The Side Effects of Endorphins

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

This is fiction, wrapped around a true story, that happened when I was eleven. there were many decisions on this day.

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Celery never liked the name, Celery. His parents insisted on calling him that since he did not like to eat meat. To him it seemed like his parents did not like much that he did. Today he was staying at his grandmother’s, and his father was taking his beloved grandmother to the airport. The only reason they saw their father so much was because they loved to go to their grandmother’s house. She was going on a cruise in Alaska that she had saved years for. His dad was back living with his mother. He was in and out of sobriety all his life. Celery always insisted his father would get better. He was naïve that way and always will be. He did not trust his father as something always seemed to go wrong. He still made excuses for him and portrayed him like he wanted other people to see his father. It is difficult to be embarrassed by your father. It was five o’clock in the morning, so he wore the same clothes that he slept in the previous night. They were only going to the airport. What did it matter that much?

He detested the ride to the airport, to him Philadelphia with a big, dirty busy place that scared him. This belief, while passed down from his parents and the stories that they told, remained with him. His grandmother was a goddess to him. He put up with his father so he could spend time with his grandmother. She had truly little baggage for a trip of this length. I do not know why he took noticed as he has never been on an airplane before. He was too young and naïve to be proud of her. But he knew things yet had a deep seeded belief something might go wrong.

It was still dark as they all loaded in the brown Cadillac. His father lit a cigarette as soon as they were all seated,

“Conrad put down your window” his grandmother barked at his dad in a voice, pitch perfect, to let her intentions be known. She wanted to smoke also but not with the windows up. The kids were in the car. Celery sat in the back seat with his brother Paul, and they were both far too nervous to sleep. The car smelled of stale beer masked by the acrid build up of cigarette smoke. The car was a loaner to his father because he sold cars at the local Cadillac dealer. The grandmother clicked on her cigarette lighter. She had one of those lighters that clicked open with fanfare.

Celery cringed a little when his grandmother called his dad by name with emphasis. “Conrad, could you turn up the damn heat and get moving. My flight is at noon.”

They made a left on Argonne and a right on Lehigh, and they were soon headed to the road to nowhere. The locals used to joke about the road as it went nowhere but still everybody used it. It would eventually get them to Philadelphia. Even though he was worried, Celery soon fell asleep in the backseat of the car. The backseats were enormous, and the seats were more comfortable than the regular bed.

Philadelphia scared him and especially the Schuykill expressway. Even at his early age he had heard stories passed down between his parents. They always argue about the best way to get from one place to the other, and it always included avoiding the Schuykill Expressway. Most local called it the sure kill Expressway He had learned to worry at an early age, and he was adept at it.

Celery remembered arriving at the busy airport and his grandmother giving him a kiss as he fought the battle with sleep. His father invited him to sit in the front seat on the way back home. When he got in the front seat he gave his grandmother another hug. He would miss visiting his grandmother and spending time with her. He just does not need the drama of his fathers drinking. And here they were 56 miles from home with the same pomp and circumstance.

Unlike most things that happen in this family, they were way ahead of schedule. He thought they might be at home in time to see the Eagles game, which should be noted here. It was not home as Celery and his brother Paul were at their dad ‘s house for the weekend. He would go back to his mothers tonight or tomorrow morning.

Celery woke up an hour later surrounded by the farmland that was the harbinger that they had left the chaos of Philadelphia. He woke up with a hint of relief as it looks like they would escape the adventure with extraordinarily little drama. As Celery woke up, he could barely take in what was his reality. It seemed bent out of shape and distorted. He sat in the driver seat as the car veered more than what he considered usual. He had no experience of driving and all he had to rely on was gut feel. The car was not going where it should be going.

Sometimes you act on instinct, but he sat stoically in the passenger seat. He opened the glove compartment, looking for a map. That was his first mistake or that was the first thing he did correctly. There in the glove compartment, sat a large bottle of booze. What perspective he had at that age was irrelevant. But he knew. The bottle was nearly empty.

He knew they were in trouble and headed for disaster. It took a long time, but this was the point he was done with excuses for his father. His father had a problem. He did not understand the problem, yet he knew.

