Laying Down the Law
One time he came home drunker than anything. He thought sure they were gonna raise the roof. You know what they did? They thought it was something they'd done. They thought it was their fault—that they'd failed him and driven him to it or something.
--pg 116, The Outsiders, SE Hinton
It's just a stupid school dance. The Beatles are singing I wanna hold your hand and Cherry is sitting across from him, pretty in her light blue dress. Her hairs pulled up and bobby pinned, hanging in her face in tendrils.
She's bitching again.
"Bob, why do you have to drink? I don't want to be around you when you've been drinking."
It's a lot of effort to bother to say something, so he doesn't, only shrugging and getting up suddenly. He pushes by her and out into the parking lot, where the cool winter air hits him comfortably after the stifling heat of the high school gym. Cherry can get a ride home with someone else.
There's more booze in the car. What's left of a pack of beers, and some other things, he's not sure what all. The world tilts as he sits down and starts the car.
He almost runs over the curb as he leaves the parking lot, jerking the steering wheel back. Overcorrecting, and he's in the wrong lane.
He laughs, straightening out again, groping in the seat next to him for something else to drink.
The next bottle his fingers find is already empty and he throws it out the window at a clump of greasers smoking under the streetlight, slouching and slinking and sneering at him as he goes by. One of them has to jump out of the way as the glass shatters against he sidewalk, and Bob laughs, twisting around in his seat, looking back at where the grease is standing in the middle of the street, swearing after him.
When he turns back around, he's heading for the sidewalk, his headlights bouncing off the windows of some dime store. There's dolls in the windows and they stare at him for just a second before he jerks the wheel and the headlights swing away. Lights spin around him, red and white streaks. A car horn honks, and it's the same shape as the lights, a streak of noise arced through the night.
He finds his house and pulls into the drive sloppily, parking diaganol to his dad's -----. He stumbles up to the house, not thinking about what he'll do if his parents are awake until his hand touches the heavy wooden front door.
He slams it as hard as he can.
They come out of the bedroom and down the hall all worried, first his father, eyebrows pulled into a 'V', fists out in front of him, ready to defend himself. Then his mother, first cautiously peering out from the doorframe, looking worried and holding her thick white robe together over her nightgown with both hands.
They relax when they realize that it's only their son, his mother coming all the way out into the hall and his father's fists loosening and falling to his sides.
The dim light of the single lamp in the entryway isn't enough to sufficiently light their parental blindsides and they don't realize he's drunk.
Then he starts a few steps forward and trips over nothing. He catches himself clumsily on the wall so he doesn't fall face first onto the welcome mat, but his cover's been blown.
"Honey, he's hurt!" screeches his mother, lunging forward. This strikes him as hilarious, and he laughs, loud and drunken. His mother pauses, mid lunge, looking confused.
"He's not hurt, Ellen," say his father, sounding tired and like maybe he'd been expecting this. "He's drunk."
"Drunk?" His mother blinks, looks at his father, then turns to Bob. "You're…. Drunk?"
He laughs some more. It's all funny. He's waiting for the storm—the yelling, the fighting. He wants to know if he can take it. He doesn't know, he's never tried. He's not sure what he's supposed to do, but the booze helps him to just stand there, one hand on the wall for support.
"Oh, honey." He thinks his mother must be talking to his dad, but when he looks up, she's looking at him. He thinks she might be crying, but the lights not good enough to tell. She takes a few steps forward, her nose wrinkling at the smell. He spilled one of the bottles on himself. "Why?"
He's about to tell her why, but he can't form the words quickly enough, they keep getting mixed up, and his father is talking now.
"That's why we got him the goddamn car. So he wouldn't have to go and do something like this to get attention from girls."
His mother is really crying now, he can see the tears on her cheeks glisten in the light. "Oh, honey," she says again. "We've tried to give you a good life. Why?"
Again, he's going to answer, but again his mind stumbles through a list of words and he can't even stammer the first one out before his father takes the spotlight, confident.
"But now he's tried it. You know how kids are. They have to try things." He stares at Bob. "You won't do it again, will you?"
His mother is watching him with rapt attention, apparently waiting for a definite 'yes' or 'no', but his father is already turning around to go back into the bedroom. His mother watches her husband go, before turning back to her son. She seems to search for something to say.
"Is there… is there anything you want?"
"No, mother, no."
"I only want to make sure you won't do it again."
"I won't."
She relaxes visibly, taking a swipe at her wet cheeks with the arm of her robe.
"We could get you a new car, maybe. I know the one you're driving is a few years old."
He stands there, wordless.
"Or is it that we haven't been paying you much attention lately?"
He shakes his head. She's crying again.
"But promise you won't do it again."
"I won't."
She bites her lip, pulling her robe tighter around herself. "Alright. Alright. Goodnight honey."
He didn't drink, not around her, not ever again.
A/N: I've never driven drunk, nor been in a car being driven by someone drunk. So if that part is totally off, sorry. Thanks for reading, please review.