“The fuck was that?” he demands.
So much for shielding the customers—he’s slurring like crazy and swaying on his cane, and suddenly I’m glad he’s been holed up in the office all day, out of sight.
I stifle a sigh. “What are you talking about?”
“Where was the upsell?” His cheeks are flushed in outrage, and even though I’ve been back home for more than a month, I’m still startled by how gaunt he looks. It’s as if all the skin from his face, arms and torso decided to move to his gut, forming an incredibly unflattering beer belly that protrudes beneath his threadbare T-shirt. Other than the paunch, he’s skinny as a rail, and it makes me sad to see him this way.
I’ve seen pictures of him when he was younger, and I can’t deny he used to be handsome. And I have memories of him when he was sober. When he was quick to smile, always armed with a joke or a laugh. I miss that man. Christ, I really fucking miss him sometimes.
“A thirty-buck patch job instead of four new tires?” he fumes. “Whatha hell is wrong with you?”
I struggle to control my temper. “I recommended new tires. He didn’t want them.”
“You don’t recommend. You push it on them. You shove it down their fuckin’ throats.”
I sneak a worried peek in Bernie’s direction, but fortunately he’s all the way at the front of the driveway, sucking on a cigarette as he talks into his phone. Jesus. What if he’d been in earshot? Would my father have been able to restrain himself from saying this kind of shit in front of a loyal customer? I honestly don’t know.
It’s only one-thirty in the afternoon and he’s staggering on his feet as if he’s consumed the entire stock of a liquor store. “Why don’t you go back to the house?” I say softly. “You’re stumbling a little. Do your legs hurt?”
“I’m not hurt. I’m pissed!”
He says it like “pithed.” Awesome. He’s so drunk he’s lisping now.
“Whatcha even doing here if you’re gonna throw money away like it grows on trees? You tell ’em the tires are unsafe. You don’t stand around and talk about your fuckin’ hockey team!”
“We weren’t talking about hockey, Dad.”
“Bullshit. I heard ya.” The man who used to come to all my ninth-grade hockey games and sit behind the home bench cheering his lungs out…he now smirks at me. “Think you’re a big hockey star, doncha, Johnny? But naah, you ain’t. If you’re so good, why didn’t anyone draft you?”
My chest tightens.
“Dad…” The quiet warning comes from Jeff, who wipes his grease-covered hands with a rag and marches up to us.
“Stay outta this, Jeffy! I’m talking to your big brother.” Dad blinks. “L’il brother, I mean. He’s the younger one, right?”
Jeff and I exchange a look. Shit. He’s really out of it.
Usually one of us monitors him throughout the day, but we’ve been swamped since the second we opened up shop this morning. I hadn’t been too worried because Dad was in the office, but now I curse myself for forgetting an important rule in the alcoholic handbook: always have booze on hand.
He must keep a stash hidden in the office. Same way he hid his alcohol when he and Mom were still together. One time when I was twelve, the toilet was running so I went upstairs to fix it, and when I lifted the lid, I found a mickey of vodka floating around in the tank.
Just another day in the Logan household.
“You look tired,” Jeff says, firmly grasping our father’s arm. “Why don’t you go back to the house and take a nap?”
He blinks again, confusion eclipsing the anger. For a moment, he looks like a lost little boy, and suddenly I feel like bawling. It’s times like these when I want to grab his shoulders and shake him, beg him to make me understand why he drinks. My mom says it’s genetic, and I know Dad’s side of the family has a history of depression as well as alcoholism. And fuck, maybe that’s it. Maybe those really are the reasons he can’t stop drinking. But a part of me still can’t fully accept that. He had a good childhood, damn it. He had a wife who loved him, two sons who did whatever they could to please him. Why couldn’t that be enough for him?
I know he’s an addict. I know he’s sick. It’s just so hard to put myself in that mind frame, in that place where a bottle of booze is the most important thing in your life, so much so that you’re willing to throw away everything else for it.