Hey there, so, my father drinks on occasion and is often a merry, gentle soul, and my mother is alive and well, so obviously this isn’t the story of my life.  Add to that the fact that I’m a girl and not a boy named James and you’ve got a creation entirely of my imagination and not based anything on personal experiences.  You’ll often find me writing things that I haven’t personally had to endure/enjoy/experience …depending on what the ‘thing’ is.  Eh, doesn’t matter though, read on and review please!  Oh, by the by, there’s a few more parts to this basic story line ‘Sins of the Father’ involving different families, and different fatherly sins, but more on that later!

Sins of the Father

I: Make Papa Proud

I remember a lot of things about Papa from when I was young until the day he died.  I can remember the smell of cinnamon surrounding Momma and her bell-like laugh, but that’s all that comes to mind, she died when I was young though, and the pictures don’t connect with the meager memories in my mind.  But I remember Papa well, his sturdy build with broad shoulders, a clean-cut square jaw and a gleam in his eyes like ice that only Momma’s ardent love had been able to thaw.  I remember that he was quiet, never really saying anything and I remember that he had never been very good at emotions.  The only thing that held any meaning to my ears when I was little, the only thing that Papa said that I remember was his curt statement as I rushed off to elementary school.  “Make Papa proud.”

            In all my life, it was the only thing he had ever asked of me, and throughout my school years, it was what I labored to do.  The only thing that mattered to Papa after Momma died was forgetting, so he drank until he couldn’t stay awake and he couldn’t feel.  He had pains, heartache that filled the void left by Momma’s passing and nightmares of service days for the army that woke him up screaming at night.  I guess Momma used to be able to soothe away the worst of it, but the drink did after Momma died.  He never said anything when he drank, he just sat there on the porch, guzzling down as much alcohol as he could before he passed out and then I would take a blanky and cover him up because Papa was a big man and heavy and I wasn’t strong enough to bring him inside.

            The drinking wasn’t the bad part.  The drink never made him fly into anger and throw punches as shadows on the wall and phantoms conjured by his mind’s eye …no, the hangovers helped create those, and his own guilty conscience.  There were so many times when he would be delirious with fright, consumed with a raw, dangerous fury that I often had to take the brunt of.  He would scream and yell and shout and I always wanted to run away and hide under my covers, even in my teenage years, but I couldn’t because somehow it was all my fault.  I know Papa blamed me for Momma’s death and I’m not sure why, but I knew that I needed to redeem myself to him somehow, do something to take away the tarnish and make Papa love me again.  Back then, I wasn’t sure what I needed to do, but I had resolved that when the time came, I would be ready.

            I had to explain away the bruises in gym class and soon everyone thought I was just a clumsy person, and so I had to reinforce that image by being a klutz in school and getting scrapes more often than the other kids.  I knew that if they found out what Papa did, he would be put away or they would take me somewhere else …but I couldn’t have that happen until I made Papa proud.  So I got good grades all throughout school …I made it onto sports teams, though my Papa never went to the games …I did the chores and scraped up money by helping out around the neighborhood …anything to soften Papa’s eyes and get him to hug me and tell me that I’ve done him proud.

            But Papa was like a mute, except for when he screamed at night, or when he went ballistic and tried to banish the demons of a jaded past.  In high school, I had bruises under my eyes from lack of sleep, staying awake to keep watch on Papa and to make sure he didn’t hurt himself.  It got hard, trying to balance everything out, but at least I was doing something to earn Papa’s respect.  He never hit or beat me intentionally, only when the real world dropped away and he was plunged into his past and nothing could pull him out then.  The waking nightmares had to run their course and he would be shaking like a leaf, tears streaming down his face and hoarse by the time they were over. 

            The only time I ever knew what he was experiencing was when he went into a murderous frenzy and flew at me without warning, knocking me to the ground and attempting to strangle my life away.  He thought I was Momma.  People always said that I took on after her in looks and I guess that Papa was seeing her just then.  He was sobbing and wailing, demanding to know why she had left him, why she had died and he was beating on me, but then he stopped and started to apologize, still crying as he bemoaned over how much he loved Momma …and I wasn’t sure who he was talking to as he kept repeating sorry …it could have been her or me.  That was the only time that I had known what he was seeing and fighting against and it had shaken me to the bone something terrible.  That time, I had been there with him, sharing his grief and the magnitude of it all scared me like nothing ever has.

            I grew up that day, more than I had before I think …and I finished high school and attended a nearby college …but nothing could last forever, and when I fell in love with a young woman there, I knew I had to leave home, leave Papa and hope to God that he wouldn’t hurt himself or anyone else.  I had had friends before, and I had dated and all that nonsense, but I had never told anyone else of my past and of my father.  The woman who would be my wife, Madeline, was the first person to ever here of it, and she was there when Papa actually spoke to me for the second time in my life.

            Papa was dying and we all knew it …of course, he had been dead since Momma died, but now he was leaving me as well.  People use to whisper that he had aged lifetimes since Momma died, saying how all that drinking would be his death someday, and it was true.  Kidney failure, extensive liver damage, weak heart.  It was catching up to him fast as I sat at the side of the bed at the hospice he had been transferred to, Madeline a shadow at the door as Papa had turned to me with eyes long-since blank and empty …and he had smiled sadly as a flicker of life flared up in his hazel eyes again …and so I took his hand and he wheezed for a moment before his voice came, coarse from only in use while he was raging at the top of his lungs and ugly from years of alcohol abuse.

            “Boy,” He said quietly, watching me lucidly, it was the first time I had ever seen his eyes when they weren’t blurred by drink or tears or simply dead like the rest of him inside,  “James, you’ve gone and gotten yourself a pretty little wife and a good job.  You stuck by your old man through the roughest spot of his life.” He paused and gave my hand a little squeeze.  “I love you, boy …you’ve done me proud.” And then he slipped away.