Up Against The Wall

Up Against the WallMy childhood wasn't exactly ideal, and I mention it here not as an excuse but as a point of reference. For the record, both my parents drank heavily, and in the early days, before my father gave up and withered away somewhere deep in the upright shell of himself, there was shouting, there were accusations, tears, violence. And smoke. The house was a factory of smoke, his two packs a day of Camels challenging the output of her two packs of Marlboros. I spent a lot of time outsi...