Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  When my dad and I got back to the cabin, Charlie and I loaded our bikes on our Jeep and took Seth and Max biking in Boulder Junction. We rode to Cathedral Point, a gorgeous secluded lake spot, and ate a picnic lunch there. We waded into the water, and Seth and I decided to swim. Seth, Max, and I were wearing quick-dry shorts. Charlie was wearing heavy cotton ones.

  “Take them off and swim in your boxers,” I told Charlie.

  Charlie, for whatever reason, was in one of his pissy moods. He shook his head, and I turned away from his crabby face. Max was agitated, too. Seth was riding a brand new bike that was twice the size of Max’s, and Max was pedaling twice as hard as the rest of us to keep up. Max said he didn’t want to swim either.

  “Come on Max,” I said. “A swim will feel good. Go into the woods, take your underwear off, put your shorts back on, and come in. You’ll be all nice and cool during the ride back. It’s not going to be fun sitting here like a bump on a log with Dad watching Seth and me.”

  “I’m going to swim in my underwear,” Seth said, peeling off his shorts and wading in.

  Max shook his head at Seth and reluctantly walked into the woods to change out of his underwear. I walked to a different spot in the woods, took off my underwear, put my shorts back on, removed my shirt, and walked out in my shorts and bra.

  “Mom!” Max shouted. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  “What? Pretend it’s a bathing suit top.”

  The water felt great. Charlie sat on the bank fidgeting irritably. I continued to ignore him. Fuck him. On the ride back, the boys and I were cool and refreshed, and Charlie was sweaty and grimy.

  We got back to the cabin, showered up for dinner, and hopped into my dad’s Suburban. We drove to the Norwood Pines restaurant, but there was an hour wait for a table.

  “You got all these tables here,” my father said to the hostess and gestured at a closed dining room. “Can’t you open this up?”

  “We can’t do that to our waitstaff or our kitchen,” the hostess answered. “We don’t have enough people tonight.”

  “Well, we’re not waiting an hour,” my dad snapped. He was already lit.

  “Would you like a menu to take with?” the hostess asked. “You could call for a reservation next time.”

  My father waved his hand at her in disgust and stalked out the door. My mother took the menu.

  “Whoever heard of a reservation on a Tuesday night?” my father growled. “If they know they’re going to be busy, plan for it. No reason they couldn’t open a fucking table for us.”

  We had dinner at The Plantation instead. Charlie paid the check and we piled back into my dad’s Suburban. Charlie, Van, and I climbed into the back seat, and my dad opened the hatch for Max and Seth to hop in the cargo area. My dad drove off. We were on the road two minutes when police lights began flashing. My father, who’d had many cocktails, began yelling for someone to give him a piece of gum. My mother had given Charlie a stick of gum at the restaurant and was frantically digging through her purse trying to find another piece.

  “Fuck!” my dad shouted. “Give me the piece in your mouth Charlie.” Charlie spit his gum out and handed it to my dad. My father popped it in his mouth and got out of the car. “What did I do?” he asked the officer, who was standing next to the Suburban.

  “I need to see your license, your vehicle registration, your proof of insurance,” the officer said.

  My father stalked around the front of the Suburban, opened the passenger side door, and started rifling through the glove compartment. After handing the documents to the officer, my father and the cop exchanged some testy words I couldn’t make out and the officer told my dad to get back in the car.

  “Fucking asshole,” my father ranted from the driver’s seat. “Said I improperly entered the highway, that I pulled out right in front of him. He’s giving me a warning for that and writing me up for the kids in back. Cocksucker! The cocksucker was laying for me. Son of a bitch. Fucking asshole. ‘How many drinks have you had tonight?’ my dad mimicked. I’d tell him where to fucking go if I didn’t have drinks in me.”

  “So you could go to jail, spend the night in jail?” my mother asked sarcastically.

  “That’s right,” my father spat. “Because I’m in the right here and I’d tell him where to stick it.”

  “Jerry, calm down,” Charlie said. “You’re going to make this worse. You just don’t say anything. When a policeman gives you a ticket, you say thank you and drive away.”

