Eight years old, my mommy and daddy were very happy when I grew up another year. I told them that if they bought me a present that it would hurt my feelings. I think they knew that they gave me the best present they could ever give me. Them being happy again was worth everything in the world, and it probably was. In school we learned about wars, not just old wars like the Civil War, Vietnam War, and Desert Shield, but the wars of now. My mom and daddy still didn't let me watch the news when something about war came on, but it didn't matter I was still learning about it in school.
But, as happy as my parents seemed most of the time their arguments seemed to be getting even more scary. One time I hid in a kitchen cupboard under the sink when I heard their voices come toward me. And that was when I finally knew what they were talking about. They were talking about God. Mommy was, daddy wasn't. Then daddy became really loud. Mommy and him couldn't hear me crying under the sink.
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The day I turned nine was a horrible day. Sunday, January 18, was the day, not too cold for a winter day. It was strange how every year my birthday was on a different day. I remember because I always draw a circle on the calendars. My family doesn't throw them away, they just put the new one over last years. What happened on my birthday was that my dad wanted to take us on a trip to the Missouri river at the time that mommy and me were going to church.
My mom apologized and said that we couldn't go at the time, but that we could go after. Daddy didn't like that. He got angry and said that she cared more about fairy tales than using up more daylight to spend time around the Missouri. Not close to Mandan. Oh no, so many trees had been cut down that all you could see was the city of Bismarck. My daddy said that when he was a kid it used to be a really small city and that even if it wasn't, there were so many trees that he wouldn't be able to see it anyway.
So daddy gave up and let me and mommy go, but there wasn't going to be a family trip today. Me and mommy went to church and loved every minute of it, then we went home and saw a red truck that we didn't recognize parked in front of our house. It had become really, really cold during the time that we were in church, and when we stepped out our teeth chattered. Me and my mommy laughed about that. When we entered the house I didn't know what I was seeing. My daddy and two other men were sitting on the couch drinking from silver coke cans, at least that's what they looked like.
I could hear that they were watching a ball game, and they were laughing for no reason. My mommy pulled me away from seeing my daddy and hearing the noises by taking me outside. Outside I began to shiver not only because of the cold but at how daddy looked. He was smiling, but it wasn't the smile I knew. It was like there was something evil inside him that made him laugh. And the face mommy had scared me even more.
"Mommy?" I said tugging on her shirt.
"Yes, Stacey?" she said looking down at me and taking a hold of my hand.
"What's wrong with daddy?"
She looked at me and I saw tears fall from her eyes. "Your father is drunk," she said in what was a whisper. The whistling wind made it almost impossible what she said next. "Your father has never drank before. I don't know why he's doing it now. But... I think I do."
"Why?" I said crying to.
She didn't reply.
"Why!?" I said crying even louder.
"Why!? Why!?" And then we both cried together in the wind. We stayed there outside until it began to snow. We didn't mind the snow, even though we were only wearing church clothes. We were too afraid to go back inside. We waited until daddy's friends left. I screamed when they almost crashed as they were driving away. We walked inside; I knew what I would see. Before my mommy reached out to turn the knob I wanted to stop her hand and ask why my daddy was drinking bad stuff.
I pushed the question away. A few weeks later though, I learned why, and then mommy left because daddy said that he didn't love her anymore. Before my mommy left she told me to never give up on him. And then... she faded from my life. Like the melting snow of winter. Except in my version spring and winter were skipped for fall, all the green dies and all there is is death. The falling leaves never end.
My daddy almost never talked to me, and when he did it was usually orders. On time he said he was going to break our family photo. When he threw it on the ground I silently cried as the glass broke. He threw it in the trash. I waited for when he drank so much of the bad stuff until he fell asleep and took it out of the trash. I cut my finger as I took it out of the frame.
A drop of blood fell on the picture. It landed on daddy’s smiling face. I tried rubbing it off with my shirt, but it only made it worse. The smile of the daddy I loved was erased by my blood. And now the only daddy I would see was the one on the couch. The one who didn't care about anybody anymore. Our family picture was shattered.
I went to my room and shut the door behind me. I ran to my bed and dug under the mattress. I pulled out a Bible that belonged to my mommy. It was the only thing besides my job that she left me with. If daddy ever found me reading it... I don't know what he would do. But I know he wouldn't hurt me... not too much. Mommy wouldn't have left me if she thought he would do that.
I rubbed a bruise on my shoulder and flipped through the many pages of the old Bible. It was the only book in the whole house. And I knew perfectly well how to read it. I jumped when I heard daddy’s footsteps. I breathed out when I knew that they were heading away from me not toward me. When there was no more beer in the house my daddy went out to get more. Mommy took the car so he either got a ride from his friends or he walked.
