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and for all? He had been so courageous as a fireman; why couldn’t he muster the will-power to deal with something so relatively simple? How hard was it to throw away the bottle?
    I closed my eyes, replaying the countless times Father had nearly passed out, literally on top of me, with his eyes blood-shot and his clothes reeking from days-old perspiration and spilled drinks. Dad had always promised that he would someday, somehow, take me away from Mother’s evil clutches. But even back then I realized it was the booze talking. As brave as Father had been on the job, he had no intention of crossing Mother. Sitting outside the air force barracks, I felt utterly helpless. To me, Father wasn’t a bad man. Maybe, I justified, Mother’s fury forced him to drink. Maybe … his drinking was his only outlet to deal with… ? “Oh, my God!” I cried out. What if Father’s boozing began as his way to escape all the hell between Mother and me? What if I was the reason for Father’s drinking problem?
    My body shuddered from humiliation. My thoughts swayed between the intense guilt of Father’s plight and wanting him to find the determination to help himself. I thought if I was the reason for Father’s alcoholic condition … then I was responsible for the family’s devastation, my parents’ separation, and for Father’s downfall at the fire station; I was the reason for his current condition. The sudden wave of shame was so overwhelming that I began to weep. In some sense, in the back of my mind I had always known this. As a child, I knew I was the bad seed. Somehow I had made everyone I had come into contact with miserable. As an adult, I had to make things right – buying a home for Father and me was not enough. Who knew what condition Father would be in by the time my enlistment was complete? I was the only one who could ease his pain, and I had to do it now.
    I decided to wire Father some money. Even if he used the funds to buy booze, I didn’t care. Who was I, my conscience argued, to judge a grown man when in so many ways I was still a pitiful child? After all the hell I had put Father through, this was the least I could do for him. If the money helped to numb his loneliness and despair for a few hours, then so be it.
    After I reached a definite decision, my fingers quit shaking. I wiped my tears away and stared at the crumpled envelope. Seconds later I shook my head in disgust after remembering that Father left no return address. “Goddammit!” I exploded. “Why?” I cried as I clutched the letter. “Why is my life constantly plagued with so much bullshit!” When my own mother tried, for twelve years, to kill me, I never fought back. I never ran away. I had just taken the abuse by adapting every moment of every single day to surviving. And foster care was no breeze, but I made the best of it. As a teenager I’d worked my tail off while normal kids were having the time of their lives. While scores of others waltzed into the recruiter’s office to enlist, it took me forever to join the air force. When my lifelong dream of becoming a fireman was shattered because of some foul-up in the paperwork, I bit my lip and pressed on. And now I couldn’t even help my father because he had no address or no phone number for me to call. I couldn’t even disturb Mother and beg her for information on Father because I have been excommunicated from her precious family – I was not worthy of the privilege of having her unlisted phone number. As I sat and stewed at my latest predicament, I so badly wanted to be anyone other than David James Pelzer. I covered my face with my hands as if to squeeze an answer from my brain.
    The only alternative I could think of was if Father by some chance wrote me again. Maybe then he would scribble his address. Whenever I was faced with overwhelming, impossible odds, I always turned to God. As a child I always felt guilty, begging for His time to help me, but now I pleaded for God to keep my father safe and warm. Mostly I