by David Collins
David Collins (he/they) is a third year student at Rider University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English with a Writing concentration. David often spends his free time reading and writing prose or poetry, engaging in quality time with his friends, or listening to a wide variety of music ranging from System of a Down to Gorillaz.
There’s not much that can be said about my father, both for the fact that he was a simple man and that he’s been dead for twelve years. Nobody at this wake knew James, the man he became after he died, and since neither my sister nor mother bothered to show up, that would never change. Sitting in the back of the funeral hall, grief and mourning staining my scarred face, I watched with clenched fists how everyone else lamented over his body. Ire crept up my spine as I saw this horde weep over a shell, shedding tears for a husk that lacked neither the soul of my father nor the fragmented consciousness that he became.
I had yet to see James’ corpse, and it wasn’t until the crowd quit that I finally gathered the courage to look at his casketed cadaver. Making my way to the coffin, I spotted with morbid accuracy how the white makeup that Death had caked upon his face illuminated his once gentle cheekbones. Shifting my eyes to the floor, I chuckled solemnly, remembering the night he caught my sister and I applying mascara to each other. I can still recall how violently she sobbed as he set her makeup ablaze in the backyard, and I can still hear his drunk voice slurring out, “This is what you get for trying to make your brother a queer!”
‘He wasn’t always like that…’ I thought to myself as I kneeled down to pray. Beneath his casket, I prayed for a clear mind. I prayed for the ability to remember the good man he once was, but as I scoured the trenches of my mind for evidence of this claim, his warmth evaded me.
Pictures of my father hung about the funeral home, taunting me with their saccharine depictions. These photographs, all digitally touched up and Hallmark-ified, lacked the violent bitterness that I had learned to associate with him. In their perfection, though, I found myself locking my gaze upon the warmth of a specific holiday photo. Without warning, the memory of the last night I spent with my father ambushed my mind, flooding those once navigable trenches.
I remember the hot humid air of the Summer’s evening weighing me down as I entered my home. I was ten years old, yet my muscles ached with octogenarian pains after a long day of trips, slips, and slides. The airconditioner, set at a never-changing 65 degrees, had sucked the water out of the air, snatching the water from your nose and mouth violently. Despite this, the walls carried an oppressive dampness and the floorboards felt moist below my feet.
Climbing the stairs, I heard a righteous battle of genres occurring throughout the house.
To my right, in the first room from the stairs, sat my sister, reading some dark graphic novel while listening to My Chemical Romance’s “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge”. I dared not to enter her room nor look at her possessions, still haunted by the nightmares inflicted when she made me watch the second Saw movie with her.
Similarly, around the corner in the vacuously large living room, my father listened to the Dropkick Murphys “The Warrior’s Code” album on repeat. Never having gotten the chance to go to Ireland, my father associated himself with everything Irish that he could, a trait that made many surprised when learning that he had never been to Boston.
As I made my way to the living room, I saw my mother sitting on the couch with a melancholic look upon her face. My father, sitting on the couch opposite of her, rose from his seat and walked to the kitchen, kicking the beer bottles and pizza boxes out of his way during his voyage. I could smell the beer escaping from his breath and how its scent gripped tightly to his clothes. I could feel the tension in the air, and I was scared that I had somehow caused it. I saw
that my mother had her shoes on and seemed anxious, darting her eyes back and forth throughout the room.
Returning from his alcoholic trek, my father grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the couch with him. Holding two beer bottles in his other hand, he thrusted one in my face. “You’re old enough now to drink, so drink!” he barked, causing my mom to rise to her feet.
“Jesus James! What the fuck is wrong with you? He’s just a boy, leave him out of this!” she shouted back, reaching for my shoulder before my father pushed her away. “That’s the problem! The world is going to hell, he needs to be a man! I’ll make him a man!” he commanded. Beneath their towering bodies I cowered, feeling every action in slow motion.
“Get away from him James! We’re leaving now!” my mother yelled, both begging and instructing.
I felt the room change, and I saw a large shadow weigh upon me. Separating me from my mother, James ordered me to drink the now warm beer clasped in my hands. Afraid of what would happen if I didn’t, I took the cap off and downed a full sip to make my father proud. It felt cool and refreshing going down my throat, but upon the taste setting in my senses became overwhelmed, not being able to rid themselves of the disgusting flavor that haunted me.
Vomiting on his shirt, James snatched the bottle from my hand and turned to my mother.
“See what you did? You’re upsetting him!” my mother yelled. It was around this time that I noticed my sister standing in the doorway, hoping the darkness would conceal her. “You want to see upset? I’ll show you upset!” my father bellowed as he drew his hand back. From this point the series of events that followed, despite my first hand experience of
them, escaped me. Perhaps for my own protection, perhaps for theirs, my mind refuses to let me return to that place.
Recalling as best as I can, I see my mother standing over my sister, hugging her and crying. I see the two of them rising to their feet and I see my mother reaching towards me. I see my dad come between us, and I see my mother and sister abandon the house. My memory begins to clear after this, I can remember clearly how my father chucked his phone at the door as hard as he could, screaming obscenities for an audience that wasn’t there.
With my mother and sister gone and James’ phone in pieces at the door, I had no way to escape this warzone. I was alone, the man that I had called dad was gone, and I was trapped beneath the weight of a stranger’s wrath. Wrecked with fear, I found myself sitting motionless on the couch, refusing to speak or look at him. For hours the only sound present in that dark living room came from the broken CD player on the nightstand, playing the same Dropkick Murphys album tirelessly.
