cocktail onion breath

I believe the first person I ever saw visibly inebriated was my father. I remember I was probably nine or ten and it was after midnight on a Thursday night. My mother was distraught and furious because my father had neglected to call to tell her he'd be out late. She kept me up all night calling to his friend's houses asking where he was. She'd been crying and finally had a family friend go looking for him. I couldn't sleep a wink and when my father finally showed, I knew I was in for some fireworks.
My dad was humming this little ditty about somebody named Suzy Q, but her name sounded more like he was saying "SWOOZEE KWOO." My mother sprung from her bed ready to give my dad a good once over when my older brother came to her door, latching it behind him. I peered my head out and saw my dad woozy, doing what i thought was his impersonation of a clown's walk. I chuckled at his hulking mass bouncing from one side of the hallway to the other trying to keep his body upright, bouncing from his shoulders to his belly, to and fro.
"Hi daddy," I said as he bounced his big tummy off the linen closet right in front of me picking me up by my elbows throwing me up over his shoulder and back down again.
"How's tigger?" My dad always called me tiger when I was little. I loved it. 'Tigger' was close enough. Before I had a chance to answer, my mother broke through the threshold of the door having heard my giggling knowing that one of her beautiful, innocent children was being exposed to an intoxicated hobo, for all intents and purposes.
"Where the fuck were you," my mother said gnashing her teeth and tongue, twisting them into foreign, unlikely knots and grabbing my arms shielding me from my father's cocktail onion breath. I liked that smell. It reminded me of the smell of my grandma from England and the way her house smelled; like bourbon and Dunhill cigarettes.
"Iwuz houtwif Baab."
"Bob, who?"
"Gellam."
"Bob Gillim?"
"Yup."
I was confused and scared because my mother was so angry. My older brother interceeded again and told dad to go pass out on the couch, but mom wouldn't let it lay.
"You smell like perfume," my mother said rage still spewing out her eyes.
"I think he smells like nana," I said tugging at my mom's robe.
"We were at the Gentlemen's Club," my father said clearly, admidst a moment of pure clarity.
The fury of my mother began to make the floor tremble and crack. An earthquake split the floor in two and the fires of hell began to spit from jagged rocks. Backdrafting flames shot from between my mother's teeth.
"You went where," she asked sounding like the princess of darkness, deep and hollow as horns pierced through her golden hair. At this point I felt that my mother's anger might just boil over and instead of murdering just my father, she might unleash it upon me as well, so I ran back to my bed sticking my head under my pillow like an Ostritch burrowing his head in the sand. I was worried that my parents were going to fight all night until I heard my older brother reasoning with my mother.
"Just let him pass out. There's no point in fighting about it anymore because he's not going to remember anyway."
My mother seemed to take some small consolation in this and went and got my dad a blanket and told him to come back to the bedroom. The last thing I heard was my mother saying blankly, "you're sleeping on the floor," and my Dad replying "m'okey."

When I got home from school the next day my father was wrapped in a blanket like it was his cocoon, on the floor of my parents bedroom. The venetian blinds were shut and the room was dark and dreary.
"Dad," I said creeping around the bed.
"Shhhhh, daddy doesn't feel well, tiger."
"Okay," I said tiptoeing around the bed.
When my mom came home and saw how much pain he was in, how much he had already suffered, she dropped it. The hangover was apparently punishment enough.