“Well, you can’t kill Superman,” she remarked after being told that her father was rallying after a near brush with death. He had always told them that he was Superman. As children they half believed him.
” You can’t hurt steel, you know?” he would say as the kids tried to punch him in the arm as hard as they could.
Now he was lying in a hospital bed dying from years of alcohol
abuse. Alcohol was finally his kryptonite. He laid there weakened and yellow from liver failure brought on by too many drinks and
not enough food.
For the last five years things had been getting worse. He would rarely eat and he often began drinking early in the day. Towards the end he didn’t even get out of bed. He would urinate in a Gator-Ade bottle and defecate in a napkin held in his hand. He developed cataracts from complications of diabetes. He was going blind too.
After years of verbal and psychological abuse, most of the family had
abandoned him to save what was left of themselves. They had all begged him to stop drinking. He was losing his business, his friendships, and his
family. But he would never admit that he had a drinking problem. He
always said that he could stop any time he wanted to. He just never wanted to. He said, “If I ever have to stop drinking, I would rather die.” Now it was coming to that.
Eldest Daughter was angry with him but she also felt extreme pity. It was obvious what the addiction had done to him. He had gone from a highly respected and successful business man in the community to a lonely, wasted old man. He wasn’t really that old either. He was only sixty-two. He never got to do many of the things he had been saving for his retirement age. He never got to go to Europe. He never got to go to Hawaii. He never really got to play with his grandchildren much or tell them that he was Superman.
His wife stopped sleeping with him about five years before his death. The constant verbal abuse did not enamor him to her. He would lash out with cruel comments about her weight, appearance, ability to think, cooking, or anything that happened to cross his mind at a given moment. He would do this in front of family members, friends, or even strangers. His wife was trying to run his business, cover his tracks, and take care of him in his drunkenness while keeping up a positive attitude to the outside world.
Eldest Daughter spent hundreds of hours on phone calls for a couple of years counseling her the best she could until Mother finally mustered up enough courage to leave him. When it was obvious that his business would fail and he would not stop drinking, she left him. She had been crying every day for a year. And when she stopped she had a job, a beautiful new place to live, her friends, and a life. She didn’t speak to her husband for the next year. She laughed, went out to eat, saw a few movies, visited her grandchildren, and recovered.
Each of the family members chose a different method for coping with the situation. Little Sister had a showdown with Dad about a year before he died. She went to him and said that if he didn’t stop drinking right now and go for professional help, he would not see her or her children again. She stuck to it up until the very end when she did pay him a final visit in the hospital.
He never would admit he had a problem. Once he called Little Sister and asked if she didn’t care about how he was doing.
She said, “I know how you are.”
He said, “What do you mean.”
She said,”You’re still drinking aren’t you?”
He said, “Well, I guess you don’t need to talk to me then, do you?” And he hung up.
Younger Brother continued to visit Dad occasionally each time fighting with him over family matters, Dad’s treatment of Mom, Dad’s drinking, Dad’s failure in his business due to his drinking, Dad’s dislike of Brother’s new wife, Brother’s frivolous college career, etc. These fights never really ended but invariably picked up where they left off each time they met.
He was found by the gardener lying in a coma in the darkened back bedroom that had become his lair in recent years. At his death Brother was still fighting with Dad proclaiming to his cold swollen body how” pissed off “he was at him. He did finally get the last word. He just had to wait for Dad to die.
Youngest Brother moved in with Dad after Mom moved out to become his new co-dependent. Since Youngest Brother was on drugs, this relationship proved to be mutually defeating. Brother would go get Dad’s liquor. Dad would get drunk and browbeat him about what a lazy drug addict he was. Brother would get loaded and complain about what a drunk Dad was. And the cycle continued for a year until Brother decided to commit himself to a rehab center.
That’s when things started to fall apart and Dad’s condition worsened. With no one there to clean him up or feed him, he just kept on drinking and lying in his self-made dungeon. Eldest Daughter handled her own role in this drama by not ” living ” her father’s death. To her he had been dead a long time.
She moved out of the house exactly when she was eighteen. She had been waiting to move out since she was twelve. It had been a long prison sentence that focused on her as the scapegoat.
One of her earliest memories concerning alcohol was when she was about eight. He and a friend of his had just been given promotions at their respective companies. They had been drinking champagne and throwing the glasses into the fireplace.
