Page 18 of On the Rocks
On Friday night, I sat at the table my father built with my three brothers and the woman who raised us, drinking a cold Budweiser after another long week at the distillery. I’d had family dinner with my friends, with a few girlfriends in the past, and I’d always been disappointed. Because where most families were quiet and orderly and respectful at the dinner table, my family was the exact opposite.
In the Becker household, it was always madness at dinner time.
Complete and utter chaos.
“God, you’re disgusting,” Logan said, tossing a green bean at our youngest brother, Michael, who had just belched so loud even I was impressed.
Mom swatted Michael’s arm to show her own disapproval, but couldn’t hide her smirk. “Manners, Mikey.”
“What? Better out than in, right?” Michael grinned at all of us before burping again.
“Feet off the table, Logan,” Mom said next, as soon as she finished plating the last of his meatloaf. She set it in front of him where his feet had been, smacking his hand away when he tried to dig into the mashed potatoes. “Not until we pray.”
“Yeah, Logan. Not until we pray,” I said, sneaking my own bite. He narrowed his eyes at me, and Mom smacked my hand next.
“Gray hairs,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Every single one of you are giving me gray hairs.”
She took her seat, hands reaching out — one for mine, one for my older brother, Jordan’s — and the rest of us linked hands and bowed our heads.
“Heavenly Father, thank you for this meal, and for these boys, though they drive me insane. Please bless this food and this day, and be with those who need you most. Amen.”
“Amen,” we all echoed, and it was the quietest that house would be all night as we each stuffed our faces with the first bite.
Even though we liked to rag on each other, my brothers and I were close. We were like a well-oiled machine, and Mom and Dad were the grease that kept us in working order. After Dad died, Mom took on that job as a solo party, and that was the only time I ever remember the machine breaking down.
Our dad was well known in the town, especially sincehisdad was best friends with the founder of Scooter Whiskey. They had built the brand together, essentially built the town together, and anyone who watched the Scooter Whiskey brand take over the world knew my grandfather was a pivotal member in the team that made it happen.
But when Robert J. Scooter passed away, he left no will behind, and his family inherited everything — leaving our family cut dry. It wasn’t long after that that our grandmother passed away, our grandfather following quickly after. Dad always said it was from a broken heart, but he never clarified if it was Grandma who’d broken it or the Scooter family.
I always thought it was a little of both.
Dad had never given up on our family, though, and he’d already established himself as an integral part of the Scooter Whiskey Distillery before the founder passed away. He was young, ambitious, and the Scooter family was happy to keep him around. He worked his way up the ladder, eventually becoming part of the board, and that’s where the trouble started.
Somewhere along the line, my dad pushed the wrong buttons.
He wanted to stay true to the Scooter brand, to the company his dad had helped build, but the ones who inherited the distillery had other plans. Where dad wanted to keep the tradition, the “old ways” of making whiskey, the Scooter family wanted to lean more toward innovation. The more Dad fought them on it, the more they did to silence him, and sooner or later, Dad learned to just comply to get by.
But his pay suffered, and so did his job duties.
He went from essentially running the company to pushing papers, taking care of remedial tasks that were better suited for a secretary. One of his last tasks was cleaning out Robert J. Scooter’s old office, and though Mom was upset when they assigned it to him, Dad took it in stride. He was always so optimistic, and used to always say that,“Every experience is an opportunity, no matter how trivial it may seem. Some of my best ideas and most memorable achievements began from a seemingly ordinary day.”
Little did we know that that “seemingly ordinary” day, that “seemingly ordinary” task, would be the literal death of him.
There had only been one fire in the Scooter Whiskey Distillery, and my father was the only one who perished in it.
To this day, no one in our family believed the story the Scooter family fed to us. The fire department claimed the fire was started by a cigarette, and our dad didn’t smoke. I would never forget when Patrick Scooter, Robert’s oldest son, tried arguing with my mother that he’d seen Dad smoke plenty of times.
Maybe he just never told you,Patrick had said, and I’d seen murder in my Mom’s eyes when she stepped up to that fully grown man, chest to chest, mascara streaked down her face, and told him no one knew her husband like she did, and she dared him to try to tell her otherwise again.
We’d never been given the truth, not in all the years we’d looked for it.
And that one time in our life was the only time I ever remember the machine breaking down.
We fought. And cried. And asked for answers when we didn’t even know what questions to ask. Mom drank for the first time in her life, and Jordan and I struggled to hold the family together, all the while fighting for who was theman of the house.
I wanted that title so badly, and Jordan tried to take it simply because he was the oldest. So, we fought one night — literally, punched and kicked until we were both bruised, bloody messes — and then, we came together.
Jordan was the one who made me realize that we wereallthe man of the house — and we were all in this battle together.