The Third Step

by William Lobb

  “Apparently, I’ve gone through about two weeks of detox and the DTs and now I’m telling my life story to a pretty shrink I’d love to fuck. Any other questions?”

  Soraya sat and took some notes. She smiled and said, “Remind me to never ask you what’s going on. Have you given thought to rehab?”

  Frankie looked at her and said, “No, fuck that.”

  With that, Soraya closed her notebook and got up to leave. “Your meds end tonight. Tomorrow you will be discharged. You have the toxins out of your body now. It will take some time for your body to be fully detoxed. It’s your spirit that I’m concerned with. We can’t make you go, but I deeply wish you would consider rehab or at least AA.”

  Frankie said, “I may try AA. I’ll see.”

  With that, the psychiatrist got up to leave.

  Frankie was discharged the next morning. David and a couple of guys from the bar picked him up, and they went back to the bar. David left it up to Frankie. He still didn’t want a drink. He wanted one, but he was in an experimental phase. He had a club soda and cranberry juice. One of the leather boys called him a faggot and everyone laughed. David asked him what his plans were. Frankie said he had no clue. David said he should go see Zara, but first he had to go get some clothes. He’d lost even more weight and the clothes that were still in the truck wouldn’t fit at all.

  Suddenly, Frankie got concerned about the truck. How long had he been gone on this adventure? David told him to calm down. The truck was parked in a friend’s yard down by the Mississippi. Frankie told David he kind of wished he was gay—he’d want to marry him. Frankie actually felt David to be one of his closest friends. Inexplicably, he was just a very good guy.

  He and David went to the local discount store and bought shorts and t-shirts and sneakers and things he needed. David said he should stop by and see Zara, she’d asked about him often but was reluctant to stop by the hospital.

  David drove back to the bar. Frankie decided he’d walk down the street and see Zara. He knocked on her door. Another girl answered. She didn’t recognize him and gave the standard introduction. He only smiled and said he was a friend of Zara.

  After a few moments, Zara walked into the room where Frankie was waiting.

  A large glass doorway opened up onto a beautiful patio with a view of the French Quarter. Zara was even more beautiful than he recalled. She sat down next to him and smiled, then took his hand and sat there silently for a few moments. They looked out and down the street as the sun was setting. Frankie felt a calm he was not sure he’d ever known. Not drunk, not drugged, not raging or planning his next move. He simply sat there and held this beautiful woman’s hand in silence and watched the final rays of the day, his first day out of the hospital and not drunk.

  He had learned one thing from Soraya; he wasn’t sober; he just wasn’t drunk. He felt strange, an uncomfortable and foreign calm. As the sun continued to set and the shadows over the city grew longer, he contemplated this feeling of peace. It was threatening. It shut down his rage, his endless anger, the engine that drove him. He never made peace or sought peace. These words did not belong to him, peace and calm. Without his rage, there was nothing to define him. That was what kept him separate from the rest. It was his wall and his weapon. It kept people at bay, even his closest friends, and he liked it that way. There were no excuses to be made, no explanations required for his actions. Safe inside his rage, he was out of control. That was all the explanation ever required. Without it, he felt naked and vulnerable, hopeless and empty. He needed a place to hide. Not drunk, not drugged meant he was unarmed and vulnerable.

  Immediately, Frankie craved vodka and Seconal. That was his comfort and the fuel for his rage. He sat there, holding her hand as the terror of the approaching night washed over him. He realized how badly broken he was. He could feel himself starting to shake. Zara could feel it too. She simply said, “Just try to hold on, it will pass. I need you to hold on.” He sat there as feelings of fear and anxiety washed over him. He found a peculiar comfort in these feelings. This was where he lived. This was his comfort zone.

  They sat in silence, until finally she said, “These are those moments, the ones you need to be in—to exist in, one at a time, until the fear passes. You need to hold on, it will pass. It’s a storm, it will pass.”