They were quite taken with themselves and began to brag about it. The women were noticeably upset by this showboating and began asking to break up the party. That meant driving home.
Father was certainly in no shape to drive. But he wouldn’t hear of anyone else taking the wheel. Eldest Daughter kneeled fearfully in the backseat sensing that something was wrong. When they made it home, he forced everyone into one of the bedrooms and started going off about how, “I am the King of this House!” and “Everyone has to do what I say! … and if I want you to stay up all night, you’ll just have to….”
Eldest Daughter was so afraid that she ran out under his arm and grabbed The Bible and locked herself in the bathroom. She started reading passages to calm herself. Mother was crying and begging Father to stop. Auntie, who was staying with them had recently converted to Catholicism, began saying a Rosary. Eldest Daughter was sitting on the edge of the bathtub crying and trying to read passages her grandmother had marked for her praying for some end to this conflict.
“Open this door right now!” She heard her Father demand. In her frustration she could not unfasten the lock and after many attempts, Father had to come in through the window to unlock the bathroom door. At least after the rescue from the locked door, things calmed down. Father stopped being aggressive and they all went to bed. (Role of Scapegoat played to perfection).
Daughter cried herself to sleep more than a few times after that. Father always liked to be in control. He was “The King” and everyone treated him as such. They catered to his every whim and demand. She used to brag about him to her friends…”My dad said this…My dad did that…My dad thinks…etc…”
In high school friends would say, “Yes, Martha, Your father’s a god we all know that!”
Another friend would say, “Your father is a tiny white mouse with little red eyes.” And they would continue that way until they had gone through most of the lines from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?
But Eldest Daughter really did idolize him even though he kept her rich pubescent body and whims at bay by issuing unreasonable restrictions and curfews. She was on restriction for practically everything. She could never figure out if they (he) really meant for her to be restricted or if they (he) just wanted a cheap babysitter for her younger brothers.
She was on restriction for the rest of her life so many times that she still wouldn’t be off if she hadn’t turned eighteen and moved out to free herself. She was on restriction for biting her nails, for having an ingrown toenail, for gaining weight, for not doing the program of exercises Father had demanded, for getting anything less than a B on her report card, for seemingly any minor infraction of any law he decided to lay down.
Finally, since she was in trouble anyway, she just decided to rebel. She was an expert at rebellion. She decided to just do what she wanted to do. Looking back on what was considered “bad” in those days would bring a smile to the faces of teenagers today.
She waited until she was sixteen. She wanted to have sex, so she did. She screwed who she wanted…mostly nice guys, boyfriends, who were thoroughly surprised and appreciative of her affection. She also started smoking cigarettes and drinking on weekends when she could get out of the house. If she was lucky enough to get to go out, she would purposely break her curfew because she never knew when she might be able to go out again.
She had a couple of boyfriends who challenged her dad on unreasonable curfews and restrictions. He respected this and those boys were allowed to take her out. But, of course, she liked the boys he didn’t approve of the best. It was the sixties. Affirmative action and free love… She did her part… She liked Black guys.
It didn’t start out as rebellion. In fact, she had never even met a Black person before except her girlfriend’s housekeeper. A certain young man was running for sophomore class president and he was shaking hands and campaigning in the quad during lunch. She went up to him with a group of friends and said,”Hi, my name is Pooh. What’s yours?”
He answered with, “Well, I’m Christopher Robin.” That was it . She was in love, enchanted, and charmed. She knew she would never be able to be with him publicly. Even in the late sixties a mixed couple was tabu. They began a secret romance filled with secret midnight telephone calls. They talked about philosophy, religion, science fiction, politics…. She read him poetry and he read her passages out of Ray Bradbury novels.
She really loved his mind. He had an IQ of 165 and already had a job promised with IBM. They were both fifteen and still innocently idealistic. They met in the park behind the school for quick embraces and kisses laced with the milk they drank for lunch.
They took a chance and met at the local movie house to see Romeo and Juliet. They were seen by a neighbor who felt it was his duty to inform her father about the color of her friend’s skin. Of course, she was immediately put on restriction for life until she broke up with him which she refused to do even if she died.
This was the point when they (he) decided that Eldest Daughter needed to see a psychologist. What was the matter with her anyway? It was the world that was fucked up as far as she was concerned. It was a waste of money (theirs) and a waste of time (hers). The psychologist was always trying to get her to toe the line, straighten up, act right… All she wanted to do was stomp on the line, screw around, and make a run for it!
