“Come on, dad, join us. Get a glass. Just have some wine and toast with us. I mean, come on, it’s vacation.” Smiling in Gee’s direction I pointed towards my glass on the table. As her eyes followed the invisible thread from my finger to the glass I shrugged, “I’ll pass.”
“Dad, you’re so boring. So boring. You need wine for a toast! You know; wine! Come on, a toast! To us!”
I grabbed my Coke with ice, raising it from the table to clink away in our circle of glasses; one wine, one Coke and two pineapple drinks. We drank.
Liz beamed, “To another vacation together.”
Vacations are sacred to Liz. Slivers of heaven placed upon a pedestal, they span a distance measured in hours away from home. Because she spent so much time away, first in medical school, then as a resident and now as a physician, she focuses mightily on crafting perfect vacations. They are her release, her escape.
Periodically pressure from work builds up inside Liz, like a Champagne bottle, nearing an explosive state. With a bottle of Champagne the cork might be popped to release pressure. With Liz a vacation is required to release this internal accumulation. As a result of this cycle of work, pressure, release our children have been to more countries and on more flights than I had in my first 40 years. Until age 16, when I boarded a Delta flight from Newark en route to a three day hockey tournament in Atlanta with a lid jammed down the front of my Sasson jeans, I had never been on a plane.
Our current vacation, like many of our vacation ideas, was born from the stress associated with a buildup of Liz’s internal pressure. I stood by and watched that pressure squeeze my Liz against the inside of a bottle formed in the shape of her skull. I waited for the explosion.
“I need to get away, Beasley. To decompress. You don’t understand, I just need to go somewhere and relax.”
“Ah, yeah, Liz I do understand. Every six months or so you get so wound up you explode. And, you know, you put this pressure on yourself by choosing to work long hours. And now you want to cram a vacation into your week off. How ‘bout just resting at home and letting your mind decompress? We go away all the time. Relax. Do nothing for a change.”
She folded her arms and simmered, “I need to get away.”
I pushed back, “Wait, I know, how ‘bout this? How about we not think that maybe I have client meetings scheduled for that week, the week you have off. And, hey, let’s assume I’ll pay for it, right? How’s that? Fair? There ya go. We’re all set. Now let’s go on a vacation.”
I had positioned myself on the wrong side of the cork.
“God damn it, Beasley, what’s your problem. My god, we’ll split the stupid costs so don’t be such a jerk, alright? Why? Why are you such a jerk about this stuff, huh? This is about me being under pressure you can’t imagine and me needing a vacation. You just don’t get it, do you?”
“No, Liz, I guess my simple god damn life of getting the kids up and ready for school and pushing my company forward and making sure I come up with a honking payroll every month and making sure we satisfy all our clients is just me jerking off, right? Right?”
As if in a stream my momentum carried me, “Ya know, Liz, all that pressure? Well, it comes from inside your head, not outside. You create the need for this vacation thing. And, ya know what? You shouldn’t need a vacation to escape your life. That’s what you don’t get, Liz. I mean, come on, Liz, from what I see, it’s not work, it’s you.”
She stared straight through me. “You don’t get it, Liz. You don’t. Is this gonna continue for the rest of your life?”
“Beasley, you’re the one that doesn’t get it. You have no idea. No idea what I face every day. I give up. I give up pushing against you. Just tell me, are we going or not? I have to book a flight.”
She was right on that count. I didn’t know what it was like to tell someone they had ovarian cancer or that their pregnancy was at risk or, after 20 years of faithful marriage they had been exposed to a SDD, the only source of which they would come to realize was a cheating husband. Pressure was something we handled differently. I used to tip a few, or maybe a few dozen, to relieve pressure. Now, I just got belligerent and pushed against those around me. Liz, well, she builds up pressure until she explodes. And now she was exploding.
