone. Some nights he fell asleep in front of the TV. Some nights he’d stumble into the bedroom, leaving his shoes and rumpled suitcoat for me to put away. Once in awhile I’d wake up and hear him crying. It’s pretty awful to hear that in the middle of the night.
The crash came in 2006. It was summer vacation. I had a Shrimp League game at ten in the morning—hit two home runs and made an awesome catch. I came home just after noon and found my father already there, sitting in his chair and staring at the TV, where old-time movie stars were having a duel on some castle stairs. He was in his undershorts and sipping a white drink that smelled to me like straight Gilbey’s. I asked him what he was doing home.
Still looking at the swordfight and hardly slurring at all, he said: “I seem to have lost my job, Charlie. Or, if I can quote Bobcat Goldthwait, I know where it is, but someone else is doing it. Or soon will be.”
I thought I didn’t know what to say, but words came out of my mouth anyway. “Because of your drinking.”
“I’m going to stop,” he said.
I just pointed at the glass. Then I went into my bedroom and shut the door and started to cry.
He knocked on my door. “Can I come in?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want him to hear me blubbing.
“Come on, Charlie. I poured it down the sink.”
Like I didn’t know the rest of the bottle would be on the kitchen counter. And another one in the liquor cabinet. Or two. Or three.
“Come on, Charlie, what do you say?” Shay. I hated the slur in his voice.
“Fuck you, Dad.”
I’d never said such a thing to him in my life, and I sort of wanted him to come in and give me a slap. Or a hug. Something, anyway. Instead I heard him shuffle into the kitchen, where the bottle of Gilbey’s would be waiting.
He was asleep on the couch when I finally came out. The TV was still on, but muted. It was some other black-and-white movie, this one featuring old cars racing around what was obviously a movie set. Dad always watched TCM when he was drinking, unless I was home and insisted on something else. The bottle was on the coffee table, mostly empty. I poured what was left down the sink. I opened the liquor cabinet and thought about pouring away everything else, but looking at the gin, the whiskey, the vodka nips, the coffee brandy—that just made me tired. You wouldn’t think a ten-year-old could be tired like that, but I was.