King Alcohol: One Alcoholic's Road to Recovery

By Alex M.

I'm not famous, and you don't know me, but you may be familiar with my disease of alcoholism. I'm not a special alcoholic or a unique alcoholic; I'm just an average alcoholic. My life experiences are no better or worse than anyone else's, but they are unique to me. Those bits and pieces shaped who I was, how I changed and who I am today.

Alcohol saved my life before it ruled my life and ultimately destroyed my life. I couldn't walk the road to sobriety alone, no matter how hard I tried. With the help of others like myself I was able to rekindle my long dormant spiritual roots and receive a gift of grace through an honest and deep connection with my own being, my fellows and my innate moral principles.

With human and spiritual help, anyone of us can get sober and find a new, extraordinary life. The reward far surpasses the effort, and is available to all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667820040

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Copyright © 2021 Alex M.

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-66-782004-0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

GET THE KID A STOOL

MAGIC CARPET RIDE

IN THE PIT

CHEESE, CHOCOLATE & CHRONOMETERS

CRADLE OF HUMANITY

INFERNAL_MEDICINE

TROUBLE & STRIFE

DIPSOMANIA

EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY

AFTERWORD

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt—and one more failure.

The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did—then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen — Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!

Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, I don’t miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time. As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits.

He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn’t happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.

[Alcoholics Anonymous, A Vision For You, p. 151]

A.A. is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.

[As Bill Sees It, Suffering Transmuted, p. 35]

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR?

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR?

What will we do with a drunken sailor?

What will we do with a drunken sailor?

What will we do with a drunken sailor?

Early in the morning!

Way hay and up she rises

Way hay and up she rises

Way hay and up she rises

Early in the morning!

Shave his belly with a rusty razor

Stick him in a barrel with a hosepipe on him

Sling him in a long boat till he’s sober

Put him in the bed with the captain’s daughter

Trice him up in a runnin’ bowline

Give ‘im a dose of salt and water

Stick on ‘is back a mustard plaster

Send him up the crow’s nest till he falls down

Soak ‘im in oil till he sprouts flippers

Put him in the guard room till he’s sober

That’s what we do with a drunken sailor

Early in the morning!

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE ALCOHOLIC?

What shall we do with the alcoholic?

What shall we do with the alcoholic?

What shall we do with the alcoholic?

Early in the morning!

Staggers up and down he falls

Staggers up and down he falls

Staggers up and down he falls

Early in the morning!

Take him to a meeting on the corner

Set ‘im in a chair till he gets sober

Hand ‘im a Big Book when it’s over

Early in the morning!

Lend ‘im a plug for his jug

Pat ‘im on the back and give ‘im a hug

Show ‘im that the Steps and his new sponsor

Helps ‘im get back his lost honor

Share your pain and share your grief

Share your belief and share your relief

Early in the morning!

Pass it on and pass it on

Pass it on and pass it on

Early in the morning!

PREF

ACE

Having written and published eight books I thought I had it all down. I’d mastered structure, syntax, format, tone, tempo and content. Decades of creative writing gave me confidence. Flying on autopilot, I knew my way home and didn’t have to work too hard to get there. How wrong I was.

I hesitated before writing this book. My first thought was, Who wants to read a memoir from an unknown person? Although you may not know my name, if you’re alcoholic, or fear you might be, you know me.

My second thought was, Since these days so much is written and published about alcoholism and addiction, why should I write yet another account of hopelessness, despair and redemption when there are so many stories already out there? Who wants to read another story about alcoholism? Can I contribute anything new other than my personal experience, which is not that that unique since I’m just an average alcoholic?

I can’t answer that question, but I hope that this book might help someone. As more memoir and less autobiography, I try to focus on my experience with alcohol, alcoholism and recovery. In King Alcohol I don’t include every significant incident or person in my life, but I try to describe how one aspect of my life—alcohol—has ebbed and flowed through my being.

King Alcohol was excruciatingly difficult to write because I had no clue how to write a memoir. I wanted to share how my drinking progressed into alcoholism and what role it played during critical points in my life. Similar to an autobiography, my before, during and after drinking life flows chronologically, but in King Alcohol I try to focus on the memories, experiences and emotions which stand out in relation to my alcoholic illness rather than simply document names, dates, places and factual details.

