The sun was beating down on my friends and I as we played army in the fields behind our houses, filled with wild grass and weeds. As we played in the hot afternoon, my stomach would turn as if I was about to get in a fight at school. This could only mean one thing: it was almost time for dad to get home. Many things ran through my head as I lost my breath. Did I do everything that was on the chore list? Did I get in trouble at school today? I was thinking of anything that I might have done earlier that day to upset my father.
             My father is a good man and I love him very much. We had the closest father-son relationship you could get. If Dad was outside in the garage working on his lifted maroon Ford, I was right there working with him. If my dad was going to the store for hamburger meat before dinner, I went with him. I went everywhere and did everything I could with my dad. He was my hero; he was invincible, like a comic book character.
             My father had one downfall though: he liked to drink. I mean my dad drank all the time. Seven days a week. My dad was a construction worker and every day after work he and his fellow workers had "bud thirty". This was actually 5:30 pm the end of the workday for them. They would either send someone to the liquor store to buy beer or they would all go out to a bar and drink. They would not just have a few beers but have enough to get hammered. How he drove home every night, who knows!
             You see my dad was not a happy drunk. He was a very angry drunk. He was very aggressive and wanted to fight when he drank. This is why my stomach would turn when it was almost time for him to get home. If my brother, my sister, or I did not do all of our chores, it would set him off. My dad did not beat any of us kids, but as he got madder and madder at us kids, my mother would step in. This was not good; he then would turn the anger towards her.
             As their fight escalates, us kids wo
             ...