Two transformations were guaranteed when dad got really drunk. He would become very religious and he would start speaking German. Not fluent German, he didn’t really know the language, but he knew enough to throw out his memorized phrases when the situation presented itself.

The religious discussions were unsettling because his grasp of religion was about as strong as his fluency in German. He spouted nonsense, but cryptic religious phrases are such a firm breeding ground for horror stories that they tend to stick in your brain.

Picture dad, big guy, factory worker, drunk off his ass, eyes half closed while he’s sitting in his favorite chair.

“You fear anything, boy?”

Now, when a giant, drunk man who is prone to violence says something like that what’s the answer? Is there even a right answer? Luckily for me it was, apparently, a rhetorical question.

“I fear nothing but the Lord.”

Fuck, this might be a horror movie.

The German phrases were easier to dismiss as goofy drunk guy stuff because his vocabulary was limited and the German language has never been associated with people who do horrible things.

“Get me a beer, mach schnell.”

Now, this might surprise you but middle school me did not know what that meant in German. I didn’t even know it was German.

I assumed it was some magical drunk language that required the ingestion of 7 cans of Schlitz to understand.

“It means make fast,” he said with the same intonation that informed us of his fear of nothing but the Lord.

The most troubling part of all of this was how easily, as a child, one is able to accept that this is normal. The idea was probably reinforced by the fact that it wasn’t just my dad, but all the guys he worked with as well. They all drink, all the time. On nights where the families would get together none of the men would be sober by night’s end.

Even those childhood moments most associated with safety are tainted upon reflection. Who doesn’t have a memory of going on a day trip with their family- for us it was the two hour drive to visit my mom’s siblings- and then falling asleep on the ride, waking up as the car pulls into the garage, the younger siblings getting carried inside.

Looking back there is the realization that during those visits dad was drinking all day with my aunts and uncles and for the most part would drive us home drunk.

Completely normal.

And then one night a friend hanging out after school and my drunk-off-his-ass dad suggests going to get sub sandwiches for dinner. This is, of course, before anything and everything was available for delivery so we’ll all pile into the car and dad will drive us.

My friend, of course, absolutely declines the offer. What kind of lunatic gets completely hammered then gets behind the wheel to drive children around? Shortly afterwards my friend left and we had something completely unmemorable for dinner. I just remember it wasn’t subs.

Even at that young age, the exchange was a revelation. My life was full of fighting and yelling and violence. I had mastered walking on eggshells, disappearing into the background when it was dangerous to be seen but now I started to realize that life wasn’t supposed to be like that.

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