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Not So Bad After All

Patrick Trotti

    To himself he refers to her as the monster but in public he simply calls her mother. She’s a woman who reeks of stale gin and tonics and spews judgmental hatred from her foul mouth at every possible chance. Like a flesh eating disease, her personality has slowly eroded nearly all of his self-esteem leaving him a bitter, selfish, untrusting son of a bitch.
    She has a way of hiding her poisonous venom from strangers, saving the most lethal remarks for him alone. When sober, her eyes are like the transparent coral waters off of a remote island but in an instant can turn to weapons of scorn with the ability to strike fear into the deepest recesses of his soul.
    He, and no one else, has seen her use her ballerina like 100 pound frame and diminutive five foot stature take down a woman twice her size. That should’ve been the worst memory of her but that was only one of a myriad of explosions that littered his childhood.
    Besides the eyes the biggest thing that sticks in his memory are her hands. Small, pale and freckled, her hands would tremble every morning because she hadn’t had her customary morning pick me up. Whenever they were in public he had to make sure that she had a little bottle stashed away in her purse so that she could keep herself leveled. That was the magic term for what she was doing to herself; leveled, as if she were an ancient building on the brink of complete ruin and could collapse at any moment.
    After seeing her when she wasn’t level one time he knew to never try and make her stop again. He can remember the day vividly at a moment’s notice despite being only nine at the time. This day marked the turning point in their relationship, a point in which things would never be the same.
    It started off as a usual day and nothing indicated that it would be unlike any other Tuesday before. Oddly enough he found the atmosphere within the four walls of his own house to be more nerve-wrecking than the cruelties that he was subjected to routinely at the hands of older bullies at school. Despite the mind numbing dullness of the school day he felt a sense of comfort knowing that inside the classroom he was safe; safe from all of the outside influences lurking beyond the carpeted floors of Ms. Winfield’s class.
    Getting off the school bus he inhaled deeply at the sight of her car in the driveway. It was a blue Cadillac, a real piece of shit. The trunk could fit about ten people in it and the brakes squealed every time they were used. The back bumper was full of dents and various colors from other cars. She always got into accidents; usually after leveling off. She hadn’t used the car in a while because she had her license taken away.
    The door was unlocked, as it always was, and the first thing that he noticed was the lack of noise throughout the house. She was probably passed out, or napping as she liked to call it. He always found it weird that despite being unemployed she was always tired. For a while he thought that she just tired of being around him but he later found out that it was the alcohol. He’s still not sure what’s worse.
    She was snoring on the couch. An empty bottle of liquor was on the ground in front of her and the television was tuned into a soap opera. The show was one of the only things that brought a smile to her face. He tiptoed his way past her to the kitchen and started making something to eat. If he didn’t no one else would.
    “Who’s there?” her voice bellowed from the other room.
    “It’s just me. I’m making a snack.”
    He was hoping that she would go back to sleep. She didn’t and struggled to get to her feet.
    “Well why do you have to be so fucking loud about it? You know that I have to get my sleep.”
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
    “That’s your problem, you never mean to. Wait a minute, what are you doing here, don’t you have school?”
    “It’s four o’clock, school is over.”
    He tried my best to remain calm. Already he could see the thick vein in the middle of her forehead beginning to bulge.
    “Get the hell out my sight! It’s bad enough you woke me up, now you’re giving me a headache.”
    He silently nodded and began to make his way to his room. Then she reached into a cabinet and took out a stack of dishes and began throwing them in his direction. The first hit him square in the back shoulder before falling to the floor and smashing into a thousand pieces. Thankfully she was a little too leveled for her own good and missed with the other three dishes before he was able to reach the stairs and scamper towards his bedroom.
    She began screaming at him as he rushed to his room.
    “You little prick, what did you do with my alcohol?”
    It was like a cat and mouse game when she was like this. He had to cower away to some corner of the house and wait out her outburst and then, when it was quiet he could show his face again. He would be doing a lot of hiding during his childhood.
    As he shut the door he quickly locked it and fell to the floor. He wondered how his mother, the woman who brought him into this world, could be so mean and hateful. What had he done to deserve this? He began to sob. He let the warm tears fall down his face until they reached his quivering lips. They were salty and bitter. He could hear stomping coming from the floor above. The yelling came next followed by the whining. She sounded like a weeping little girl who had just run out of candy. She wasn’t a girl though, and it wasn’t candy. She needed to level off but had already consumed her daily allowance. It would be a long night. He got under his sheets and closed his eyes and tried to imagine being somewhere else, anywhere else but right here right now.
    Suddenly the alarm clock buzzed and he was woken from his nightmare. His sheets were still soaked in cold sweat from the night before. He gathered himself for a moment before making his way to the kitchen. Standing at the table his mother was sitting down in front of a warm and elaborate breakfast.
    “Good morning sweetie. How did you sleep?” She asked with an innocent smile.
    He was never before so happy to see her in his entire life.

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