is it the past or is it the truth?

My dad has a work ethic like no one I have ever known. His hands are like some religious shrine in my mind. If I had to isolate one quality that my father had imparted on me, I would have to say respect. Respect for me, respect for you, respect for society at large. When I was 13, a bunch of my friends decided to lie in the middle of a busy street to piss off the people driving their cars. Yeah, it was funny and all, but I couldn’t do it, not because I was afraid of getting my ass busted by my dad, but because it was stupid and disrespectful and I was far too grown up to do something like that. I have a lot of respect and admiration for my dad. It took awhile for me to accept and acknowledge the good things about my dad. He is an alcoholic. I remember being very young….six or seven years old, and hiding out in the blackberry bushes when my dad’s truck pulled in the driveway. He often stopped at the bar after work and we never knew what kind of disposition we would be facing that night. My dad was a mean drunk. He called names, and gave everyone the evil eye. I wouldn’t say that we were physically abused, but his punishments were harsh. We (my sister and I) were spanked bare ass probably around once a week. It was some creepy kind of ritual, looking back on it now. We shared a room, and who ever wasn’t getting their ass whooped had to roll over and look at the wall while the other cried. It was like some twisted thing. Maybe he meant it to be a deterrent to keep us from acting like little shits, or maybe he never put that much thought into it. There were many times he would sneak up behind you when you were doing something wrong, for instance, peeling paint off of the windowsill or something like that and he would thump you right behind the ear with his hard, wide, thick ass middle finger. He wouldn’t even say anything to you…just a quick, painful thump on the soft spot behind your ear. As much respect as my dad taught me, I don’t really think that he treated us that way. I don’t think he thought of us as actual people. Without conveying the wrong idea, I want to say that he treated us a lot like he treated the dog. His goal was to train us. I have never doubted that my dad loves me. He has always been there. He has a great sense of humor, and can be fun to be around. He is a dirty old man. I grew up a few years ago and stopped feeling angry about the effect his alcoholism has had in my life.My parents were together for 13 years. They split when I was ten. I was so happy when they sat us down and told us. Isn’t that twisted. I couldn’t wait. My dad had sat us all down a couple months before that and showed us a can of non-alcoholic beer. He said that he was sorry that he was so mean sometimes and told us that alcohol made him feel angry and that he was going to stop drinking alcoholic beer because he didn’t want us to be afraid of him anymore. It didn’t last. The sad thing is, at that age you don’t really know what ’drunk’ is and it just seems so normal. Even when he said that beer made him mean, I never associated his moods with alcohol. The whole cycle of drunken episode after drunken episode was normalcy as we saw it. That’s just what daddies did. I guess a lot of kids growing up in a combative, hostile environment are relieved when it’s over. But I always felt guilty like I was betraying my dad by feeling free and happy. Walking on eggshells was something he trained us to do, intentionally or not, and the relief that came when mom swept that shit off the floors was a big source of guilt for me. Children, after all are supposed to think that divorce is all their fault and be devastated and pine for the old days of parental co-habitation. I knew it was my dad’s fault, though, and I was glad to be away from him. He was scary. That was how he wanted to bring us up. Scared. Maybe that was all he knew how to do.My mother had a much more permissive style of parenting. I think she felt like a released prisoner herself, after all the years of isolation…my dad disabling her cars and sabotaging any part time jobs she had. My brother was 2 when my parents separated. He’s the only reason I think it went on for two more years. My mom started going to GED classes, and got on welfare and housing to pay the bills. She started to make friends and go out to party on the weekends. I was more responsible that the average ten year old and ended up being responsible for my younger siblings a lot of the time. I liked it enough. It made me feel important. This was around the time that my relationship with my mom began to change. She started treating me like an equal. She made me feel like it was our responsibility to take care of the kids and our house; she made me feel like a partner in that. I liked it. I liked it that she thought I was grown up enough to be in charge of something. As I got older, I became less and less accountable to my mother. She rarely asked where I was going or any of the related questions. Sometimes I would be gone for a couple days out of town with friends and I don’t think she even missed me. She was partying pretty regularly, and she started doing a little meth here and there. I had no knowledge at this early point, but it got worse and worse. She had always smoked a little pot, and never hid it from us. It was her version of drinking a beer is how I remember thinking of it….only she didn’t get pissed off and scare us after she had a bong hit.