The writing style required for a good memoir is totally different from my normal style of writing. Trying to dissect and weave my feelings, memory and drinking together into something that might connect with another person or alcoholic is difficult. I say this not to lower expectations or to apologize, but to share my experience.

King Alcohol has helped me in unexpected ways because it forced me to get out of my natural state and try something new and scary. Writing my memoir is like using a movie camera to describe my experiences; turn it on in my mind and describe the emotions and details of what is on the screen. Overcoming my fear of failure and disappointment, and accepting the fact that no matter how others perceive my efforts, I’ve done my best job with the best intentions. King Alcohol covers a lot of ground, but not all of it. I try to capture memorable pieces of my life, the people that mattered to me, when and how I reached that jumping off place, and how recovery gave me a new design for living and changed my life for the better.

Alcoholism in myself, my family and my friends, in one form or another, affected every aspect of my existence. At one time alcohol was my first and only love, overtaking my love of spouses, family and family of choice. Alcohol overwhelmed my love of medicine, literature and writing, and almost destroyed me in the process. Like my mother’s love for me, alcohol’s love was conditional. If I put alcohol above all else, she loved me back, until she turned on me and wanted me dead.

As an author looking back over my life, I realized that no one in my family had any interest in the arts or humanities. My parents and grandparents owned a few books, but I never saw them crack one open much less read one, or discuss any literature.

My relatives had been well schooled, but none took a personal interest in writing, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, theater, film or any of the arts.

As a child there was no spontaneous dressing up for a backyard or living room play, and no theatrical readings of anything other than a fairy tale to put me to sleep when I was a toddler—along with a little honey and whiskey on my lips. As far as I know, no one in my family picked up a pen to journal. No one kept a diary. No one wrote poetry, or anything else other than whatever was required for their day job.

I was the only one that played the pump organ in the corner of the living room which was given to us by my father’s parents. Our house held no paint or brushes except the kind used to cover scuffed walls. My parents and I would attend the Nutcracker ballet each Christmas, and go to the movie theater a few times a month since everyone did in the 1950s, but that was it.

I do begrudge my lack of exposure to the arts at home, but realize I wasn’t deprived deliberately. My family simply had no interest in the arts. The only hobby my mother had was playing bridge. My father’s hobby was drinking, the same as my grandmother’s hobby—just another two alcoholics. My grandfather’s hobby was smoking his pipe and reading the New York Times in silence front to back each day. None of my aunts or uncles had any interests or hobbies of which I was aware.

I don’t know where my artistic yearning came from, but I know it’s something I’ve had to do all my life. It’s more than a passion—it’s a necessity. I’m just glad I am able to write and hope I’ll always be able to put pen to paper.

We humans are storytellers. We tell stories to make sense of our world and share our ideas, fears, loves, sadness, joy, trials, tribulations, failures and successes. We try to convey purpose and meaning in our lives to better understand ourselves and the world around us. And most importantly, we tell stories to connect with others like us so we can become a community.

My hope is that some of my experience may inspire others like myself, just another average alcoholic, to begin their own journey toward a new way of life, free of alcohol, drugs or any other addiction or obsession so many of us use to change the way we feel.

Today I still struggle with fear, anger and anxiety, but recovery has provided me with better tools to deal with them, so I don’t need to self-destruct or wreck the lives of others.

Depending on which statistical source one uses, there are over one hundred million alcoholics worldwide. More than three million of us die from our disease annually and alcohol abuse is responsible for five percent of the global burden of disease.

Recovery from alcoholism, meaning complete lifetime abstinence, occurs in less than five percent of us. But recovery is possible if the alcoholic’s will is sufficient and a support system exists.

My journey from alcoholism into recovery is unique to me, but not dissimilar to the journey so many others have taken and are taking. Alcoholism and addiction are incurable medical illnesses, but they are treatable if we can stay sober long enough to benefit from treatment. Once hopeless and helpless, we can find a common solution to a common problem. If we can admit defeat and accept both human and spiritual aid, we can find hope again and a new way of life far richer and more fulfilling than we could ever have imagined.

