Ethanol Euphoria

Ethanol Utopia

Inhaling deeply, the cool November air flows into my lungs, filling each alveoli to maximum capacity. One last deep breath. I open the door jam, the wood sticking ever so slightly, possibly because of its shoddy workmanship. The smell of alcohol and stale sweat overwhelms my senses, the putrid rank of them mixed together in some kind of toxic combination. Looks like Dad’s home.

Gathering up what little reserve I have, I step over the threshold. My home was built some time during the 1970’s, and still retains the gaudy gold fixtures and bulky architectural developments that seemed to appeal to so many during the age of disco and party drugs. It’s humid inside, a result of my father continuously forgetting to repair the air conditioning system, which broke almost a year ago. The sticky heat of the living room, combined with the drawn curtains and lack of working light fixtures gives the room an almost womb-like appearance, which makes me feel as if I’m being asphyxiated. I glance around the room, scanning for any signs that my dad has been there, finding no evidence of used liquor bottles, nor any broken glassware. I sigh in relief. It appears that my father has yet to go on a rampage of the house, fueled only by cheap whiskey and rage. I begin to pad though the rough shag carpet that covers my floor, down the hall, towards my room. Something crashes loudly in the kitchen, and I stop, my heart dropping.

Turning back towards the living room, I peer around the corner, watching as my father stumbles out of the kitchen, a broken bottle of chardonnay gripped tightly in his right hand. There’s blood running down his forearm, enough of it to make any B-Horror movie director giddy with excitement. It begins to drip onto the carpet as my mother nervously tries to get him back onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Figures. Her husband could have given himself a fatal injury and she’s more concerned with stains and whether or not she’ll have to get out the Bissel.

He’s yelling about something incoherently, although from what I can gather, my mother forgot to get the dry cleaning done because goddamn Linda can’t you get anything done? What’s so ironic about this whole situation is that while he goes on screaming about the cleaners, he’s succeeding in staining his current work attire. I laugh, some deep guttural noise coming up from the back of my throat and managing to sound more like a grunt of pain than a noise of humor. Hearing my expression of amusement, my father turns to me, finally noticing my presence as I lurk in the shadows of the room, trying to protect myself behind the wall. He calls out my name, butchered by the slur of fermented grapes and God knows what else, and I flinch, tentatively stepping forward, out from behind my stucco and plaster shield. I can never look at him directly when he’s like this, his eyes blurred and his complexion giving off this odd yellow hue.

He begins to speak to me, and I have to lean forward to properly hear him. His words are dizzy, confused, tripping over themselves as they spill out of his mouth and fall to the ground unceremoniously. I can’t fully understand him; his words fading in and out of earshot like a bad telephone connection.

“You look… slut… Your mom… used to dress… where’s… girl… miss her… Grandma… ashamed of… asking for… take advantage of you…”

The first time I saw my dad like this, the first time that he was so far gone that my mom couldn’t keep him quiet, I cried so hard that I couldn’t sleep. What’s different now, is that I understand that he’s not doing this because he’s broken himself, he’s doing this because he wants to break the rest of us.

I assume he finds it amusing.

As my father continues to speak to me, his voice raising in both volume and octaves, I slash my gaze to my mother, who stands there, apparently having given up on trying to get my dad back into the kitchen. Aren’t moms supposed to protect their daughters from this? Isn’t Mommy supposed to tuck you in bed at night and kiss your cheek, making sure the monsters are all gone before you close your eyes? Then why am I looking one of those monsters-- one of the demons from beneath my bed-- right in the eye while she does nothing?

I cut my gaze back to my father as his tirade gurgles off. Suddenly, he pitches forward, his knees connecting with the ground, his head falling slack, some kind of sick dead weight at the end of his neck. He’s out cold.

When I was nine, and I saw my dad drink himself unconscious for the first time, I screamed and screamed, shaking his corpse-like body, hot tears spitting onto his clothes, How the hell are we going to get him out of here if he’s dead? the only thought coursing through my head. And my mom, she stood there, ringing out her hands like they were a damp towel, staring at her husband, not saying a word.

Today, I look down at my dad’s pathetic form, as his head droops closer and closer to the floor, and I look up at my mom, her eyes refusing to meet mine. She’s just like him. She might not have to drink away her problems, but she’s no better with her steam cleaners, turbo vacs, and high-end ammonia cleaners. She could just tell someone, tell someone about the broken glass, the blood, the ghost of a bruise forming along the edge of her jaw… Inhaling deeply, I let the sour smell of shag carpet mixed with Jack and Coke fill my lungs, turn around, and walk towards my room.