the table. a short story.

My father is a dry alcoholic. Well, "dry" is not far as he no longer gets obliterated. He drinks maybe a drink or two a day. That's all. He has better control of the quantity of alcohol that he drinks. Mostly because he knows that he's a bastard when he's drunk. His drink of choice is vodka. I personally hate vodka. It makes me want to vomit maybe because the thought of him makes me want to vomit.

I remember the worst night ever. I'd done something minimal but like usual it was unsavory enough to him that he decided to take it into his own hands, literally. He slapped me in the face as hard as he could. My left cheek stung. I scuffled under the table to get away from him. My entire family--my siblings and my mother--just stood there as he went after me. He was yelling.

"Come here. Get the fuck from under the table."

He jerked the chairs away from the table, stripping my buffer with each chair grabbed. He finally pulled me from under the table and hit me again and again with his open fist. He hit my face and my body. He didn't care where he hit me--just as long as I shrieked and coiled away from him. He loved the power and thrill of the moment. I was deathly afraid of him. I loved him purely out of fear. Fear of what he would do if he ever suspected that I didn't love him. But truly, I didn't. And I hated my mother for letting it all happen.

I grew up with bruises. My thighs and legs were consistently concealed throughout childhood for fear that the school would discover my bruises and ask questions. I couldn't deal with the questions. I might have cried. I might have revealed too much about my father. After all, he was my father. I felt bad. He hurt me and my mother but that's how it was. I had to be stronger than that. I had to.

He beat me nearly unconscious. I didn't know what all had happened by the end of it. My mother told me years later that she let it happen because she wanted me to know the man that he was. She wanted me to know the "real" father that I had. She wanted me not to idealized him so much. She wanted me to know just how much of a bastard he was, so she let him beat me. In front of my siblings, maybe they'd realize it too. He wasn't such a good man. And still, to this day, I fear him. What kind of a mother purposely instills such fear in her children?

That table was my only barrier. My only hope of getting away. It didn't stop him. He still grabbed me and beat me. He still did whatever he pleased. He still fucked whatever broad that he fancied. He still assaulted me. He still lives in my nightmares.

The addiction was alcohol. The addiction was power. The addiction controlled his life. The addiction destroyed other lives. Yet, he never acknowledged it. He never acknowledged the pain that he inflicted. Never.