Ten years ago today my father shot himself in the head. Shannon and I
had been living with my parents for quite a while. I came home from
work that night and Jim told me what had happened. I remember my
overwhelming feeling was anger. I was so angry that he had done
something so utterly selfish. My feeling today is still anger.
My
father and I had always had a complicated relationship. He left my mom
and me when I was four. We moved from Dallas to Marble Falls and into
the hotel my grandparents owned. For the next 15 years I saw him very
infrequently. I was quite close to his parents so I was at their house
all the time. He would say he was going to come visit me there. I would
stay up as late as I could, sometimes falling asleep on the floor
waiting for him and he wouldn't show up. Years later I found out he
would come visit friends just a few miles away but not come see me. I
thought it was my fault. I thought I wasn't worth him visiting.
My
main memories of him are how much fun he was. He was the life of every
party. He played guitar and sang songs like Hello Walls and Jeremiah Was
a Bullfrog. He was charismatic and people were drawn to him. He had a
big booming voice and an infectious laugh. He was great until he got too
much alcohol. Once he hit a certain point, he wasn't fun anymore. He
became an asshole. He would yell and throw things and have temper
tantrums. The next day he was always contrite, ready with an apology.
He'd say he wouldn't do it again but he always did.
When I
was around 10 or 11, he married a woman named Lee. She was an even
worse alcoholic than he was. My only memory of her was going camping
with the two of them and my uncle. At some point, she became angry and
belligerent and my father decided it was time to take her home. He
loaded us all up in his van and off we went back to Austin. During the
trip, Lee became enraged at me and tried to throw me out of the van as
it hurtled down the interstate at 70 mph. Luckily my uncle caught me
before she could do that. Lee was like a wild animal so Bruce handcuffed
her to something inside the van. Once we arrived at my grandparents
house, he left her out there all night long. They divorced soon
afterwards.
His third marriage was to a woman named Julie
who had three kids. He adopted those kids and gave them my name. I
hated that. They weren't real Boatmans! After being married for several
years, one day he just walked out and never went back. It was more than
three months before Julie knew that he wasn't dead and had run away. I
have no idea what happened to them after that.
When
I was 18, I rode on an Amtrak train halfway across Texas from Austin to
Alpine to visit him for the summer. We had a great time at first. We
watched old movies he had recorded off the TV. Soylent Green was a
particular favorite. He would invite friends over and there'd be
parties. One time he ran out of toilet paper so he attached a blow dryer
to the roll holder. He was a hoot. He drank beer for most of the day
and then at night he'd switch to mixed drinks. He would get me to mix
his drinks for him and I would fill the glass up with coke then splash a
little bit of whiskey on the top so it would taste much stronger than
it actually was. I knew that the fun-loving Bruce would soon disappear
once he got enough whiskey in his system. I don't remember exactly how
it all fell out but fall out we did. I left and didn't speak to him
again for another 15 years.
I got into recovery the
first time in 2002. I knew that I could no longer carry this anger and
resentment I felt towards him. It was wearing me out and causing me pain
so I decided to forgive him. He was still drinking at this point. He
was always drinking. I stayed with him for about five days and we had a
really good time. I was in a place of forgiveness and he had mellowed
with age. At the end of the visit we parted as friends. Perhaps not
father and daughter but friends.
I spoke to him
sporadically until 2006 when my grandparents died. After my grandpa
died, he sat up all night in their dining room drinking and brooding.
I'm sure he felt he had unfinished business. When my father was a small
boy my grandpa accidentally set him on fire. He went through months of
painful debridement treatments. His grandfather gave him a silver
dollar after each one. At some point, my grandfather stole all those
silver dollars and bought booze with it. Bruce carried that around his
whole life. During the night a few days after grandpa died, Bruce broke
the dining room table which was made from glass. He said it had just
broken but I'm pretty sure he got angry and broke it. Four days after
Grandpa died, Bruce stole his van and drove it back to Alpine. I tried
to get Granny to press charges but she wouldn't. Bruce was always her
golden child even though my uncle was the one who straightened out his
life, not Bruce.
Just a few months later my granny
died. Bruce was insufferable the whole time he was there. He was
drinking in the house which was one thing that was NOT done. He left in a
huff and I never spoke to him again.
When Jim called
to say he was dead he told me this tale. He said that Bruce and Maere
had gotten into a big fight. Bruce had gotten really drunk, as usual. He
also became very angry, as usual. This time, however, he was going to
show Maere that he did NOT have a problem. So he went out into the
culvert next to their street and shot himself in the head. Blew out half
his brain. Maere had to be the one to find him like that. Can you
imagine? I know most suicides don't even consider the person who will
find them or the people they leave behind. What an asshole, though, that
he let Maere be the one to see that.
So here we are,
ten years later. He had just bought some property that I inherited. I
still haven't gotten put into my name so I can sell it. I've keep paying
the taxes because I'll be damned if I let anyone insert themselves in
that. He burned through so much money in his life that this bit of
property is the least he could have left. He got about $80K from the
sell of my grandparents house and within six months it was all gone.
I'm
just so fucking angry at him for doing that. What a cowards way out!
Rather than do the tough work to get into recovery and make a better
person of yourself, you just blow your head off. What a coward! It's
late now and I'm sleepy so I'll have to postpone the rest of this
diatribe to later.
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