"We Denied... He Smirked" Submission #30

Alcohol, rifles, teenagers… and a vehicle. Can you think of a worse combination? That sounded perfectly fine to me back in the mid-1970’s when I was doing my best to sow my wild oats, but now… as a father of five… it causes me to break into a cold sweat.

Mike Fischer (Fisch), Denny Young (Farmer) and me.

After about an hour of driving around in our small town and consuming our fair share of alcohol, we stopped at Mike’s house to pick up some rifles. I don’t recall but I have to assume that Mike’s parents were not at home. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t have carte blanche to remove their firearms from the gun cabinet and go target shooting with a couple drunk teenagers.

We drove somewhere north and west of town and ended up at the Des Moines River near the town of Luther. I do not have a clear recollection of this portion of the adventure. I vaguely remember shooting, laughing and using the river as my personal restroom. But that’s about it.

My memory becomes a lot clearer with what happened next…

 

Dusk was setting in and we decided we’d better call it a day and get those guns back in the gun cabinet at the Fischer household. So, we made our way south on Highway 17 towards Madrid.

On the northern edge of town sat our beautiful and pristine high school. It was just a few years old at that point in time. As we passed by the school… it was as if we all had the same idea at the same time.

Farmer whipped into the driveway of the school and followed the circular roadway until it brought us right in front of the school student center. It’s where we ate lunch, had study halls and congregated between classes and after school.

The front of the student center was a grid of 4 foot by 4 foot windows with black metal trim. The windows went from floor to ceiling.

We sat there for a few seconds and looked at those windows. Buoyed by our consumption of liquid courage, Fisch and I hung the rifles out the car windows and squeezed the trigger. My senses were overwhelmed with the sounds of gunshots and of glass shattering, the smell of gun smoke and the feeling that we just did something really, really bad.

We needed to do two things very quickly, 1) vacate the school premises before anyone saw us and 2) rid ourselves of any criminal evidence.

Fisch lived a couple blocks from the school and so we promptly drove to his house where he quickly put the rifles away. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Nobody would ever find out.

It was now dark and I needed Farmer to drop me off at the bowling alley where I could grab my bike and peddle home.

“Let’s just scoop the loop one more time before I drop you off.” Farmer suggested.

Bad decision.

My house was on a corner at 216 East 2^nd Street… on the main drag of town, a couple blocks east of the downtown business area. Part of the “loop” that everyone “scooped.”

After we turned west on 2^nd Street from Highway 17 and just before we made it to my house, we got lit up. The cops.

“Oh Sh*%!” Farmer muttered.

 Farmer turned left on Cedar Street which bordered the east side of my house and pulled over. I could see my mom through the window, working the crossword puzzle from the Boone News Republican. She had no idea that I was a matter of 30 feet away from her, drunk… and about to answer to Madrid’s finest.

Farmer was driving down the middle of the road, straddling the yellow line. Seems he forgot that it was customary to drive on the right side of the line. So we got pulled over… right next to my house.

The cop pulled us all out of the car, asked to smell our breath and then accused us all of drinking. The nerve!

We denied… he smirked.

I feel like I sobered up in a hurry at that point.

He didn’t cuff us but he did order us into his back seat. We were going for a little ride to the Madrid Police Station.

Farmer was 18 and was of legal age to drink at that time… except it was illegal to drink and drive… obviously. So, they immediately packed him up and took him to Boone for a blood test.

They separated Fisch and me. Took us to separate rooms. Odd. What was going on?

I sat in a small room for what seemed like an eternity. I was scared, sweating… and promising God all sorts of stuff if He’d just get me out of this jam. A “jam” that was about to get a lot worse!

Finally… a cop came in and pulled up a chair and sat in front of me… his nose no more than 6 inches away from mine. Just like the movies. Intimidating. Thought for sure that I was about to get roughed up. My stomach was churning and my legs were jelly.

His opening volley, “What do you know about windows getting shot out at the high school today?”

“What?!?”

“How in the world did he know?” I thought as the color drained from my face and I began to feel feint.

“Nothing… sir. I don’t know what you are talking about.” I lied.

He wasn’t done. He told me that he was sure that I was involved and that it was only a matter of time before the truth came out. But I was determined that the truth would not come from me… deny, deny, deny!

Weary of his lack of progress, he grabbed me by the shoulder and led me back into the lobby where Fisch was sitting. We were told that our parents had been called and they were on their way to pick us up.

“If you think this is over,” He growled, “think again.”

Wide eyed… I just nodded.

I turned to Fisch and whispered, “He asked me about shooting out the high school windows!”

“Me too!” Fisch responded.

“Did you admit to it?” I asked.

