My father ran from his demons with a constant torrent of alcohol. It was a ritual for him. He came home from a long day of hard labor, groaned as he sat in his recliner and unscrewed the lid off a plastic bottle of vodka. It had been that way since before I could form memories.
He was my sole provider. My longest friend. At times, my only friend. I watched him kill himself with it. When I was young, I had no idea that what he did when he got home was not normal. When I became older and wiser, I learned to cringe every single time he cracked a new bottle. The sound of plastic snapping makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and my stomach drop to this day.
I understand that when you read this opening, you will instinctively feel pity for me -- the child who grew up in this environment of addiction. Maybe you should; however, I do not feel sorry for myself. My father was an alcoholic, and a severe one at that. But, he was the best father I could ever imagine having.
He had his reasons. I wanted to ask him why. I wanted to tell him he didn't need to escape. But I knew he did. I knew there was something inside of him that was irreparably broken. Something not I or anyone else would ever be able to diagnose, let alone understand. So I kept my concerns of his slow suicide locked inside, and resigned myself to being an observer of it. I chose to cherish the time I had.
Awake he was jolly. He was hilarious and always kind to me. When he slept, he screamed. Two in the morning, sometimes three, but always he would scream. It wasn't how you imagine sleep talkers speaking, with a slight slur and a failure to open their mouths wide enough. This was always a full throated, wide mouth in horror, deep voiced screech that rattled the windows and jolted you awake in bed.
It started when I was about twelve. It took multiple weeks of me trying to calm him down in a reasonable amount of time before I found a routine that worked. I would turn the TV on in his room, change it to a dead air channel, and run my fingers through his hair with the static turned on high until he finally would fall back into a peaceful sleep.
This routine happened every night. I grew so accustomed to it, I would often wake a minute or so before it started and wait in his doorway for it to begin. Eventually he began speaking between screams.
"Please Mister, no. Please please please Mister. Please no. I don't want to Mister, pleeeaassseeee. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! WHAAAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MEEE!"
It broke my heart in more ways than I could ever find the words to describe. It wasn't the things he said, but the way in which he said them. He sounded lost, he sounded powerless, he sounded like a trapped animal -- pleading with a force he did not fully understand. It has been over a decade since I've heard those pleads and I can still hear them like it happened last night. You don't think of your father as powerless. He's your hero. He's safety. In the eyes of a child he is all powerful, the closest thing to god you can touch. Understanding reality, that there are people and things that can leave even your large and powerful father in that much fear and panic, is world shattering.
When I started high school, he began spiraling further. He started to bring home two bottles, and often he would pass out on the recliner and I would have to walk him to his bed and cover him myself. He began to look like an end stage alcoholic, eyes yellowing around the edges and his stomach growing in size while the rest of him shrunk down. It was hard to witness, but still I loved him and he loved me. Never did our relationship weaken.
We began to receive the letters then. They were plain white envelopes addressed to a Sargeant Pilkings. No return address and no stamp. I had assumed my father had served time in the military -- we often got other pieces of mail directed at veterans. I once asked him but he denied it. Now I knew my suspicion was correct, but wouldn't dare confront him with the information.
When I brought the mail in from the box the first time the letter showed up, I watched him as he flipped through the stack of bills and junkmail. When he reached the plain envelope he tensed and looked over his shoulder at me. I pretended I was occupied in the fridge as I heard him tear the envelope into multiple pieces and throw it in the wood stove. That was when the sleepwalking began.
We lived in an old house in the woods. Truthfully it was more of a small two room cabin surrounded by our four acres of forest. Up against the back of our property was national forest land so it felt endless. No neighbors. And thank God for that, because I'm sure his nightly screaming would have resulted in countless police visits.
The first night his sleepwalking started, it was the most scared I had ever been. I slept with no light. No lamp kept on, no TV playing. It was always dead quiet except for the occasional deer crunching brittle leaves outside, and that was how I slept easiest. Now I sleep with a nightlight on and TV infomercials selling me junk in my dreams, but back then I was a much lighter sleeper.
I woke to the floorboards creaking. I know what my father sounded like when he walked and this was different. It wasn't the heavy footfalls of a six foot eight man but the exaggerated tip toed scutter of a sneaking child. Through the tiniest shine of moonlight, I could see the outline of my open doorframe. Frozen and holding my breath, I watched as my father tip toed, ducking as he went through my doorframe, and stood on the inside facing me in my bed. Just breathing. He stood there, us watching each other for what felt like hours but must have been mere minutes. His exaggerated gut pulsing upwards through the strange sips of air he was breathing.
I was close to finding the courage to get up and talk to him when he turned and tip toed into my closet, sliding the door closed after he went in. Slowly and quietly. At this point I thought I must be dreaming. I slowly turned my head on my pillow and looked around my room. I even pinched my leg but of course I was not dreaming.
I sat staring at the slats in my closet door, wondering what I should do. Then he started speaking. It was such a quiet noise that at first I thought I was imagining it, hallucinating through my panic and the sheer silence. But as I focused I could make out the word.
"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..."
A short breath in.
"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..."
This is going to sound insane to you, but this comforted me in a way. It was my father. That was what he often said in his sleep. My panicked thoughts of him being possessed or even it not being him at all vanished in my mind and I then started to get out of bed.
I approached the closet door, tip-toeing myself now.
"Pleasepleasepleaseple-"
I stepped on the closest floorboard to the closet and a tiny creak stopped my father from his pleading. I put my ear up to the slats and held my breath. I couldn't hear anything.
"Dad?"
He screamed so loud, I remember flying backwards back into my bed. My legs straight above me, I was screaming myself and flailing before launching myself back to my feet and wincing at the volume of his screams.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"
He screamed the same question faster and faster until it came out as one long word.
