Monday, Monday

I AM in the minority and I know it. I like Mondays.

Every Monday marks the beginning of a new week when everything seems possible. I reflect on the gifts and good times I’ve just enjoyed, find peace and purpose in the new day, firm up plans for the upcoming week and anticipate the blessings that I know will be mine. But as a child, I absolutely relished Mondays. 

Monday marked the beginning of the school week and I loved school. Monday plopped me into my element; and for the next five days I could learn and read and play, and do my best to please the adults around me and hide my truths from the neighborhood kids. Mondays marked the first day of safety, freedom and relief. Back then, beginning Friday afternoon at three, I kept my inner eye on Monday as the weekend loomed ahead.

While, for most kids, weekends meant parties and movies and happy, family fun, for my siblings and me, that was only an occasional truth. For us, Friday night through Sunday, 7 p.m. was a time to be endured. During those hours my dad, plagued by psychic dragons never slain, tormented his family. A mean alcoholic, he’d start drinking during the drive home from work and wouldn’t stop until he passed out at day’s end. During the week, he got up and went to work in the morning, and the rest of us went about our days with cautious, contained calm. We laughed and played and fulfilled our responsibilities in relative contentedness.

On weekends, our world changed. Friday evenings were tolerable because Dad was celebrating the end of the work week and his attitude was fairly upbeat. Bad things did not usually happen on Friday. But as the weekend rolled on, the firestorm would brew, and it grew.

So long as we were quiet, Saturday mornings were sometimes safe since Dad, nursing a hangover, retreated to his shop or CB radio desk, and kept his distance from four kids and all that they meant. Often, he was still feeling the previous night’s buzz when he drank his morning coffee. Two cups down, he’d switch to Coor’s talls with salt on the rim. (When the Teamster’s banned Coor’s he switched to Bud; and I wonder if he, a rabid homophobic, ever understood that he joined the increasingly influential gay community in “showing those non-union bastards.” Ya gotta smile.)

Come noon, the looming tension felt like a physical threat. By three, name-calling began. If we were lucky, he took a nap in the late afternoon and we got a time out. If not, the day was really long. At five, criticism and demands regarding dinner ensued. By seven we were “stupid, lazy, sons-o’-bitches,” “fat-assed good-for-nothings,” or some equally inadequate sort. As the sun went down, his fiery malevolence rose, fueling an illogical anger that propelled hatred, fists and leather belts.

Sundays, I tried to escape because they were scary and depression enrobed me. This “Sunday Sadness” remained my norm for decades before I figured it out and let it go. Because control was my dad’s favorite tool, getting away was never easy. “No,” was his favorite word. So I chose to go to my grandparents, go to church, study, do a school project or read. Anything to prevent our paths from crossing. Often I heard his ranting, but avoided the inevitable physical end. 

Sunday nights were often blessed because by then he just passed out. We’d nurse our wounds, spiritual, emotional and physical, while we watched “The Wonderful World of Disney”   in relative peace and look forward to the next five days. And then Monday came. As a child, I absolutely relished Mondays.