  “Shut up,” I hissed at Charlie.

  “Thank you!?” my father shouted. “I’m going to say thank you to that cocksucker? I don’t fucking believe it.”

  “You don’t say thank you,” I snapped. I looked at Charlie like he was a moron. “But don’t get upset. Don’t let the cop have that kind of power over you.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “What the hell is taking that asshole so long?” my dad asked. “He’s just fucking with me now. I’d like to fuck with him.”

  The cop was sitting in his vehicle parked behind us. The windows of the Suburban were all open.

  “Somebody else better get in the back because I can’t leave here with minors in the cargo area,” my father growled.

  “It’s okay if adults are back there?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he snapped.

  Charlie and I traded places with Max and Seth. The cop walked up to my dad’s window and gave him the ticket and we drove off.

  “Cocksucker,” my dad muttered.

  [Wednesday, July 30]

  Things got ugly today, just like I knew they would. My family and I have been coming up here every summer for years, and my father always has a meltdown. As the days tick by, my father dwells on instances when he wasn’t thanked sufficiently, tallies up the money he’s spent, figures out how many meals or drinks he should have been treated to. He comes up with ways his ass should have been kissed but wasn’t.

  Tonight, my dad started picking on the kids. He yelled at them for monopolizing the TV, not picking up enough, not spending enough time fishing, wasting food. He had begun the day, like every other, with Bloody Marys after breakfast. He’d moved on to beer by lunch, and by early afternoon he was pouring manhattans. By dinner, my dad was tanked and cranky. We were having dinner at The Ribber, the lake restaurant my dad and I had checked out yesterday morning. We all hopped in his boat, put our name on the waiting list, and ordered drinks on the patio. Max and Seth ordered kiddie cocktails.

  “I hope our drinks come with umbrellas,” Seth said.

  “Why? Are you a girl?” my dad sneered and made a limp-wristed gesture. “Only girls want to play with umbrellas in their drinks.”

  A few minutes later, Seth pulled out a stack of business cards he’d collected from the places we’d been.

  “What do you want with those?” my dad asked nastily. “You want business cards? Here, take these.” My father fished three cards out of his wallet, his fishing charter business cards, and said, “You can give these to your father. Tell him this is the guy who took you tubing, shooting at the rifle range, put you up in Minocqua for a week.”

  The hostess sat us at a table twenty minutes later. I ordered Van chicken fingers and asked the waitress to bring them before the rest of our meal. Fifteen minutes passed. Our waitress delivered a basket of rolls and left. Fifteen more minutes passed. The waitress brought our soups and salads but no chicken fingers. Finally, the waitress delivered Van’s meal, and almost twenty minutes later, the rest of us got our dinner.

  Max and Seth were bouncing off the walls. While we were waiting, Seth and Max had pulled up the hoods of their jackets, yanked the strings tight, poked their noses out of the tiny hood openings, and dangled spoons from their noses. When their ribs came, they yanked their hoods off and ripped into their food. Van, however, barely nibbled at the chicken because he’d eaten loads of rolls before his food arrived.

  “I don’t know why you order him food,” my father s
napped at me. “You know he’s not going to eat anything.”

  “He stuffed himself with rolls and crackers because it took forever for his food to get here,” I snapped back.

  My dad scanned the table with a nasty look on his face. He was mentally tabulating what the meal was going to cost him. Charlie and I had bought dinner last night, but I could see my dad was feeling entitled to another meal. Fuck him. Charlie looked at me when the bill came and I shook my head.

  We hopped into my dad’s boat and drove back to the cabin. I put Van to bed and Max popped Psycho into the VCR. We’d started watching Psycho a couple of nights ago, but Seth had fallen asleep before the shower scene so Max rewound the tape to the infamous whacking.

  “It’s always the kids, everything’s for the kids,” my dad bitched. “What about me? What about what I want to watch?”

  “What do you want to watch?” I asked him.

  “Not this.”

  We watched the shower scene.

  “That wasn’t scary,” Seth said. “I wasn’t scared at all.”