"WHATDIDYOUDOTOME? WHATDIDYOUDOTOME? WHATDIDYOUDOTOME? WHATDIDYOUDOTOMEEEEEE?"
I ripped open the closet door and he stopped. He was looking at me with the dumb blank look anyone has when just woken from deep slumber. He started to ask something but I didn't wait. I grabbed him by the arm and led him back to his room. When I returned back to my own room I closed the door and locked it. Opening the closet I noticed he had urinated on my shoes.
I tried keeping my door locked, but he would knock on it until I let him in. This was the new routine. I learned to sleep through his whispers and by morning he was always gone back to his room. It was annoying, yes. Anyone who grew up with an alcoholic parent would tell you that a lot of what they do is annoying. But I learned to live with it. By that time, even if I never openly admitted it to myself, I knew the end was near. I was watching over the passing of my father. The alcohol induced end of his life. You can judge me for putting up with it or you can judge him for being an addict with a child, but please understand: we were both trying our best. During the days, we were happy and I loved when he got home from work so we could talk about our day before he got too drunk. It was only the nights that were troubled.
He died less than six months after that night. I was still a senior in high school then and I'm always thankful that it wasn't liver failure that got him or suffocating in his sleep. He had a heart attack at work. He was fifty one years old. That day at school, I opened the lunch he always packed me and inside it he left me a note. He often wrote little notes for me. This one said: I love you, son. I'll see you at home.
I still keep it in my wallet.
That was the hardest time in my life. I finally accepted that I watched him choose death over his pain, and that fact, the fact that I was helpless to stop him from drowning himself, that fact has never left me. In those early days, I wanted to be dead with him. I felt so useless.
I was extremely fortunate I had an amazing teacher (thank you Mr. G) who helped me immensely in this time. He helped fundraise for a funeral, he helped me get my father's house put into my name, and even helped me pay the property taxes until I was employed. Without him I would have absolutely lost everything and ended up homeless. I can't thank him enough.
After things had settled down in my head, I began doing the mundane things my dad had always done around the house. Cleaning the wood stove, picking up and burning leaves, chopping wood, and sifting through junk mail.
When I found the blank envelope addressed to Sargeant Pilkings, I froze. I felt my blood turn cold and my heart sped up. I debated within myself whether I should open it or not but as you could probably guess: I opened it.
Inside was a folded paper. Thick legal paper. On it was one sentence, centered in the middle and indented on the back like it was made on an old fashioned typewriter.
If you tell, we will know.
I have always wondered what really happened to my father. He was damaged. Broken. And evidently, he was taunted about it.
Going through my father's things I found medals. Mlitary medals but none that were clearly identifiable as American military. There were no flags on them, no red white or blue, no eagles, nothing like that. One was a skull with a third eye on its forehead. One was a laughing devil with a spiked tail on top of a jet. One was just a black and silver star.
I have since brought them to museums and I'm always told the same thing. They're fakes. They are not real military medals, and they're meaningless. I know they are real. My father was not one to keep meaningless knick-knacks around, and definitely not kick-knacks wrapped in an old green sock in his underwear drawer. If you have any idea what they could mean, please enlighten me.
Now it is time for the difficult part of this anonymous confession I am currently writing. My father is no longer buried. He is beside me as I type this on my desk. He is in the closet. Still whispering.
The night after his funeral, I heard him come back. He snuck back into the house and I laid in horror as I watched him tip toe back into my closet.
"Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..."
Except there were no more breaths. Just endless whispering. It was a little quieter than before but unmistakable all the same. I laid frozen with fear staring at the dark slats of my closet until morning. I wasn't dreaming. He was in there and he didn't come out in the morning.
It took more than a week for me to find the courage to open my closet. Every night I; fell asleep to the whispers and woke every morning to the whispers.
I opened the closet and he stood there, stock still, eyes open but blue and fogged over. He was naked and pale in the light. His large milky white gut moved in and out like he was taking those short rhythmic breaths in but no air moved in or out. He had dried mud on his body and a slick green liquid was dripping from his mouth and running down his chest.
I sobbed. I wailed. I tried to talk to him. I told him I loved him. I told him he was dead and he needed to go back. He just kept whispering.
"Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..."
If I moved him he went back. If I locked him out he found his way back in, once even kicking my bedroom door down. Weeks passed and his skin began to wrinkle inwards and his frame shrunk down. The only meat left on him was his large white stomach. The rest was thin skin covering bone and sinew. His eyes dented inwards but stayed open and looking. His hair fell out leaving white skin pulled taught over his skull. All the while his mouth continued to drip that green liquid as he whispered.
"Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease,,,"
I learned to live with it.
I put a TV in my room. I bought thicker closet doors that don't have slats. I put a chain through the handles and a padlock keeping it shut.
I'm twenty-eight years old now. I have a wife and son. They don't know what is locked in there. I told my wife it was my gun collection and it was locked for safety. I fear she will one day steal the key I keep on my necklace and open it. I don't know what to do.
Every week I come home once on my lunch break, open it, and clean him up. I wipe the green liquid from him, and tell him I love him.
I've told my wife I can't sleep without the TV being on, and god bless her she puts up with it. I shutter at the thought of her hearing him one day. The closet doors are thick, but if you really concentrate with the TV off, you can hear him whispering.
I don't know what they did to him. The military or whatever organization he was once a part of did this to him, I know it. I often find myself breaking down into fits of sobs when I'm not busying myself.
I pray that souls aren't real. I pray that there is no afterlife or divine creator because, if there is, my father is stuck here. Forever begging for relief from his past.