Don loved his mother despite her denial of his father’s alcoholism, but hated his father for the way he verbally abused her. Don’s relationship with his father, apart from an occasional exchange about sports or cars, was devoid of any depth or outward signs of affection, much less love. When Don was younger his father had never taken advantage of these common interests to build a closer relationship. He had never invited Don to join him when he worked on his car, or taken Don to a regional minor league baseball game, or participated with Don in any of the father-son activities common at that place and time.
Don had adored his younger sister ever since Berta brought her home from the hospital. He loved playing the role of big brother. When he was in high school, and Susie, as the family called her, had been in middle school, she would most often come into his room, throw herself across his bed, and ask what he was doing. She of course could see that he was studying at the desk next to his bed, but this was her teasing way of interrupting his studies to get his attention. Don would smile, turn toward her, and say, “Not much, how is my baby sis doing?” or some variation of this counter inquiry. Susie would then most often tell Don about some incident that had happened at school. Many of these had to do with a teacher she didn’t like, or some social interaction among her girlfriends, most of whom Don knew. Susie steered clear of sharing any interest she had in a boy, as she knew she would automatically get a mini lecture from Don. He would start by telling her, echoing their parents, that she was too young to date. Depending on whether he knew and liked the boy or not, Don might also threaten to tell their parents. He would then often add for good measure that if he heard of any boy mistreating her “he’ll wish he was dead.” Even though Susie did not tell Don very often about her latest boy crush, she did so occasionally just to tease Don, and because she secretly enjoyed her big brother’s protectiveness. Susie had not inherited her mother’s more reflective nature. Nor did she share Don’s academic aptitude. Neither had she inherited the sullen emotionally detached nature of her father, vivacious and socially extroverted she got along well with everybody.
Don had heard the phone ring, in its loud slightly jarring way. He slowly started to lay down the newspaper he had been reading at the kitchen table and began to turn in his chair to get up and answer the phone. Before Don could stand up, he heard the footsteps of his father coming from the living room. Due to a shake-up at the plant his father had recently been put on night shift, and had to be at work in an hour. Jim came around the corner from the living room into the kitchen and grabbed the phone off the wall. “Campbell residence,” he barked in his usual flat affect businesslike tone. A long silence followed as Jim listened to what the caller was saying. Don looked up at his father, the blood had drained from his face. His expression was one of stunned horror. “What’s wrong, Dad?” Don asked with a growing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. Jim, who now appeared to be in a state of frozen shock, ignored his son. “O dear God,” Don then heard his father say in an anguished tone. Another briefer period of silence followed. “I’ll be right there,” Don’s father then said in a hushed tone, his voice breaking. Jim hung up the phone and turned slowly toward Don with a look of horrified disbelief. “What’s going on, Dad?” Don said with an increasing tone of urgency and dread. Jim fixed his gaze on Don and the horrified shock on his face softened a little. With an expression of depthless despair, he softly said, “Your mother and sister were just in a bad car accident.” “Are they okay, Dad?” Don asked, terrified to hear the answer. Jim spoke haltingly, “A young man, he was driving very fast, ran a stop sign just outside of town, he T-boned your mother’s car. Don, your mother and sister were killed instantly.” His father’s words threw Don into a state of shock. He had heard his father’s words, but his mind couldn’t process what he had just said. The whole thing seemed surrealistic to Don. He stared at his father with a look of disbelieving horror. What Jim said next hit Don like a second massive knock-out punch. “I have to go and identify . . . ,” he said, his voice trailing off. Then standing in frozen silence, his back to Don, Jim remarked, “It would be best if you stayed here.”
After his father left, Don remained seated for a time. He remained unable to absorb the news he had just heard. To do so would be to admit that he would never again see the two people he loved most in the world, who made his life worth living. Time seemed to stand still as Don sat frozen at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. Finally forcing himself to take some action, any action, he called the pastor of his church to alert him. The pastor’s wife answered. Clutching the phone and speaking in an obviously traumatized tone, Don asked to speak to Pastor Tim. Sensing how upset Don was she responded in a gentle caring way, “I am so sorry, Don, Tim is not in right now, I will have him call you as soon as he gets home.” The pastor did call a short time later, but Don was in no condition to answer the phone call. His father later made the phone call to the pastor to make the necessary arrangements. Don had mumbled, “Thank you,” to the pastor’s wife, and then said, “I am sorry I have to go.” Don had only a blurred, hazy recollection of what he did after hanging up the phone. He vaguely recalled stumbling into the living room, grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his parents’ liquor cabinet, and then stumbling back to his room. He drank until he passed out, wanting to escape the nightmare his life had just become. Don awoke in the middle of the night feeling extremely nauseous. He stumbled into the bathroom and began to throw up violently.
The shock and numbness Don continued to feel allowed him to function on autopilot through the memorial service at the church and in the days and weeks that followed. During the week after the accident he saw his father cry for the first time. Sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands, his father had sobbed in a convulsive, uncontrollable way. The emotional distance that separated Don and his father had prevented him from approaching or offering his father any comfort. Don too had felt the full reality of the loss hit him a couple of times during the weeks following the accident. Still he did not allow himself to break down until he was alone in his bedroom at night. When he did, he threw himself onto his bed and muffled his sobs by sinking his face into his pillow. Pills the family doctor had prescribed for Don dulled the pain and deepened the numbness and zombie-like behavior that lasted most of the summer.
With only a month left before Don’s second year at the community college was due to start Don had seriously considered dropping out and just working at the plant. Deep down, though, he feared that if he did this he would just end up like his father. This would not have been because of the job, but because of any inherent tendencies Don too might have toward depression and alcoholism. He felt a deep anger toward his father not for having these tendencies but for his denial of them and the destructive consequences this wrought. It was his resentment of his father that finally drove him, still in a shocked haze, to make the decision to continue his education. As the beginning of the fall semester approached, and the harsh reality of the accident came crashing down on him, Don’s shock and numbness slowly began to give way to a raw anger. Don began to feel a deepening anger, even rage, toward the young man who had walked away nearly uninjured. He felt a growing anger toward the senseless injustice of the accident, and the God who had seemingly allowed it to happen. Before long he began to feel an anger toward a world that seemed to be filled with so much senseless suffering, loss, and injustice. Somewhere, though, too, in the back of his mind, Don knew that anger, turned inward, had caused his father to spiral into a bitter shell of a man.
Don was already aware he had an anger problem. It had its roots in middle school when a group of boys had singled him out as a target for bullying. For most of seventh grade he had been pushed, shoved, and hit from behind.