When I got caught drinking at school, I thought my dad would rush home early from work, furious, demanding an explanation. I thought he would care. But then I remembered, this was my dad I was talking about.
And that wasn't even all of it. Because things had been different, these past few months. And they would never be the same.
Thinking about that, made me think about my mom, and my sister. And that made me realize the buzz was wearing off, and I needed another drink.
It was seven minutes past noon, and I was sitting in the back of a cop car. I was leaning with the side of my head pressed against the black bars in front of the window, watching the scenery pass by. Suburban houses with big leafy trees in the backyards and chain-link fences along the front. Every house looking much like another, just a giant, sprawling masquerade of normalcy. Occasionally, I reached for the flask in my pocket during the ride. Kept forgetting it was confiscated.
I'd gone along with it when they told me to take the breathalyzer test. I thought calling the police was a bit over-the-top, even for school faculty, but at the same time, I just couldn't bring myself to care. I'm not even sure they cared. There were no speeches. No one tried to give me 'the talk'. They just walked me through each set of procedures, all the while doing their very best to avoid looking me in the eye. Misbehaving meant being suspended, which meant more time to do the things I was already doing, away from school. What was the point in that?
It was kind of disappointing, actually. I didn't care anymore, and the last real authorities in my life didn't seem to care much, either. And where did that leave me? Wasn't my life supposed to be a steep drop-off from here? From apathy, to poverty, to crime, imprisonment, and, I dunno, crack addiction—something like that? That was what society said, anyway.
Me, I just wanted to go home. I just wanted another drink.
My house was on the other side of the suburb, at the top of a secluded hill. An upper-middle-class house cloistered among dozens of other upper-middle-class houses. There was a steep downhill slope on the other side of the house, just beyond the fence bordering the backyard, affording a sweeping view of the suburb below.
The cop car slowed, easing to a stop in front of the place. I picked up my bag and waited for the door to unlock. Staticky exchanges fizzed and sparked from the police radio up front. The cop, a middle-aged guy with a mustache, a flat-top haircut, and a big gut, eased around to look at me over his shoulder, making the leather seat crinkle and crease, sounding like a fart. He wore sunglasses with polarized lenses, and I could see my reflection in them. A sixteen-year-old kid with dark, messy hair, in a flannel shirt and jeans. My eyes were near bloodshot, and there were dark circles under them.
"Looks like your dad's not home."
He was right. The carport was empty. Which didn't surprise me.
"It's okay," I said. "I have a key."
I looped one of my bag's straps over my shoulder, ready to debark the vessel. But the door was still locked.
"Listen," the cop said. "You're probably not looking to have a conversation with someone like me about this. But there's something I think you should hear."
I gazed out the window, let out a slow, steady breath. "I'm not hurting anyone."
"No," he admitted. "Not yet. Not today. But at some point..." He broke off, and I could almost hear the gears in his head turning, like he had some piece of aged wisdom to share, but he was trying to phrase it so I wouldn’t reject it outright. It was his obligation to bestow a kernel of insight, maybe make the world just a bit better down the line. Doing his duty as a good ol' boy in blue.
"Is that it?" I said. "Can I get out of the car now?"
That earned a raised eyebrow. "Maybe that's part of your problem. You could have been charged, today. You could be in jail right now. You should have some respect for people who are just trying to help you."
"You wouldn't know where to start," I said. Nobody did. They didn't even actually want to help me. They just wanted the behavior to stop. They wanted me to fall in line, like everyone else. I'd learned that a long time ago. "Open the door."
The cop sighed. Turned back around in his seat, fabric scraping leather again, making another fart. "Have a nice life, kid. Only, in my experience, this won't be the last time I see you."
That made me grit my teeth, but I had no interest in getting roped into a longer talk on the subject. Just let me out.
The door unlocked with a loud chunk. In a microsecond, I had the door open. I shut it behind me.
I was tired. Lightheaded. Frustrated. And thirsty for another drink.
Though I didn't turn around, I felt bits of gravel bouncing off the legs of my jeans, spat by the wheels of the cop car as it made a quick reverse, down the driveway and back onto the street.
Good riddance, I guess.
It was a moderately pleasant day in September. Only a few clouds, and none of them dark or dreary. A little cold, but I liked the cold.
