Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

by Bill Clegg

  We sit in the hospital room with my mother while she sleeps and whisper as the nurses come in and out and fuss with the tubes and charts around her. Her surgeon, a tall, dark-haired man in his forties with a heavy five-o’clock shadow, comes in and tells us that there were complications with the reconstruction and that they may have to go back in in a few days, but the surgery to remove the cancer and the lymph nodes went very well. I think about the fact that this guy stood over my mother all day and had her life in his hands. My job, the agency, and all my worries shrivel next to this superhero and, not for the first time that day, I feel ashamed.

  The day in the hospital ticks by, and at some point, there is a rustle at the door and, miraculously, it’s Noah, smiling, holding bags filled with food from Dean & Deluca. After our phone call he booked a flight and came as soon as he could. It feels as if the floor of the world that had fallen away when I walked into the hospital has suddenly returned. Noah hugs me and I hang on to him for as long as I can.

  My mother will move back to her small new house in Connecticut, the one she bought after her divorce, which sits in a field in a small town next to the small town where I grew up. Her many friends will drive her to her chemo and radiation treatments, back and forth to Boston when she needs to see her doctors there, bring her meals round the clock for months, and feed her dog, and slowly, very slowly, she will transform from the pale, bruised waif we saw in the hospital bed back to her cherubic, healthy self. Her hair will return, thinner than before, but when five years pass and she is, as the doctors say, in the clear, you will not be able to tell how close she came to death. She and I will see each other and speak often in the first year of her recovery. My mother blameless and wounded is someone I am comfortable with, and the way we are with each other resembles the way we were when I was an adolescent and even after—attentive, sympathetic, encouraging. But as she gets healthier and returns to her life, I will call less and less, limit my visits to Christmas, and, as before, drift away.

  Where

  Men’s Room at the White Plains Metro-North station (rushed hands, crossing from zipper to zipper at the urinal, and then, quickly, into the stall, a rushed mouth on me until it is suddenly, for the first time with a man, over).

  Ron’s dorm, three blocks away from my first apartment in New York, twice.

  On the phone, in the dark. Nell away. All those voices, all that want.

  Apartment high above downtown, after a long night of drinking and dancing and pot, with a writer who is represented by my boss, and his boyfriend. Blurry bodies and a hasty retreat before they wake. The snow falling for the first time that winter.

  Steam room at the gym on 57th Street. Middle-aged men. Scared, serious, wedding rings foggy and dull on their fingers.

  Bathroom on a Metro-North train. A beautiful young man, older than I am but no more than twenty-five, who had been sitting across the aisle and who motions for me to follow as he walks to the end of the car. Kissing. Just kissing and kind hands palming my face and temples. It will all be okay, he whispers as he slides the door open and disappears into another car. How did he know I didn’t think it would be?

