The bus driver

This morning someone asked me to explain what I was doing at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. She said that I looked like a regular guy and couldn't imagine me being anything like her. I gave her the three minute run down on my life and then I went home. I went home with my memories. I went home and remembered. I was very insecure as a child. With two alcoholics raising me it is no wonder that I never learned "normalcy". One of my first memories was of a bus trip with my Mom. She got all dressed up looking so pretty with her special hair do and her red lipstick. We were going to go to North Park shopping. I was three or four years old. It was an exciting day. Mom never drove a car and to take the big giant bus was a real treat. So we waited and soon the bus came and the next thing I know we were under the North Park sign.  We went to several shops and Mom bought some stuff. Then we were back waiting for the bus. Under Mom's big grey coat she hid a quart of Gallo port wine. It was always Gallo Port for her. While we waited I remember her taking some sips from that bottle. Then we were on the bus going home. Mom was stumbling down the aisle. She fell in front of the bus driver spilling her purse. The wine bottle rolled on the decking. Mom was lying on the floor and not able to talk. The driver was suddenly yelling at her. Get off this bus you drunk. I was busy picking up the coins that fell while everything started to go in slow motion. The driver poked Mom and she started to rise dropping her purse. Then she just kind of rolled down the steps of the bus landing in the gutter. I told the mean bus driver to wait, that's my Mom. He said get the hell off of his bus. I grabbed the purse and the coins I could hold stepping off of the bus but trying to not step on Mom. The bus doors closed with the sound of air rushing out. I grabbed my Mom's hand and tried to move her. The big tire was right next to her head and started to move. I panicked because I thought the bus would kill her and there was nothing I could do about it but get out of the way myself. Suddenly the bus was gone. I shook Mom and tried to get her to wake up to no avail. Someone came out and picked my Mom up and asked me where we lived. He carried her home a block away depositing her on the living room couch. I cried. I had torn a part of her coat liner off while trying to get her away from the bus. That piece of silk liner became my la. It was several years later after much cajoling that I was finally able to give up that la and stop sucking my thumb. I don't think anyone in the family ever knew about that day. Mom would never admit that anything happened and I could not express my fear, no my terror until I had been sober for a few years.
That interaction shaped my life in many ways that I could not realize for years to come. Firstly I learned that I could not trust my Mom. Secondly I learned that I could not make things better by yelling at the bus driver, when I got mad at him, things only got worse. I attribute a lot of my attitudes about life from that fateful day. I distrust authority (bus driver), I am not worthy of being listened to (bus driver). I am not worthy of love because if Mommy loved me those things would have never happened. I had no idea of how much power alcohol had on an alcoholic until much later in my life. However I became my Mom. I did what she did and more. I sometimes think today that I was trying to relive that day of the bus ride when I drank and I was trying to make that day come out OK during my whole drinking career. That never happened. Instead I just did the same thing to my family and wives until I finally got sober and began to heal.  I drank for 25 years. Today I have 24 years of sobriety and I can still hear the sound of the bus pulling away narrowly missing crushing my Mom. Today I am still healing. There are many, many more adventures in my history. Thank God I am sober.