A face that used to bring me happiness and pride now just brings fear and sorrow. The sound of his boots on the wood floor used to bring excitement to my body that propelled me up to run into his arms; now I hide in the safety of my room just to collapse upon my floor in a puddle of my tears. Writing this now, my mind searches desperately to find a peaceful and happy moment with my father. I can only look back to my time of innocence, a time before I realized the alcohol had taken his soul like the devil.
  My blonde tangled hair flowed from under one of his baseball hats. His hat smelled just like him: day old alcohol and speed stick deodorant. That smell was him, that smell was safety. I wanted to be just like him. I would wear his smallest belt and loop it around my ripped, beige cargo pants. I would pick out one of my fishing shirts to match with him. Fishing was our bond. The boat was our place of happiness, our place of serenity. Maybe I liked it because he did, but to me, it didn’t matter, I just knew he was happiest out on the ocean. He would wake me up at seven to look at his jobs. He would hoist me up and put me into his truck. I would plead with him to wear a seat belt, “Please Daddy, I don’t want you to get hurt.” His response every time was “They aren’t going to control me.” All I wanted to do was keep him safe but he didn’t care, he just yelled at me. I wanted to cry but the happiness of just being with him overpowered my trembling body. The conflict was soon forgotten as we pulled into the deli parking lot. I hopped from his truck and walked proudly by his side into the deli. The ladies all smiled when we walked in. He’d order his coffee, dark with one sugar, and he’d make me order my bacon on a roll. Most of the time he wouldn’t want to walk in with me, but through an argument I was able to convince him to join me. I would happily skip out, right by his side and back into his red pick-up truck. We would visit the jobs for the day and then go to the docks to his second home, the boat. With a beer in one hand and my hand in the other we would walk down to his boat. I didn’t care about having to carry the bait or his cooler of alcohol, I was just overwhelmed I was with my daddy. He would pick me up by one arm and put me on the boat and we’d be off. I sat right next to him, periodically looking with pride at his stern face as he took another gulp of his depression in a bottle. He would make me walk onto the bow to put down the anchor. Being only seven, I was scared to fall into the water, but his voice forced my body to climb to the top to unhook the anchor. I would come back down, proud of my triumph and searched for his approval, only to see the back of his head cutting the bait.
  Those feelings of pride and love diminished with every sip of the alcohol he took. Every year that passed, my heart slowly broke in two and the alcohol slowly started to replace me as what brought him joy throughout the day. His face instead of bringing security and happiness now only brings pain and loss. My heart has turned into the bait we used to cast out into the ocean. Now, all I see is my father disappearing into his bottle, I can only hope one day someone will fish him out.