I tired of pushing. Why was I on this side of the cork, anyway? It wasn’t worth the fight so I shrugged and stepped away. As escapes go, vacations are not a bad alternative. It could be worse. She could be a shopaholic or an alcoholic. And if history was any guide, I’ll end up enjoying the vacation anyway. So why continue? This was a pattern I was not going to change.
“Fine, Liz, fine. Oh, and I truly don’t give a crap where we go, Liz. You pick. I’ll be just as happy here in our house as anywhere. So pick a place and we’ll go.”
And so we went. And here we were.
That round behind us, our four glasses knocked against each other once more over the table. Liz’s wine spilled on the white linen, spreading like a Caribbean sunrise. Save for my fleeting glance we paid the blossoming red stain no mind.
Looking over her pineapple concoction, our teen daughter, Gee, probed for a vacation treat, “Hey, mom, can I try your wine? Please?”
She waited an instant before landing a well-timed follow-up, “What’s it like? It’s so red. Is it any good?”
“Sure, Gee. It’s a Bordeaux from France. And, Oh. My. God. It’s delicious. It’s utterly wonderful.”
Liz pulled her shoulders up, towards her ears in a smile plucked from early childhood, “So, so good. I love it. I just love it.” She was in heaven.
Before Liz passed the glass to Gee she explained how to proceed, “Smell it first, then sip it. It’s a Left Bank wine. This one’s an older one. You enjoy the smell first and then turn your attention to the sensation of the wine as you taste it. It’s heavenly, Gee.”
Liz swirled her glass and took a small sip.
I had no idea what she was talking about except I knew ‘older’ sounded more expensive.
Liz leaned towards Gee, “These wines are really concentrated. They’re stored in a wine cellar for years before serving. The tannins give it an, I guess you’d say, an almost bitter taste. It’s so strong. So good. Here, Gee. Here you go. Try it.” She passed the glass to Gee.
I watched as Liz’s sure fingers unwound from the stem of the glass and Gee’s delicate digits methodically filled the vacancies left by each of Liz’s fingers. A silent symphony of movement unfolded before me. As if an experienced spider gracefully retreated from a position of poise at the edge of her silky domain she allowed her baby a turn minding the web. Liz’s fingers slipped back one after the other as Gee’s took their place in a movement of elegance lasting but a moment.
Gee sipped the wine and puckered her lips into a screwed contortion. She squeezed her eyes shut, “Ugh, too, too… I don’t know what it is… Too tart or something. Too tart! How can you like this stuff? How can you even drink it?” She shuddered.
Gee’s arm lurched towards Liz as she sought to place as much distance as possible between the glass and her lips. A single drop fell from the glass held at the tip of Gee’s extended arm, adding an offspring to our tablecloth’s red sunrise. The young dot grew, seemingly trying to catch up with the existing red splash. Liz smiled as she retrieved her wine.
“It’s an acquired taste, Gee.” As she spoke she placed her free hand on the table, sliding forward to tug at one of Gee’s spider-leg pinkies, “This one, well this wine is considered more of a masculine wine. So, I guess it kinda makes sense that…”
Before Liz could finish, DJ jumped in, “Let me try, mom. It sounds pretty good. I’ll just take a sip or something. Ya know, like, just a sip, OK? ”
Liz looked up at me then held the glass out to DJ.
I smiled, “DJ, you can try it, but remember buddy, you’ve gotta be careful when you drink. I’m tell’n you, you’ve got our family’s addictive personality gene and…”
He grabbed for the glass, looking more like a lurching dragonfly trying to plow its way through a web than an elegant young spider sliding into a position of grace, “I know dad, I know. I have to watch out with alcohol so I don’t become an alcoholic or something. You already told me that. Like a million times.”
He reached for the wine but Liz pulled back her glass, keeping an even distance between her drink and our 12 year old’s grasping hand. It was as if a taut string existed between his grabbing fingers and the wine. The distance remained constant and the dragonfly was forced to adjust his path as the savvy spider kept her silky string tight. He wobbled as he tried mightily to balance himself on that invisible string connecting childhood with adulthood.
