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The last time I saw my father, he was running towards the woods wearing a long-sleeved Christmasy western shirt and a brown cowboy hat. His boots kicked up snow with each stride as he tried escape the police.

In the middle of a recent depression, I struggled through nightmares of my father. Those dreams, however, showed me that my life today is miles ahead of my life then. For that I am grateful.

I enlisted in the Navy at age 18. As Christmas of 1987 approached, boot camp was less than six weeks away. It felt as if this was the last opportunity I had to reconcile with my father. Maybe it was the fear of leaving home. I hope to god it wasn’t that I felt joining the Navy would finally be the moment where he felt I was worthy as a man.

After a few awkward phone conversations, he promised he really wasn’t drinking anymore and I agreed to spend the holidays with him.

I rode a Greyhound bus from Richmond to Bassett and spent most of the first morning visiting family at my Aunt Net’s house. Every conversation felt strange. After a few years away, every cousin, every nephew felt more like an in-law. Someone I was required to consider family but without the bonds forged over a childhood. Regardless, they provided a necessary cushion between me and my father.

We ate lunch. We posed for pictures. My blond spiked hair clashing with the fake wood paneling in the background and with the family smiling around me.

Early in the afternoon, my father and I returned to his trailer home. He stretched out in his Laz-e-boy recliner to take a nap before heading back for family dinner later. I wasn’t tired at all. Searching for his porn stash, I found an unopened bottle of Virginia Gentleman whiskey. Furious, I wanted to shake him awake and call him a fucking liar. I wanted to leave, go back to Richmond and forget I had a father. I did none of those things. Instead, I left a note saying I was walking down to the convenience store to see if I could run into old friends.

The convenience store–I forget its actual name–was the primary hangout when I lived with my father. With two gas pumps outside and aisles of concrete and cans inside, it wasn’t special. It felt more like home than dad’s trailer.

The owner and a few customers were inside. Full of dread and excitement at the thought of running into my friends, I made nervous conversation with the owner. Each time the door behind me opened, I shot a quick look hoping to see anyone I knew. During my time away, I had grown more comfortable in my skin. Inside I was the same goofy kid, but my appearance and attitude were more forceful. My confidence blossomed once I escaped to Richmond and away from my father’s influence. In this neighborhood, it wasn’t a good thing to stand out though. My spiked hair, with its blond highlights, shouted what my thoughts whispered–I didn’t fit in there anymore.

Finally, a trio of my old buddies showed up. Ronnie, Randy and Larry.

Ronnie was the oldest of the bunch and walked around on one crutch due to a bad leg. He was well into his 20’s and still lived at home. We were never close but a couple of things carved out a soft spot in my heart for Ronnie.

First, he was indirectly responsible for my love for the Miami Dolphins. He invited me over to watch the Super Bowl. The one where the Dolphins lost to the Redskins. I have been a die-hard Dolphins fan from that day.

Also, he was the only friend who ever made a from-the-heart statement against the way my father treated me. His house sat on the other side of a garage, about 100-150 yards down the street from our apartment. We lived above the furniture store and he had a clear view of the long (and scary) steps from the ground to our door. One day, my father I fought and rolled around in the gravel outside the front door of the convenience store. Later, Ronnie watched my father chase me up those steps, beating me with a wooden cane my grandfather had made. Ronnie said he wanted to take that same cane to my father’s head. It was clear he meant what he said. That was the extent of the support I received during the years of living alone with my dad.

Randy was a little white-haired troublemaker. He was probably around 12 when I left Bassett so he was approaching 15 then. His mother pawned him off to a neighbor who lived in a trailer on the other side of the park. It was widely rumored to be a pervert situation. Barring direct evidence, all the confirmation I needed came when Randy hit age 11-12 and stopped living there. Randy’s mother then sent his younger brother–maybe 8–to stay with the guy (I think his name was GD). I guess some debt was still unpaid.

Larry. There isn’t much interesting to say about Larry. His family had moved from a trailer to a nice little single family home down the street. His mother had a bad leg and owned the beauty salon in town. My mother took me to that salon to get my hair cut. My dad was sure it would turn me gay. Larry’s father was at least my dad’s age but he played full-contact football with us or even harder contact basketball on the hoop in his driveway.

For most of the time I knew him, he was “Wayne” but just before I left Bassett he started going by his middle name “Larry”–which was also his father’s name. His older sister Denise had a crush on me (she was my age) and his younger brother Jamey was a serious brat.

Ronnie, Randy and Larry walked into the store as I played pinball in the corner. It was like I didn’t exist. Or the years we hung out never happened. Looking back, it was more likely they were stoned on something harsher than pot. Or just posing as angry young men. If I had stuck around in Bassett longer than a day, they would have warmed up to me again. I hope.

I returned to my father’s trailer less than 2 hours after I left He was awake, drunk and angry. He never expressed it but I think his ego was hurt that I left him to see my friends. It is difficult to imagine that while I was subconsciously fighting for his approval, he was seeking mine.

He yelled a lot. I yelled even more back. He hadn’t changed at all. I needed to leave. I told him I was going back to Richmond. He said he was glad; I should leave if I wanted.

He disappeared while I packed my suitcase back up. I wasn’t aware that he was orchestrating a big drama play. I placed my suitcase next to the front door and sat down to call my grandmother, my mother’s mother. I couldn’t call his side of the family for help.

My father walked in the front door with his shotgun. I froze. Who was the gun for, I wondered.

My dad answered that question by placing the butt flat against the top of my suitcase and both barrels under his chin. He waited for my reaction.

An emotional mess on my best days–no thanks to scenes like this–I freaked out. I cried for him to stop. I yelled for him to do it.

I built up the nerve to lunge and grab the shotgun. I pulled it forward as it fired past his cowboy hat, punching a hole through the roof. Drunk as he was, I don’t know if he intended to shoot himself or was shooting for maximum damage to my psyche.

Grabbing the spent shotgun, I used the butt to knock my father through the open door and out into the yard. We fought and rolled around in the snow for a while. My father is stubborn, mean and ornery but not very strong or a good fighter. Most of the fight I tried not to hurt him. In my weaker moments I gave him a solid punch to his stomach or a kick to his legs.

My father never fought fair. A couple of times I had to stop him from bringing down a cinder block on my head. There was never any danger of injury, he took so long to get momentum swinging it that I could easily deflect it to the side and watch him follow the block to the ground.

He finally gave up the fight. He retreated to the tool shed about 30 feet from the trailer and sat in its doorway smoking unfiltered Pall Malls. Grabbing the gun from the ground, I went inside to call my grandmother and the police. I needed my grandmother to come and help me get back to Richmond. The police I called because I was afraid for my father.

I went outside to tell my father that my grandmother was on her way and that I would never be back. I spoke my last six words to my father’s face, something no drunk trailer-living cowboy wants to hear.

“Oh, I called the police too.”

All thought of anything else left his eyes. He turned toward the woods and started running.