  “These kids, all the shit they see and this is nothing!” my dad howled. He wagged his head disgustedly and drained his manhattan. He got up to get another drink. I let the kids finish watching Psycho and told them to go to bed. My dad put on David Letterman. Just then, my geriatric German shepherd, Sturgis, farted.

  “Hey Mom, when did the dogs go out last?” I asked.

  “Now your mother’s supposed to take care of your dog?” my dad growled. “She’s supposed to let your dog out? That’s her job?”

  My parents have a Labrador retriever, and we all let the dogs in and out of the cabin constantly.

  “What are you talking about? I just want to know …” I started.

  “You don’t even know when he’s been out last,” my dad spat. “Your mother’s been picking up his shit, too. Yeah. That’s her job. Let her do it.”

  My mother started to say something and my father cut her off. “You know it’s true. You’re the fucking maid.”

  My mother attempted to speak again and my father shouted over her.

  I looked at my mother. “Don’t get sucked into this. He’s drunk. It’s pointless.” I got up and went upstairs. Charlie had fled when the boys went to bed. I put on my pajamas and sat on the loft couch attempting to read. My parents were sitting in the living room below still watching Letterman. I could see them out of the corner of my eye through the pine log railing.

  “What the hell’s wrong with her?” my father muttered to my mother. “Can’t take a little criticism? She brings Max’s friend along, and I’m supposed to feed him, take care of him for a week? What kind of shit is that? The gas money I burned dragging him around the lake, what the fuck?!”

  I wanted to chop my father’s head off his stubby neck. I took some deep breaths and told myself, “Detach, detach, don’t get sucked in.” During my dad’s meltdown last year, he and I had a screaming match. I attempted to remain calm this time but in the end I got up off the couch, grabbed my purse, scribbled my father a check for $200, and penned a note that said, “Dad, even though we bought most of the groceries, this check should cover any food or boat expenses. Thanks for being a gracious host.” I marched downstairs. The door to the downstairs bathroom was open, and my father was in there brushing his teeth. I walked in, slapped the check and the note down on the sink, and stalked back upstairs.

  “Would you look at this,” my dad screamed at my mother. “What the hell is wrong with her?” I entered the upstairs bathroom and slammed the door shut. I began washing up but could still hear my dad screaming over the running water. “I’m gonna wipe my ass with this check and give it back to her,” he bellowed.

  I looked in the mirror. My adrenaline was pumping. The bathroom seesawed as my heartbeat banged in my head. I heard my mother tell my father to calm down, go to bed, everything would be better in the morning. Their bedroom door slammed shut. I could hear my dad bitching behind it. I went to bed and lay rigged for at least an hour before falling asleep.

  [Thursday, July 31]

  I woke up and made my way to the bathroom. I could see my father sitting on the living room couch downstairs. That was unusual. My father hops on his boat and goes fishing at the crack of dawn every morning. But there he was. The boys got up and went downstairs.

  “We’re going to Paul Bunyan’s for breakfast,” I called to the boys over the railing.

  “Yea!” Max yelled.

  “Paul Bunyan’s!” Seth shouted.

  The kids love the log cabin all-you-can-eat restaurant. My father hates it.

  “Woo hoo!” Max shouted.

  The boys ran upstairs to get dressed. I wanted nothing to do with my father. My plan was to avoid him and leave tomorrow morning. I was making my bed and my mother walked in.

  “Your father feels really bad about last night,” she said. “Here.” She handed me my check. She’d voided it. “You know what he’s like. He says stupid things when he’s had too much to drink. Then he’s sorry. I was so mad at him last night I wouldn’t touch him or talk to him when we got into bed.”

  “Charlie and I have bought almost every grocery in this place,” I said.

  “I know. He knows it, too. But you know how he is. Otherwise he’s a very generous person.”

  “He’s not a generous person,” I said. “He wants people to think he is but he’s not. Whenever he helps someone out, he reminds them of it and mentions it in front of other people. He ‘helps’ people to make himself look like a big shot.”

  “I don’t think he had a very happy childhood,” my mother said.

  “Well neither did I,” I snapped. “We spent plenty of Christmas Eves waiting for him to show up, and he’d show up drunk. Then you’d cry.”

