A Man Named Dave

bartender confirmed my blunder. By the man’s intense red face, I knew I had, once again, stepped out of bounds. I muttered to the older man, “I’m sorry. I truly am. I in no way mean to be rude, sir.” Whatever adrenaline I had had moments before ebbed away. I politely asked for two Cokes, left a massive tip, and took a table in the back beyond the hard gaze of the construction workers playing pool.
    “As you can see, I’m still working on my social graces,” I confessed.
    “Don’t get out much?” Russell chided.
    “Bingo,” I said after taking a swallow. It was time to move on to something else. “Man, I just can’t get over it. You look great. So, how’s things?”
    “Better,” Russell sighed, “now that I’m out of that house !” I instantly picked up on his meaning. “Man, you have no idea what she’s like. I don’t mean to say you had it easy, but believe me, you got off pretty good. It’s become a lot worse.” Russell was ready to pour out his soul. “I tell ya, sometimes she’d chase me around the house. I told her if she ever laid a hand on me … I just couldn’t take it anymore,” he said with a heavy sigh. “If she’s not on some rampage, then she’s constantly complaining about everyone, everything, every second of the day.
    “When she’s done with me as a sounding board, Mom makes the rounds to Grandma and even Ron and his wife, Linda. No one’s safe. Ron doesn’t even take her calls, but Mom just doesn’t get it.” Russell paused to collect his thoughts. “And Stan thinks he’s a he-man. I mean, what’s he gonna do? He’s bummed; he knows he needs Mom for financial help, and he hates it. If something ever happened to her, he’d never make it. He really thinks he’s Mr Fix-it. Bob Villa Jr.” Russell smiled.
    “I understand,” I replied, thinking of what Grandmother had told me.
    “I’m not trying to down him, but some of his electrical wiring projects almost started a few fires in the lower part of the house. Mom, of course, used to think that Ron and I were picking on him, but Stan can’t do half the things Mom thinks he can, and she’s so drunk she can’t tell the difference. Stan just doesn’t understand. It ain’t his fault, but Mom’s smothered him so much.”
    “What about Kevin?” I asked.
    “He drinks so much Coke all the time that he’s practically lost all his teeth.”
    “What?” I asked. “No way!”
    “You don’t get it, man. The whole setup: it’s all normal to him. Kevin’s a kid, he’s oblivious. He doesn’t know anything else.”
    The more Russell described the situation, the more I realized how on the mark he was. I was indeed the lucky one. I had been Mother’s outlet as a child, and once I was taken away, psychologically she became a wounded animal, attacking anyone who crossed her path. The main difference was that by then my brothers were older and knew better than to take Mother’s physical abuse, but unfortunately they had to put up with her psychological torture and self-destructive lifestyle.
    And yet it all seemed surreal to me, how Mother could turn her hatred against her other children. Part of me had always feared for them. As a young boy surviving in darkness, I had known what to expect from Mother, to the point that I could predict her moods. Thinking ahead, staying a step or two ahead of her, not only kept me alive and gave me a protective armor, but became a way of life for me. Before Kevin was born, I was never sure if Mother would suddenly strike out against Ron, Russell, or even Stan. Before I was taken away, as I sat on my hands in the basement, I would cringe whenever I heard my brothers come through the front door and walk into the house as if they were entering a minefield. With every step Mother could, without warning, detonate, spreading her shrapnel-like fury in every direction. Weeks prior to my rescue I became so cold inside, I was nearly obsessed with hatred toward Ron, Stan, and especially Russell – who used to be Mother’s little brainwashed Nazi – but at the same time I’d still pray for their safety.
    As I sat in front of Russell now, I could not imagine the hellish nightmare Mother had put my brothers through. All I could do now was pray that whatever they had experienced would somehow not carry over into their future. Like a broken record, all I could hear in my head was, “Three down, two to go.” Every one of them had endured more from Mother than I ever possibly could. They were indeed the strong ones, while I was fortunate enough to be