“Listen to your dad, DJ. My dad was an alcoholic and, well, he died because of it. And your dad’s grandparents were too. Both of Grandpa Dick’s parents struggled with alcohol. This is serious business, DJ. Can you handle being grown-up about this?”
He nodded assent.
“And, well, if you wanna learn to drink responsibly you have to understand that it’s up to you to be careful about drinking, all right? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’
He folded his arms in the space between his plate and the edge of the table, exposing his milk-white skin. While Liz and Gee looked like light chocolate natives after just a few days in the sun, DJ took after me. His whiter than white skin blended in with the tablecloth. Matching the two red stains on the linen, two swatches of sunburn, one big and one small, marked his forearms, spots we apparently missed when applying sunblock.
“I know mom, I know. I’m not stupid, ya know. I get it. Now, can I have some? Please?”
I jumped back in, “DJ, it’s not about being stupid. Come on now. You know what I’m gonna say. We’re a family of patterns, of cycles that we have to watch. My father never had a drink in his whole life and you know why? Because his mom and dad were such drunks. When I was a kid, younger than you, I used to go to their apartment in the Bronx and they never even smiled. They just sat there in their stiff backed chairs and drank themselves into an angry stupor. Ya know, my dad told me when he was a kid his mom and dad got so drunk they wouldn’t even remember if they fed him.”
I pointed to my Coke, “See this? I drink this to keep my distance. ‘Cause I have the same gene as my grandparents.” I stretched my Casper the Friendly Ghost forearm across the table and placed it next to his still folded arms. Our three white limbs lined up like a row of fallen candle pins. I nodded at our milky arms, “And look at this; don’t think you don’t have the same genes as me, my little buddy. The same as me. And the same genes as my grandparents. And ya know, with this gene, I fall into patterns and, well, can get addicted to stuff in a snap.”
I snapped my fingers close to his ear before he could swat my hand away.
“And,” I said pointing first to DJ and then Gee, “it’s in you too. It’s in both of you; you DJ and you, Gee.”
I reached back across our little table, trying to tussle DJ’s hair. He was too quick this time and pulled back, putting his arm up perpendicular to the table in a defensive move.
“Ya know the thing inside you that makes you want to never stop playing video games, or seems to force you to eat a whole box of crackers in one sitting, or makes you crave bread and salsa or even helps you concentrate on karate so much that you get your black belt before you’re 10, well that’s the gene. It’s mixed in with a gene that makes you more likely to get addicted to alcohol. And, believe me, you do not want that, buddy. You do not want that.”
Gee, the facilitator, waded into our conversation, looking first at DJ, then me, “It’s true, DJ. But we can handle it, dad. We can.”
Oblivious to Gee’s parry, DJ stared straight through me, with a ‘WTF, is it lecture time?’ look on his face.
“Ya know, when I was a teenager and then in my first year of college, I drank every day. Every day. And when you’re drunk you can miss an awful lot. You can miss life. And life is not something that you want to miss.”
Looking for a precedent to pull out at a later date, Gee probed, “How old were you, dad? You know, when you, when you started drinking?”
“Nice try kiddo. I’m tell’n you Gee, you’re gonna be a psychiatrist or a gold shield detective or, who knows, maybe an investment banker or some artist that touches peoples souls when you get older. You always know where to probe; how to focus on a point of interest. You’re good. You’re good.”
“Let’s just say I was older than you. And I drank just about every day for, like, three years. And even after I went back to college and cut back to just drinking on the weekends I still got drunk when I went out with my buddies; for probably 10 years or so.” I looked over Gee’s shoulder, out the window at the slipping sun, “That was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.”
I looked from Gee to DJ and back to Gee, “Neither of you want that.”
“Why’d you stop, dad? Why’d you stop drinking? And, if you drank so much, well then how come, how come I never saw you drunk, huh?”
DJ jumped in, “Yeah, dad, I’ve never even seen you get ‘tipsy’, you know like mom does on vacation?”