After some time, he eventually turned on the tv. With its bright beams shooting throughout the room, I shifted myself backwards onto the couch, laying down and turning my gaze towards the ceiling. The paint chips, forgoing their decay, danced above me in the light of the television’s iridescent rays. In their fluorescent vibrations I saw a world beyond my own, a world I wished to be a part of. This beauty, though momentary, helped me forget about the terror of my situation and helped me gain the courage to look at my father.
Upon seeing him, the first thing I noticed were how his pupils rolled back into his head and how his eyelids fluttered. ‘He’s high’, I remember thinking to myself. A month prior to that night my father had overdosed in his sleep, prompting my mother to teach me how to recognize the symptoms of drug abuse in case it happened while we were alone. I spotted the culprit in his hands, a heavy looking pill bottle, but as I watched him pass between the veil of consciousness, I was unsure what to do.
In his sleep, a series of drug induced muscle spasms spilt a waterfall of chalk invaders from the medicine bottle in his hand. Sprawling out in every direction, the horde of cut Xanax blocks and cheap painkillers hid themselves among the savage jungle of half filled beer bottles, filthy clothes, and empty food containers that obstructed the floor. Afraid of what might happen when he woke up, I threw myself across the room in a vain attempt to find all the tablets, spilling numerous bottles in the process. With sweat and nerves loosening my grip, each capsule I found seamlessly slipped through my fingers, running further and further away each time.
It took a few moments, but eventually I was able to calm myself enough to get back to the task at hand. I measured my progress in songs, hoping that despite how scared I was that I’d be able to find three pills through the duration of each track. I knew that he’d wake upon its end, and that the ceasing of Ken Casey’s voice would signal the ceasing of my peace.
The album had finished and the room was eerily silent by the time I found enough pills to satisfy my fears. Slowly making my way to my father’s couch, I cautiously stared at his eyes, waiting for them to open. Hesitating for a moment, I decided to reach out and began pulling the pill bottle from his clammy palm. Noticing no reaction in his body, I slowly began to pour the pills back into the bottle and placed it on the floor near the couch.
Suddenly, as I began to rise from the floor, I felt a weight on my shoulder. All parts hairy and sprawling, I feared some demon spider had crawled upon me in the dark of the night, but all I saw was my father’s hand. Turning towards my dad, I readied myself for whatever curses he threw at me, preparing my sense of self-guilt. Waiting for the inevitable, I sat there watching the dark shadows explore his now bony facade, noticing the flickering of his eyes and the cold raspcoming from his throat. Without warning, I felt myself pulled towards his chest and heard his voice grow warm. Hearing the voice of my father for the first time all night, I remember him saying,
“It’s ok Junebug… tell your sister it’s all going to be ok”.
Upon hearing this, my eyes began to water. I had hoped that he’d keep talking, that he’d never leave me again, but that comforting voice was soon replaced by a guttural fog of beer and bile.
As I shifted my eyes away from him, I locked my gaze onto the family photo hung upon the wall. Behind a half broken picture frame, I saw my sister and I shoulder to shoulder, with our parents standing above us in front of our bright Christmas tree. The photo, even in this dark room, radiated bright orange rays down upon me, and for a brief moment I felt as if I could smell the pine and vanilla scent escaping from its frame.
Looking back and forth from the picture to James, the tears finally escaped my heavy heart. Kneeling against the couch, bound in lacrimation, I grabbed his arm and wrapped it around myself. I pulled myself into him, despite my fears and repulsion, and for the last time felt the comfort of my father’s presence.
Yanked back into the present, I found my body locked before the coffin, crying hysterically. Tears dropped down upon James’ body, smearing the preservative that embalmed his face. Not daring to face anyone, I quickly composed myself and rushed out of the funeral home to my car.
Overcome by a swarm of past pains, I found myself instinctively making two stops before I returned home. The first was at the local music store, where like a ghost I glided down
the isles, grabbing a copy of that old Dropkick Murphys CD and a crappy, worn out disc player. Neither speaking nor looking at anyone, I left a fifty dollar bill on the counter and returned to my car just as swiftly as I had left. The second stop I made, pulling over on that sad and desolate highway, was at a rundown liquor store. Standing hesitantly on the other side of that portcullis, I asked the cashier for the cheapest, worst tasting beer he had. He must not have heard me, as when he pulled an ancient cardboard container from the display refrigerator behind him I saw an obscene price appear across the cash-register’s front. Letting out a sigh, I once again entered a dream-like state where before I knew it I was back at my apartment.
Dashing past my roommates, silent as the night, I dragged my chair towards the middle of my bedroom and sat down before the window. With the sunset on the horizon, I plugged in the CD player, tore open that box, and allowed the nostalgia to wash over me. Through a
feedback-ridden static, I discerned the lyrics of “The Green Fields of France”, and as I sipped the cold beer, my throat rejected it just as it had twelve years prior.
Surrounded by my anxieties; the pounding in my heart, the twitches in my hand, the sweat upon my brow, I continued to drink that piss-flavored yeast. Crushing the can in my hand upon downing the last gulp, I noticed how the aluminum cut into my palm. Seeing the glossy crimson droplets race from my veins, I mustered a half laugh that my tears drowned out, and as the CD skipped I felt my father’s presence for the last time.