Georgia Peaches and Southern Comfort

DEPARTURE

            The day of departure approached. The girls and Stan had been up at the cabin with Dad for about a week. It was a beautiful drive up through the forest and into the mountains to the place. Dennis had hooked up with Wanda, a Comanche woman, so his little Hillman was loaded with four guys and one woman. We stopped on the way at a service station in Rancho de Taos and had the oil changed along with air/oil filters. We bought a tire because the Hillman had one bald tire and no spare. We filled the tank and then headed up into the mountains to the cabins. When the Hillman pulled up in front of the cabin the party was already underway. The cabin was on two levels built into the hillside with the living room below and bedrooms and hallway on the second floor that opened up onto a deck. A pathway led up the hill from the deck to an opening among the pine trees with a fire pit and seats of hewn logs around it.

            The girls were in their Georgia Peach Southern Belle dresses and Dad was, in slacks with shirt and tie, looking genteel. Debby and Leah had spent the day making goodies like roast lamb, pies and cookies. There was plenty to eat and drink… a full bar and stereo system with speakers all over the house. Dad just wandered around the place aimlessly… not really talking with anyone beyond a muttered “Hello.” I pulled Debby off to the side at one point and asked her what the deal was with pops.

            Debby explained, “Dad is heavily medicated. He has only been out since last November.”

            “Out of where?” I feigned not knowing anything about Dad.

            “Milledgeville… a mental hospital southeast of Atlanta. You know about mom?” Debby was smart enough to know that I had heard something of what had happened.

            “Yeh, Stan told me a little but I am curious as to how it all worked out with you and your dad. I mean, how did it happen and all that?”

            “About ten years ago: Mom was having an affair and Dad was a pastor, an Episcopalian Priest, in Atlanta. He came home in the middle of the day and Mom was getting it on with a guy in the master bedroom. She had been seeing this guy for some time. Dad suspected it and that accounts for the surprise visit. Dad had a pistol. He shot the guy once but emptied the chamber on Mom. He then went down to the library, loaded another bullet in the gun, put it to his forehead, and pulled the trigger.”

            “Shit… he lived through that?”

            “Yes, it took out part of his skull and what damage that did wasn’t near as bad as the electro-shock therapy in the hospital. Leah found the whole mess when she got home from school.”

            “How about Romeo… Did he live?”

            “He was lucky. Hit the upper shoulder in the back. Dad probably didn’t care whether he’d killed the dude or not. He definitely wanted Mom dead though. So Dad was put under psychiatric care and treatment… sort of turned him into a zombie.”

            The party went on into the night. I started drinking Southern Comfort with Wanda and Leah. Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin wailing was the background music for much of it. The girls were out of their Southern Belle dresses and into jeans, making out with the guys and swapping partners every now and then. It was a surreal scene to walk into a room and find Stan and Debby going at it and Dennis with Leah, Wanda with Steve, and Jamie alternatively switching off with one of the girls and all with each other. But mostly it was drinking. That is what I was doing. Everyone else was bouncing around like bunnies in heat but I didn’t have time for sex with all the good booze in the house. And then there was Dad… he was wandering around the property. It mildly freaked me out knowing that the good Reverend might be a walking time bomb with his own daughters slutting it up with all these guys.

            Wanda was the wildest. Everyone had been taking a break from the sexual escapades and were sitting at the fire pit under the crystal clear stars and the sky. Wanda challenged the men to see who could piss the farthest or highest. So then it became a contest to see who could piss higher up on a tree next to the fire pit. To make things fair the girls argued that the guys had to lie on their backs just like the girls. Dennis argued that a man stands when he pisses and that no man can piss from flat on his back. That debate went on for a while but Debbie declared that it didn’t matter… The men didn’t stand a chance: Even standing, no one came near the lowest mark the girls had made.

            Later that night the Southern Comfort sank into my consciousness and I blacked out. I came-to on the front porch of a cabin I thought was the cabin the party was going on in. All the lights were off and I wanted to get in the door to go to sleep. I didn’t see any sign of the Hillman either. Figuring everyone was asleep I pounded on the door hoping to wake someone up. I called out, “Stan!”