A final note on the anonymity of Alcoholic Anonymous. In A.A.’s Traditions it’s suggested that A.A. members keep the full names of other alcoholics anonymous outside of the Fellowship, meaning in public. And it’s suggested that alcoholics not divulge their own full names in public for a variety of reasons. So in this book I’ve chosen not to use the full names of any alcoholic or of any persons who I feel might wish to remain anonymous for other reasons.

ACKNOWLED

GEMENTS

I thank Alcoholics Anonymous for welcoming me and all alcoholics who have a desire to stop drinking, and for every A.A. member who continually tries to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

So many people from all walks of life have touched and shaped my life for the better.

Thanks to my parents Cecile and Bill G., my sister Kyle C. and her husband Jeff, my late wife Anne H., my sister-in-law Jeanne H. and her wife Julia F., to Cindy R. and her wife Jeanie K., and to my dear friends Kathy D. and Tom A., who all still love me unconditionally, as I do them.

Thanks to my first sponsor Dean J. and my current sponsor Greg B., who show me on a daily basis how to practice the principles of the Twelve Steps.

These good folks, not all of whom are still alive, and so many others have helped me stay on the beam in a variety of unexpected, unanticipated and extraordinary ways:

Barney H., Bea R., Bill H., Billy H., Bob T., Bob Z., Bonnie G., Brad C., Brian F., Brian H., Bruce H., Camille F., Charlie S., Dan W., Don M., Fellon D., Frank H., Gerald R., Harold M., Harry N., Hazel B., Jack O., Jacque A., Joanne L., Jim M., Joe M., John B., John R., Kathy D., Keith L., Larry H., Lee B., Leon M., Lisa T., Lori C., Mark K., Mark L., Marvin S., Mary H., Mike H., Pat R., Peyton S., Phil P., Rodney K., Ron K., Sandra H., Scott B., Skip B., Stephi W., Steve M., Suzanne N., Tim H., Tom C. and Vince J.

GE

T THE KID A STOOL

I was too short to see the top of the bar standing behind my father, desperately holding on to his pant leg, who had just pulled up a stool to settle in for the evening. The noise was deafening. Patrons laughed and yelled at each other while waving at the black-vested bartender for some strange reason.

There were a few tables in front of the bar where mixed couples were more quietly conversing about, I guessed, very important things since their faces had very serious looks on them. Stuck away in a far corner, next to the hallway to the bathroom, was my beautiful, beckoning pinball machine.

Each night after my father Bill, or Sandy, as my mother nicknamed him, finished their daily domestic squabble, he would grab me by the arm in retribution and off we’d go, driving less than a half-mile in his 1953 Buick to Bauer’s, the local watering hole.

My job was to disappear while he drank, which was facilitated by receiving a handful of nickels and a shove toward that pinball machine. Since the top of my head was the same level as the flippers, I always needed a stool to boost me up to where I could put a nickel in the slot and play a game. So I’d look up, shake my Dad’s pant leg and say, Where’s my stool? In no time one would magically appear in my father’s hand, a recurrent contribution from the bartender, and off I’d go.

Boy and machine melded together over time, and I knew just how much I could push, twist and pound on it before it would tilt, disabling the flippers and costing me one of the allotted five balls. Should disaster occur and I ran out of nickels, I would walk back to the barstool where my father would say nothing but quickly replenish my coins.

After a few hours and several trips to the bathroom, my father would suddenly get up, stagger over to me, grab my arm and grumble, Time to go.

With his other hand he’s pick up my stool, toss it to the bartender, and we’d be out the door in less than a minute. Our ride home went a lot quicker than the ride over because my father loved to exercise the horsepower under the Buick hood. Closing my eyes alleviated my fear of imminent death as the car lurched from side to side at high speed through the quiet neighborhood streets.

After landing, I was on my own once again, as Bill readied himself for round two of spousal conflict. It was always the same. My mother Edie would assault him full force once she heard the backdoor open. You’re drunk again! Why do you always have to get drunk? You could have killed our son driving home in your condition!