Liz feigned indignation, before dramatically placing her hands on her hips, “Hey, now, wait a minute here! Two drinks is my limit! And I work hard for my wine! So there!”
We laughed before Gee continued, “How come dad? How come you don’t drink anymore?”
Liz rested her glass on the table. Her hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail accenting her features. She was dark and her big eyes rested on podium-like cheek bones. They twinkled as she watched me, perhaps thinking of a similar conversation she may or may not have had with her hard drinking dad some 30 to 35 years ago. My eyes moved from her eyes to her lips. I thought that I wanted to kiss her.
Then I thought of the last time I was drunk. Gee was almost 16 now so it had to be, well, I guess 15 years ago. Liz was still in medical school then and I had just been promoted to Director within the group at GE, a level far above my capabilities; a level offering two or three years of unrelenting professional pain and pressure requiring periodic release. This weekend, like so many weekends, Liz had to leave on a Sunday morning to meet lab partners at the BU library. She had to be there by 8AM and would return to us in 12 hours.
DJ had yet to be born. In those days it was me and Gee spending entire weekends together while Liz was off studying. Usually, I liked those days. We went to the park up the block from Davis Square, visited art galleries and museums, walked the bike path, grabbed a snack for Gee and coffee for me at Au Bon Bain and, when we returned home, Gee napped. We’d cap the day with a Disney movie on the VCR or I’d swing Gee around in my arms as we danced to the B-52s or Art of Noise in our little apartment’s even littler living room. We had fun on those days. As we couldn’t afford to go anywhere those days were our mini-vacations.
Last evening though, while Liz stayed home studying, I escaped with Tony to celebrate my most recent results at work. After a string of losses, my office had finally made forecast for the first time in months. Last night I celebrated, not my victory but, my lack of defeat. And so it was that this morning Liz had to shake me in an attempt to raise me from my stupor. First gently, then harder to confirm I was alive and ready to spend the day with Gee, “Hey, Bease. Hey. I’m heading to the library now. I have to be there by eight, alright? I have to go. Gee’s awake. I gave her a bottle already.”
I withdrew my hands from under the pillow and groped at the air around me, trying to push back the increasing weight on my pounding head. Slowly an invisible ribbon twisted around my head squeezing any remaining liquid from my skull. The pressure too great, my head caved in as I tried to speak, only to muster an open mouthed cough. I smelled smoke as I pulled a long brown hair from my mouth. Liz was speaking but as if from a time far away.
“Man, you stink. You smell like the Cantab. I guess you had a rough night with Tony, huh? How much did you drink?”
I covered my eyes. “It was. We ah, we did kamikazes. I ah, I ah, I stopped counting when we hit double digits. Oh, man, my head is frigg’n crushed. Crushed. What time is it? What’s Gee doing?” I leaned over the side of the bed and let some drool slip from my mouth onto the blanket. Liz watched in disgust. I tried to touch the floor but couldn’t reach. “Where’s Gee?”
“It’s just after seven and listen kamikaze man, I’m taking the car, OK? Gee’s still in her crib. Don’t let her stay there too long, alright. Come on. Get up. Get moving, OK?”
Liz not so thoughtfully increased the volume on the baby monitor and placed it by my ear, allowing me to better hear little Gee jabber away at her favorite stuffed bear named, for whatever reason, Pooconkee. I had no idea what she was saying. Gibberish poured from both Liz and Gee as their words just seemed to float above my head like a swarm of bees before melding into a single sharp stinger, a stinger which proceeded to pierce my forehead and deposit molten metal into my broken skull cavity. A wave of pain passed through me like a convulsion. I was gonna puke.
Like a beaten boxer struggling to rise from the mat, I staggered from the bed towards the bathroom. Liz politely stepped aside and I nearly made it to the toilet before a tsunami of dry heaves hit me. I fell to the yellowed linoleum floor, heaving bile and spittle into the toilet. My head throbbed with each dry heave. I placed my arms across the toilet seat and rested my head there.
