Taming of the Dude: One man's Journey with Jesus

Chapter 10- The Alcoholic that broke the camel's back

Chapter 10 The alcoholic that broke the camel's back

"The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotionless and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, a devastation, an inescapable verdict."

― Sam Vaknin

We did not have the problem of not wanting to leave home. It seems odd to me that you hear of children who are in their 20's and 30's still living at home. This was definitely not the case with our family. My brother and my sister would plan our "Great Escapes", but the 'how' was always the challenge. It was not like we had stacks of cash hidden in the dishwasher. The only thing in the dishwasher these days were bags of chips and cookies. It was a kind of safe in the event burglars had the munchies and broke into the house looking for snacks. They would never think to look in the dishwasher. I am happy to report that it worked. We never lost one of our snacks.

We would all get a windfall that would change all of our lives but it would come at a cost. Our biological dad had an insurance policy that would provide seed money for all three of us to start college or University. My sister, I believe, left the day after her graduation and went to Toronto for College. She was trained to be a Legal secretary. My brother left a couple of months after graduating and went to Waterloo to become a teacher. For myself, I really did not have a real direction but I did want to leave. I applied for a work experience program in England but later found out that my sister got the wrong paperwork and I had actually applied for was a student exchange program with India. Imagine, India, of all the places. ou might remember I had some prejudice about Pakistan and Indian doctors and people in general. I went anyway, because I wanted to leave the house, and it was free. Anything that is free is like kryptonite to me. I cannot say no, which can lead to some pretty awful products, adventures, and food. It just a byproduct of living on welfare, you are always on the hunt for freebies.

The driving force behind each one of us wanting to get out of the house was mom's newest alcoholic sailor boyfriend. He was a piece of work. He terrorized us kids for what seemed like an eternity. We would get holidays or reprieves every year during the summer months when he was out on the Laker ships Sadly, every winter he would return to hibernate and make our lives a living hell. It might seem like I am exaggerating a lot, but I am not. He was mean and he was a mean drunk. He also was a Scotsman ...which I do not have the same racial bias as I did with Indians, but when a Scotsman is verbally lambasting you while he is drunk, it is nearly impossible to know what he wants. My poor brother used to get thrown against the wall because he would just stand there looking at him. He hated that, but my brother genuinely wanted to help him out, so he would stand like a moose in headlights and try to figure it out. My sister and I knew better. We just left the room. He would continue to yell how useless we were, but at least we were out of his reach. The funny thing is that usually, the only thing he ever wanted was cigarettes and Johnny Walker. I think if my brother had learned to grab a 24 oz bottle of Johnny Walker every time he went off, he would have been fine. I know that is what I did. I didn't even try to talk to him or understand what he was trying to say. I found that he was the most negative about us, and he didn't try to hide how much he disliked us. It was the worst time for us kids. I mean, before him, it was no picnic, but the other boyfriends were maybe a tad more subtle about their dislike of having us kids around.

For my mom, I think the Scotsman was a lifeline to nice things. I am not sure how negotiations went between the two but either at the beginning of his stay or at the end there was some kind of reward. One year it was a new TV. Another year a dishwasher. My mom must of did something really well because one year the house got wall to wall carpets and we all also went to Disneyland in California. For my mom and the Scotsman it was boozing it up in the hotel room for a week, but for us kids, it was one attraction after another. We went to Knotts Berry Farm, Grauman's Chinese Theater, the walk of fame and Disneyland. We manage not to get abducted or lost, which was awesome. Mind you it was safer back in the seventies, so kids could easily take care of themselves.(???) It is a much darker and scarier world now. We had an awesome week as long as the Scotsman stayed in his room, and mom ran interference for us, but once we were home again, back to the same old stuff. A drunk, a constant stream of unintelligible slurs and violence.

I remember many occasions of feeling great hatred for the Scotsman, but this one particular night he was on fire. I am not sure what we did, but I do remember that there was something on the TV that we all wanted to watch. He was in his captain chair like Captain Kirk on Star Wars. He had his drink in one hand and his cigarette in the other. He was spouting off about how awesome he was, or how he was so much better than us. Whatever it was, it didn't matter and it sounded like gibberish anyway. It really did not matter, what mattered was the show we had been waiting for was on and we were missing it. I do not know what set him off. It could have been that we were not listening to his gibberish, or that we were making a demand, but he left his seat.....which he never did. I think the only time I ever saw him leave his seat was to go to the washroom to puke his guts out. It was never a pretty sight after he used the washroom. I am not sure what was happening, but after he finished the toilet bowl was a mixture of puke and black bits. It might have been hardened tar from all of the cigarettes he smoked. It was just common knowledge that after the Scotsman finished in the washroom, you did not want to be a person desperate for the washroom. You could dance, knock your head against the wall, do anything but using the washroom. You wait for someone else to go in and flush the disturbing sight. I think he did eventually die from cancer or cirrhosis of the liver but I do not think it was until he was 80 or 90. I think he was way too pickled to have any immediate health problems. However, tonight we had pushed him too far. He left his chair and changed the channel of the TV to some french station. He then removed the dial from the TV and sat down. We all just stared at him and the TV. He said something .....which again, no clue. We did a catch from his nonverbals that we would not be watching TV in English anymore and we were definitely not going to be able to watch our show. Now in his defense, Canada is technically a bi-lingual country of French and English, so we should have been able to watch the shows that are in French. So that is our bad. Just kidding, we were young, we were trapped and all we wanted was one show ...but no. The Scotsman had to be in control, and we all had to be miserable for him to be happy. The French channel stayed for almost a week. As for us kids, we spent a lot of time planning our escape in our rooms.

We begged mom to leave him. We told her how much we hated him. We told her that we did not like him beating on our brother or being verbally abused every night... but nothing. The change came when my grandfather got involved. I was at school, but I think the Scotsman went too far. There was a huge fight at the house, and this time he gave my mom a black eye. My grandfather found out and came to the house and had words with the Scotsman. We never saw the Scotsman again. The truly sad thing about it all was my mom was not happy but depressed that he was gone. We kids were doing the Highland Jig. The Scotsman probably would have told us that we were all doing it wrong, and we would not have a clue what he was saying and would keep dancing. But for my mom, she was crying that she lost him. I think she suffered from "Stockholm Syndrome". that is the only explanation that makes sense to me.