  They sat there a long time in silence watching the night roll in, from east to west, until the city was alive with lights that glowed from every window. She whispered, “The morning will come, you just need to hang on. Every moment counts now. Unlike the moments that have led you here, which were disposable and unaccountable, the moments from here on are precious. Each moment now matters, it has to. You have chosen this path; there is no hiding place anymore. There is no place to go and hide away for a day, a week, or a year.

  “You’ve chosen this path. You have to live it head first, full-on, every day from this day forward. You have burned all of your bridges and hiding places. You will fear now. You will love, you will hate, but there will be no place to hide. It’s living full on. It takes courage. It remains to be seen if you possess that courage or any courage at all. Don’t be discouraged. We’re all broken. Some hide, some succumb and surrender and some rise above. It’s your choice. I hope you’ll choose courage.” She let go of his hand, went over by the door, and picked up his bag with his clothes in it. She carried it into her bedroom. Frankie followed her.

  Frankie woke the next day in Zara’s bed. He’d made it through the night. He dressed and walked outside for a cigarette. This was his first day, probably in well over ten years, chemical-free. He was a little scared. A lot scared. He didn’t know what he was going to do or how to get through the day. One of the girls who worked for Zara came out on the stairs while Frankie was there. She bummed a cigarette.

  They stood there smoking and she said, “I’m in NA, heroin. It’s tough, day to day, but I’m doing it. Some days I don’t think I can do it, but the people there—they love me and care about me. We support each other. You can come with me. I’m not saying you need to or should, just that you can. I saw you that night with the DTs—rough shit. Scary to see someone like that. I thought you were going to die. David is my friend—I think I could fuck him straight—he told me he thought you are going to die. I’m glad you didn’t. Zara is too. She knows things she has no reason to know. She cares for you, she can guide you. The voodoo lady across the street; she scares the shit out of me, but she can help you too.

  “One of the steps, the third step, is coming to terms with God as you understand him to be. Admitting you are powerless over your addictions and turning your life over to him. It’s a big step and a tough step; one I struggle with every day. I’m telling you this because even the voodoo lady has her God and her understanding. If you have to start looking, and maybe you won’t, but if you do, she can help. She helped me.”

  Frankie just looked at the girl, her name was Payton—at least, that was her street name—and he said, “Sweetie, there is no fucking God. I have been through this horseshit all my life. If I have to go somewhere and start singing and dancing and all that shit, this road to sobriety is not going to happen.”

  She said, “I might have reason to disagree with you, but regardless, the first step is admitting you have problems and you need to change. Admitting and seeing you are powerless over your drug, your addiction. I think you’ve done that.”

  Chapter Thirty-four:

  Feeling Like Falling

  Payton said she was going to a meeting that afternoon. Frankie walked down to the leather bar, through the swinging batwing doors, and sat down on a stool. David looked at him with a little hesitation. Frankie smiled and said, “Relax, give me a Coke.” David laughed and poured him the drink.

  Frankie said, “Do you know that girl, Payton? Cute, thin, dark hair, works for Zara?” David said he did. Frankie said, “She wants me to go to an AA/NA meeting today.”

 
David said, “I’ve heard worse ideas. Why don’t you try it? Are you afraid?”

  Frankie looked at him, “I’m afraid of something. I’m afraid of myself. I’ve had some moments to myself these past two weeks. I have to be honest, I don’t remember a lot. I remember that mess with Landry and those goddamned snakes. I remember shooting up in here, Zara’s bed, the hospital. Just pieces of memories, random and ragged consciousness. Conversations I had with that woman Soraya; that’s about it.”

  David said, “Are you afraid of what you might find? Who you have been hiding from?”

  Frankie looked at him, a little angry, and said, “I’m not afraid of much. My family is pretty strange—claims of witchcraft and magic, that all ran pretty deep. I learned there is a world that can be seen and understood and another world that is none of that, but both are equally real. I’ve lived in both. I’m not afraid of the unknown. I’m pretty sure I’m running from something, I’m just not sure what. I’ve been on the run a long, long time. Even before all the fighting and killing. I hate that I’ve killed people. How do you ever come back from that?

