Pieces of a Childhood: 3. Hiding
The door bell woke me up. It rang several times. I heard Mother get up, turn the lights on and walk down the stairs. When she opened the door, somebody delivered him.
The day before, he had left home dressed up in his Sunday suit, white shirt and tie. He had bathed, shaved, manicured his hands and carefully combed his hair. The carpet factory, where he had been working as long as I could remember, had invited all their employees for a celebration.
From downstairs, I heard some loud moaning and heavy bumps that made the house shake. Like a scared rabbit hiding in its hole, I stayed in bed. My stomach tied up in knots when I heard Mother screaming, out of control.
* * *
Next morning, I couldn’t avoid him. He was lying on the wooden kitchen sofa, fast asleep, with his mouth wide open. His pants were dirty, his shirt ripped open, with several buttons missing. Sobbing, I hurried to school.
* * *
In the evening, after having slept all day, he showed up for dinner. He asked if he had scared us. I sat quiet, unable to translate my despair into words.
Then, he almost made a speech, “OK, that’s it,” he said. “No more of that stuff. Enough.” I glanced up, relieved and thankful that he had understood. Never again? We would become a normal family!?
* * *
A few weeks later, we went to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday and meet his family. A bit into the evening, I sat unseen, hiding in a corner, and watched as the men took out bottles and glasses.
This was the big moment when Father would smile confidently, shake his head and say, “No, thanks, guys. I promised my kids.”
But when a filled glass was handed him, he accepted it. Next moment, somebody screamed: “Cheers, everybody!” and they drank. Soon, I could hear his tongue slurring and his eyes turning foggy.
Nothing had changed.
* * *
But one thing did change. A subconscious and invisible intelligence gently pulled a semi-transparent screen between the physical, outer world and my awareness of it. Like a protective shock-absorber.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleThis is a piece of writing that shows an important reason for why I developed a lot of shame and fear during my childhood. Partly, it was my father’s behavior, and partly my mother’s way of handling it, that was the reason. My mother would generously reveal realistic and nasty details to me and my twin brother, from age 7 and up, about what our father had said and done while being… Read more »
Christer, your last paragraph was really dramatic or should I say traumatic. How sad that a youngster had to protect himself behind a “shock absorber’ because of an alcoholic father! Your story reminded me of the drinking father in Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”. Disgusting how the miner father’s alcohol drinking spoilt his family’s well-being!
I remember that D H Lawrence wrote about his background in the coal mining district, and even recall a sentence (from Sons and Lovers?) where he says about his father, “He had forgotten God inside himself.” An incredibly powerful statement, and now, many years after reading it and seeing your comment, I would like to return to Lawrence. Of course, the “shock absorber” wasn’t something that was consciously chosen by me to… Read more »
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleI’m happy to say that your experience was far removed from mine. My father was a devout church man, an Elder of the Kirk who neither drank, smoked nor gambled, never laid a hand on mother (in fact, if they had arguments, and they must have, they were settled out of sight and sound of my two sisters and me). Only smacked me once, and did I ever deserve it! Thinking of… Read more »
If you look at my own comment to the first one of these four stories, Allan, you’ll see that I have been working with my memoirs during the last year. And it has been quite a journey. I have been able to see now, for the first time in my life, the connections and effects of my childhood and of my parents’ problems and characters. The closing paragraph is a way to… Read more »
Oh, dear. I fell into the .Brexit Trap. Everyone must read and speak English and the universe revolves around England! Maybe I can find a nice Swedish lady who can translate for me!
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleOh, Christer. This one is traumatic. I am lucky to not experience this in my childhood, although my father is also an alcoholic drinker, but he never treated us bad. He loved us (his family) unconditionally.
You are lucky, Lotchie, to have a father who always treated you well and made you feel loved and cared for. Many people aren’t in that situation. Here in Colombia, I see a lot of fathers who abandon their families and then refuse to help their ex-partners financially. For those children, it must be traumatic to see their father leave without looking back.
Yes. I am very blessed and lucky to have him but God took his life so early. He died on September 15, 2016 at the age of 51. And that was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. My world almost collapsed and I felt like I didn’t want to live in those times anymore.
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