“No! Did you?” He asked

“Of course not!” I said.

Good! We were in the clear…

Or so we thought…

"The Fog of Perpetual Intoxication" Submission #15

"If you're going to be my wife," Mom claimed Jack said, "you're going to drink with me!"

If that's how it went down, mom apparently didn't put up much of a fuss. In fact, she seemed to thoroughly enjoy drinking. I never figured out how Jack had a power over her that Dad never did. All I know is that mom's alcohol consumption went from zero to sixty in a very short period of time. The booze flowed like a river.

It started with beer and transitioned to vodka and orange juice and finally to vodka and water. If someone is pounding vodka and water from morning until night, they ain't doing it because it is a wonderful experience for their taste buds... it is a means to an end... it was a pathway to being black-out drunk.

Mom and Jack drank every single day, without fail. They maintained somewhat of a limit on the weekdays because they tended bar at night. Jack also worked the swing shift at Firestone in Des Moines but for some reason, he seemed to frequently be off of work for long periods of time. Union strike?  Disability? I don't recall but he was off more than he was on.

But even that moderation fell by the wayside eventually.

The weekends, particularly Sundays, when the bar was closed, Mom and Jack would get utterly blitzed. Mixed drinks for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between. The drinking ceased when they finally passed out. Not before.

One Sunday afternoon, I walked into the house after playing some touch football in the neighborhood. As I got to the door, the first thing I noticed was that Jack's Buick Electra was not in its regular spot on the North side of the house, along 21st Street.. Odd.

"They must be gone." I thought.

I walked into the darkened living room, shades all pulled down. I found my mom on the couch... crying. I turned on the light and looked at her. She looked a mess. Her hair was noticeably disheveled but worse was the very swollen, bleeding lip.

"What happened to you?" I asked, my voice shaking. I was pretty sure I knew the answer and Mom confirmed it.

"He didn't mean it. He didn't mean to hurt me." She cried, her speech slurred from injury and extreme intoxication.

She continued. "It was my fault. I should have just kept my mouth shut and this wouldn't have happened."

Well, there was no doubt... my mom was expert at pushing people's buttons and egging them on. However, there was and is no excuse for a man to strike a woman... ever!

Thinking now about that first time that I saw my mom, wounded from physical abuse, it makes me angry. In fact I seethe as I type this. But rage was not the primary emotion I felt at that moment. As a 12-year-old, insecure, misguided preteen... I was scared... shaking.

Apparently, I lacked the machismo to seek retaliation for beating up my mom. I just didn't want him to do it ever again. Remember... from the moment my real father died, I feared my mom would die too and this event just gave me yet another way in which that might come to pass.

I hoped that my mom was right... that he "didn't mean it." Unfortunately, this was only the first physical beating of many. In one of their fights at the bar, Jack hit her so hard that she flew off the bar-stool, unconscious on the floor, near the jukebox. Stitches and an ambulance ride were Mom's prizes for that little scuffle.

The beat-down was witnessed by all the regulars. Did they just stand by as this all happened? I don't know the answer to that question but I do know that as time went on, Jack's bar lost most of their regular clientele. Who could blame them?

Their passion was on display every day... their passionate love one day, their passionate violence the next day. An odd cocktail of unbridled affection followed by violent aggression.

It was at this point in time that I began literally hating my life in Iowa. Until then, things hadn't been so bad since our big move but that all changed about six months into Mom and Jack's marriage.

I began to absolutely dread weekends. When my friends would rejoice at the final school bell on Fridays, I would start to feel that dread in my stomach and a trembling in my legs. I wanted to go to school seven days a week... not for love of school but for fear of the events that I knew would take place... like clock-work... at home.

Can you imagine a kid hating the weekends? It's just not right.

Let me park here for a minute.

This was the start to the darkest period in my life. Worse than the death of my own father, which was horrible enough. I'm not being dramatic; I'm being real.

I was 12 years old. I was not equipped to process what I saw and experienced. No child should EVER be put through this.


Not only did the alcoholism of my mom and step-dad result in weekly, horrible arguments, not to mention regular hand to hand combat... the fog of perpetual intoxication rendered them clueless to what was happening in my life. They didn't know where I was or what I was doing... ever. They didn't know what I was feeling. They never attended my sporting events. They never attended parent/teacher conferences. My mom never washed my clothes, let alone buy me new clothes. They lost total track of me and utterly surrendered their obligation to parent their minor children.

This was the ruination of my childhood. This was the cause of unspeakable anger, hurt and bitterness. It changed me... and not for the better.

But God is the giver of grace.


"Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand."
Psalm 37:24

Where would I go? Whom would I seek?