  “I’m not even sure what the truth is anymore. I can’t trust my memories, my stories. I want to know the truth. I want to live in honesty, but I’ve lost what that even is. I’ve lost me and maybe that was my goal all along. Now I’m afraid I may go find me again and the truth and reality of who I am may scare me more than the demons and fragmented memories that seem to follow me everywhere I go. David, I don’t think I can ever make peace with who I am and what I’ve become.

  “One day I’m a happy kid sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table, eating cookies and drinking coffee. Then days just happen, strung together with a handful of common threads. People we love and can’t live without one day are gone and forgotten the next. The fast, blind pursuit of money, the endless need for sex, for that fulfillment, the perfect moment that seems to exist right around the next corner, always seemingly just within reach, inches off your fingertips. The next high, always trying to get back to that first high, that first fuck. That’s the drive that makes up a man.

  “It’s simple and bafflingly complex—a million events connected to a million other events. People and lives moving in what appears a purely random pattern, all somehow connected. Synchronicity. There is no fault or blame, but somehow I accept the blame of the world, of the universe. I feel like I am the one deserving of the blame. I’m the engineer of my own fate and the fate of those I have manipulated to fit into my game. I’ve lost sight of the game, drugged and lost, I forgot why I started. So I look back at the forsaken landscape that is my life and I forgot the reason for the journey. There had to be an easier, cleaner way.

  “I’m not attracted to the darkness, my friend. I crave it, I metabolize it. These people, this girl, they talk to me of God and light and I feel like I’m suffocating. I need to start swinging and break out. Do I need to find this God, who I know does not, cannot, exist to be free of the drugs and insanity? If that’s the case, perhaps I should choose the other option. It’s not like I haven’t contemplated suicide. It’s not like I haven’t been trying to do it slowly, passively like the true coward I am. I laugh, David, at the people who think I’m bold and brave. Every word I speak, every step I take, every motion, every act, every thought is designed to hide the coward I am.

  “Everything is broken now. I have no belief system, no value system. It’s like I can’t remember what is real, of the earth, of value, what I truly embrace, what I used to hold close to me, fireworks and Fourth of July, Jack-O-Lanterns and pumpkins, Christmas trees and lights and bountiful thanksgivings. All the things that were supposed to mean something, to have some power and weight of their own. The traditions have become meaningless empty days. I feel lost without the traditions, without the days to look forward to. It all looks bleak now, like a rainy day that won’t end.

  “The Buddhists say it’s freeing, but I feel lost and alone. It all ties back to this pursuit of a God I cannot connect to. When I was young, I’d sit in the church next to my grandma and I would feel empty, feel I was lying. They would all be smiling and sharing the peace of the Lord and I’d feel empty and sad and ashamed because I was the one who was excluded. I was the one who didn’t get to go to the party. I decided early on this God and I were not to be. Now I stand at the edge of sanity, teetering off the very end of my ability to come back to the world, and I feel like I’m falling and there’s no bottom to stop me. I’m told I have to accept and embrace and worship this malevolent God as a condition of my sanity and survival. I don’t think I can do that, my friend.”

  As he finished speaking, Payton walked in through the swinging doors. “Are you joining me, Frankie?”

  Frankie said, “How about I give you a hundred dollars and we go fuck instead?”

  She smiled and said, “We can do that later, and you get to explain it to Zara. Why don’t we try this meeting first?” Frankie shot back the last of his Coke like it was good Russian vodka, slammed his glass on the bar, and looked at David. He smiled and said, “I cannot do this,” and he got up to leave.

  The meeting was held in the basement of a church. It was a fairly small group, maybe fifteen people, half men and half women, an even mix. A typical musty church basement, with a collection of folding chairs in the corner and a coffee pot perking. Next to the coffee pot, a tall stack of Styrofoam cups, Coffee Mate creamer, sugars, and toxic fake sweeteners were neatly arranged under a cross and a picture of Jesus. Jesus sitting up there on the wall and staring down at Frankie was a little disconcerting. The fifteen participants were gathered around a large plastic table that was surrounded by uncomfortable plastic chairs. The place was the ultimate in bland and boring, except for Jesus watching their every move.

