The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Go back to bed.”
    His words were slurring. I ran down the steps to find him on one knee, holding on to the kitchen counter, trying to pull himself up. His face looked like he was terrified, as if he were gripping the edge of a cliff or something. On the kitchen floor was a soggy paper bag, soaked with what was obviously cognac. Thebottle had broken and glass had torn through the bag and cut his hand. Liquor and blood, everywhere. It was all on the doors of the cabinets and was dripping in the sink as my father struggled to get back on his feet.
    â€œDad!” I shouted. “What happened?”
    In my mind, I already knew what happened. After Chris told me he saw him hanging with Cork, at first I wanted to jump down his throat and tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about. But that wouldn’t have been right. Chris wasn’t no liar. Even if he wanted to lie, he couldn’t. Plus, I had a feeling it was true. My dad had definitely been drinking more and more since the night my mother died. But hanging with Cork? That was definitely a move in the wrong direction. I knew where he was. I knew what was going on, but I still asked anyway. Maybe I was hoping I was wrong.
    â€œI’m fine, Matt. I’m fine,” he repeated in that voice people talk in whenever they’re trying to convince someone that they’re not drunk. Cork always sounds like that, and it never fools anybody. “I just slipped, that’s all.” He was still struggling to stand. His feet kept sliding around like our kitchen floor was icy. Recognizing that standing just wasn’t going to happen, I grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and pulled it over to him.
    â€œHere. Sit,” I said, frustrated.
    â€œShit, I cut my hand,” he groaned, plopping down on the chair. He squeezed his hands together to put pressure on the cut. Blood dripped from between his palms as if he were crushing cherries. As my dad rocked back and forth in pain, I grabbed a dish towel from under the sink.
    â€œLet me see,” I said, kneeling down, holding the rag out.
    Dad unclenched his hands. Red. I wrapped the cut hand in the towel, and told him to keep it tight. I could smell the liquor coming through his skin; with every grunt, his stale breath slapped me. He looked at me, his eyes glassy and lost like I was some stranger helping him out, instead of his son.
    â€œBetter?” I asked.
    I knew it wasn’t better, but it’s one of those questions he had asked me a hundred times when I was growing up. It’s like a reflex. When I fell off my bike and scraped my arms all up, he slapped Band-Aids on them and said, “Better?” When I got in my first and only fight—got the crap beat out of me in middle school—he put some ointment on my lip and said, “Better?” And it was never better. I mean, it was eventually, but never when he asked. But for some reason, whenever he asked, “Better?” I always felt like I had to say yes.
    My father grunted in reply. It was like he suddenly had no words left, like his tongue was dead. Then, he grunted again, and out of nowhere a spreading wet spot appeared on his pants, and the cognac, now mixed with the smell of his piss, floated through the air.
    Seeing him that way automatically made me think about how he must’ve been all the time, back when he first started dating my mom. She used to always talk about how when she met him at the restaurant, he was a part-time dishwasher and a full-time drunk.
    â€œBaby, the bottom of the bottle was your daddy’s second home,” she’d say, shaking her head. Then she’d always add, “And if I didn’t stop him, he would’ve made that second home his grave.”
    Even though she loved him (whenever he wasn’t wasted), she told him that she wouldn’t marry him unless he gave it up. So he did. He gave it up for twenty whole years.