Confronting the past after many years and learning how to move along

The human mind works in mysterious ways, especially where memories are concerned.

Sometimes, even the most mundane, everyday activities can flip some hidden, neurological switch in our brains, and suddenly shades of past events leap to life, flashing before us as if projected on a screen.

It can be a pleasant experience. It can also be a horrible one.

I had no idea what was in store for me the other day when I opened a bureau drawer, looking for a pair of AA batteries. I had no way of knowing that seemingly inconsequential act would open a door in my memory I thought I had closed for good.

There must have been some minute detail about the way the drawer slid open that somehow reminded me of another one I opened long ago and made me recall how I felt when I glimpsed its contents.

It all happened more than five decades ago; I was 5, maybe 6. But once the memory got rolling, I saw it in my mind as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

I remembered watching my father pull up in the driveway one evening in his maroon Buick Riviera. I remembered my heart racing as I saw him struggle to his feet and drunkenly stagger down the walkway toward the house.

Lately, he had been growing increasingly angry and aggressive when drinking, stewing all day over some perceived insult until he exploded.

The look on his face told me a storm was coming.

I remembered grabbing my younger brother by the arm and racing madly for the back bedroom. I pushed him under the bed, then clambered under with him. We huddled there, shaking with fear.

I heard my dad burst through the front door, turning the air blue with his curses. I heard a slap, then the sound of someone falling on the floor, and I knew it was my mother. I turned to my little brother and put my finger to my lips.

We couldn’t afford to make a sound.

There was another slap, the sound of a scuffle. Then my grandmother fell. In a minute I heard the spring on the storm door expand. Mercifully, he was leaving.

I grabbed my brother, and we bolted from underneath the bed. I had a plan for these situations. I knew what to do.

Being extra careful not to make the noisy screen door on the back porch creak, I opened it just enough for us to squeeze through. Then the two of us dashed toward the neighbor’s house. I turned back for a second, just in time to see my dad lurching toward his car. If he had turned around, he would have seen us.

But we made it. We got to the neighbors’ and dad drove away. My mother and grandmother weren’t badly hurt.

The four of us spent the next few days on the run. We slept at first one relative’s house and then another so my dad couldn’t find us.

After a week or so, when things had calmed down, my dad, who was staying in a cheap motel, asked my mother if he could see his boys.

She reluctantly agreed and took us to the motel.

I remember her telling him he had to stop drinking if he wanted us back. I remember him ugly-crying, promising her he’d quit, telling us he hadn’t had a drop in days, swearing he loved us.

Standing there, in the middle of that awkward scene, I nervously fiddled with the handle on the top dresser drawer, my face growing red with embarrassment.

Then I slid open the drawer. Inside was a Bible and a half-empty bottle of cheap, brown whiskey. I pushed the drawer shut quickly, hoping no one else had seen.

But my dad saw; he knew I had seen the bottle. He looked into my eyes for a second and then looked away. And I saw him then — really saw him — for the first time.

I realized, as much as a child can, what his life had become.

There, in the top drawer of a cheap dresser in a seedy motel, God and the bottle were duking it out for possession of my father’s soul.

I wasn’t sure which one would win.

But looking at this pitiful wreck of a man I had once idolized, I had a pretty good idea who the favorite was. Turns out my hunch was right.

I hadn’t thought about those things in years, and for a while, I wished I could have kept them buried in the past. It troubled me even more when I realized I could have avoided those terrible memories by searching for batteries someplace else.

But it’s better this way. You can only run from things for so long. Sooner or later, you have to confront the things you dread. It’s the only way to get past them.

I’m glad I opened the drawer. In fact, I’m glad I opened both of them.