Fear

I'm not sure how I came to learn to fear people who had been drinking.  Maybe it was that trip away, when I was six, where my mother had half a glass of wine, and her screeching laughter sounded like an evil witch.  Perhaps it was that particular night, many, many years ago, when my father was so drunk, my mother told me to push my bed against my bedroom door to sleep at night, because my door did not lock.  Maybe it was all the roaring arguments I'd hear late at night, because my father had worked his way into a bottle of vodka. Or could it be something that I witnessed when I was so young, that I couldn't even recall?

For as long as I remember, I have disliked, been impatient with, or have been just plain annoyed with people, espeically men, who would even have one beer.  I've always known that I didn't like it when people close to me drank.  But I never really knew why.  I'd always try to rationalize, that I dont like the smell or the taste, or, my latest rationalization, I don't know if they're sober enough to comprehend or remember what I say to them.  But it wasn't till very recently, that I felt something deeper within me.  Fear.

While alone in the house, late at night, with no one but my father, who had begun drinking since 4pm, and my dog, Charlie, who is as gentle as a labrador could be, I decided it was time for bed.  I heard dad's footsteps stomp up the stairs, and then some noises that sounded like screaming.  I wondered if maybe he was on the phone, either laughing to his mistress, or yelling at my mother.  I cracked my door open so I could better make out the words he was slurring.  He was taunting Charlie, in a way a highschool bully would a kid whose head was being shoved into a toilet bowl.  That was when I felt it.  I feared for Charlie's life.  I knew that if my mother was home, if dad tried to do anything, she would stop him.  But I was too scared to go up there.  I was too scared to confront him while he was drunk.  I feared for my life, too.

I came to realise that the father I once trusted so completely, I no longer did.  He gave me fear.  Fear for my life, fear for my mother's, and fear for my animals'.