A Fondness for Chivas

My daddy taught me how to make a ginger ale last all night.

Having his own experience with alcoholism had made him gun shy and he drank sparingly when at all although he had a fondness for Chivas and often got several bottles at Christmas and for his birthday. He stored them in the corner china cabinet in the dining room, under my mother's collection of cups and saucers, until space ran out then began a second stash in a kitchen cabinet, always professing delight at the giver's thoughtfulness and generosity then wearily making room for yet another bottle or two. What am I to do with two lifetimes worth of Scotch? I heard him often grumble but it was good natured complaining.

The china cabinet doubled as the liquor cabinet and a catch all for things that had no other home - red and green Christmas napkins, never used crystal decanters, candlesticks, bourbon, vodka, gin and the rare bottle of wine. My brothers discovered it early on, and the fact that it was almost never checked was too much temptation - they set about exploring it with a foolish and greedy passion and their after hours activities went unnoticed for several months until my mother decided to give a party and discovered the perilously low levels of whiskey. An all out search followed and in a matter of hours the entire house had been ravaged but she found no cached liquor, no empty bottles, no evidence of theft. She howled and threatened and raged, threw whatever she could put her hands on, cried and screamed and wailed, but it was useless. When she got to the kitchen Chivas stash, she smashed each and every bottle and a river of broken glass and scotch covered the kitchen floor. This was how my daddy found her, sobbing and half out of her mind with anger.

Being a first things first kind of person, he cleaned her cuts, calmed her down and got her to bed before beginning the process of putting the house back to rights and questioning his children. Being almost religiously loyal to each other, neither of the boys would own up and knowing that my mother's accusations would be taken over my word I kept silent - to this day it breaks my heart to tell the truth and not be believed. Guilt could not be established and so we were all grounded, I suppose in hopes that one would turn on the other, but it was a poor plan and as he supervised our clean up, he seemed worn down, exhausted and bitterly angry.

He lost some of the fondness for Chivas after that. Alcoholism has a way of destroying the smallest of pleasures and the largest of hearts.