Free Crystal Clean by Kimberly Wollenburg Page B

through the accident unscathed, other than losing my car, confirmed my belief that I didn’t have a problem. A little sleepy, but as the cop said, it happens to lots of people on that stretch of road. It really had nothing to do with me. It’s that kind of denial that kept me trapped for so long.

Chapter 7
     
    In a town with a population of less than 2,000, a person who doesn’t work may as well be wearing a sign that says, “Shady character. Please investigate further.” Since I no longer had transportation anyway, it was time for us to leave. I rented a storage unit for my belongings, and Andy and I moved back to Boise and in with my parents. I enrolled Andy in school and set about the task of pretending to find a job.
    I did half-heartedly look. I sent out resumes on the Internet and circled help wanted ads in the classified section of the newspaper every morning. I went through the motions, but I couldn’t picture myself working a nine to five. I told myself it was because I didn’t work well with people, that I’d lost faith in humanity. That was a favorite saying of mine. I saw myself as a victim. I was fired from the last two jobs I’d had for being chronic lateness. In my drug-addled mind, though, I was convinced that people just didn’t understand my special circumstances. I was, after all, a single mother of a child with a disability. Shouldn’t that afford me extra privileges? No one understood me and of course, this provided the perfect excuse for my drug use, as well.
    I honestly don’t know what I thought I was going to do, but I was in no hurry to find a job. All I cared about was spending time with Andy when he was home, and getting high the rest of the time. As generous as they were about taking us in, I resented my parents. I felt stifled by their sterile home and rigid routine, which was much different from when I was growing up.
     
    When I was younger, my parents drank. Canadian Mist and 7-Up was the beverage of choice, especially when we were with Mom’s side of the family. My family and I would sometimes spend the weekend with my two uncles - Mom’s brothers - and their wives, at my grandparents’ house in Hailey or Fairfield , little rural towns in southern Idaho . They would play cards, or watch a football game on TV, but drinking was always the backdrop for family get-togethers.
    At home, Mom and Dad would have an occasional cocktail after work, but there was less restraint on the weekends, especially when my grandparents would visit. The four of them would drink all evening and if they went to dinner or a football game, they drank there too. Drinking was part of spending time with family. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was common to bring a half gallon of booze to the celebration. That being the custom and with the size of our family, it was normal to have three or four half-gallon bottles and plenty of beer.
    My parents both drank back then, but with Dad it was different. Sometimes he would get falling-down drunk. He wasn’t a mean drunk, at least not around the extended family; he was a happy, silly drunk. To me, it seemed that he was the clown, the buffoon that everyone laughed at. I hated him for letting himself be treated that way. Once, when my parents and grandparents came home from a ball game, Dad attempted to take the babysitter home, but he passed out behind the wheel in our driveway. We never saw that babysitter again.
    When I was in junior high, my father’s drinking got worse, or at least that’s when I started to notice what was happening. Sometimes he would go for a drink with a friend after work on a Friday afternoon and we wouldn’t see or hear from him for two or three days. Mom was very quiet on those weekends, sitting at the dining room table by the phone, chain smoking. To this day, I have no idea where my father was during his AWOLs. I do remember one weekend he called on a Sunday and my mother spoke with him briefly. She told us he woke up three hundred