He didn't care about leaving me alone. But, I worried about him. I still loved him no matter what. I only wish I can make mommy proud by doing what she asked. And getting daddy to listen gets harder every second I breathe. I went to the light switch and turned the light off. I wasn't afraid of the dark. No, I was afraid at what I could see. I being alone most of the time I could watch the news and see what it was that mommy and daddy had hid from me.
And what I saw and heard was worse than I had ever thought. War was getting worse. I walked to my bed in the dark and hopped on it, then I cried myself to sleep.
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Five years have gone by since my mother left, and I am now thirteen. I lay curled up on my bed with three blankets wrapped around me. We don't have a heater, so the only way I get warmth is through my own body heat. It's so cold in my room that every time I exhale it makes vapor. As I lye enveloped in my warmth with my eyes shut tight I think. Thinking is something that I do every night, sometimes for hours. Right now I am thinking of the day mom left.
The thing is, I could have gone with her too. In fact it was me that insisted that I couldn't go. I knew even at nine years old that my daddy was still somewhere in the drunk that he had become. And I think that mother saw that her absence was what he needed to calm down. However, at the same time I wondered if it was wrong for mother to keep herself away for a time.
That is what it was, simply a prolonged separation. Dad wasn't seeing anybody, and from my long conversations with my mother over pay phones, neither was she. Good, that meant that they were both committed to each other. My mom certainly was, and my dad just didn't know that something deep within him still clung to his wife.
Life at home is quite the struggle. And to think that any other girl like me who has to endure the atrocities of the school environment looks forward to going home. For me both destinations are harsh. I know I'm not the only teenage girl who has to go through the same thing, but I know that most wouldn't have the strength to move forward.
It's Saturday night, and I am home alone. Dad is out with his friends at the bar. The disgusting place that they frequent is named The Seven Bottle Judgments. It officially opened on Friday, January 18, my birthday. If I was any other girl I would have thought up something like, "God has a grim sense of humor alright."
But no, that's in no way what I am. I am what the girls in my school call a loser. They always ask me why I don't cuss, and why don't I have a boyfriend. I tell that I don't cuss because there's just no need for such silly words. And about the boyfriend. Do I really want some moron to be following me around and... kissing me? So many of the boys in school are so gross. I do my best to not hear anything that they say, but that is an impossibility when the classrooms are twenty four by twenty feet. They don't see to realize that even their whispers carry across the room. I know that the teachers hear the disgusting things that are said in my classes, they just don't care.
Why don't people care? All they do is fight. Every night I pray for the wars to end. But, they only seem to be getting worse. Goodness, humanity is creating so many false devils. And one was dancing around the continent of Africa right now. Food shortages caused by the Global Warming that is being ignored has caused the deadliest famine in history.
And so, while marvels of science have all but erased the world’s killer diseases and the population blooms like a never ending sprouting of flowers, the people of Africa are dying. Relief programs are doing virtually nothing. They are either working out planes, or... they don't care. But I do, and I will pray for them. Along with my prayers for my daddy.
An engine hums outside. I recognize that hum; it's Frank of my dad’s friends dropping him off. The hum belonged to the same truck that had been parked in front of our house on the day that my dad began to drink. I could see the red monster outside, a ghost of steam rising from its exhaust pipe in chill of night. I pulled the covers above my head as my dad unlocked the front door.
I will my mind to shut down. I need all the rest I can get. And when I sleep I will surely awake to Sunday. Tomorrow I will sneak of to Church much like I do every week. I could go any other day, but it just doesn't feel the same. I cover my ears as my dads footsteps waddle around the house. Hearing him drunk is just as bad as seeing him, if not worse.
I had really bad eyesight, so I learned to focus on my hearing. A few weeks ago my dad... accidentally splashed cleaning chemicals on my eyes. And then there was the time when a kid in school flicked a rubber band in my right eye. It hurt so bad, but I didn't give him the satisfaction seeing me cry. Why did he do something like that? There was a lot that I didn't understand about the nature of humanity.
I lay in bed, curled up into a ball, waiting for darkness to overcome me. A scratching sound comes from inside my closet. It must be a rat. The scratching becomes so intense that it begins to sound like it's being done by a monster with iron nails. As I hear my dad plop down on his bed through the wall a growl comes from my closet.
I shut my eyes, too scared to move. And somehow I find myself falling asleep. Before I am wrapped up in the motherly embrace of sleep the thing in my closet howls.
I am. 
Or, was i just kidding? 
Nah, I wasn't. 
Hm, but was I? 
Nope. 