On the kitchen counter, my mom had left a note informing me that a corn beef sandwich was in the fridge along with a six pack of Drewery’s beer. As I sat at the kitchen table, I opened a beer. From my position, I could see the front door. It had a thick coat of varnish, and I remember the summer that my mother applied varnish to that door. I turned 13 that year, and I was wondering how my parents would react when I brought a girl home to meet them. I had been watching The Nelsons, and their son, David, had brought a girl home from college. His parents were polite and not an irritable word passed between the parents and their kids. After the show, I brought my math book to finish my homework. Sitting at the kitchen table, I opened the book
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From the time I was 13 until I went into the army, I was his punching bag. As I drank, I wished that he had lived long enough for me to reach manhood, but when I became a man, I was patrolling the Delta in Nam, and the monsoons drenched everything I had but the anger in my soul. Yes … Bao was the lucky one. By dying my dead kept me from evening the score. I wondered if I made the right choice. I guess it didn’t matter. I survived him and the war. Tonight I returned home. The house seemed cold and I thought about going to sleep but continued drinking a cold beer at the kitchen table with the wind blowing against the storm windows to keep me …show more content…
My mom was a drunk, but she was a friendly drunk. As I grew up, all the kids in the neighborhood liked her. One Halloween one of the neighbor girls dressed in a bathrobe with curlers in her hair. She went trick or treating with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Everyone knew she was going as my mother. My mother loved it and took it as a sign of the neighborhood’s approval. Mom never dressed before noon. In the morning, she would walk out to the curb to retrieve the Detroit Free Press from the sidewalk. Dressed in her robe, she carried a cup of coffee and smoked her cigarette. She would wave at the school bus and the men driving to work. Everyone thought she was having a cup of coffee and a cigarette with her morning paper. Nobody realized that she was drinking ‘Irish Coffee, a shot of whiskey in her drink. In high school I learned she drank Canadian Club rather than another brand of whiskey because she wanted to tease my aunt and uncle. My aunt was a teetotaler, and my uncle hated the Canadians. He didn’t hate the people of Canada. He hated the hockey team named The Montreal
From the time I was 13 until I went into the army, I was his punching bag. As I drank, I wished that he had lived long enough for me to reach manhood, but when I became a man, I was patrolling the Delta in Nam, and the monsoons drenched everything I had but the anger in my soul. Yes … Bao was the lucky one. By dying my dead kept me from evening the score. I wondered if I made the right choice. I guess it didn’t matter. I survived him and the war. Tonight I returned home. The house seemed cold and I thought about going to sleep but continued drinking a cold beer at the kitchen table with the wind blowing against the storm windows to keep me …show more content…
My mom was a drunk, but she was a friendly drunk. As I grew up, all the kids in the neighborhood liked her. One Halloween one of the neighbor girls dressed in a bathrobe with curlers in her hair. She went trick or treating with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Everyone knew she was going as my mother. My mother loved it and took it as a sign of the neighborhood’s approval. Mom never dressed before noon. In the morning, she would walk out to the curb to retrieve the Detroit Free Press from the sidewalk. Dressed in her robe, she carried a cup of coffee and smoked her cigarette. She would wave at the school bus and the men driving to work. Everyone thought she was having a cup of coffee and a cigarette with her morning paper. Nobody realized that she was drinking ‘Irish Coffee, a shot of whiskey in her drink. In high school I learned she drank Canadian Club rather than another brand of whiskey because she wanted to tease my aunt and uncle. My aunt was a teetotaler, and my uncle hated the Canadians. He didn’t hate the people of Canada. He hated the hockey team named The Montreal