The Fire Down Below

Chapter 4: Culpeper

Please tell me I didn't just do that... I mean him!

My pounding head woke me. I fought to open my eyes, immediately regretting that decision as the sunlight streaming through the windows delivered a searing attack to my aching senses.

How much did I drink? I pondered.

Rather than calculate my coke and pearl consumption from the night before, I focused on my current dilemma. I was debating the merit of fighting the urge to pee versus remaining comfortably lying where I was.

In the immediate haze of being half-asleep and half-awake, both options seemed to have promise, however, the idea of not moving seemed the most appealing. Based upon the fact that the room felt as though it was rotating around and around, I wasn't sure that I could get up even if I wanted to. Fiddle-fuckin-dee-dee, I thought to myself.

Lying there on the living room sofa, all curled up in the fetal position, I tried to focus my attention on anything other than the growing pressure behind my eyes. I could feel a massive headache pushing its way to the forefront like a wave of fog rolling in from the ocean. This wasn't shaping up to be a great start to the day.

Clearly, drinking until the early hours the night before had been a poor decision. But, at the time, drinking Robert's expensive alcohol, removing any remaining pictures of him from the walls and cranking loud tunes had seemed the best way to ward off the ever present dark shadows of depression.

It was strange to me that all of the chaos of the past few days was digging up memories of my parents. Thoughts and feelings that had long been buried deep in the Cimmerian caverns of my soul were coming up to the surface. Perhaps it was my brain trying to avoid dealing with the current heartbreak? Or just as likely it was my brain stacking up all of my emotional issues to be properly dealt with in chronological order.

I wasn't sure that dealing with those issues now was the best approach. But, frankly, thinking about them was better than trying to come to grips with my suddenly new Robert-less life.

Continuing to lie on the sofa looking up at the expensive designer moldings on my 15-foot ceiling, I acknowledged that when my parents died I had never really allowed myself to heal, or even to mourn properly.

Everything had been too shocking and too painful. First my Dad, out of nowhere, had died. Then rumors abounded of foul play, gambling debts and other under-worldly activities. Then, exactly one year later, my Mom had withered away into nothingness and drove her car into a tree.

My Dad had always been my rock. My first memories were of my Dad - a fun-loving, gregarious soul whom I looked up to with pure adoration. Memories of piggy back rides on his shoulders, trips to the Detroit Zoo and to car shows, of him holding my hand and of big warm hugs.

All I had to do was pout my lower lip and direct my blue eyes at him and he would be putty in my hands. His love was all encompassing and he preached to me every day about the merits of hard work, of never giving up and always having fun while doing it.

Two of the three principles had been a driving force my whole life. Quite possibly the third – the 'have fun' portion – needed to be injected into my life approach going forward.

When he died I was only 11 and I was completely gutted. I could not understand the cruelty of why he was gone.

While I had wanted and needed to scream in pain and anger, I had tried desperately to be strong for my mother. It was obvious something had snapped within her. Her once electric eyes had been extinguished and the vivacious personality that had clearly captured my Dad's heart had suddenly been replaced by a black hole of emptiness.