She was beginning to feel her own power. She used to sit in that psyc weasel’s office and make up the most outlandish tales. None of them was true. None of them was false. She was mad all of the time, but she couldn’t act on her anger. She was still bound by age to live with her parents.
His (their) drinking continued. Occasionally he would beat on her or slap her, and of course, she was still on restriction. Thorough restriction. In her room with no TV, no phone restriction. She did have a small old 1940’s AM radio, however. She would stay up late and listen to the two hour jazz program that would come on at midnight. That’s how she developed her love for jazz. She also had a very CLEAN room since she spent so much time there.
Sometimes she was kept from eating dinner with the family. Mother would bring her a small plate with a measured amount of food on it and a glass of skim milk. She would be allowed to use the bathroom and then back to her room. Youngest Little Brother would feel sorry for her ( He was only five) and bring her a dirty hand full of crushed cookies he had saved from his lunch.
She became desperately depressed and started taking large quantities of aspirin. Once she took a whole bottle hoping that somehow she would just go to sleep and not wake up. But all it did was make her sick with a terrible stomach ache all night. Another time…………..she felt so desperate that she actually tried slitting her wrists. It was a lame attempt and all she really did was make some little slash marks on her wrists with a dull razor. Her Father came in and saw what she was doing and said, “Oh, great.” and then walked out.
Shortly after that he came home drunk one night, learned that she had been sneaking out again and took his belt to her. He lashed her again and again. She ran away. He had her arrested as incorrigible. The sheriff told him, “If she stays in Juvy, she will learn more than you would want her to know. She’ll learn about drugs and scams and stealing AND prostitution. You better take her home and lighten up. She is almost eighteen after all.”
On her eighteenth birthday, her mother packed up all of her things: clothes, Beatle records, books, etc., put it all out on the front porch, and locked the door. She fought through many years of trying to balance work with college – no parental support. Cut off. The Favorite One got a new car, a full college ride, and a big deal wedding.
It isn’t surprising that after all the issues regarding dieting that she developed an eating disorder. Throughout her adult years, she still constantly fought the urge to over eat. She pretty much decided that the only way she would ever be able to get even with her mother for putting her through the alcoholic experience is to die before she does. (It doesn’t look like this will happen, as her mom lies in hospice at this moment).
The main question that still rings in her head is, “How can I love myself since I am such a terrible person?” Her father really was successful implanting her with self-deprecation and self-loathing. She tries to tell herself that she is a good girl and that everything he said about her was false. But he did say some good things too.
She loved talking with him about politics and show business. He told a family friend that she was actually his favorite child. She could always shine in public performance and she could really belt out a song. As a young adult she worked out like a demon, dieted, and lost weight, but even at her smallest Father said she still needed to lose twenty-five pounds.
She was determined that her two lovely children would not suffer the events of a dysfunctional family. She has a long term relationship with a wonderful man (an Eagle Scout) who has loved her unconditionally through all the weight and health trials. Her children are grown and successfully dealing with their own life issues and yet, sometimes she is still the unhappy thirteen year old child of an alcoholic locked in her room crying and hungry for something she cannot ever have…the approval of her father.
Her father (the alcoholic) is dead, her mother (the enabler) is still in denial, her sister (the favorite one) still doesn’t approve, the oldest younger brother (the clown) has turned into a politically conservative Christian Fundamentalist, and the other younger brother (the forgotten one) is still fighting addiction himself.
Even in death the alcoholic still controls the dynamics of this family. The Eldest Daughter (the scapegoat) still can’t feel comfortable at family gatherings. She has clung to her husband’s family at holiday times because they are so normal and loving.
Alcohol is the worst drug in the world. It affects the lives of all of us. You can see it in the statistics involving child abuse, spousal abuse, drug addiction, unexplained absences from work, reduced productivity on the job, Monday morning blues, low self-esteem, reduced expectations, increasing budgets for special education programs, homelessness, psychological problems….. the list goes on and on….
Superman is dead. Dad’s ashes sit in mother’s dining room in a yellow porcelain urn. Mom jokingly refers to him as “Old Yeller”. Her hurt is gone now and she only remembers the forty years of love they shared. Eldest Daughter’s life continues to be colored by the the constant desire to want to please her father and knowing that really no matter what she does, that costume won’t fit her… ever. She cries to herself, “In spite of all I really miss Superman.”
(First published November, 2012)