Liz followed me to the bathroom. It was dark. “Nice one, Bease. Nice. Ya know this is not good for you, this drinking. Not good. Stuff like this ends in tears.” I remained still, resting on the toilet.
“Here. When you’re finished puking take three Motrin and sip down this glass of water. I gotta go. The water will help you.” Liz’s next eight footsteps fell like sandbags on my head as she made her way to the door. The anvil dropped as she slammed the heavy wooden door before heading out.
“Oh my fucking god,” I wailed, “My head. My fucking head.”
I sipped at the water gingerly, hoping to keep a mouthful down.
The phone rang, “What the fuck?” Like Frankenstein I lurched forward with both arms stretched out, grasping to shut that goddamn ringing.
It hurt when I walked.
“Hell, hell, hello?”
“Bease, it’s me, Tony. Dude, I am messed up. Are you hungover, too? I’m a wreck, man. A fuck’n wreck. Hey, listen, is my car at your house or somethin’? Please say yes.”
“Hold on.” I let go of the phone and it fell to the floor, adding to the pain inside my head. I went to the front door and pulled back the old yellow curtain. Oh, god! Pain. Brightness. Pain. I let the curtain fall back to its dormant position; the painless position.
It hurt when I used my eyes.
Gee started to yell, “Dad-dee! Dad-dee! DAD-Dee!”
I squinted and pulled the curtain back just enough to see outside. Yup, there was Tony’s red Acura. Seemed undamaged.
I returned to the phone and, finding it on the floor, slowly bent down before falling to my knees. I placed both palms on the floor to steady myself. The worn wooden floor was cool to the touch. I picked up the phone.
“Yeah, dude. Your car’s outside. It’s fine. Don’t you remember? We took a cab from the Cantab to here and then you took it home.”
“No, I don’t remember leaving. I do remember someone trying to take my shirt off. So, we didn’t drive, huh?”
“No numb nuts, we’re too grown up for that shit. Your car’s fine. Listen, I gotta get going with Gee. And assuming I don’t fuck’n die here I’ll be at Paulina park by, what the hell time is it, shit, by nine. Maybe I’ll see ya there? Man, I thought drinking was supposed to wash away my pain?”
“Well, you weren’t feel’n any pain last night, I’ll tell you that. Wait, what’d you ask? Oh yeah, I’m too fucked up to go out, Bease. I’ll try to make it but, man, I doubt it. I’m going back to bed, Bease. Watch my car for me, alright? Thanks, man. I, I gotta go puke.”
Click.
I returned to the bathroom, found the glass of water Liz had prepared and raised it to my lips. Softly I sipped. I looked into the mirror. My eyes were blood red and my hair looked like Don King’s. I watched as my reflection ran a finger over my cracked lips.
It hurt when I used my hands.
I took another sip, monitoring my progress in the mirror as I did so. Water slipped from the side of my mouth. A single drop made its way down my neck and fell to my white t-shirt, upon impact spreading in the shape of a darker than expected sunset. Weird. Hey, my t-shirt was torn. How the hell did that happen?
The first sips of water stayed down. So far so good. My head pounded as I wrestled with the hungover-person-proof Motrin bottle. After popping the top I grabbed three orange pills, plucking them out one at a time. I let them roll around in my hand for a moment before dropping them into my cotton mouth. Then, ever so slowly, I filled the front of my mouth with water. Like a pelican holding three precious fish I tilted my head back and swallowed. I was dizzy and grabbed the sink with both hands, hoping to avoid a second tsunami of dry heaves.
“Dad-dee! Dad-dee!”
The Motrin stayed down, though my head continued to pound. I took a last look in the mirror and sighed. My reflection stuck his tongue out at me as I turned to make my way to Gee’s room.
She beamed when I entered. She was standing in her crib. First she jumped up and down, then she rocked back and forth as she squeezed the crib railing. She stopped and thrust both arms out towards me in what could have been a pretty good imitation of my earlier Frankenstein walk, “Up! Up!”
