37. Dad's Desk

.

‘Wait until your father gets home!’ That’s what Mom used to say when the trouble I’d gotten into was more than she could deal with. Those 6 simple words always had the desired effect – which is to say, they scared the bejesus out of me. No, it was worse than that – they scared the bejaysus out of me! ‘Wait until your father gets home!’ It’s the sentence that’s been going around in my head for the last half hour, eversince I went somewhere I shouldn’t have gone and did something I shouldn’t have done.
.
What the hell did you do now?
.
Got myself into some trouble. Dad’ll be home soon. It’ll be Big Trouble. Better come up with answers, because that’s what he’ll be looking for. Straight answers and lots of them. I sat behind his desk, plain and simple. Stepped over one of the new lines he’d so clearly drawn and transgressed, as a result, a number of his new rules. It started out innocently enough… but one thing can lead to another…
.
Been minding my own business, reading the newspaper, when the telephone rang. By the time I’d finished and got pants up, flushed toilet, washed hands and got out the bathroom door, it had rung 8 times. Been expecting a call from Rachel for days and, certain she was the one ringing my bell, I shot down the hall like a heat-seeking missile, intent not to miss it. Heading for the phone in the living-room, about to descend the stairs, I saw Dad’s bedroom door was open and the ringing was also coming from in there. We’ve always had just the one phone in the house, the one in the kitchen, and I’d forgotten that Dad had put one in his room a while back, after he had a line put in when he brought home the laptop and required Internet access. (The phone he brought home - also from the office -was installed on his desk beside the laptop: I know he makes calls because sometimes I can just about hear him talking, usually late at night, but I don’t know to whom, can never make out the words.) Standing there at the top of the stairs, I was no more than 10 paces from his bedroom door, when the 9th ring registered. Downstairs was at least 50. Time was of the essence. Dad’s rule about not going into his room when he wasn’t there was not present to mind. I was on Auto Pilot, remember – I was a heat-seeking missile, and in the heat of the moment I chose to answer the nearest phone – thereby, inadvertently breaking the rule.
.
And, of course, the phone being on Dad’s desk and all, caused me to break the other rule, the one about not going near his desk. As I’ve said, it started out innocently enough, no malice aforethought or bad intentions, no immediate awareness of being in violation of the requests he’d made and I’d agreed to. Oblivious to the invisible lines.
.
Dad likes to think of himself as a pretty reasonable guy, practical and logical. I guess he is, too, most of the time. When he hasn’t been drinking, or isn’t under any out-of-the-ordinary stress. So, the reason why I went into his room will be, I think, acceptable to him.
.
But what I’d gotten up to while I was at his desk is another bucket of cockles.
.
There is no acceptable answer.

.