With Bill and Edie fully distracted, I’d dart up the stairs to my bedroom and close the door, hoping to drown out the noise from below. On the not infrequent occasion that words were not enough and I’d hear kitchen pans and other items being tossed about, I’d creep out of my room, sit at the top of the stairs and watch the show as my mother would chase Bill around and around the house throwing mostly unbreakable items at him.

I was more scared than amused at these marital rallies, but enjoyed the adrenaline rush it gave me. It was like watching a car crash; I didn’t want to look but couldn’t take my eyes away. As the mayhem lessened, it was back to my sanctuary to rest up for tomorrow’s groundhog day.

MAGIC CARPET RIDE

I think of my life as one long magic carpet ride. I wrapped that magic carpet around me as a child and never let go. It warmed me, protected me, and transported me through life. Sometimes it took me to wondrous places, other times to horrendous places. Over the years I learned I couldn’t unwrap it even if I wanted. I couldn’t direct it or control it. It was with me through my daily destiny and all I could do was cope with whatever came along as best I could with the tools I had.

My life before age nine is a blank. I thought having no memory of those years was normal until I heard folks sharing their preschool memories, and couldn’t understand why I had none. Later in life I assumed that after forty years of heavy drinking I was bound to have lost some brain storage capacity, and those early memories simply slipped away.

In sobriety I asked one of my physician friends who was an addiction specialist and had been sober for decades if alcohol could destroy past memories. He said, No. The memories are there; you’ve just suppressed them.

I said, That makes no sense to me. As far as I know, nothing horrific happened to me as a child. My parents were harsh in their criticism, but I wasn’t physically abused, always had food on my plate, clothes on my back and a roof over my head. We lived in an average middle-class neighborhood and weren’t poor. I can’t imagine any events I’d need to suppress to such a degree that those memories are gone forever.

He just repeated what he had said: The memories are there; you’ve just suppressed them.

Intermittently over the following years I tried my best to remember my early days, without much success.

When I asked my mother Edie to tell me if there was anything special about that time of my life she said, No, not really. You were a normal toddler and child; healthy, curious, quiet and well behaved. She went on to say, You know, we did live in Charleston, West Virginia for a year when your father worked for DuPont. We rented a tiny house on top of the ridge above the city and it was haunted. Do you remember the ghost in our house?

What ghost? I asked. I don’t remember any ghost.

The one that walked up and down the stairs at night, mother said.

Did you see it?

No, she said. We just heard it. We all heard it. One night we had a few friends over who stayed late, and all of us were sitting in the living room. Suddenly it got quiet, and we all heard footsteps on the stairs. When we looked, no one was there. I chucked and told the guests it was our ‘friendly ghost’.

My mother had nothing more to contribute to my early life memories, so I gave up trying to remember anything, assuming No news is good news, and left it at that.

EDIE & BILL

As a child, I was familiarized first with my parents, Bill and Edie, and my grandparents, Bill and Mary, and learned how alcohol affected them. My father and paternal grandmother were alcoholics. My grandmother’s husband was also probably alcoholic, and although my mother Edie was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic as being alcoholic I don’t think she was; she just had the typical emotionally disturbed alcoholic personality without the alcohol. Not everyone who grows up in a family of alcoholics becomes an alcoholic or addict, but too many do.

There are no predictors of who might or might not end up an alcoholic or addict, but the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) studies come close.

The original ACE Study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente in California during the mid-1990s. Adverse childhood experiences can involve sexual, psychological, or physical abuse. ACEs have been linked to premature death as well as to various health conditions, including those of mental and addictive disorders. The ACE Studies were the first large scale studies to look at the relationship between ten categories of adversity in childhood and health outcomes in adulthood.

My score on the ACE survey was seven of ten. A score of four or above are warning signs of adverse health outcomes, and I estimated I had a 70% or higher chance of becoming an alcoholic based on my own score. A score doesn’t explain or change my illness, but it helps me understand the forces that could have made me more susceptible to alcoholism.

