The year was 1989. I was just a young lad, barely old enough to legally drink. Yet there I was, drinking with my father and my brother. We were in a ski house on Lake Tahoe (not too privileged) in the middle of Summer (not too not- privileged to be there in the off-season). It was a nice house. There was a pool table and poker table in the basement. And that's where we were drinking. It was after yet another family dinner filled with tension and agonizingly drawn-out conversation about how inadequate we were. The attendees at said dinner were my brother and his girlfriend, my father and his girlfriend, and me. Can you say awkward? I was the fifth wheel with zero chance of getting laid. Or was I? (more on that later). At dinners such as this one, Dad was famous for belittling my brother and I in front of our and his girlfriends. This time Dad had informed everyone of how selfish we were for not taking everyone's drink orders without being told to do so. Even though dinner was still a good half an hour away and WE were the ones cooking it on the grill while he and his "ladyfriend" chopped fucking lettuce in the kitchen, drank vodka and played Elton John way too loud. (SIDE NOTE: I can hear your sarcastic asses now "oooh what a monster your father was. He said you didn't take drink orders properly. Wow, what abuse." First of all, I'm not doing this to evoke sympathy. Just laughs. But still it was fucking annoying and verbally abusive when he did that shit. Just ask my therapist - whom, by the way, I made weep one day from a tale I will probably never share with you cynical dickweeds.) One other time at dinner, a drunken Dad, asked my brother's fiance "why would anyone want to marry him (my brother)?" Hmmm, nice question to ask of the girl who just said yes to marrying him. I wish she had fired back with something nasty, but she didn't. She attempted to give an honest, thought-out response, as if his question deserved one. I just sat there and played with the butter. Yes, I had to sit through that uneasy exchange. But by then I was used to horribly uncomfortable table talk. Anyhooooo, so back in Lake Tahoe, we had just finished a "meal of food", as Will Ferrall said in Old School, and then it was off to the basement for some good old-fashioned guy time while the ladies went to bed. Dad liked to get me and my brother alone after dinner and repeatedly hit us in the stomach with a souvenir miniature baseball bat - that we were given on bat day at Shea Stadium- until we threw up our food. Then he made us eat it again. God, it was so hard to eat while we choked on our tears. I'm KIDDING!! Ha-ha, isn't that funny? Don't worry, I have a feeling that what I'm about to tell you next will more than make up for any feelings of betrayal you feel about me lying about being mini-batted in the stomach. I guess, in a way, what happens next was a punch in the stomach. Just a verbal one. So anyway....we were down in the basement having a great time. We played pool and drank beer. We played Trivial Pursuit like any all-American family. And then we played Quarters, also like any all-American family. Much of this is on videotape. Maybe someday, I'll have the guts to post a clip or two. So my brother and I are pretty fucking good at Quarters because we've been playing it since we were like 13 and because we were so good at it, we managed to get Dad really, really fucked up. He was slurring his words. But what my brother and I heard him say next was perfectly fucking clear. He looked at me and said
"You know, Elizabeth* (his girlfriend and not her real name, by the way)
is upstairs." "Uh-huh," I replied. He continued,
"you can go up there and have her if you want." "Uh-huh," I replied emotionlessly.
"No seriously, we talked about it. You can fuck her." Now, let's pause here for a second and let me ask you question. Um, how exactly should a son reply to his father when posed with such proposition? I don't think Emily Post has a chapter on that in her guide to proper etiquette. And likewise, I didn't know what to say. I was disgusted then slightly turned on (she was a MILF) and then utterly disgusted at myself and my father and his girlfriend. I didn't know what to do. I was not raised to know what to do in a situation like that. Is anyone? I looked at my brother. I think he would've said something if his jaw weren't somewhere on the floor. I somehow, miraculously, managed to move beyond it and tried desperately to distract my father from this sick, twisted train of thought. I was really used to completely repressing anything uncomfortable, sad or reprehensible that my father or my mother and her
Asian cock-holding boyfriend did or said so I kept drinking. My brother and I told Dad to get his drunk ass up to bed and that we'd be up in a minute to bang him. Again, I'm kidding. But, sadly, only about that last sentence. The rest is unbelievably true. My brother and I often recount the story and we laugh. Once again, I find myself with no option left but to laugh. To confront the reality of it would make me curl up in a ball and slice my skin with razor blades coated in rubbing alcohol. My father is no longer with us. He died about ten years ago. I think he might get pissed off if he knew that I "published" this story. But part of me thinks he'd get a kick out of it too. He was a sick fuck. And because of that, so am I. He had a very fucked up sense of humor from living through a God-awful childhood of his own so maybe he'd understand why I wrote this and why I laugh about it. Then again, maybe he'd just say "You know, kiddo, the offer still stands."