  Everyone introduced themselves and followed with, “and I’m an alcoholic and/or drug addict.” No one was forced to speak. When it came to Frankie’s turn, he said, “My name is Frankie. I’m a drunk, a drug addict, and a murderer. I’m pretty broken and sad. I don’t know why I’m here, but it seemed like a good idea, or not, but I came anyway and I’m not doing much else.”

  He was greeted with the standard, “Hi Frankie.”

  The day’s meeting topic was Step Four and Step Five. Step Four, “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves,” and Step Five, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Frankie looked at Payton and rolled his eyes. She just glared at him. People started to speak. Frankie was shocked and impressed at the things some of the people shared. The topic turned not so much about public confessions but how to go about performing this searching and fearless moral inventory and the benefits of it.

  He started to feel a camaraderie with these people. He admired their courage, how outspoken they were, seemingly fearless. Frankie wondered if the group brought out some courage in them.

  He began to feel a sense of belonging and comfort with this group. Around the table, people offered insight and opinions. It came around the table to Frankie’s turn. He said, “I’m not sure where to go with this or my feelings toward this organization. You people have been changing my opinion as I sit here. I’ve always been honest with myself; I make no attempt to hide who I am and what I’ve done. Everything I said to you people at the introduction was true. I know who I am. I admit it to everyone. I understand this step; I don’t understand all the connections to God. That’s where I think I’ll fail here. I’m insane. I know that, but I can’t pretend to accept this God that seems to be in every one of your steps. It’s not going to happen.”

  He became very quiet during the rest of the meeting. As the topic turned more toward God as each individual understood him to be and making this confession to God, as a result of the fearless inventory, Frankie felt more lost and defeated.

  Payton took his hand at one point and said, “Please don’t think everyone here has a handle on this, or God, or their understanding of
who or what that is. A lot of people are really trying. A lot of people don’t grasp as much as they think they do or claim to. I see you turning away. Just please try to stay with it. The focus here is recovery. God is a symbol of that recovery, like in the second step—a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity—it’s simply about realizing you are not in control.”

  Frankie looked back at her, stood up from his chair and said, rather loudly, “I’m weak, I’m broken, and I’m lost. I can’t find my way home. I can’t find me again. Everything feels broken. I can’t even begin to figure out how to put my life back together again. My entire life has been poisoned by religion. I hate it. I hate the church and all it stands for. That has led me to a very deep and real doubt about the existence of God. Now you’re telling me at this broken stage, in what may be my final act, because I’m really at the point of getting straight or die, you are telling me that I need to swallow this entire story, just forget what I believe and accept this God as the only way I can survive? Maybe I should simply choose to die”

  He sat back down. The room became quiet for a few seconds.

  A woman sitting across from Frankie made a comment about finding God on her own. Then she said, “I’ve been a lot like you, Frankie. Didn’t believe, didn’t want to believe, and I really didn’t care if I lived or died. It’s a process to come to understand a higher power. No one can tell you how; no one can lead you to it. Start by opening your mind to the possibility that something other than this might exist. Look at the sky at night. I did. I’m pretty sure something made that. I don’t know what, but that’s what I put my faith in.”

  Frankie looked across the table at her and simply said, “Thank you, I can try that.”

  The meeting ended and he got up to leave with Payton. She went over to talk with some friends and Frankie was approached by two men, not from the meeting; they were from the church, Don and Tom. They stood next to Frankie, looking fresh and clean and vibrant. They asked Frankie if they could talk for a minute. Frankie just shrugged his shoulders. Don, the shorter, thinner, balding guy said, “We heard your speech. It was sad. See, Tom and I found the Lord early in our lives and we are so in love with the Lord and all he has to offer us that it pains us deeply to see someone such as you so confused.”