Take ACE quiz at: https://americanspcc.org/take-the-aces-quiz

Interpretation of ACE score at: https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score

W.A.G. I

For a brief time there were four generations of G—‘s alive at the same time who had the same name and initials, which made family references and discussions challenging. To distinguish among us, I’m using initials and roman numerals: W.A.G. I (my great-grandfather), W.A.G. II (grandfather), W.A.G. III (father) and W.A.G. IV (myself).

My full name at birth was William Alexander G. IV, son of William Alexander G. III, grandson of William Alexander G. II and great-grandson of William Alexander G. This made me the fourth generation of G.’s still living in 1953.

On my desk I keep a cherished, tiny, faded, nine-inch square picture of three men sitting on a bench with one of them holding a baby: me, my father, grandfather and great-grandfather. It’s the only photograph I have of my great-grandfather who was born at the end of the Civil War, and of whom I have no memory. My father said he lived in California and died when I was three years old, and we were all four together only that one time.

Interestingly, my great-grandfather’s father was also named William Alexander G., and that W.A.G. had been graduated as a physician from Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1829. Hanging in my study is the framed and faded medical diploma he received, written in Latin, referring to a physician like myself but removed from me by five generations.

One of the five Harvard signatures on his diploma is that of Dr. Walter Channing, who was the leading Boston obstetrician and Harvard Medical School’s first professor of obstetrics and medical jurisprudence. Channing was a founder of the Boston Lying-in Hospital for women, now part of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and was one of the founders of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery.

W.A.G. II

My grandparents Bill and Mary G. lived in Stamford, Connecticut. I looked forward to visiting them for several weeks every summer because everyone would ignore me and I could roam the upscale suburban neighborhood with my best friend Robbie, another only child like myself, who lived next door.

During the week my grandfather would get up at six AM to get ready to take his ninety-minute commuter train ride to the financial district of Manhattan where he worked in management at AT&T. He was home by seven PM, at which time we all sat down to dinner.

In the 1950s frozen TV dinners were introduced by Swanson, but most families still made their meals from scratch, including my grandmother Mary. Whenever someone was cooking in a kitchen, I was there. I loved the smells of a fresh meal being prepared, and was fascinated by the magic of cooking and baking.

Sadly, no one in my family was a good cook, nor did they like to cook. The women cooked because they had to, and it was expected of them. Their goal was to get some type of meat-vegetable-potato combo with or without bread and dessert on the dinner table. How it was received or what it tasted like was never a concern.

The dreaded, traditional Sunday after church mid-afternoon feast was the worst. For some reason my grandparents loved cow tongue, and my grandmother would often prepare a large tongue roast, which is basically all fat, and was one of the most repulsive foods I’ve ever encountered.

I didn’t know it at the time but Mary was a closet alcoholic. In hindsight, that might have explained her refusal to let me help her in the kitchen, and her insistence that I sit silently at the kitchen table if she was preparing a meal. Despite those limitations, I did pay attention to the ingredients she used and how she used them, especially when she was baking breads or desserts.

It was a treat to receive bread and dessert at dinner because my own mother Edie never provided those starches when she was in charge of the meals. She hated to cook more than my grandmother did, and reminded my father and me of that fact at every meal by serving up tasteless, overcooked courses whenever she was forced to do so.

After dinner I’d help grandmother clean up in the kitchen, and my parents would take a walk around the neighborhood in the warm summer evening. Grandfather would silently retire to his living room rocking chair and start reading the day’s New York Times. When I finished in the kitchen I’d go to the back yard to see if my friend Robbie was around. If so, we’d wander the neighborhood until dusk. If not, I’d play in my imaginary fort in the trees at the back of the property.

After sundown the living room television came on, and we’d watch the various Western shows like Gunsmoke, Bonanza and Wagon Train which were popular at the time. I was forced into bed by ten PM when my favorite show The Untouchables came on, and never got to watch it, causing another resentment against my grandparents that I carried for years.

My bedroom was on the second floor at the back of the house, directly across from my grandfather’s study. If I left my bedroom door cracked, I could fall asleep by the melodic ticking sound of the large grandfather clock standing in the corner of the hallway. Today that same clock stands in the corner of my living room, beautiful but non-functional.