I made dizzy, loping steps across the crisp front lawn, still wet from the automatic sprinklers. The alcohol was wearing off, and I could feel a headache coming on. I bent and reached down behind one of the elderberry bushes in front of the house. Nestled in the leaves, clipped to one of the thicker branches, was a key lock box. I stood there, hunched over, blinking and thinking, until I remembered the code. I keyed it in, and there was a snap as the box came open. I reached out to catch the house key as it fell out, but it bounced off my index finger. Next thing I knew, I was down on my hands and knees, fumbling around in the dirt and gravel. Luckily, the sun was still high, and I managed to catch the light glinting on the chrome coating of the key. I snatched it between my index finger and thumb. I left the lock box lying next to the bush.
My front door had a window set into it with hazy, textured glass. I used to see a shadow flicker there in the crystal every time I came home, because my mom would hear me coming up the front step, and she'd be waiting in the entryway for me.
Of course, there was no one there now. It was just a dark, empty hallway.
I flicked the light switch, and the boob lamp—according to my dad, it was actually called a 'flush mount dome light’—glowed with dusty yellow light on the high ceiling.
There was a wooden entry table to one side of the hallway. There used to be family pictures arranged on and above it, hanging on the wall, but at some point, my dad swept them all up into a bag and took them away. I didn't know where they were. Not that I didn't have access to digital copies of the photos, but there was something so sad and empty about the table now. Hollow. Kind of like the rest of the house.
On the opposite side of the hallway was the tall staircase leading up to the second level, toward the bedrooms.
I wasn’t ready to head up there just yet, today. Physically or mentally.
I set the key down on the entry table. It made a tapping sound on the hard surface, echoing in the hall. Everything echoed here in this sterile, quiet place. The thud of my backpack as I sloughed it off and dropped at the foot of the stairs. The squeak of my shoes on the shiny hardwood floor as I walked down the hall.
It was clean, at least. The entire house was. All except for one of the two bedrooms upstairs, as well as the master bedroom. The maids who came in every Wednesday were explicitly instructed to stay out of those rooms.
Dad slept on the couch in the living room. There was an indent roughly shaped like his body in the couch cushions, getting deeper all the time, less comfortable to sit on. Sometimes when I couldn't sleep, I'd come downstairs, and I'd find Dad on his side on the couch—sometimes asleep, sometimes not—with the glow of the TV illuminating his arms and face. He slept in his work clothes, curled up, shoulders hunched, slowly being absorbed by the couch. He only went into his room when he had to, and usually only for brief moments at a time.
This was how things were now. That was how I looked at it. The 'now', and...the 'before'. If you pried my life apart into two sections, that's what you would have. The now, as things were, and the before, as in...before everything changed.
At the moment, of course, the living room was empty. I turned on the TV, set it to YouTube, and let something random play. I just needed some background noise, for now. It felt normal to have voices in the house.
I opened the door to the pantry. Dad liked to keep a stock of gins, vodkas, and whiskeys, as well as various bottles of cocktail mixes. I didn't see him drinking often, but he must have been, because I could see the levels dropping in the bottles, even during the times I left them alone, and he was always prompt in restocking when they ran out.
He had to know I was drinking consistently, and that this was where I was getting it. He couldn't be that oblivious, could he?
I used to experience a certain relief at the idea he wasn't going to confront me, that he didn't care. But then, as I'd felt with the school faculty, there was this creeping sense of disappointment, too. As if I'd been waiting for some kind of real intervention for some time, now. Intervention with a capital 'I'. A room full of worried friends, and even some extended family members who'd flown in from out of state, giving speeches, voicing their concerns. In a situation like that, in a room full of worried faces, maybe I'd finally have a chance to explain myself. Maybe then, statistically, somebody—anybody—would hear me, and I wouldn't be the only one with these thoughts in my head. It would be a relief. Like a pressure release valve.
It was just a fantasy, anyway. And a naïve one. Besides, I wasn't doing this as a way to act out or get attention. I was doing it because I didn't know what else to do.
I grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label. Just because my father was fairly well off didn't mean he splurged on the fancy stuff. He hadn't been much of a drinker, even...