  “I know,” my mother said grimly.

  “Like I’ve said before, I wouldn’t come up here if it weren’t for the kids. Max loves it here. He loves shooting, fishing, boating, spending time with you two. These ugly episodes with Dad, I’ve been sucking them up because I know you guys aren’t going to be around forever and I want the kids to build memories of you.”

  “I know,” my mother said. “When it’s just me and him up here, there are times I hate being here, too.”

  “This is going to sound terrible,” I said, “but I’m glad he’s dying first. I love him. I don’t want him to die. But I think you’re going to enjoy life without his nastiness.”

  My mother nodded.

  “He wants to go to Paul Bunyan’s,” my mother said. “It’s his way of making it up to you.”

  “I don’t want him to go,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “I’ll tell him he can’t go.”

  “No, don’t do that,” I said. “That’ll just make me feel like a shit.”

  I hurried the kids along, got them in the Jeep, and Charlie and I took off. My parents followed behind in their Suburban. We pulled into the parking lot and my father found a parking spot by the front door. By the time we parked and got all the kids out of the Jeep, my parents had gone into the restaurant and were standing in line to prepay. I jogged into the building. Two old ladies were working the cash registers and I squeezed in line behind my father and shoved money at the second old lady. She looked at me funny and glanced at the woman in line behind me. The woman behind me shot me a dirty look.

  “Oh, I’m with him,” I said pointing at my father. “I just don’t want him to pay.” The second old lady took my money. My dad tried to give the first old lady his credit card and I told her, “Don’t take his money. I already paid.” My father glanced at me, shook his head, and put his credit card away.

  We were shown to a big log picnic table. My father sat at one end of the table and I sat at the other. Everyone chatted happily, wolfing down donuts, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon; everyone except my father and me. Neither of us ate or said much and we left the restaurant without having spoken to each other.

  Charlie and the boys and I piled into the Jeep and d
rove to the town of Eagle River, where we went rafting down the Wisconsin River. Van sat between Charlie and me in the back of the inflatable raft, and Max and Seth sat up front on the sides, occasionally dipping an oar in. We bounced over rocks and warm water sprayed us. Max and Seth laughed as we bumped along and caught air. At times they nearly flew over the sides into the hip-high river. Eventually, we hit a huge rock and Max went flying into the water. He stood up, completely soaked. We all laughed, except for Max.

  “Really funny,” he said. “I could have been killed and you’re all laughing.”

  “I’m going in, too,” Seth said and jumped over the side.

  The boys splashed each other and giggled.

  “Come on you guys, get back in the raft,” Charlie shouted.

  Max and Seth climbed in, but every time we hit a rock they flew overboard.

  “Enough you guys,” I said after about the tenth time. “I think there are leeches in the river. You might want to start checking yourselves. Be sure to check down in your pants. That’s where they like to go.” That put an end to their flying off the raft.

  We stopped for lunch and went go-carting. I was trying hard to think of more things to do to avoid going back to the cabin, but I was out of ideas.

  We arrived at the cabin around dinnertime and I started making a meal for Van. My dad walked into the kitchen and started making himself a manhattan.

  “You know, I can be a real asshole,” he said.

  I nodded and walked out of the kitchen with Van’s dinner. Van was sitting on the living room couch watching cartoons, and I set his plate on the coffee table. I walked back into the kitchen, and my father hugged me.

  “You know I love you,” he said tearing up.

  “I love you, too,” I said. “Even though you can be a fucking asshole.”

  My father and I laughed, and everything was back to normal.

  [Saturday, August 2]

  We drove home from Minocqua yesterday, and today I chaired my first meeting. I reluctantly volunteered to chair this meeting for a month because no one else stepped up to do it. I sat behind a big table at the head of the room and watched as women filed in. One minute before four, I nervously wondered if I should wait for the chitchat to trail off, or if I should shout and call the meeting to order. Most of the women have been coming to this meeting a lot longer than me. I hoped they’d notice it was time to start and quiet down, but a minute later, I was yelling and calling it to order. After following a prewritten format, I announced Anita, the lead speaker.