“Dad get this car off the road”

Surprisingly, his father did exactly what he asked. Here they sat in a new development that used to be a cornfield. They were fifteen minutes from home, but his father was in no shape to drive. His father pulled the car over unceremoniously and promptly fell asleep. In retrospect how he parallel parked in that state defies logic.

There they sat in a Cadillac that smelled of alcohol, cigarettes, and a lost afternoon. Paul woke up or started paying attention. Celery told him about the situation, and he nodded with appreciation.

Let us put on the Eagles. And that is what they did. They listened to Merrill Reese and the Philadelphia Eagles on the AM radio. They always played the Giants on weekends such as this. By the beginning of the third quarter the father started to stir.

“Where are we? “He said appearing from a deep sleep. He searched for the keys in his pockets and when he could not find them, he shielded the late afternoon sun from his eyes, thinking this would unclog his vision. He reached for the glove compartment and Celery brushed his hand away. He noticed his father’s hands were shaking. In a confident voice, he told him he threw the bottle out the window.

Celery was too young to understand the effects of alcohol on the body and how it affects one’s judgement. All he knew this day had veered out of his control and he was not enjoying it one bit. He did not like to admit as this day was incredibly scary to him. His episodes with his father were embarrassing and not easy to live with. These episodes affected his mood for weeks to come as it was posing a question to his reality. Was it sustainable? He thought this but not necessarily using those words. He just wanted this to be over. He always rooted for his father, but right now he needed the comfort of his mother’s house.

His father seemed confused, looked for the keys briefly and fell back to sleep. The Eagles were still winning. It would be getting dark in about two hours and that terrified him. He knew his father was not capable to drive.

And then he did the next logical thing. Celery was not a rule breaker, and he had no idea whether he was breaking the rules. He reached into his parka and pulled out a set of car keys he had absconded from his father. It was a simple key set with only two keys imagining one was for the house and one was for the car. He took an intelligent guess on which one had the car key. He had used the house key many times before helping his father find the keyhole. Admittedly, his father’s night vision was not particularly good. He refused to wear his glasses.

He put the key in the ignition and miraculously started up the engine.

“What are you doing.” His brother, spouted from the back seat.

“Getting us out of here, do you have a better idea? Celery answered.

“No turn up the radio. “

The Eagles were now in the middle of the fourth quarter. Celery calculated it would be dark in an hour. That is Pennsylvania math learned at an incredibly early age.

Paul jumped up in the front seat right next to Celery. Paul knew his way around cars. He and his friends always talked about cars, and they secretly rode and worked on go karts. The dad started snoring loudly and his breath filled the entire chamber of the car.

“Here move this here. “Paul said as a large letter D appeared on the illuminated display.

And then the car started to move. It started moving slowly at first and never really picked up speed. Celery could barely see over the dashboard. He saw bushes and mailboxes slowly pass by the side windows.

Paul slammed on the breaks (the hand break) and the car came to a grinding halt. This did not prevent the car from destroying a mailbox and a flowerpot. Paul and Celery looked at each other sheepishly. It was a humorous part of an otherwise train wreck of an afternoon.

They sat there for awhile and the Eagles won by eight. It would be getting dark soon. They could hear in their wisdom their mother complaining how their father did nothing right. They hated that the most. The sound of the crunching mailbox woke their father. He looked so much better almost chipper. They handed him the keys.

It was then they heard banging on the side window. The father, not knowing exactly where he was, and what just happened, rolled down the window using a manual crank. The air was now cold and turning colder as night settled in.

“Is everything all right, you ran over my mailbox?” The stranger said to Celery’s father while looking at the dent in the fender of the Cadillac.

Can I write you a check for your mailbox.

“Do you always let your kids drive?”

“Ignoring the question, he wrote out a check for 25.00 from his mothers’ checkbook. The man on the side of the road did not seem to notice or care. It was getting darker and colder.

That night the father delivered Celery, and Paul to his ex-wife house across town. They were only two hours late which is standard weekend fare

When they walked in the house, their mother asked them. “How was your weekend with your father? “

They dryly answered, “just like any other weekend.”