(before)
He'd just liked to mix drinks for people during get-togethers. Special occasions. And those events had usually been organized by Mom, even when they invited over Dad's colleagues from work now and then, to celebrate his team's successes over the years.
Most people would never hear about my dad and the work he did. But his name—the esteemed Dr. Michael Wallace Turner—did crop up in the newspapers and on TV every once in a while, usually when he came upon some bio-technical discovery the media decided was sexy enough to print.
The thing is, it's never as sexy and exciting as you think it is. I remembered my dad sitting on that same couch, reacting to some story on TV, claiming his team had developed technology that could replace parts of the human brain, shaking his head, muttering, "It doesn't quite work like that."
Well, then how is it supposed to work? What's the point!?
But you could never get a straight answer with Michael Wallace Turner.
It got tiring, people telling me how brilliant my dad was, and having to nod along, even though I couldn't explain why, even though I never understood any of it.
I think he tried to dumb it down for me a couple of times. But he had a tendency to lose interest during conversations like that, and trailing off. Frankly, I think he just didn't have a knack for communicating in that way. But he also just didn't like talking about work with me. He liked it when we played board games or watched movies, or put together puzzles while listening to Frank Herbert's Dune, or Asimov's Foundation.
He didn't like it when the focus was on himself. It made him all...flustered.
Sure, I found it annoying. But I'd give anything to be annoyed, again. Instead of...well. Alone.
I grabbed a short, stout glass out of the cupboard and used it to shovel up some chips of ice from the ice rack in the freezer. Whiskey wasn't so bad on the rocks. I'd gotten used to the smokey taste of it. It helped to disguise the smell and flavor of alcohol by mixing it. Preferably with something inconspicuous, like coke, in one of those paper soda fountain cups, or a personal water bottle. But with so much free time alone at the house, there wasn’t much need.
Besides, I almost relished the idea of Dad catching me in the act, this time. He’d walk in the door, home early from work, and he’d find me lounging on the couch with a drink in my hand, and he would be frustrated, and upset, and then maybe we would finally hash it out. Hash everything out. It would be scary, but at least it wouldn’t be…this. This quiet, terrible, hollow feeling. When I was drinking, I could push it away, ignore it. For a while. But it always came back.
I zoned out for a while, sipping scotch whiskey and letting YouTube play. When I checked the clock on the hutch in the corner, it read fifteen past one.
How long did it take Michael Wallace Turner to commute home from work? I wasn’t sure. He’d been working late almost every day for months now, working on some new development contract.
Apparently, he was in high demand. Which was weird to me. If he was such a big shot, why were we living here? And why was he driving an old Toyota?
I knew the school had contacted his office. I was there, in the principal's office, when they placed the call. And yet, my phone hadn't dinged with any text or call notifications. I waited, expecting to hear the crunch of Dad's Toyota RAV4 in the gravel driveway. Instead of just the ASMR video on the TV, and the ice chips clinking around in the glass.
I checked my phone for any messages again, and saw none. I took another pull of whiskey, set down the glass, and sat back. I was starting to feel tired. And...numb. I was actually starting to relax. My eyelids sagged and fell.
I dreamed. It was both wonderful and terrible.
Me, my dad, my mom, and my little sister, Gemma, at some kind of beach. I was cross-legged on the sand, my earbuds in, listening to a book while I put together a sand castle. Dad was under an umbrella, reading a mass market paperback, the kind you come across at the airport. Meanwhile, both Mom and Gemma were in the water, splashing, swimming, playing. They waved to me, trying to usher me into the water with them. I smiled and shook my head, absorbed in the castle building.
I couldn't place the book I was listening to, or even what kind of book it was. Maybe that was when some part of me figured out it was a dream. Because the more I focused on the words, the more I realized there was no order or meaning to it. It was nonsense. It was nothing.
"The in or as with and, top give was said, he...carves with ant sword, if-"
Sometimes, the words would almost start to make sense, leaning towards some kind of structure, before falling apart again.
Frowning, I wiped the sand from my palms and reached into the pocket of my swim shorts. I pulled out my phone to check the app, see if the audio was skipping. Maybe the file was corrupted.
Unfortunately, the phone screen was black. Blank. The audio kept playing, but the phone was unresponsive.
Great. Busted.
