Excuses & Equations

 
Throughout my childhood, I associated inappropriately expressed anger & violence with drinking too much alcohol. The adult men I knew who drank too much alcohol were verbally and physically assaultive to their wives, children, and sometimes themselves. I'd watched my dad go into jealous rages over mom after the party was over.  Dad was an outrageous flirt under the influence. He seemed to forget mom was there when he drank around other women. Until they were alone again. He was the life of the party-- handsome, charming, funny.  Part of mom's reason to feel she'd made quite a conquest in the beginning (exactly how I later felt about my husband!). Apparently other women felt the same thrill about dad. So mom, no matter how pretty she looked that night, had her hands full keeping close to him.  My parents and their friends had occasional house parties.  Kids of the partying parents were potluck play-mates until bedtime, or until their parents decided it was time to go. 
     One of my worst memories of dad's violence was after another house party.  The tension was already built when we were packed into the back of the car for our ride home. Dad made drunk advances to mom in the front seat as he drove his drunken way home. Mom rebuffed these because she was hurt & humiliated over his inappropriate behavior at the party. Which triggered his sudden jealousy. If she weren't interested in him when he suddenly decided to shower her with husbandly fondling, who the hell was she interested in?
     That night my attempted humorous interruptions did not work to deflect his building rage at her. Sometimes I could slip right into the onset of certain arguments to distract him and change his mood or train of thought. Or target. Not this night. Last time, dad knocked out a couple of mom's teeth over something inane and unimportant. We stood in terror as she bled onto the kitchen floor and he threw her a towel snapping at his three children to stop that damn crying or he'd give us something to cry about. The last time it happened, mom told us to call the police the next time. Looking back now as an adult, the "next time" bore a crazy resignation of her inability to separate from a man she knew would hurt her again. 
     The "next time," dad tore the phone out of the wall when we tried to call 911.  Mom had locked their cheap hollow bedroom door to keep him away from her. Unlock the goddamn door! he yelled at her, or he would break it down. Two of us three girls made it out to the next door neighbor's house. We clung to each other in the back of our neighbor's closet, while she called the police. And waited for them to show up.  Then called the police. And waited. And called. And waited. And heard the gunshot.
     Mom went to the ER; dad went to jail.
     He used us kids to get her back eventually. But she wanted him back all along, just sober. It was the alcohol that made him do these things. He stopped drinking; they got back together. Simple as that, right? Yeh? No. But that's the equation my young subconscious noted and has been erroneously working from ever since. That was my husband's reason for violence.  In my head, my husband was violent toward me and our child because he had drank too much alcohol. For years I've excused my husband's reprehensible behavior on alcoholism.