Chapter#2.2: Father and the Devil

Sam always referred to any vice as the devil. As in “he caught someone snorting the devil off the bathroom counter or he saw some kid rolling dice for the devil in the ally way. And one of Amanda’s all-time favorites: he woke up to someone outside the church nailing the devil. Which for all he knew could have been a lovely married couple. But the point is it woke him with a sound unholy. In any case, where he could have used the term “personal demons” he used “the devil” instead. Amanda remembered once, as a teenager, that she caught Sam with his pants off playing with the devil in the laundry room.

In their father’s case, the devil was the bottle. It didn’t matter what it was as long as it got the job done “he hasn't been coming to the church meetings lately. I know you don’t talk to him much, but I was wondering if you've seen him around.”

            She hadn’t talked to him in months, nor had she wanted to “last time I saw him was here for Easter.”

 “You haven’t seen him out and about? You know, like in any bars or whatever?” This upset Amanda. What an assuming question. She despised how he compared her to their father. He assumed that since he went out looking for trouble night after night that she would randomly run into him. When the truth was she hadn’t been out in a while, especially since her ex. “A church member said they saw him place called the Holy Saints.”

 “That sounds promising.” Amanda chimed.

 “It’s not a church. The place is spelled H-O-L-E space ‘E’ and Saints ends with a bra shaped ‘Z,’” Portland was reported to have the most strip clubs per capita than any other city. Sam joked in the past that if AA meetings were held at these location, that more men would probably go. But that would be like sending a kid into a candy store and saying he wasn’t allowed to sample.

 “Whoa, what church member saw him at a titty bar?” She asked.

 “Lord’s business, not yours. Anyways, he’s a sick man Amanda and I want to continue to encourage him to keep coming.”

“To what end Sam? You can’t leave it up to him to decide when he’s going to change his life. He’s in his late fifties, lives off disability, has no motivation and doesn’t contribute anything to anyone. He needs to be put in a center for assholes that can’t help themselves. And if not for his sake, then for all the people who have to deal with him,” she exclaimed.

“He will commit to getting better when he’s ready, until then, all we can do is leave that door open and pray.”

“You pray, I’ve got better things to do with my time than worry about him,” she turned her head to the side and briefly stared at the mahogany paneled wall while betting her lower lip. She turned back to Sam and said in a raised voice “he’s never going to choose to stop. He’s like a dog with tunnel vision. Like Nick Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. Even if he didn’t have an addiction, he would still need a way to drown out all the shit he didn’t want to deal with whether it’s his unemployment, his kids or…” she trailed off and started shaking her head in frustration. She had no empathy for someone who not only was just waiting for a sweet release but treated her like crap in the interim. She closed her eyes rubbed her temples.

*****

Sam couldn’t hold back anymore. Heaven willing, he had to say what was boiling to the surface in both their minds. The topic that tore the only family she ever knew apart. The fulcrum that started it all “…or mom, ‘Manda…?” And there it was, he took a long pause and lowered his voice “it wasn’t your fault.” She had been told that so many times through her life that he wondered if it no longer had any meaning for her.

Their dear mother, God rest her soul, had passed during childbirth. Unavoidable and tragic, Mary Callahan’s life ended where Amanda’s began. It was at that point that Sam and their father started attending church weekly with little Manda, which seemed to help ease the pain of their loss and allowed his sister to understand that her mother was in a better place, that she was the miracle that sprung for the tragedy.

This continued up till Amanda’s teenage years when the stress of being a single parent of  two kids came to a breaking point and their father stopped hiding a deep secret he wasn’t sure he could forever hide: that he directly blamed  his daughter for the death of her mother and that given the chance, he would have them trade places. Upon sharing this secret, which Sam came to realize was eating him from the inside out, he became reclusive and spiteful, changing from a weekend drinker to a full-blown alcoholic.

No child should ever be told that their responsible for their own mother’s death and she may have grown up to be a very different person if it wasn’t for her supportive and reassuring older brother.

After that, their father stopped going to church with them. Sam still brought his sister but from them on, she despised going There were some good memories from when she and Sam would go together when Sam thought it important that he bring her along for her own salvation. In time, she stopped going altogether and Sam started studying to join the clergy. He had thought if the church couldn't save his little sister, perhaps he could. He ended up replacing Pastor Virgil Matthews after he passed a few years back and now stayed in close contact with her since he was no longer seeing her on a weekly basis.

Mary was a wonderful woman and a terrific mother, but God had a plan that involved taking her away and leaving Amanda to struggle a little harder so she could learn to be a little stronger. It was a test that Sam wasn’t sure she could overcome; no matter how many times she said it didn’t bother her.

After a moment of indiscernible thought, Amanda quickly stood up, walked out the door and started down the hall to the exit. As she did so, Sam opened a desk drawer, grabbed a set of keys and tossed them on the desktop and put his hands in his pocket as he stood up himself.

Amanda heard this and stopped. She walked back into the office to the desk and put her fingers on the key and quietly said “I know,”

He lowered  his face pursed his lips and nodded as if to say ‘glad to hear it, but I don’t believe you.’ The truth was, he knew she was on fire inside, but that she wouldn’t lash out at him for trying to help. He knew she was more frustrated than angry and that this was a conversation for another time, though it seemed like there was never time, a right time, to bring up the subject.

She grabbed the keys and walked out, back to the dark real world.
Sam put his fingers on the desk and said a silent prayer for her. Their father may have been beyond help, but Amanda still had a chance. He turned off the desk lamp and retired for the evening with more stress on his mind than one parishioner should have.

Suggested listening: Angel of Small Death by Hozier