I looked up, pulling the wireless buds out of my ears. "My phone's bust-"
Mom and Gemma. They were gone.
I stood, holding up one hand as a visor, squinting against the sunlight refracting off of the waves. The tide was low. When they'd waved to me, the water had only been up to their shins. It was hard to stay beneath the waves, in water like that. To disappear. So where...
I was starting to panic. Something was off.
"Dad," I said, without turning around. I was afraid to take my eyes off the water in case I spotted something. But it didn't make sense to think they'd been carried off by the tide. The waves were so gentle. Unassuming.
I waited. And waited. Anxious.
"Dad!"
No answer.
I spun around. "DAD!"
He was still sitting under the sunbrella, reading his stupid book. He looked completely absorbed. His eyes flicked back and forth. He flipped a page. And another.
I ran toward him. "Dad, something's wrong! Something's- Dad, look at me!"
Michael Wallace Turner flipped yet another page, never averting his eyes from the text.
I was fuming now. Exasperated. Terrified.
I grabbed the book, wrenched it out of his hands—for a split second I could see the words on the pages moving as if alive, scrolling left to right like code on a computer—and tossed it.
Now I had his attention. All of it. But his eyes were wide. Too wide. His face twisted into a snarl. He grit his teeth, his mouth taking on uncanny dimensions as his jaw fell, pulling away, unhinging like that of a snake-
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"Silas."
My eyes snapped open. I was back at the house, lying back on the couch. I was breathing hard, chest inflating and deflating like a balloon. A film of cold sweat clung to my cheeks and forehead. Cool blue dusklight shone in through the windows, giving the walls and furniture an eerie, silhouetted cast. The sun's farewell kiss before the night took over.
A dream. A nightmare.
A psychiatrist would have a field day with it. Not just in the ways the dream echoed what had happened, but in the ways it was different. Regardless, the experience had awakened all that dormant stress and trauma, unleashing it into the forefront of my consciousness. It would take more alcohol to put it back to sleep again. But I had other immediate concerns, as well.
Someone was in the room with me. Standing awkwardly, facing the couch. I could see the outline of his windbreaker and the silvery sheen of the metal rims of his glasses.
"Silas." Stern, this time.
So he was upset, then?
Now that he was here, and it was actually happening, I wasn't sure how to feel about it. I mean, what had taken him so long? And what, now? What exactly did he intend to do about it?
He suddenly seemed so timid, standing there, waiting for me to respond.
"That's my name," I said.
"I'm sorry."
I hesitated, unsure of what to say. I sat up. Slowly.
"You're sorry?"
"I didn't know this was going to happen. I swear I didn't. You don't deserve this. But it's too late now."
His voice had taken on a sharp, serrated edge.
I cocked my head. "Dad, it...it was just alcohol."
"...what?" Now it was my dad's turn to look confused. I couldn't see his face in the darkness, but it was plain in his body language.
"At school," I said. "Did...did no one tell you?"
Michael Wallace Turner held up an open palm toward me. Closed it. Shook his head. "We can deal with that later."
"Later?" I said. "Seriously?"
I glanced over at the clock on the wall. It had glow-in-the-dark hands.
"Six-thirty," I said, turning back to him. "The principal called your office at eleven-thirty. I've been waiting here since noon."
I was getting confrontational. Which wasn't normal for me, particularly with Dad, but things had been building for a while now, and it was all coming to a head. I was too lonely, and I was too afraid. And to be honest, something was just off about all this, in the same way things had been off in the dream.
"I've been...busy," Dad said. "I can explain in the car."
"The...car?" I said. "Going where?"
Dad came and sat next to me on the couch. He put his hands on my shoulders. He was close, and my eyes and brain were adjusting to the darkness, so it was easier to see his expression. The worry in his eyes. The tension in his jaw.
“I have failed you,” he said. “I’ve continued to fail you. In more ways than one. And I know that ‘sorry’ isn’t enough. But I’m still your father. I’m still responsible for you. And right now, I need you to trust me. I need you to do as I say.”
He was looking me directly in the eyes. For the first time since...
(before)
Maybe for the first time ever. He’d never been great at this kind of direct, personal communication. But he was doing it. He was pulling out all the stops.
