by T Cooper
My boss at Mud was the one who first suggested I start attending meetings. He was in AA and saw a bit of his old self in me—he said he’d give me another chance if I cleaned up. But I couldn’t just go occasionally or bullshit my way through. At first I figured, Fuck him, yes I can fake it, and that’s precisely what I’m going to do. But after a few meetings, sitting there listening to other people’s stories, I realized I was no different from anybody else. And mostly: that I had a major problem that wasn’t going to go away on its own.
Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and even Al-Anon—that holy trinity saved my life. I cut myself off from my toxic bear friends and lifestyle, found a different place to live where drug deals weren’t transacting at all hours of the day. My entire existence became limited to work every day and meetings every night. I started gaining weight back, getting on a regular sleep schedule, feeding myself properly. And I started noticing things again—like a lady’s whimsical pink hat on 2nd Avenue, or the way the afternoon sun catches the top-floor windows in the old synagogue across from my new apartment.
Fame, Kabbalah, Scientology, none of it could do a thing for me until I admitted my life was completely unmanageable. That I had a disease, and I needed help to recover from it.
My name is Beaufort, and I’m an alcoholic.
My name is Beaufort, and I’m an addict.
My name is Beaufort, and I am Al-Anonic.
At my home AA meeting in the basement of a Spanish-speaking church on St. Mark’s Place, it was my pleasure to come early and set up chairs, spread out literature, and put out some coffee before the meetings. Service was part of my recovery, the concept of “doing the right thing for the right reason” something that had woefully become entirely foreign to me in the years since I’d left home. I realized that the concept was something my mother and father instilled in me, though I’d clearly forgotten that way of life. It was my sponsor Micah who helped me start forgiving my mother—for everything—and making amends to people I’d alienated along the way (Leo being first and foremost). Forgiving and being forgiven was the best feeling in the world—better than being high or smashed or numbed out in any of the myriad ways I’d grown accustomed to of late.
I didn’t quite buy the whole “God” part, but I had devised my own understanding of a higher power, and was working my 12 Steps harder than I’d ever worked anything in my entire life. I was completely clean and sober. And doing my goddamnedest to accept the things I couldn’t change, the courage to change the things I could, and the wisdom to know the difference.
XXIII
My boss at Mud promoted me to barista, first in the shop, and then on the Mud Truck in Astor Place. I was responsible for setting up the equipment each morning, managing the daily service while parked by the 6-train entrance all day, and then getting the truck back and breaking it down each night. It was a lot of responsibility, and I feared failing my boss again, but I loved what I did. I loved meeting people and being a tiny part of contributing to their days—even if it was in the form of a small iced Caffe Americano with a splash of simple syrup.
My recovery was going beautifully: I celebrated six months of sobriety with a medallion ceremony and a night of bowling with my sponsor Micah and a few other friends from the program. I think I was coming back to the real Beaufort again, or perhaps making his acquaintance for the very first time. I liked what I saw, and I wanted to see what else he might contribute to this world. I journaled a lot as part of the program, and I started noticing that my entries were growing more and more creative, with ideas for stories, or even little scenes from my life, piling up in the margins.
Micah was active in the downtown avant-garde theater community, and he didn’t push, but when the time was right, he invited me to a show one night. I was blown away by the energy, the overall quality of the work, and the collective process involved in the production—all for a couple dozen people in the audience. No opening weekend numbers, no competing with other releases and re-designing posters and marketing to capitalize on different aspects of the product in order to attract as many demographics as possible. It was so authentic.
Micah knew about Bear, knew I’d always hoped to tell my story. Knew also, acutely, how dreadfully wrong that endeavor turned out the first time around. He lent me plays and books to read (Spaulding Gray and Jim Carroll to name a couple), took me to shows (like Justin Bond’s Lustre: A Mid-Winter TransFest at P.S. 122), and opened my eyes to a brave new world of storytelling combined with performance. I soon got involved doing stage managing of a show at the Loisaida Underground theater, and learned from the inside out what goes into collectively producing a show in the off-off Broadway theater world. It was more of an education than anything I’d learned in the film industry, and I was a newborn babe in the woods, soaking up any and everything.
And then suddenly, like some ladies say lightening strikes and they realize they have to become mothers, I realized I wanted to do a show of my own. Nothing too complicated. Just a simple one-man deal where I’d stand up there and be completely honest and myself for the first time in my life. Easy, right?
So I bought myself a used laptop from a depressive failed-novelist-turned-celebrity-stylist I found on Craigslist. And got to work writing my story.
XXIV
My life expanded slightly to accommodate working on the Mudtruck, attending AA meetings—and yes, writing my monologue. Every spare minute found me feverishly pawing my MacBook, telling the truths I’d always been afraid would prove the death of me if I ever completely revealed them. The process was entirely freeing, and not the kind of free I’d felt with Tina and the boys, or when I was writing Bear, posing at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Hollywood and incessantly nattering on with other poseurs who believed they were doing the work of god or some shit. This was flaying myself and turning my insides out for everybody to see. Only I didn’t care if a million people or nobody saw it. This story was for me.
