This one is probably a downer, but I can’t help thinking about it around the holidays. Last story for nonfiction. Names changed.
Excuses
I’m told having a drunk uncle is a cliché. Sometimes a cliché is all you have.
I didn’t touch alcohol all throughout high school. This may not seem like a big deal, but I come from a place where people go cow-tipping. Not ironically, mind you, but legitimately find it an entertaining activity. My childhood friend’s older brother once said this about Watertown, CT, “It’s the place where the fun never ends, because it never fucking starts.”
My uncle was always my excuse. Whenever someone offered me a beer or a shot while we were partying in the woods, or on a farm or in someone’s garage I’d say no. “I don’t drink,” I’d tell them, usually timidly. Sometimes they’d laugh, and shake their head, assuming I was just self-righteous or religious or a pussy. Once in a while they’d press further out of curiosity or disbelief or to find another reason why I was a pussy.
“My uncle is an alcoholic.”
“Oh…ok. Sorry man, enjoy the party.”
“Yea, I’ll try.”
Trump card. All these kids were terrified of alcoholism, so as long as I used that word in conjunction with my excuse, they’d stop pushing. Alcoholism in suburban Connecticut is a great big shot-taking, beer pong playing white elephant sitting right next to the keg at every weekend house party. Bringing it up always brought down a torrent of excuses and rationalizations. All of which was bullshit to make themselves feel better about binge drinking five days of the week.
Sometimes people just asked me what I did for fun instead. I didn’t really have an answer.
Maybe I should have told them this story.
- – -
I don’t know what other people’s earliest memories are of, but I hope they’re of things like their mother’s faces or how it feels to take a bath in the sink. My earliest memory is of my uncle.
I’m asleep, at first, I think. The front door slam and I can hear people yelling outside so I go to the window. It faces the street. I have to balance on the the heater and stand on my toes to see outside.
“You’re a fucking asshole Rich!”
“Yea, I know, Jeff.”
“You can’t kick us out! I’m your damn brother!”
“Sandy is too drunk to walk, Jeff. And the kids are asleep.”
“Fuck you.”
My uncle and his wife slam the door of their car and start the engine. My uncle floors it and careens down my small side street. I start crying because I’ve never heard yelling before. My little brother who shares my room wakes up at the same time my father comes in. I run to my bed and dive under the covers, pretending I’m asleep. I didn’t want him to know I’d heard what happened. I was embarrassed. I try and stifle my tears. He hears me and sits on the side of my bed. I ask him what happened in between the halting gasps of air coming from a child trying desperately to stop crying.
“Your aunt and uncle are very sick.”
- – -
You can imagine how that story would ruin the vibe of a party where sixteen and seventeen year olds were drinking pure grain alcohol stolen from their parents barn.
Incidents like that coincide with Christmases and Thanksgivings all throughout my childhood. Red and white Christmases around the table with family and hot meals would degrade into yelling and shouting fueled by red and white wine. No matter how carefree and fun Christmas began there was always tension as to when we’d tip into awkward conversation topics and then before long dive into full blown yelling. Once Jeff disappeared for a while, and I remember the sense of relief I felt when he showed up later not with his signature reddening face and slight wobble, but in a full Santa costume complete with beard and sack of toys. Strands of his gray speckled hair shown from underneath his cap and he hadn’t bothered to shave his mustache either. He wore his big horn-rimmed glasses and he smiled and laughed like he thought Santa should sound. The costume hid all the features distinguishing him from my father. Jeff was narrower. I must’ve been around thirteen then.
Interactions with my uncle were rare after this. Periodically there would be phone calls timed perfectly to ruin idyllic happy family meals. My father would see the caller id, get a particular look in his eye and wonder out loud if this was Jeff himself or one of his two teenage daughters calling to inform my father Jeff had been picked up by the police in a drunken stupor on the side of some road in the woods somewhere. It was a fifty-fifty shot. My father was never more ashamed than the time Jeff called us from jail because his daughters and wife wouldn’t pick up the phone at his house. My father came back into the room after the call looking defeated and said he’d offered to bail Jeff out, but Jeff had said no.
“He said he’d rather stay in jail because it was warm, he got a free meal and he couldn’t drink.”
I remember not knowing what to say.
Jeff called again when my parents were getting divorced. I made the mistake of picking up the phone and ignoring the sinking feeling I got as soon as I put it to my ear. This was one of those calls where he just wanted to talk to whoever picked up.
“I know this is probably a tough time for you Jared, and I want to let you know you can always talk to me about anything.”
“I think I’ll be fine.”
I think I’ll be fine was the polite way of saying, “Why in the hell would I want to talk to you about divorce” What possible insight could you provide on getting through this process? Perhaps you’d just like to suggest a brand of vodka that’s particularly good for drinking your feelings away?”
I hung up on him.
Jeff didn’t call anymore in the following years, but he still managed to embarrass me.
It was junior prom, and I was in my musty rental tuxedo and knocking on the door of my date’s house clutching the plastic container that held the cornflower blue corsage I had recently bought fresh from a local florist. I was feeling exactly how you’d expect an awkward seventeen year old man-boy to feel before he meets his date’s parents. Now that you’ve perhaps recalled some of your own unbridled terror, add on top of this the fact both her parents were cops.
I think her father smelled the fear on me.
He opened the door, welcomed me inside, and sat me down in the nearest chair, which happened to be a rather uncomfortable and poorly assembled Ikea futon. I suspect there was some planning involved in my seating options. His wife walked in, and I mentally prepared myself to endure a good cop/bad cop routine. My date was still changing in her room and I was wearing a tuxedo to an interrogation.
“So, you must be related to Jeffrey, right?”
It was here I realized the first judgments of me had most likely been based on sharing the last name of a man who they had arrested for public drunkenness on multiple occasions. I now understood the look my father always got in his eyes.
I’m not proud about telling my prom date’s parents my uncle was a good-for-nothing drunk and apologizing unabashedly for any trouble he caused them, but it didn’t seem like I had many other options, and I really just wanted to never see either of them again. I considered getting up and walking out the door with my head held high and dignity intact, but there was no way I could get off the futon without stumbling like an idiot. Clearly, they had thought this confrontation out more than I had. After railing against my uncle a sufficient amount and assuring them I’d never touched a drop of liquor in my life they let me off the hook with the promise if they ever heard anything about me drinking ever next time there’d be bear traps and trip wires in the front lawn.
And that’s the last I heard of my uncle. If he’s not dead, I assume he’s somewhere dying.
Alcoholism is a disease which affects millions of people worldwide, but I’m sure you already know that, so I’m not going to waste time on it. Instead, I’m going to tell you why I’m glad my uncle drank/is drinking himself to death. I’m going to tell you how his setting the worst possible example for me by destroying his family stopped me from becoming a raging alcoholic. I’m going to tell you about how I said no to doing keg stands off the back of a Ford F-150 in the middle of the woods. I’m going to tell you how his drinking lead to an irrational fear that if liquor of any kind touched my lips I’d succumb to its demonic qualities and be found in the mangled remains of my sensible Japanese car. I’m going to tell you how the first time I drank I took nine shots of Jaegermeister and played four games of beer pong. I’m going to tell you it takes effort for me to turn down a beer. I’m going to tell you it’s fine because I come from a long proud line of alcoholics; an uncle and two grandfathers I haven’t met. I’m going to tell you I can use my uncle as an excuse.
