It was just beginning to snow when Joey walked out of the back door. Knowing the storm door rattled, he pulled it carefully closed until it latched. He’d remembered to take his gloves, and had even pulled his blue ski cap over his head. Rather than changing to boots, he kept on his high tops. They were his favorite.
No one saw him leave.
His mother was in the den with his stepfather. He knew they’d been arguing about him, because their voices had been pitched low and had carried that thin, nervous tone their voices carried whenever they argued about him.
They didn’t think he knew.
His mother had roasted a turkey with all the trimmings. Throughout the meal she had chatted brightly, too brightly, about it being nice to have Thanksgiving with just the family. Donald had joked about leftovers and bragged about the pumpkin pie he’d baked himself. There’d been cranberry sauce and real butter and the little crescent rolls that popped up fluffy in the oven.
It had been the most miserable meal of Joey’s life.
His mother didn’t want him to have any problems. She wanted him to be happy, do well in school, and go out for basketball. Normal. That was the word Joey had heard her use in an urgent undertone to his stepfather.
But he wasn’t. Joey guessed his stepfather sort of understood that, and that’s why they argued. He wasn’t normal. He was an alcoholic, just like his father.
His mother said his father was NO GOOD.
Joey understood that alcoholism was a disease. He understood addiction and that there was no cure, only a continuing period of recovery. He also understood that there were millions of alcoholics, and that it was possible to be one and live the normal life his mother wanted so badly for him. It took acceptance and effort and change. Sometimes he got tired of making the effort. If he told his mother he was tired, she would get upset.
He knew, too, that alcoholism could often be inherited. He’d inherited his from his father, the same way he’d inherited the NO GOOD.
The streets were quiet as he headed out of the nice, tidy neighborhood. Snowflakes fluttered in the beam of streetlights like the fairy dancers in storybooks he remembered his mother reading him years before. He could see the illumination in windows where people were eating their Thanksgiving meal or resting after the effort in front of the TV.
His father hadn’t come for him.
He hadn’t called.
Joey thought he understood why his father didn’t love him anymore. He didn’t like to be reminded about the drinking and the fighting and the bad times.
Dr. Court said his father’s disease hadn’t been Joey’s fault. But Joey figured if he’d gotten the sickness from his father, then maybe, somehow, his father had gotten the sickness from him.
He remembered lying in bed, knowing it was late, and hearing his father shout in that thick nasty voice he used when he’d been drinking a lot.
“All you think about is that kid. You never think about me. Everything changed after we had him.”
Then later he had heard his father cry, big, wet sobs which were somehow even worse than the temper.
“I’m sorry, Lois. I love you, I love you so much. It’s the pressure that makes me like this. Those bastards at work are always on my back. I’d tell them all to get fucked tomorrow, but Joey needs a new pair of shoes every time I turn around.”
Joey waited for a car to rumble past, then crossed the street and headed for the park. Snow was falling thickly now, a white curtain buffeted by the wind. The air whipped healthy pink into his cheeks.
Once he’d thought if he hadn’t needed new shoes, his father wouldn’t need to get drunk. Then he’d realized things would be easier on everyone if he just wasn’t there. So he’d run away when he’d been nine. It had been scary because he’d gotten lost and it had been dark and there’d been noises. The police had found him in a few hours, but to Joey it had seemed like days.
His mother had cried and his father had held him so tight. Everyone had made promises they had meant to keep. For a while things had been better. His father had gone to AA and his mother had laughed more. That was the Christmas Joey had gotten his two-wheeler and his father had spent hours running beside the bike with his hand hooked under the seat. He hadn’t let Joey fall, not even once.
But just before Easter his father had started coming home late again. Joey’s mother’s eyes had stayed red, and the laughter had stopped. One night Joey’s father had taken the turn into the driveway too wide and hadn’t seen the two-wheeler. His father had come in the house shouting. Joey had woken up to the swearing, the accusations. His father had wanted to get Joey out of bed and take him outside to show him what his negligence had done. His mother had blocked the way.
That was the first night he’d heard his father strike his mother.
If he’d put the bike away instead of leaving it on the lawn beside the driveway, his father wouldn’t have hit it. Then his father wouldn’t have gotten so angry. His father wouldn’t have hit his mother and given her a bruise on her cheek she tried to hide with makeup.
That was the first night Joey tried alcohol.
He hadn’t liked the taste. It had hurt his mouth and made his stomach rise up uncomfortably. But when he’d sipped from the bottle three or four times, he felt strangely as if he’d slipped on a thin plastic shield. He didn’t feel like crying anymore. There had been a nice, quiet buzz in his head as he climbed back into his bed. He’d fallen dreamlessly to sleep.
From that night Joey had used alcohol as an anesthetic whenever his parents fought.
Then the divorce had come in a horrible culmination of arguments, shouting, and name calling. One day his mother had picked him up at school to drive him to a small apartment. There she explained to him as gently as possible why they wouldn’t be living with his father any longer.
He’d been ashamed, horribly ashamed, because he’d been glad.
They’d started their new life. His mother had gone back to work. She cut her hair and no longer wore her wedding ring. But Joey noticed from time to time the thin circle of white skin the band had covered for over a decade.
He could still remember how anxious, how pleading her eyes had been when she’d explained to him about the divorce. She’d been so afraid he would blame her, so she’d justified a move that left her riddled with guilt and uncertainty by telling him what he already knew. But hearing it from her had shattered whatever thin defenses he’d had left.
He could remember, too, how hard she’d cried the first time she came home from work to find her eleven- year-old son drunk.
The park was quiet. On the ground a thin, pretty layer of white had already formed. In another hour no one would notice his footprints. Joey thought that was the way it should be. Snow was falling now in big, soft flakes which clung to the branches of trees and lay glistening and fresh on bushes. Flakes melted on his face, making his skin damp, but he didn’t mind. He wondered, only briefly, if his mother had gone up to his room yet and discovered him gone. He was sorry she was going to be upset, but he knew what he was doing would make things easier for everyone. Especially himself.
He wasn’t nine years old this time. And he wasn’t afraid.
He’d gone to Alateen and Alanon meetings with his mother.
They didn’t reach him. He didn’t let them reach him because he didn’t want to admit he was ashamed to be like his father.
Then Donald Monroe had come along. Joey wanted to be glad his mother was happy again, then felt guilty because he was so close to accepting a replacement for his father. His mother was happy again, and Joey was glad because he loved her so much. His father grew more and more bitter, and Joey resented the change because he loved his father so much.
His mother married and her name changed. It was no longer the same as Joey’s. They moved into a house in a quietly affluent neighborhood. Joey’s room overlooked the backyard. His father complained about the child-support payments.
When Joey had begun to see Tess, he was finding a way to get drunk every day, and he’d already begun to contemplate suicide.
