Bottle In The Basement

IV

The next thought was not even anything visual, just that sound. That sound that he heard in his dreams so often. The sound of crunching metal and innocent screams filtered though his drunken ears. At the time it was almost funny to him, as if a good joke shared by a friend, not the sounds of his own daughter experiencing the visit of death himself. The thought repulsed him and he squirmed and vomited over the side of the stairs.

He was disgusted with himself, how could something so vulgar ever have seemed humorous? He felt guilt swell inside him.

"No!" he shouted to the cellar, with no one but bottles of wine as an audience. He fought with all of his will to push back the terrible memories of his past, but did not have the strength and once again was forced to plunge back into his icy past.

Suddenly the memory of his drunken self calling his good friend Jerry Domney, just before the police showed up for questioning, arose in his mind.

What a night that had been, the worst of them all by far. That was the night in which he had lost his daughter to his senseless addiction. His beautiful daughter Cally whom he missed so much, who had the eyes of her beautiful mother.

Oh her mother. He missed his wife just as much now as he did for his daughter. His beautiful wife who had left the world so unceremoniously. Cancer. The word felt dry and had a sickening taste in his mouth. It had came as a shock to them all when Mary had been diagnosed in early October with stage three breast cancer.

Yet despite the small amount of time she had left, Mary seemed to find nothing sorrowful in the news. Rather than becoming depressed, she embraced the news and spent every last minute she had with her loving family.

In Late February, Mary's life was taken by that horrid cancer. That's when Jim took up the bottle. Looking back now, Jimmy could see how terrible of a father he must have been to poor Cally. He would spend days at a time in his easy chair, drunk off his hinges and moaning on and on about his wife whom he missed so very much.

"NO!" Jim yelled with the force of a hurricane. "NO MORE!" And this time Jim meant it. He had finally found a grasp on reality and he pulled himself out of his ill memories. Now he sat once again on the highest of the splintery steps leading down into full dark and tried to catch his breath. This would only be the beginning of his struggles.