And so....

I have been thinking about what I said in a previous entry about making a deal with the devil.

I know there are far more evil men out there than my Father. He was sick and he was weak, but the devil.........

There was a time in my life when I was very young that my father ruled my world. This is true of most little girls, in our innocence we view that first male figure with reverence. For some, the shattering of this illusion, when we have that moment of seeing them as fragile as everyone else, can be a devastating blow.

I remember calling him 'Buddy' instead of Daddy most of the time. He worked away alot. But when he was home....the funny thing is now, I don't exactly remember what I thought of him when I was a child. Just that he was my buddy.

When I was eight, the protective bubble of my childhood niavety began to show very small fractures.

He was an alcoholic. Got melancholy and angry when he drank. He would inform us that he was going to kill himself, perhaps take a few with him. A few times he locked himself in the garage, shot guns out (I vaguely remember him actually going hunting with them.). A few times the cops were called. When I was eight I got stuck in this. He had been drinking most of the day. Was out in the garage with the door closed. I think my Mother was talking to a friend (or she may have even said this to me) "He is at it again. Not sure if I should call the police or let it go."

Some thing was wrong with my buddy. I could fix it.

I went out to the garage and knocked on the door- I offered to make soup. I momentarily saw down he barrel of his twelve gage. I came to understand later that he never really had the conviction to follow through. He preferred the slow suicide of alcohol and misery.

After that day I was just a little bit nervous around him and he was now just dad.

He was a master manipulator. Had quite the sting to his words. He never laid a hand on me that I recall, but I don't really recall much.

When my Mother died. He booted me and my sister out of the house and then took us to court over tupperware and plastic coat hangers. Periodically would give me his twisted take on the situation, slip me cash and once again we would forage ahead to repair the broken. Inevitably something would crack it further (a drunken rank or receiving a child support check with blood money written in capital letters on the memo line).

I had not lived with him since the age of 11. But I needed an out. I could not stay to but a shadow on my sister's first born.

I went to him. I did not tell him I was pregnant. I could not. He could be vicious and i did not want to risk a way out. Besides it is not that we had the type of Father daughter relationship that allowed for such situations. This was the man, who during one of his more drunken rants told me to keep a cotton ball between my knees so as not to get pregnant.

I simply said that I could not live there any more as I knew that I was not welcome.

This was great news to him. By that point there was no love lost between my sisters and my Dad.