I TURNED TEN THAT spring, but birthdays were not a big deal around our house. Sometimes Mom stuck a few candles in some ice cream and we all sang. "Happy Birthday." Mom and Dad might get us a little presenta comic book or a pair of shoes or a package of underwearbut at least as often, they forgot our birthdays altogether.
So I was surprised when, on the day I turned ten, Dad took me outside to the back patio and asked what I wanted most in the world. "It's a special occasion, seeing as how it puts you into double digits," he said. "You're growing up damn fast, Mountain Goat. You'll be on your own in no time, and if there's anything I can do for you now, before you're gone, I want to do it."
I knew Dad wasn't talking about buying me some extravagant present, like a pony or a dollhouse. He was asking what he could do, now that I was almost a grown-up, to make my last years as a kid everything I hoped they'd be. There was only one thing I truly wanted, something that I knew would change all our lives, but I was afraid to ask for it. Just thinking about saying the words out loud made me nervous.
Dad saw my hesitation. He knelt so that he was looking up at me. "What is it?" he said. "Ask away."
"It's big."
"Just ask, baby."
"I'm scared."
"You know if it's humanly possible, I'll get it for you. And if it ain't humanly possible, I'll die trying."
I looked up at the thin swirls of clouds high in the blue Arizona sky. Keeping my eyes fastened on those distant clouds, I took a breath and said. "Do you think you could maybe stop drinking?"
Dad said nothing. He was staring down at the cement patio, and when he turned to me, his eyes had a wounded look, like a dog who's been kicked. "You must be awfully ashamed of your old man," he said.
"No," I said quickly. "It's just I think Mom would be a lot happier. Plus, we'd have the extra money."
"You don't have to explain," Dad said. His voice was barely a whisper. He stood up and walked into the yard and sat down under the orange trees. I followed and sat down next to him. I was going to take his hand, but before I could reach for it, he said. "If you don't mind, honey, I think I'd like to sit here by myself for a while."
*
In the morning Dad told me that for the next few days, he was going to keep to himself in his bedroom. He wanted us kids to steer clear of him, to stay outside all day and play. Everything went fine for the first day. On the second day, when I came home from school, I heard a terrible groaning coming from the bedroom.
"Dad?" I called. There was no answer. I opened the door.
Dad was tied to the bed with ropes and belts. I don't know if he had done it himself or if Mom helped him, but he was thrashing about, bucking and pulling at the restraints, yelling "No!" and "Stop!" and "Oh my God!" His face was gray and dripping with sweat. I called out to him again, but he didn't see or hear me. I went into the kitchen and filled an empty orange-juice jug with water. I sat with the jug next to Dad's door in case he got thirsty. Mom saw me and told me to go outside and play. I told her I wanted to help Dad. She said there was nothing I could do, but I stayed by the door anyway.
Dad's delirium continued for days. When I came home from school, I'd get the jug of water, take up my position by the door, and wait there until bedtime. Brian and Maureen played outside, and Lori kept to the far side of the house. Mom painted in her studio. No one talked much about what was going on. One night when we were eating dinner, Dad let out a particularly hideous cry. I looked at Mom, who was stirring her soup as if it were an ordinary evening, and that was when I lost it.
"Do something!" I yelled at her. "You've got to do something to help Dad!"
"Your father's the only one who can help himself," Mom said. "Only he knows how to fight his own demons."
After the better part of a week, Dad's delirium stopped, and he asked us to come talk to him in the bedroom. He was propped up on a pillow, paler and thinner than I'd ever seen him. He took the water jug I offered him. His hands were shaking so badly that he had trouble holding it, and water dribbled down his chin as he drank.
A few days later, Dad was able to walk around, but he had no appetite, and his hands still trembled. I told Mom that maybe I had made a terrible mistake, but Mom said sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better. Within a few more days, Dad seemed almost normal, except that he'd become tentative, even kind of shy. He smiled at us kids a lot and squeezed our shoulders, sometimes leaning on us to steady himself.
"I wonder what life will be like now," I said to Lori.
"The same," she said. "He tried stopping before, but it never lasted."
"This time it will."
"How do you know?"
"It's his present to me."
*
Dad spent the summer recuperating. For days on end, he'd sit under the orange trees reading. By early fall, he had recovered most of his strength. To celebrate his new life on the wagon, and to put some distance between himself and his drinking haunts, he decided that the Walls clan should take a long camping trip to the Grand Canyon. We'd avoid the park rangers and find a cave somewhere along the river. We'd swim and fish and cook our catch over an open fire. Mom and Lori could paint, and Dad and Brian and I could climb the cliffs and study the canyon's geological strata. It would be like old times. We kids didn't need to be going to school, he said. He and Mom could instruct us better than any of those shit-for-brains teachers. "You, Mountain Goat, can put together a rock collection the likes of which has never been seen," Dad told me.
Everyone loved the idea. Brian and I were so excited we did a jig right there on the living room floor. We packed blankets, food, canteens, fishing line, the lavender blanket Maureen took everywhere, Lori's paper and pencils, Mom's easel and canvases and brushes and paints. What couldn't fit in the trunk of the car, we tied to the top. We also took along Mom's fancy archery set, the one made of inlaid fruitwood, because Dad said you never know what wild game we might find in those canyon recesses. He promised Brian and me that we'd be shooting that bow and arrow like a couple of full-blooded Indian kids by the time we came back. If we ever came back. Hell, we might decide to live in the Grand Canyon permanently.
We started out early the next morning. Once we got north of Phoenix, past all the tract-house suburbs, the traffic thinned, and Dad started going faster and faster. "There ain't no better feeling than being on the move," he said.
We were out in the desert now, the telephone poles snapping past. "Hey, Mountain Goat," he hollered. "How fast do you think I can make this car go?"
"Faster than the speed of light!" I said. I leaned over the front seat and watched the needle on the speedometer creep up. We were doing ninety miles an hour.