  Love

  So, out of order, a memory. It’s my fourth night at 60 Thompson. My fourth night back in the city after checking in and out of Silver Hill and hiding out in the Courtyard Marriott in Norwalk, Connecticut. I have phoned an escort, let’s call him Carlos. Carlos is dark, Brazilian, in his forties, and he’s been here before, once, the night I checked in. He is quiet, muscular, and a few inches taller than I am. He costs $400 an hour. I know he has a day job, he’s going to night school for a business degree of some kind, and that he’s from São Paulo. He’s on his way. Happy was just here, so I have plenty of drugs. My phone rings and I can see the number calling in is Noah’s. He must be back from Berlin. Without thinking, and overcome by the sudden need to hear his voice, I pick up. His tone is gentle, and I end up telling him where I am and that he can come up, for a little while. I have no idea what will happen, but my need to see him overwhelms my fear of being caught and dragged home. Within minutes he’s at the door. I look at him through the peephole but his image is warped and, beyond his clothes, he’s unrecognizable. I stand on the other side of the door for a while and watch him before I turn the lock. When I let him in, I notice that his beard is heavier than I’ve ever seen it and he looks thin. I want to run into his arms, but I feel cautious and hold back. He hesitates, too, and we circle each other warily. I’ve hidden the drugs, my wallet, and my passport in the bathroom under a pile of towels, in case he tries to take them from me. He starts smoking a cigarette and, even in this space, even now, I make a face and say, Really? He ignores me and talks about checking out of the hotel, coming with him, going to rehab. I get angry and tell him I will leave the hotel but not go with him. I’ll disappear somewhere else, and the next time I won’t pick up the phone when he calls. Twenty or so minutes pass and I’m aware of two things: (1) I haven’t taken a hit since just before Noah arrived and I need to, and (2) Carlos will be here at any moment. I tell Noah he has to go and that if he doesn’t, I will. He says he won’t and I begin going through the exaggerated motions of preparing to leave—putting on my shoes, gathering up my jacket—and he tells me to stop. Time is ticking and whatever high I had before has long since passed and I begin to plummet into a jittery funk. I tell Noah he can stay for a few more minutes but that I need to take a hit. He can stay while I do it or he can leave. He says, Fine, take a hit. And so I do. I go to the bathroom, close the door, and pull the pipe and bag from under the towels. I load the hit into the stem before leaving the bathroom, and instead of leaving the drugs behind, I stick them in the front pocket of my jeans. I return to the room, sit on the edge of the bed and ask, You sure you can handle this? He says he can. I face Noah directly as I light up and draw as much smoke as I can into my lungs. When I exhale I catch his eye, and though I see how grim his face appears, I can’t tell what he’s feeling. The high crashing through my system bullies aside his feelings and any normal response I might have to them. I regard him as someone on a departing train would a stranger on a platform. Curious, faintly connected by met gazes, but essentially indifferent. Noah recedes from view and as he does, I tell him about Carlos. I expect him to explode or yell but he stays calm and says, Fine. I’ll stay. If you won’t call him and tell him not to show up, I will stay. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I hear the words as if from across a vast field or a thick pane of glass and say, because it feels this way, Fine.

  Carlos arrives. He looks at Noah, turns to me, and asks, Is he staying? I say, Yes, for a while. They eye each other and Carlos sits down on the bed. I smoke a hit. Noah sits in a chair by the draped window. I smoke another. Noah is silent. Carlos motions for me to come sit on the bed and, with pipe and bag and lighter in hand, I do. I pour another vodka and ask him if he’d like anything. He wants a beer, so I grab one from the minibar, open it, and hand it to him. He takes a long pull and takes off his shirt. He is dark and his skin is flawless, and I watch him remove his watch and begin to unlace his shoes. I pack a hit and by the time I exhale I have nearly forgotten about Noah sitting less than three feet from the bed. Carlos and I kiss. He smells like Old Spice and tobacco, a particular mix of smells I associate with my father. We roll around on the bed, and before long I need another hit and a few big swigs of vodka. I load up my stem again and inhale a large hit and turn around toward Noah as I exhale. I try to read his face and don’t find anger or disgust or pain. What I see, or at least I think I do, is compassion. As I step to the bar to pour another drink, I ask him if he’s had enough and he says, No, I’m fine. I want to go to him, be with him, and for the first time resent Carlos for being here. I drink and smoke more before returning to the bed and by now my body is alive with desire—roaring, indiscriminate, hungry. Carlos and I are soon completely naked, and when he is on top of me, I turn to Noah and motion to him to come over to the bed. He does and lies down next to me. Carlos and I continue to go at
it, and at some point I realize that Noah is holding my hand. I turn to him and his eyes are wet. He caresses my hand and arm and says, This is okay, you’re okay, don’t worry, this is okay. His words, his caressing hand, Carlos on top of me, the drugs and vodka roaring through me—shame, pleasure, care, and approval collide and the worst of the worst no longer seems so bad. One of the most horrible things I can imagine—having sex, high on drugs, in front of Noah—has been reduced to something human, a pain that can be soothed, a monstrous act that can be known and forgiven. You’re okay, Noah reassures me with his soft voice and gentle strokes, and for a few long moments, I am.

