Window Pain
Three states
in five hours.
Maybe we’ll stop somewhere nice
like a KOA campground.
A kid can hope. It’s hot and it would be great to go for a swim. Instead we stop at the liquor store,
dad buys a case of beer. At the store next door mom buys a carton of cigarettes and a bag of pretzels.
Next stop a parking lot just off the interstate.
Dad’s ready to celebrate.
I feel my calf muscles start to shake.
I pull back the white curtains
of our Winnebago.
My reflection stares back at me
from the dirty window pane.
I look past my reflection at the few cars that are parked.
One is a Buick Wildcat and the other one is a Mustang. Not quite the holiday destination I dreamed of. We have travelled a long way to get nowhere.
I look at the rosary hanging on the rearview mirror.
How many forgiven trespasses?
I think dad might have exceeded his limit. The driver’s side window is open a crack and the smoke from his cigarette mixes with the sky. I feel envious, I want to float away with the smoke.
Dad is going to be up late again
I’m expecting thunder and lightning
With a definite possibility of pain
“Hang down your head Tom Dooley ” blairs on the 8 track player. I’ll get to hear that song at least twenty times before the night is through. Unless the tape breaks again. His Johnny Cash tape is at the ready if that should happen.
Gazing beyond the Winnebago’s screen door,
I imagine what it would be like to be free.
I picture a hut on a tropical beach. I would fish for my food and walk along the shore every day. Peace and quiet except the sound of waves and seagulls.
The pffst sound from opening his beer bottle jolts me back to reality. He empties the contents into his mug.
Is it wrong for me to pray he chokes on it?
Mom told me that when they met, his eyes were so blue, like a clear sky on a sunny day. Now they look faded.
When he’s not drinking they mostly look like storm clouds.
He sees himself as a black sheep, I’m thinking more like a charcoal sheep with smudged edges. I fear he might rub off on me. God, I hope not! They say “The Apple doesn’t fall far from the Tree” . I hope a gust of wind blows me far away from the tree. Being just nine years old, I don’t have much of a say when it comes to my life.
I feel a chill in the air and I shiver. In a couple more hours I might get to go to bed. Happy to be curled in a foetal position under a warm blanket. A measure of peace will come when I hear him snoring. I wish he didn’t have insomnia. If I have a good night's sleep it will help me get through another day. Yep it’s one day at a time
Even though each day feels like a lifetime.
early afternoon
twenty four bottles of beer
empty by midnight
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