When the Loisaida Underground offered to produce my one-bear show, I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to do it. But Micah thought it would be a healthy process for me to see something through from start to finish, so after a few more rounds of edits, they assigned me a director, and we went into production. Just me on stage, seated at a wooden desk with a lamp, a mic, and a glass of ice water. Minimal spot-lighting. The story of my life. Not running from my past, but rather running straight into it. No more playing the global warming card.
Time Out New York and The Village Voice both ran promising previews, and tickets were selling at a decent clip as a result of the coverage. The theater added some more nights, making it a two-week run, and it was by about the third or fourth show, I believe, that we’d ironed out most of the kinks. So I was feeling bullish about my focus and preparation on the night that the director of the Fringe Festival appeared in the audience. Afterwards he came backstage and made a formal offer to include me in his upcoming festival. It was a huge opportunity to take it to the next level, though I’d have sincerely been happy if I’d ended up doing a one-night run for an audience composed solely of a few AA buddies and some seat-filling stragglers from the Delancey Street off-track-betting facility.
Finally, I was truly free from the prison of “What’s next?” One day at a time, baby.
The weekend before closing night, a small piece about my show ran in The New York Times Arts section. It hinted at a “comeback,” but more importantly suggested that my small tale was potentially capable of effecting some sort of change: “If this dispatch from one of the northernmost corners of the globe doesn’t convince the U.S. to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, what will?”
People at the Loisaida were buzzing; it was the first time the Times had covered one of their shows. But on closing night I was more thrilled about the bunch of flowers that showed up at my dressing table. An envelope was attached, the card inside:
Break a Paw, Bro
—Leo
It ended up being my best show of the whole run. About three
-quarters of the way through, panting under the lights, I paused to take a drink of water, and a big ice cube accidentally slid into the back of my throat. I gagged a little, which took me out of the monologue for a few seconds. But I wasn’t worried. While I was collecting myself, I spotted a shadowy figure up in the last row of the theater, and it felt very familiar, though in both the moment and the darkness, I couldn’t quite make out who or what it was.
I took a few beats to further compose myself before delivering the final lines of the play, and then the words just started pouring out of me like a nightingale’s song—I wasn’t even conscious that I was delivering any lines. It was just me. When I put my head down on the table and the lights went dark, the audience stood and applauded.
After the wrap party, the theater emptied. Micah asked whether I felt like having company on the walk home, but I said I just wanted to be alone in the comfortingly crisp winter air. And when I stepped out the back door of the theater and into the alley, I thought I was alone. That is, until the figure from the last row appeared and placed a large warm paw on my shoulder. It was my father. He had a note. From my mother. She wanted me to know she’d only sent me away because she couldn’t feed me anymore. Couldn’t even feed herself. She drowned between ice floes the day after we separated; my father couldn’t get back in time, and my mother figured I’d have a better chance surviving down South than with her. She felt like an embarrassment and a failure, unable to feed her only son. She left a note explaining all of this, and my father wanted me to have it. He’d been tracking me for years, and he could always tell there was something missing, something I needed to hear.
XXV
I knew the whole time I was telling this story that it was a cover for the real story, which for some reason I still find impossible to tell. So that’s all I’m going to say. I should probably also tell you what happened after the Fringe Festival, when I went Off-Broadway and then toured a bunch of North American cities and Europe with the show. Or about the three-part BBC television special. But I don’t really feel like it. And it’s not what’s most important now anyhow.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is deeply grateful to
the following individuals and places:
Dennis Loy Johnson, Valerie Merians, Daniel O’Connor, Megan Halpern and everybody at the excellent Melville House
Niko Hansen and Tim Jung at Arche/Atrium in Deutschland
Doug Stewart at Sterling Lord Literistic
Alex Petrowsky at himself
The Millay Colony for the Arts
Ledig House International
And to these people and creatures:
Diane Baldwin, Kate Bornstein, Maud Casey, Fredrica Cooper, Murray Cooper, Steve Cooper, Kimmie David, David Duchovny, Jeni Englander, Brigitte Jakobeit, Téa Leoni, Adam Mansbach, Milton, Mom & Dad, Rick Moody, Richard Nash, Mr. Slutherpants, Amanda Patten, Amy Ray, Rosie, Turner Schofield, Johnny Temple and James Withers (for knowing the Heimlich Maneuver).
And to my lovely and amazing wife Allison [Glock] Cooper, who is responsible for anything funny in this book.
T COOPER is the author of the novels Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, and Some of the Parts, as well as co-editor of the anthology A Fictional History of the United States With Huge Chunks Missing. His work has appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Believer, among many others. Cooper lives in New York with his family.