Friday Flash Fiction: Never Heard the Word Impossible

Here is my contribution to this week's Flash Fiction Friday

Throughout my teenage years, I recall trying to fall asleep despite hearing the inane singing of, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated!" This chant indicated it was 10:30, the news was over, and my father, assuming Todd and I were sleeping, was getting "tight." "Pater," as he insisted upon being called, diverged from his public life of suits and ties in those evenings, eventually transforming himself from a respectable business owner in the community to a blathering idiot by the end of each and every night.

From the moment the local news started, Todd and I knew we were to go on to our rooms without question. Our mother had died just before this all began, so we had to face the harsh reality that goodnight kisses, hugs, and apologies by Pater (by proxy-- my mother) were a thing of the past. There were no more apologies. There was no more warmth. There were only his ever-shortening outbursts of artificial joviality followed by his ever-lengthening periods of remorse.

Once, I made the mistake of going to Pater in the night when I was scared and sad, missing my mother, and he told me it was high time I stopped being such a pest. He told me that my emotionality was a weakness that I'd best gain control over, lest I find myself working at a brewery for the rest of my life. At first, this confused me, his comparing my issues to the seemingly frivolous antics Laverne and Shirley embarked upon night after night. Such comparisons became more and more commonplace, though, until, eventually, he started calling me "Shirley" about halfway through each episode. I'd always fancied myself more the "Laverne type," but that had nothing to do with my disdain for this act. Rather, it was the abuse he found it acceptable to heap upon "Shirley."

"Shirley, where's my supper?" Pater would holler, though I had just made dinner three hours earlier, when he was nursing his first scotch on "the rocks" or, as the more normal I knew called it, "ice." He was past eating dinner in those days. He became thinner and thinner until all of his nice work suits started to look as though he were a boy dressing up in a grownup's suit in order to fool people as to his identity. Thankfully, I was able to begin buying tv dinners on my weekly trips to the grocery store, which were just one of the adult responsibilities that were one by one left to Todd and me to manage.

Had Pater been watching "All in the Family" or something, I might have expected his behavior, but seeing him treat Shirley with such animosity was, indeed, baffling. "Shirley, you whore, go wash my work clothes!" "Shirley, clean up this mess, right now!" Shirley, do this; Shirley do that, was all he seemed to say anymore. It became apparent to me that he was suffering from blackouts each night, as any mention of the evenings' events were met with blank stares and winces.

Eventually, "Shirley, come suck my cock!" woke me up one night. I had previously learned that appeasing my father was the path of least resistance. What had begun to really compromise my ability to sleep had been trying to reason with him, to say, "No," to his ridiculous demands, but this one I had not seen coming. I ran into Todd's room, and he was able to convince my father, by playing along with his inebriation that "Shirley" wasn't home, that she was at work at the brewery. That night I slept in Todd's room until well past the last sitcom, "One Day at a Time." Pater would surely be asleep, I thought.

As I tiptoed into my room, I heard him sobbing in his sleep, or passed out state, whichever it would more properly be called. I went and put a blanket on my father, and returned to my own room where I laid awake for at least an hour before I fell into a fitful sleep with crazy dreams. When I awoke, I found my suitcase pulled down out of my closet, open, and filled with oranges.

I'd like to say stranger things had happened, but my life was pretty predictable. I woke, made lunches, went to school, hung out with friends as long as I possibly could before I had to get home to make dinner. I went to the grocery store on weekends, babysat for the Thompsons all day on Sundays, and started it all over again on Mondays. There was no need for suitcases, and those oranges were not to be wasted.

The next night Pater left me alone, but I awoke to find my suitcase back on the floor, this time filled with 10 rolls of toilet paper. Damn, that Sam's Club membership. Each day for the next week, I felt more and more scared that Pater's interest in sex might resurface, and that in a drunken state, my being the only female in his life might become very dangerous for me. Though he left me alone that week, each morning I awoke to find my suitcase out with some strange new household object occupying it. Soap, the contents of my underwear drawer, a stack of newspapers. After five more nights of this, I awoke one day, on the floor, lying next to my suitcase.

My mother had told me that I had slept walked twice when I was younger, and that both times she found me eating the dog's food, but the extent of this seemed to be much more severe. Todd was about to graduate at the time, and would be going off to college in the fall, but I still had two more years of high school. I sat there on the floor of my room, crying, and knew what I had to do. I had to leave. In those moments, I made a decision to propel my life on a path perpendicular to its seemingly natural trajectory. I collected the money I had earned babysitting that I had been saving for college, said goodbye to my wonderful brother, and left while Pater was at work. I never came back.

(In lieu of a started sentence, we were to use these four words: schlemiel, pater, pest, and perpendicular.)