My union's lousy health insurance doesn't cover therapy.

My father grew up in a bar and died in a church; it's the opposite of what most would suspect, but I must get these quirks from somewhere. There, I've said it. Now let me explain.

Port Chester, New York was in many ways the armpit of Westchester County. Nestled on Long Island Sound with a train station and high bar-to-church ratio, it was no wonder that locals referred to it as Sin City. My grandfather, who died of cancer before I was born, owned one of said beverage-serving establishments. As could be expected from an overly proud German the pub, like any other child, took the family name. It gained popularity points for my father in high school when attendance was being taken and his surname was recognized, but it did more harm than good in the long run. People who come from restaurant-owning families can attest to the toll it can take on the quality of home life. Those raised in the tavern industry have them beat in the war story department, however. My father, wherever he may be, still has the scars to prove it-- physical and otherwise.

I remember stumbling upon a crate of pewter tankards in the attic at his house one day. "Hey, what are these?" I asked him.

He pulled one of the gray metal beer mugs from the box and stared at it. Our last name was stamped above both an eagle with spread wings and the name of the town in Germany where our ancestors had lived and died. "Just some antiques," he replied softly. "You can have one if you want."

I wanted. Twelve years later at my first apartment I wound up handcuffing that stein to my wrist and drinking cheap beer from it all night alongside the amateurs. There's a picture of it somewhere, my visibly drunk face framed by a mane of curly brown hair. It was one of many wild nights when war was waged against the weaker sex with alcohol as the catalyst and God-knows-what as the motive. There are those who have to make their own mistakes despite parental examples. Some call it fate, but it's more a lack of sensibility. We didn't learn, my father and I; not in time, at least. The mug sits on my dresser now collecting dust with the pens and highlighters it contains. I sit here as well, though not as serenely. My old man and I pay our penance in our own private hells without any chatter between our two cells. It's been that way for years now and can't see it changing. But back to that bar of his.

The lineman of his Catholic high school football team worked there as bouncers. Eighteen-year-olds from nearby Connecticut used to cross the state border to party since the drinking age in New York had not yet been changed to twenty-one like many of its neighboring states. As a result my father was hip to the emigrant Greenwich crowd as well. Just what he needed: even more girls to choose from. The dark-eyed ladykiller in two ties: a plaid parochial uniform version by day and its thin black cousin by night. There's a black-and-white photo of him standing behind the oak in a crisp white shirt and that classic black tie. One hand is a buffer between his hand and the bar. The other is holding a clandestine pint that servers sip during lulls. The healthy sweat of a busy barkeep glistens on his olive-hued face. His mouth is half open as if he were caught between smiling and begging for the camera to be put away, but it's a good thing his request was ignored. It's one of the best photographs of my father ever taken. Even my mother who divorced him nineteen years ago will admit to this day how handsome he looks in that picture. In fitting form it's probably tucked away somewhere far from the appreciative eyes of any of his fans, past or present. We're notorious for selling ourselves short.

Maybe in this case his modesty's intentional. Not all of his memories of that place are such gems. In another one of my foolish forays of yore into the attic I found an old newspaper. Again, like a novice still rubbing his ears dry, I made the mistake of asking.

"Here. Read this article." His voice was strangely somber as I began scanning the lines. "No. Read it aloud." I didn't like where it was going. The ancient yellowed newspaper felt like a cursed parchment in my pre-adolescent hands.

According to the article a young man had been gunned down outside my grandfather's tavern. The name of the deceased sounded like that of an African American male, Gerome Jackson or Larry Williams or something of that nature, and the inlaid picture corroborated it. "He was my best friend growing up. I was there that night but left early." His voice began to shake, his eyes welled with tears. "Keep reading," he pleaded, but I couldn't. Why was he making me take him back to such a horrid event? Had his only son been reduced to a master of masochistic ceremonies? Big salty drops rolled down my cheeks, though not for the unfortunate stranger I'd been reading about. I saw my dad hurting and wanted it to end. He wasn't immortal anymore. He'd been dethroned, robbed of his omnipotent grace and glory that all children naively see in their parents. Ask most people if they recall the first time they witnessed either of their parents shed their godlike skin and become regrettably human. They'll tell you. I don't remember how that particular scene ended. Perhaps, in a lot of ways, it didn't.

And as any cowboy movie will demonstrate there's always the classic bar brawl. Mine involved a beer bottle sucker-punch to the bridge of my nose, eight stitches, and a story that I can't tell in all circles. My father's was more noble. A rowdy drunk had wandered into the tavern, or more believably had been overserved there, and started to quarrel with my grandfather. The situation seemed to have been diffused and my grandfather turned to talk to one of his regulars. A few moments later he was attacked from behind by the belligerent fellow, taking a punch to the back of the head that sent him reeling to the floor of his own business. My dad, then still a teenager, witnessed it from across the room and hopped over the bar to aid his wounded father. Apparently the offending party had an unknown accomplice present; a chair came crashing down over my father from behind and splintered into a hundred pieces like a stage prop as it split his head open. The two of them, father and son, fumbled around on the beer-soaked floorboards like derelict sea mammals stranded on the shore. It's an image that would repeat itself metaphorically decades later in a moderately different scenario. Whenever my dad told me that tale he said it with an inflated chest. The fact that he'd been assaulted in the act of defending his aging father. Here I am tearing mine down with a similar sort of arrogance. It wouldn't be that way if he hadn't replaced his penchant for booze with an addiction to religion during my formative years, sacrificing his family at the altar of his new Father. He chose to be a prophet in his own land and judge his own blood. I took the weekly sermons at the diner for as long as I could, but there came a time when my father had to shed his skin for the second time in my life. Whether I like it or not I see him for what he is now-- the saddest example of what not to become: an unbroken cycle of abuse and addiction, a hurt person only capable of hurting those he claims to love, a self-fulfilling prophecy staggering through the remnants of his wasted life on two unwieldy legs.

His photos will rot in my basement someday, but right now I still need to grieve him.