I told Tyler what Mom said, how we were leaving. I tried not to notice, but everyone had gotten a little quieter.
I tried to make sense of it, but it seemed to get hazier with each step away from the waiting room. He'd gone in with what we thought were stroke symptoms, but he had blood alcohol levels of a blistering drunk. And they were releasing him.
I texted Jordan and told her I was getting the van and I'd keep her updated whenever I learned anything. I don't think it was raining anymore, but everything was still slick with that dirty texture of southern rain. I got in the car and pulled the van back around to the emergency room entrance, where my church and my family was clustered, talking. My mom climbed in next to me and my dad and Tyler got in the back. I waved to the folks from my church and thanked them from coming, but I think they were already past me and my problems. I imagine they were thinking "We drove out here for this?" Or maybe this was just felt subconsciously.
I drove home. Mom entertained Dad, who was still slurring and talking about the crazy hospital bill. Tyler was talking to him now a little more. Dad told me to not speed this time, which I said "Okay, I won't. I'm not in a hurry anymore."
He was more agitated than before, and when he got out of the van, he dropped something on the ground and said "Shit!" Mom started crying at this, and then she got really serious and mouthed "Hide his guns," but Dad was on my heels as we got in the door. I greeted my dog, who wagged her tail, happy to see us.
Tyler whispered at me and Mom and said "He keeps two loaded guns. His derringer and a revolver." I had no idea he had a loaded revolver in our home.
Mom told me to help her put the sheets on their bed, so I went in there and, when my dad was in the kitchen, I grabbed his derringer off their dresser and stuck it in my coat pocket. I felt it's weight. I felt the murder it could bring about and got anxious that maybe it would swing around in my coat and go off and he'd get suspicious. I had awful anxious premonitions of us having some twisted duel, me with his derringer and him with his revolver. I think Mom was dead in this scenario.
Dad got suspicious and said "When y'all keep the door closed..."
But Mom cut him off "We were just keeping the animals from getting in," which was a plausible excuse, for reasons I don't want to purvey here.
I walked out. I went into the bathroom and flushed the toilet, trying to unload his derringer as the water ran. I saw a button that looked like it would drop the chamber, and pushed it, but the safety was on. I looked at the button and it said FIRE and I swore under my breath. I put the gun back in my pocket and went into my room, closed the door, and hid the derringer on the top of my tall dresser. I still felt like it would go off somehow. I was worried if he came into my room with his revolver and I didn't have the derringer near, I couldn't protect anyone. I told Jordan this much.
Mom came in and said it again: "Tell me what's going on."
I told her I didn't know.
I stayed up till 2, texting Jordan. My dad was talking to my mom; apparently his voice was going back to normal and he didn't remember much of what had happened that night. She said he was worried the church thought he was a drunk and he was scared. It's a weird thing to realize about my own father, like seeing a mountain fall down. It makes no sense, but there's something justified about it.
I tried googling "diseases that make your blood alcohol levels go up" and there were stories of folks who never drank a day in their lives and literally blacked out and wrecked their cars, blood alcohol through the roof. Apparently "Five-Hour Energy" drinks can make your blood alcohol go up and even smells like it on a person's breath. I also read of a disease called "Auto Brewery Syndrome" or the "Drunken Disease" where a sort of yeast infection literally brews alcohol in your bowels.
I wish I could say we figured it out. I wish I could say we got answers or closure or that we found liquor bottles and my mother beat his ass for putting us through this.
He's talking normally. Better than usual, even. But I still have his derringer and we still don't know what happened.
In 1929, the stock market crashed, issuing in the Great Depression in the United States. Billions of dollars were lost and fathers and husbands killed themselves or their families.
There was a reason it failed, but in 1929, the why's were important, but the what was much more arresting. It was a single, horrifying event that snuck up on an unsuspecting country and shook loose all the dust of prohibition and the roaring twenties, the calm simplitude of living high and worrying over small stuff. Suddenly, Timmy was in the well, your favorite comedian turned out to be a rapist, and your father was rushed to the ER because no one had any clue what was happening.
In 1929, smiles are wiped off of Barbie doll faces, and God is pulled down and crucified.
1929
Balloon.
Money.
Really?