Since my grandfather never took time off while we visited, most of our time was spent amusing ourselves any way we could. During the week I’d play with Robbie, and if it was warm enough my parents and I would spend the day swimming in the neighborhood community pool. Sometimes we’d take a day trip to the various parks in Stamford and nearby Greenwich. One time I remember the three of us took the train into New York City to visit the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Central Park and some of the other tourist spots. I loved those trips into the city, but always had a stiff neck afterward from staring up at the skyscrapers all day.

Since I loved to read I was never bored, and had no difficulty spending a quiet afternoon on the screen porch reading anything I could get my hands on. No one in my family was a reader, but most kept a few books around to give the impression they did.

After my parents Edie and Bill divorced I never saw my grandparents again. I was told they both died in their eighties—my grandfather from dementia and my grandmother from alcoholism.

W.A.G. III

Both of my parents were born a year before the stock market crash of October 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. My father William G. III (Bill) was born in August 1928 in Burlington, Iowa (pop. 26,000), a riverport and railroad hub, noteworthy for being the home of Snake Alley, labelled the most bent and crooked street on earth by Ripley’s Believe It or Not and the birthplace of actor William Frawley (1887–1966), who played the misery landlord character Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy show in the 1950s.

Bill, like myself, was an only child. After living in Iowa for a few years, my father Bill’s parents William (Bill II) and Mary moved the family to West Hartford, Connecticut where he was educated and graduated from Hartford’s Trinity College in 1950 before getting a master’s business degree at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School in Philadelphia in 1951. While in Philadelphia he met my mother Edie and in 1952 they were married. That same year Bill was hired as an accounting and services superintendent by the DuPont de Nemours company in Wilmington, Delaware and promptly transferred to the DuPont de Nemours company in Louisville, Kentucky. In July of the following year I was born.

My father told me he started drinking heavily soon after I was born in 1953 because he hated my mother and their marriage. It had not been a shotgun wedding, but postpartum my mother refused to have sex with him for the rest of their twelve-year marriage for reasons never disclosed, which is always a good excuse for becoming an alcoholic.

My father was not a happy drunk. The more he drank the angrier and more violent he became. He never laid a hand on me, sober or drunk, but he and my mother would have weekly rows which usually involved Edie chasing him around the downstairs rooms throwing pots and pans at him. Eventually he’d grab her, shake her and push her to the floor before storming out the door to return to the neighborhood bar. I never saw him hit her with his hand or fist, but my mother kicked and slapped him repeatedly during their clashes.

I never felt any love from my father and I never loved him. He basically ignored me and attended to his drinking. When he did speak to me, it fell into the, You’ll never be any good, or You’re never good enough categories.

These admonishments were especially hurtful when I tried to learn to play piano. We had no piano, but we did have an old pedal pump organ that was given to Bill by his parents even though Bill never played a musical instrument in his life.

The organ sat in the corner of our living room and I was granted weekly instruction by a lady from our church. I’ll admit I had no musical ear. My playing, despite my best efforts, was terrible. But I was persistent, determined to master the simple single chord songs I was given to play.

The longer I practiced, the more vocal my father became. He would deride me as I tried to work through the scales and simple melodies outlined in the piano beginner’s books. After a month I gave up, and swore to myself I’d never try anything new again.

And I kept that foolish promise for decades.

My solution to dealing with my father was to become invisible. If he couldn’t see me, he couldn’t belittle me. So I spent the first twelve years of my life and twenty-five years after my parent’s divorce doing everything in my power to avoid him.

Evading my drunken father was not difficult. Hiding in my upstairs bedroom out of sight became out of mind. Every few months Bill would spy me in the yard and if he was drunk he’d say, Let’s go for a ride.

Bill was forever a proud Buick man, and each new car he purchased at three-year intervals was the latest model sporty Buick. I could never refuse a ride, and this was before seat belts were in cars. We’d head out to one of the new Interstate freeways President Eisenhower had recently funded and Bill would say, Want to hear the antenna sing? as he pushed the accelerator to the floor.

