All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir(19)

11


    Far from the Tree





Growing up, in the years before high school, alcohol was not something I thought about too much. My stepmom would have an occasional glass of red wine, but I never saw my dad drink or talk about missing it. My father did not drink alcohol—it was just a fact—like he worked at The New York Times and enjoyed popcorn with extra butter at the movies. I once saw a case of O’Doul’s on his work bench in our basement, and when I asked about it he told me to look at the label. I peered closer. “Oh, it is nonalcoholic beer.” He nodded and told me out of the corner of his mouth that it “didn’t taste the same but it was better than nothing.”

It turned out that alcoholism and ongoing struggles with booze were some of the many traits I shared with my father. My dad knew intimately the siren call of substances and the temporary relief they offered. He had empirical evidence that his genetic code, when combined with vodka, led to handcuffs and treatment centers. Still, long-term sobriety eluded him for decades. Our birth changed all that. After Meagan and I were born he remained fully sober for fourteen years. Until something changed. And he began to drink again, on and off.



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—

When I was seventeen, in the summer of 2005, Dad was supposed to take my sisters and me up to the family cabin in the Adirondacks. Jill was on a work trip. I was obsessed with television at the time (still am), and I secretly delighted as the hours dragged on and it started getting late, as it meant we might not go to the cabin after all. My sisters, however, were a different story. “Aren’t we supposed to be going soon?” Meagan asked as we heard our dad shuffling around on the porch. “Shh,” I said. “Buffy is on. Let’s talk after this episode.” She went back upstairs with a huff.

After he called the three of us to come outside and head out, I found my dad moving quietly around in the dark, leafing through papers on his makeshift desk. He was breathing heavily. I asked if he was okay. He turned to me, and his eyes were bloodshot. I had never seen him like this. He muttered a semblance of a response that indicated I was not to ask any more questions. I felt silenced and uncomfortable. He was the one making us late.

“I’m hungry,” I told him.

“We’ll eat on the road,” he barked back.

As we started our drive away from our home in Montclair, the yellow lines began to swerve underneath us. We looked at one another, totally unsure of what to do. Meagan was the first to speak. “What is going on, Dad? You don’t seem all right. You need to pull over.” He sighed loudly, turned on his blinker, and moved the wheels to the right, hitting the gas pedal. There was a loud blaring honk as a big SUV missed us by inches. The horn felt like it lasted for minutes.

“What is wrong with you?” I yelled as he turned off at a gas station. My baby sister and twin were fearful and quiet. Meagan got out of the car and dialed a family friend who told us to call a cab. Dad insisted we get back in the car, and we drove the eight minutes back to our darkened house in New Jersey. He had been drinking. He could have killed us and himself that night. He drank more when he got home. We called Jill and told her what had happened. She was horrified but not surprised. He had been off the wagon for months.

There would be a few more nights like that one in his life, a few more relapses before he got clean again, but nothing that quite matched the level of terror for me of that first one. Months later he was pulled over driving to my high school for a college informational seminar for parents on finding the right school and paying for it. He never made it to the seminar. The cops arrested him en route and my dad was forced to forfeit his license for more than a year. Who drives their kids drunk? Who drinks on the way to a parent-teacher conference? I learned quickly that the circumstances did not matter when it came to my dad and alcohol. He was powerless.



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—

He called one morning, and I knew something was wrong the second I heard him at the other end of the line. I was in year two at VICE and just trying not to drown. His voice was raspier than usual, and his speech was careful and deliberate. It sounded like he was on the street when he should have been in his cube at the Times. He asked if I had time to meet in Williamsburg later that evening. I said of course, without hesitation. The call ended abruptly and without him telling me he loved me, which was odd. I had to sit at work for the next six hours wondering what on earth he was going to tell me.

I met my dad at El Moderno, a bar in Williamsburg off the Lorimer Street stop of the Brooklyn-bound L train. I rushed there, a knot of fear resting in my stomach as I walked the fifteen minutes from my desk to the bar. He was already there when I arrived. What greeted me looked like my dad, and yet it didn’t. He was seated in a booth, his eyes unfocused and glassy as he squinted at his BlackBerry. Next to him sat an empty martini glass, still frosted from the chilled vodka. I approached the table. He looked embarrassed but stood up and pulled me into a bear hug, both of us holding on a little too long. His eyes remained downcast until I threw my messenger bag on my side of the red leather booth.

“So, this is starting again,” I muttered, unsure if I should go with humor or seriousness when approaching my dad’s relapse. It had been years since the last time. We thought he had experimented back then, and once recovered, it was over. That is how the recovery narrative goes. Alcoholic gets and stays clean. Your brain and body know what is forbidden territory.