The Patient Sikh: Part Thirty--The Trial

This an excerpt from a novel in progress and a work of fiction.

I remember it well. The trial. It was last year, how could I forget. My father was on trial for murder. They said he was intoxicated while performing surgery when his patient died on the table.

He was intoxicated when a part of me died when I was a teenager. The part that was innocent. My dad was not innocent, but I was, once upon a time.

What does the word innocent really even mean? Sometimes it means you are untouched by the dirty world. Sometimes it means you didn’t commit a crime. The ugliness of life touched me the first time I saw my dad passed out on the kitchen floor. I did commit a crime then. I tried to wake him up when I should have stepped on him.

That was the first time I contacted god. My mom always told me to repeat god’s name over and over again and everything would be OK. That night, I repeated, ‘Waheguru’ over and over again until I fell asleep. I can’t explain it, but it caused this feeling of peace inside me.

My father asked us, kids, to go to the trial to show the jury that he had a loving family that supported him. What the jury did not know was that we didn’t support this. Maybe a part of us wanted him to go to jail.

I remember staring at the people in the jury. Some of them looked angry, some looked sad, others looked interested. A few were black, most were white but no one on that jury was Indian, or even brown. The judge was an old white man, as most judges are. But he was kind. A man before us one day was getting a judgment for growing marijuana in his basement. The judge was sympathetic and gave him a lesser sentence then he could have.

We were all betting on that. Betting that this old man, probably a grandpa, would not put my dad in jail. For some reason or another, call me an eternal optimist, but I knew he would not go to jail. I knew that he would get away with this. Because he got away with ruining our lives, I knew he would literally get away with murder.

In the end, they could not prove that he was actually intoxicated during the actual surgery. But he lost his medical license because he is an admitted alcoholic. He was a cardiologist with no heart. Everyone knows he was drunk in that surgery, but there is no solid evidence.

There is no evidence that he broke my heart, but everyone knows it. My dad’s brother, Tarak Uncle came every day of the trial. He has a genetic disorder that has made him blind. But he doesn't have a genetic disorder that makes him an alcoholic. He and my dad stopped talking years ago. My uncle tried to stop him from drinking but he gave up like the rest of us.

I wanted to talk to Sonny about all this when we were talking, but I never did. He knows something went down, he’s heard the rumors in the Sikh community. It was even on the news one day. We tried to pretend like we were regular people, but everybody knew what was going on.

There were friends of my parents that stopped calling or coming around. My dad had doctor friends who did not want to be professionally associated with him anymore. My father was seemingly oblivious to all of this. He drank his way through that trial even though his lawyer warned him not to.

My dad is a good actor, one of the best. That’s probably why I want to act, I learned it from him. When he is drunk, many times you cannot tell at all. He is what they call a high functioning alcoholic.

But since he lost his medical license he is not functioning at all anymore. He sits on the couch all day, drinking and watching CNN. Sometimes, believe it or not, I want his life. He gets to chill all day while the rest of us work. OK, I’m not saying I work at college that hard, but come on’, he got off easy.

Of course, I’m glad he’s not in jail. I don’t want my daddy to go to jail. But he has created a jail for my mom. She works all day as a Gynecologist and then comes home and makes dinner for her drunk husband.

Is this life? Is this really happening? How can this be true?

I don’t like reality, that’s why I want to act like I’m someone else. Real people and real life, suck.

I don’t drink very much or very often, I don’t really get the appeal. Sonny drinks too much. I don’t think he’s an alcoholic, but still. It bothers me.

I have to forget him. I have to forget how bad things are with my dad.

I have to forget this life.

I’m not really ready to go on to my next life, but this is bullshit.

I want to start over.

nina

If you would like to read the beginning of this novel in progress, The Patient Sikh, visit the following links in chronological order:

The Patient Sikh: Part One

The Patient Sikh: Part Two–The Wonder Years

The Patient Sikh: Part Three–Sonny

The Patient Sikh: Part Four–Song Lyrics

The Patient Sikh: Part Five–Your Song

The Patient Sikh: Part Six–Coffee Talk