As the speedometer approached ninety miles an hour, the antenna, bent down to a ninety-degree angle by the wind, would sing. I was terrified, with visions of crashing, burning and dying dancing through my head.

Somehow the angels watched over us. Neither my father nor I, no matter how drunk, ever had an automobile accident other than a minor fender scrape while parking the car in the garage.

Bill was a chemical engineer and management supervisor at the Louisville DuPont Works located on Camp Ground Road in southwest Louisville. The plant was built in 1941 to produce neoprene—a synthetic rubber product. Bill worked at DuPont all his life, never having another job.

I never understood what exactly my dad did for a living until I was seven years old. One day he brought home a small, rubber neoprene ball about the size of a plum with incredible bouncing properties—much like the Superball sold in the mid-1960s. When the ball was dropped, it would bounce back to almost the same height. I immediately showed the magical ball to all my friends and was the envy of the neighborhood, proudly declaring, My Daddy makes these.

I remember three or four times, usually after dinner time, that Bill would say to me out of the blue, Let’s go see the plant. My mother would stare at him and not say a word. I knew better than to argue with the request, and we’d drive twelve miles to the main gate at Dupont and park outside. The guards knew my father, and the first time we visited we walked through the gate and for an hour ambled throughout the 138 acre plant. Bill described all the interconnections and purposes of the maze of boilers, stacks and pipes, which was far too complicated for me to understand.

During subsequent visits when Bill parked outside the main gate, he’d say, You’ve seen the plant already so wait in the car. I’ve got to go to my office and pick up some things. After an hour he’d return empty-handed, and we’d go back home. Neither of us said anything about the strange behavior.

Before the divorce my mother told me Bill thought he could fool her by taking me along to the plant when he met up with his secretary, with whom he was having an affair. The affairs never stopped, but eventually the ride-a-longs did.

A few years later DuPont hosted a contest for their employees’ children. The challenge was for the kids to make a drawing of something positive which reflected DuPont’s role in the community. My sketch included the DuPont motto of Safety First, and I received a large red, second place ribbon for my efforts. It was the first and last public award I ever received.

On Wednesday August 25, 1965, a month after I turned twelve, school hadn’t started and I was out playing by myself in the yard. It was well before noon, but with the sun out on that clear day it was hot enough to sweat with no effort. Suddenly I heard what sounded like a distant explosion, similar to a sonic boom, and felt the ground shake. Confused, I looked around but nothing had changed.

In those days most homes left their radio or television on all day, tuned in to the local stations. When I went inside for lunch I could see my mother Edie was pacing back and forth, visibly upset.

What’s wrong, I said.

There’s been an explosion at Daddy’s plant, she said.

I knew Dad worked with chemicals and knew explosions could come from chemicals. Explosions were bad.

Is Dad OK?

Mom said, I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him.

Maybe the phones don’t work, I said.

He could still call from a public phone down the road, was her reply.

As the hours passed, my mother became more agitated. She called other DuPont wives and they said some people had been killed, but most of them had heard from their husbands.

I was concerned, but not that concerned because my father and I had no relationship other than a fear based one. I never wished him dead; I just wished him out of my life forever.

My father never called my mother. He showed up just before sundown and my mother was furious he didn’t call her.

As soon as they started fighting, I headed back up to my room and closed the door, searching for a book that I could read to distract me from the chaos below.

The following morning our local newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, had a photo of the smoldering plant which took up the top third of the front page. The headline read: Worst City Industrial Mishap Injures At Least 37 Persons.

In the end, twelve DuPont workers died and thirty-seven were injured. There had been one main explosion which set off nine others, leveling most of the plant. The cause of the explosions was never definitively determined, but human error was suspected.

W.A.G. IV

W.A.G. IV is me, and I can sum up most of my life as one of an evil and corroding thread of fear. The tread was long, and came off a gigantic spool which to this day still has ample thread left on it.

If asked to use one word to describe my childhood it would be Fear—fear with a capital F. I was constantly afraid that I had done something wrong in the mind of my parents, whether true or not, that would soon be created or discovered, and I’d be punished, even though I had no idea I had done anything wrong.

My father generally