No answer, “Dennis!”

No answer again, “Debby!”

“Leah!” Pounding on the door louder…

 “Peter!” Pounding and pounding louder.

“Jamie!” I was getting desperate. What if they all took off for Jamaica without me!

“Hey, it’s me, Max damn it!” I had my boot off and was ready to break a window.

“Max?” It was a female voice… “What are you doing?”

“Debby?” I saw her coming up the steps to the porch wearing a nightshirt.

“We were wondering where you went…” she did look gorgeous in the moonlight with her reddish hair catching a ray of light from between the shadows.

“God, Debby, where is everybody?”… I was still confused. I wasn’t so confused that I didn’t appreciate the fact that I was alone with her on the porch. She put an arm around me for support and led me off the porch.

“This isn’t our place.”

“Wha…?” I didn’t understand it yet… the words coming form her were words of concern… of caring for me the way a mother of a retard talks to her kid.

“This isn’t our place? Good thing nobody’s home or you might have your head blown off.” She explained further. “You woke me up. I was passed out in my bedroom when I heard you yelling and pounding on that door.”

“Shit no… where am I?” I leaned on her and let my hand hit her breast as she Florence Nightingaled me up the hill to the cabin.

When we got up to the cabin Dad was sitting in the kitchen like he didn’t recognize anyone. I noticed the scar where the bullet had grazed Dad’s head. She gave Dad a hug, “Dad, you ought to get some sleep.”

“You think so.”

“Yes, I think so.” And she gave him another more affectionate hug that seemed to assure him everything was going to be alright. He shuffled off into his bedroom and the light went off.

Dennis was snoring on the floor of the living room while Steve and Leah were in one of the beds in the girl’s bedroom. They were passed out and not doing much.  Jamie was curled up on the floor. Debby went straight to bed. I was still very drunk but wanted to make up for lost time and get laid one more time before we left. I sat on her single-size bed.

“I couldn’t help but notice the affection you have for your Dad.” Seeing the sadness in her face,  I realized that she might have been the most sober one at the party that night.

“He is my Dad, you know.”

“It must have been hard for you and Leah the way that deal went down.”

“You know how kids are… they aren’t as innocent and tender as you’d think. Besides, Mom wasn’t a bad woman but she did hurt him… it tore him up.”

“So, you lost both of them that day.”

“Yeh, Dad has been a dead man since then. The brain injury from the gunshot wound was more like a concussion because the bullet missed any major arteries… grazed his skull. He flinched when he pulled the trigger and it knocked him out a few days.”

I was feeling pretty brain injured at this point myself but it tweaked my interest so much that I almost sobered up talking with her about it. Up to that point Debby was just another good-looking red-head. I liked the idea of screwing but something deeper than that was happening inside as she explained what had gone on. Before that it was just another weird story… one I could tell others… the orgy the drunkenness… the going away party… the send off.

“Debby, you and Leah aren’t done with this yet are you?”

“Dad could have recovered okay if he hadn’t had the electro-shock therapy. Of course, he’d probably still be in prison too. Instead he was committed by the courts to Milledgeville. I don’t know what would have been worse.”

This was so much to absorb. “I’m not too proud of blacking out like this tonight and having this fuck-fest with your dad wandering around like a zombie. But damn… is he aware of any of this going on around him?”

“You know, Max, this will be a process. None of us are really aware of what is going on in his head.”

“God, can I make love to you before we go?” As drunk as I was my libido was still strong. Youth had something to do with it but I’d felt an intimacy with Debby and that helped spark it up some. She reached up and put her hands around the nape of my neck and pulled my face down to hers. Her passion was fire and I needed no coaxing but, even though all the lights were off in the room, I was distracted by a shadow… motion

at the door. I looked over to see dad standing there like he was watching an exhibit at the zoo. This caused me to stop and Debby looked to the door too. However, when she did, no one was there.

“He was there,” she said… her face flushed with either orgasmic blush or embarrassment… or both. We passed out afterwards as the morning light filtered in through the sheer curtains over the windows of the cabin.