Vent Stories

Friday Night.

       My parents are divorced, I live with my mother and visit my dad's on the weekends. Specifically every other weekend.

Every Friday night I'm with my dad, we go to Eddie's house. Eddie is an old friend of my father's who hosts dart tournaments in his garage. Sometimes I get to play darts, but only with my dad. He says one day I can play tournaments with him since I'm good at playing darts for my age. If he is too busy playing with his friends, I sit on the fourwheeler or at the bar table playing on his phone.

One Friday night, my dad and I got ready to go play darts at Eddie's. We are picking up my uncle Bruce on the way there.

We arrive at Bruce's house, I sit in the truck while my dad goes inside to get Bruce. I switch myself from the passenger seat to the middle seat, moving around the bud light cans in the cupholder, to make room for my uncle. I see them walk out to the truck, Bruce is stumbling from drinking already.

All of us make it to Eddie's house, a lot of people are here this time. Dad and Bruce are already downing beers. I sit at the bar table playing on my dads phone, then I move over to the last dart board on the wall. Dad and I play a little before he goes back to the tournament. I can tell he isn't drunk yet, but he's starting to get that look on his face when he is.

After a couple hours of waiting for dad and Bruce to finish the tournament, they are ready to leave. I make it to the truck before them. I see them say goodbyes and stumble their way to the truck.

My dad starts driving, he almost hits a pole in Eddie's driveway, though he manages to pull out safely. We make it to Bruce's house to drop him off after almost wrecking multiple times. I switch back to the passenger seat.

      Dad swerves the whole way home. Right before our driveway, is a long straight road. We make it to that exact road then my dad turns the radio up pretty high and sings to me. He looks at me the whole time we are on that road, not once looking for cars or where he was going.

His eyes are red and bloodshot,
his voice is raspy,
the tires turning left and right,
the music blaring,
my nails digging into the cloth of the seat.

Little 8 year old me is frozen in place, until I see a car coming straight for us and we are in its lane. I yell "Dad!!", he stops singing and swerves into the correct lane. He laughs it off.

I pray for god to let me get home safely, see my mom again, and most importantly live.

And I did.