I stood. I was keenly aware of the half-full glass of whiskey on the end table next to the couch. I wanted it. But maybe, for now, it could wait. “Do I need to bring anything? Clothes?”
He stood as well, shaking his head. “No. No clothes.”
“Homework?” I said. “I can grab my bag.”
“There’s nothing here we need. We just need to hurry.”
That uneasiness crept in again. That sense of foreboding. But there was nothing for it but to trust my dad.
He led me out the front door. It was a clear, cloudless night, but not quite dark enough yet to see many stars.
We were halfway to the car when I stopped in my tracks. “Dad, we didn’t lock the front door.”
But Michael Wallace Turner just shook his head, already opening the driver’s door. “Get in, Silas.”
It hit me. Full-on in the chest, like a physical sensation.
Something momentous was happening. Passage over a threshold from which there would be no return. It was potent. It was…in the air.
“Silas.”
I walked toward the car, only stopping once to look back at the house.
Was this the last time I was going to see this place? Was there anything I should grab? Keepsakes to remember my old life by? Was I just being paranoid, anyway?
But then, before I could stop myself, I was in the front passenger seat, and buckled.
Michael Wallace Turner started the engine. The headlights lit up the front of the house like stage lights. Dad craned his neck to look over his shoulder, backing out of the driveway.
"Now that I'm in the car," I said. "Are you gonna tell me where we're headed?"
"To be honest, kid," he said, pulling out onto the street. "I don't know."
Now, suddenly, he was avoiding eye contact again. Like normal. His eyes were on the road. His eyebrows were knit together, tense with concentration. He was speeding a little.
We went a couple of blocks and made a turn. As we did, a black SUV pulled out behind us, keeping close. Usually, my dad hated tailgaters, but he didn't comment on it.
We made another turn. Another black SUV pulled out onto the street, this time in front of us, wedging us between the two of them. I glanced over at my dad, expecting some kind of reaction, and got none.
"Dad-"
"I'm going to explain everything," he said. 'I just- I need to focus, right now."
I swallowed and stared ahead. I couldn't help but notice there was no license plate on the back of the SUV in front of us.
"I gotta be honest. This is getting pretty weird."
"'Weird' is not the operating word I would use," said Michael Wallace Turner. There was a little rivulet of sweat making its way down the side of his neck.
I sat back and folded my arms. Being demanding and indignant wouldn't accomplish much. I could see that. Not to mention that, after all, he was my father, even if he hadn't acted much like it in the past few months. And what should I do, open the door and dive out of a moving vehicle?
We were heading up an on-ramp and onto the freeway, speeding up, still wedged fairly tight between the two SUVs. The freeway was busy, but not packed.
"I've been taking liquor out of the pantry," I said.
"I know," said Michael Wallace Turner. There was a sadness in his words. Uncertainty. Regret.
"I got caught drinking in school," I said.
"I...kind of inferred that," said Michael Wallace Turner.
Then it was quiet in the car, except for the hum and rumble of the freeway. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. How could I?
Pockets of light traveled along etchings and scratches in the corners of the windshield, cast by the headlights of passing cars and trapped there before winking out. Then, a bigger light appeared in the rearview mirror. Like a blot of bright yellow paint on a dark-grey canvas. It was high and far off, like a spotlight. And it was growing.
I turned to look over my shoulder.
Dad caught the side of my head with one hand, his palm obstructing my vision of the back window. He was looking at me.
"Don't," he said. "Don't look at the light."
My heart stopped.
Past my dad's head, out the driver's window, the world was luminous and bright, as if the sun had risen suddenly.
"Dad!?"
The car shook, and not just from the vibrations of the freeway. It was a deep and distant shaking that steadily grew in intensity, as if something big, something terrible, was traveling in and through the ground, getting closer. The world outside the car was nearly white with color, blinding.
Something impacted the side of the Toyota.
Dad swore. He turned the wheel, tried to correct the car as it swerved.
Another impact.
Everything spun. We were in the air. Untethered. My guts were in my mouth.
Amid the chaos, and despite the white hot flash which seemed to have consumed the world, I saw the asphalt road above us through the windshield, coming down toward us like a black hammer.
On instinct, I did something I knew I shouldn't. I pressed my hands up against the ceiling of the car. I braced.
Just before the loud crash.
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