“Hello, Ms. Early Bird. How are you today?”
It hurt when I talked.
“Up!”
“Gee I’m a bit groggy this morning so we’ll take it a little slow before we head out this morning, OK.”
Before I could take my baby steps across the room to scoop her up, she turned back towards her pillow and bent down to pick up Pooconkee the bear. With Pooconkee in hand she returned to the rail.
“Up!”
Gently, I bent over and scooped her in my arms. I squeezed her against my chest. She smelled like Johnson’s baby shampoo. I smelled like a bar.
And, great, her diaper was full. I could probably survive a pee but if I had to change a poop I was a dead man. I’d probably puke all over the place; right in front of Gee.
Shifting her to my right arm, I grabbed the changing mat, a couple of diapers and the wipes before retreating to the living room. I set up on the couch so I could kneel on the cool hardwood floor while I changed her.
Pee, wonderful pee. Thank you, universe.
My head continued to pound as Gee lay on her back on the changing mat. Old fashioned egg beaters slipped through each ear and made short work of my remaining brain. I held my breath and, in turn, made short work of the diaper. Gee twisted Pooconkee back and forth above her head. While I changed Gee, I noticed my left hand was cut across the knuckles. How the hell did that happen?
Still kneeling, I tossed the diaper towards the Diaper-Genie, not bothering to stuff it into the plastic temple of dirty diapers. Mission accomplished I slowly placed Gee on the floor with Pooconkee. With bear in tow she crawled towards the throw rug and, once there, began a cycle of hugging, then extending Pooconkee to arm’s length, examining the bear then repeating. She was happy.
I was a mess.
After a couple of Pooconkee cycles of hug, extend, examine, I determined she wasn’t going to make a move for the diaper lying on the floor next to the Diaper-Genie. I rolled backwards from my kneeling position, resting my butt on my heels before sliding to my side and dropping to the floor. As elegant as a sack of potatoes. My head continued to throb. I realized my right knee hurt too.
It hurt when I lied down.
I pressed my face against the cool wooden floor, the chill dampening some of the pounding inside my head. I lie there like a beached whale; like a big white whale waiting for Greenpeace to rescue me with a dose of water and Motrin big enough for a whale. I lie there thinking of how I could probably survive if I didn’t move for, oh, say an hour or so. I lie there still.
After less than a minute of hug, extend, examine, Gee grew tired of Pooconkee and cast her gaze towards me.
I flogged a hand at her in a halfhearted wave. With one eye smushed against the cool floor I watched helplessly as she dropped the bear and crawled towards me. She was fast and made her way across the floor to take up a position within a foot of the beached whale.
“Up! Up, daddy. Up!” I smiled a crooked smile, “Just a few more minutes, Gee. Let’s play rest and just rest for a few more minutes, OK wonderful?”
She crawled the remaining distance, placed both hands on my head and began to yank my hair. Rhythmically she repeated a cycle; hold, yank, hold yank, hold yank. Her little fingers became entangled in the web of my Don King-like hair. She continued and I was helpless to protest.
It hurt when my hair was pulled.
Placing one hand on those tiny yanking hands of Gee’s I gently pulled her spider-like fingers from my hair, “That’s enough of that Gee. That’s enough.”
I rolled over to see her looking down at me with Liz’s eyes. We stared at each other for an indeterminate length of time. However long it was, though, it was long enough.
I held Gee’s little hand, “Remember this moment, Gee. Remember it ‘cause this is the last time you’ll ever see anything like this; the last time.”
Liz cleared her throat, “Bease, Gee asked you a question.”
“Ah, Earth to dad, over. Are you still with us, dad? Over.”
At the sound of Gee’s teenage voice, I returned to the table.
“You didn’t answer me, dad. So, why? Why’d you stop? Why’d you stop drinking?”
I reached across the table and took her spider leg fingers, “Because of you, Gee. Because of you.”