  Carlos eventually leaves and Noah and I sit across from each other in chairs by the window. He tells me not to be ashamed of what happened, that I’m not the only one who has messed up in our relationship, that he has, too. He tells me how but I don’t believe him. He tells me some of the details but I dismiss them, thinking he’s just trying to comfort me.

  I tell Noah he has to leave and promise to call him later. He agrees. But I won’t call. I’ll pack up my things, check out of the hotel, and go to another. I won’t remember Noah’s visit for a long time. And when I do, every last inch of me will burn with shame. Later still, I will finally be able to look beyond the shame and see how for those few hours, he remained with me, held my hand behind that hotel room door, and told me I was okay. That he loved me. And I will remember how convinced I was that night—as I had been every night with him before—that knowing what he knew, seeing what he’d seen, putting up with what he chose to put up with, he was the only one who ever could. The question I never asked was why.

  Blackout

  It is the summer of 2003, and through a series of extraordinary miscalculations and mishaps by the power company, New York City has lost electricity. Manhattan is dead and powerless on one of the hottest days of the year. I am walking down lower Fifth Avenue in a sea of bewildered office workers, shoppers, and students. My head is heavy and the late morning sun shines too brightly from the city windows and the chrome of gridlocked cars. I didn’t sleep the night before. I was up until dawn smoking crack and came home to find all the lights on in the apartment. Under the mirror, on the bar in the foyer, I find a note scribbled on the back of an envelope: 3:01am, Can’t take this. Noah has recently started checking into hotels when I don’t come home. Mostly he ends up at the Sheraton on Park Avenue South.

  After a few useless hungover hours at the office, the power quits, the building goes dark, and I leave for home. As I make my way into the crowded street, I think this will be the last day like this. No more nights without sleep, no more Noah checking into hotels. All the gritty details from the night before flash through my mind as they always do. Something about crack, for me at least, will always heighten memory instead of erase it. I will never wake the next morning and forget what I did the night before.

  I am barely aware of the mounting crisis of the blackout around me—I’m much more concerned with how to appear rested and loving when I see Noah. As the frantic pedestrians shuffle in herds through the middle of Fifth Avenue, I worry how I will persuade him that this day marks the end of the lost nights, of which there have been too many to count. I believe this. Even though the memory of every morning like this over the last three years—and the memory of believing each one was the last—sits like a toad in the path of my new plan, I still believe, again, that this time will be different. That the old tenacious pattern will be broken.

  I know that if the power returns before evening, we’ll go to the Knickerbocker. I won’t drink. Or I will drink, but only wine. Just one. Or probably two. Talk of the power failure and ensuing chaos will distract us from the horror of the night before. I’ll threaten to leave when the conversation drifts to What can we do about this? or You’ve got to get help. After a few beats of hard silence we’ll talk about the waitress with cancer, how brave she is, how hard she works, how cool the clothes she sews and wears to work are. I’ll watch her shoulder through the thick bar crowd with heaping trays of steaks and drinks and wonder if ordering a third glass of wine will provoke Noah into more talk of rehab, outpatient services he’s researched, AA. I’ll be thinking about just exactly how much I can get away with drinking right now without causing a fuss as the waitress brings us our burgers and fries. This will be the only thing on my mind—one more—as she describes the chemotherapy and the exhaustion and the sour stomach and hair loss. You’re amazing, I’ll say as I tap the glass and nod for another, avoiding Noah’s glare on the other side of the table. And in a flurry of possibility I’ll say, Actually, make it a vodka. I won’t look his way as I jump up for the bathroom, wondering whether or not he’ll be there when I return. When I do, he will be—he always is—and in tears. His pleading for me to stop drinking and get treatment, and my threatening to leave—the restaurant, his life—will continue. Silence will eventually follow, the busy restaurant buzzing around us, a TV star in the corner with her husband, someone from publishing in the next room, several regulars leaning into their cups at the bar. These are our nights at the Knickerbocker. So many nights. But this night, the night of the blackout, will not be one of them.

  In the sea of people swarming the streets, suddenly: Noah. He’s walking up Fifth Avenue and he sees me just as I see him. I am with my assistant and the rights director from the agency, which is a comfort because I don’t want to be alone with him. I don’t need to look at his face to know that he’s furious. He barely says hello to them and to me he says, Let’s go. His grandmother is in her apartment on the seventeenth floor of the Sherry Netherland and we need to go to her. Now.

  I tell him I’ll see him there later, and right in front of my colleagues he says, No way, come with me now. I say, Relax, and he says he will once I come with him. I say good-bye to my colleagues, and instead of making a scene I start walking back up Fifth toward the Sherry. I walk ahead of him nearly the entire way uptown, from 14th Street to 58th. The city is a mess, and because of the fresh memory of 9/11, there is a sense of something bigger than a power failure going on. Rumors of terrorists blowing up power plants ricochet through the streets. The air is thick with calamity.

  As we near the Sherry we find a gourmet food store. The fancy kind that caters to the people living north of 57th and south of 60th between Fifth and Madison. They sell wine and even have a machine that chills it instantly that, because a generator has been hooked up, still works. The store is dark save for a few candles, and the owner’s wife stands near the locked door and is careful about who she lets in. Noah puts a bottle of Sancerre on the counter, and I grab three more. I do this in front of the shopkeeper intentionally so that Noah can’t object. He just shakes his head slowly and when he pulls for his wallet, I hand him four twenties. We load up on things like roast chicken, crackers, and cheese and make our way around the corner to the Sherry.

  The building is mainly residential but also has hotel rooms. There are porters and bellhops and managers all over the lobby as we enter and explain that we are there to see Noah’s grandmother, or as everyone calls her, Neeny. They recognize us, and one of them escorts us to the stairs that they have lit, on the landings, with candles. Before heading up the stairwell I stop at the lobby mirror to make myself presentable, hide the sleeplessness and hangover. I pat my hair into place, wipe the sweat from my face and brow, tuck in my shirt. Luckily I have some Visine, so I squirt both bloodshot eyes with the stuff and hope that in the dim light Neeny won’t be able to see them, or any of me, too clearly.

  The stairwell is muggy and hot, and the light flickers against the green-and-gold wallpaper. In this shimmery dark it feels as if we are underwater, moving in slow motion, safe. I am exhausted, but the muffled footfalls and muggy air are calming. We are lugging sacks of wine and groceries in a gilded tunnel with light dancing on our skin. The dread from before starts to fade, and when Noah turns on the landing to see if I am still behind him, his eyes are shining with candle flames and are kind again.

  We drink and
eat with Neeny, touch each other on the arm affectionately as we animate stories of our vacation in Paris, Noah’s movie, and my job. I imagine what Neeny would think if she knew that I had been smoking crack in a project on the Lower East Side the night before, in an apartment with four bolts and a steel bar across the door frame. I imagine her face falling as someone tells her. I drink more Sancerre, glass after glass, and let the tide of wine muffle the exhaustion and the creeping shame. I watch Noah amuse Neeny, flatter her, gently walk her through the dark apartment to her bedroom after dinner, stroking her back as they go. I watch them and love this part of him, this tender part that is so devoted to, and comfortable with, his family.

  We sleep on couches in the living room and leave the next morning. We walk home, and all that day restaurants and bodegas and grocery stores are closed. The city grinds to a halt. People look distraught as they confront the locked doors and hastily scribbled We’re Closed signs all over town. Later that afternoon, the power magically comes back on. Everyone forgets, almost instantly, how helpless they were. Life returns and all is as it was.

  We have dinner at the Knickerbocker that night, and it plays out like all the others. Pleas, threats, silences, tears. When I get up to go to the bathroom, I remember the night before; how, after we ate, I stood at Neeny’s window, dizzy from Sancerre and lack of sleep, and looked out over the southeast corner of Central Park to the Plaza Hotel, which was dark, darker than all the other buildings. I remember how silent the city was—no low hum of air-conditioning, no stray voices from televisions and radios. And how deserted the Plaza looked, huddled below, humbled. The city around it weary, spent, as if it had finally given up on its striving citizens, lost interest in the bother of it all.