Irrational Fears

by Spencer, William Browning

  “One fatality,” a grim-faced public servant was saying. “Yes. One of the officers on the governing board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Bradley Blackburn.”

  The room was packed. A reporter shouted a question. The man at the podium leaned forward. He hadn’t heard. The question was repeated: “Was Dr. Blackburn a recovering alcoholic?”

  The room was silent, the whir of activity suddenly stilled. Jack could feel the tension in that faraway room.

  “No, Dr. Blackburn was not an alcoholic,” the man said. The audience, many of whom obviously were recovering alcoholics, breathed a collective sigh of relief. Someone even laughed, a reflexive release of tension.

  “But alcoholics were certainly targeted,” the spokesperson said, ensuring an atmosphere of grave attentiveness. He said that Blackburn had probably triggered the bomb, which had been hidden in a desk. Had Blackburn not been working late, the bomb would probably have been set off the next morning, at which time it would have accounted for quite a few people— most of them alcoholics.

  The news show returned to its local moderator, who ran the video sent to a New York television station hours after the GSO bombing. Ed leaned over and whispered in Jack’s ear, “I’ve seen this a couple of times now. I think it’s our boy.”

  The video was grainy, the man’s voice—perhaps intentionally altered— mechanical and crackling with static. The man was wearing camouflage fatigues and was seated in front of a blue wall upon which a white AA symbol had been painted. He stared at the audience through slits in a black silk hood. He apologized for the mask. He could not, he said, divulge his identity. To do so would be a violation of an AA tradition. He was an AA member and it was his sacred duty to remain anonymous at the level of press, radio, and film.

  “It’s not commonly known,” the man said, “but in the late sixties there was a plot to assassinate Bill Wilson, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dedicated AA members felt that the man who had started AA was now leading it astray. He had written the Twelve and Twelve, a text many felt was heretical. He was advocating megavitamins, taking LSD. He was leading AA into pop psychology, trivializing its triumph, subverting its truth.

  “Well, word of this conspiracy got to Dr. Bob Smith, AA’s other founder, a solid, simple man who loved AA with a dog’s sweet loyalty. I’m not sure how he got wind of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was simply approached. There was every reason to believe that Dr. Bob might be in sympathy with the would-be assassins.

  “Dr. Bob said, ‘Don’t do this thing. If you do it, you’ll have to do it over my dead body.’

  “The whole plan fell apart. Everyone loved Dr. Bob. So it didn’t happen. If it had, well maybe we wouldn’t have to be taking the measures we are taking now.”

  Jack listened, horrified. The man, who described himself only as a trusted servant, said that he and other concerned members were willing to give their lives to regain the sanctity of AA. In an emotional display—his body was shaking—he shouted, “No more inner children, no more emotional dumping, no more special interest, no more New Age bullshit. Back to the Steps! Or die!”

  He calmed himself, turning away from the mike, hunching down. He grabbed something from the table, but Jack couldn’t make it out. His shoulders rose, a sigh perhaps, and then he turned back to the camera. His voice was altered, deepen “The backsliders cannot be coddled. Some will say, ‘What about Live and Let Live, that sentiment enshrined on the wall of every AA meeting place?’ I say, when order is restored, when the patient is healthy again, Live and Let Live will be relevant again. Now we are at war. Hard measures are required. There is nothing arbitrary about our vengeance. If you are an AA member, and you can honestly say that the AA meetings you attend have not subverted or distorted the teachings laid down in The Big Book, then you have nothing to fear. If not, may God have mercy on your soul.”

  This man was claiming that his group was responsible for the bombings presently occurring in at least four states: Virginia, New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Another group, calling themselves Enlightened Recovery, had already responded, taping a message which they sent to the same New York television station.

  This video message could not be shown, since its speaker was wearing a Mickey Mouse mask, and the networks feared the massive litigation Disney could muster. But the text of the speech was read: “We will not turn our backs on progress. We will not cower in corners while fanatical AA fundamentalists attempt to bomb us back into the Dark Ages. We will embrace all legitimate, caring recovery alternatives, including nonrepressive AA. And we will retaliate against those who would intimidate us.” ER was already claiming responsibility for several New York City bombings and the destruction of a fundamental all-men’s group in Reston, Virginia.

  “Here’s what I want you to take a look at,” Tilman said when the broadcast was over. He rewound the videotape he had just recorded. He punched PLAY, saw that he had rewound too far, and cued the tape forward until he was well into the terrorist’s diatribe. Tilman punched play again. “...New Age bullshit. Back to the Steps! Or die!” the terrorist said.

  “Watch here,” Tilman said.

  The hooded man turned away from the camera, grabbing something from the table. Tilman pushed the pause button, holding the frame. “That’s one of those inhalers, like for asthma,” he said. “It’s black. I’ve only seen one other black inhaler.”

  “Dorian Greenway,” Jack said, remembering that night, Dorian on the stairs.

  “Yeah, he’s turning away to take a hit. See him shiver? It’s quite a jolt.”

  “The voice doesn’t sound like Dorian,” Jack said.

  “It doesn’t. But we know our boy is a high-tech kind of guy. Laying down a different voice, someone else’s or a synthesized one, isn’t going to tax a guy like Dorian.”

  Ed Tilman rewound the video and played it again. “That’s Dorian Greenway. I know it.”

  “Jesus,” Jack said.

  “More like the Antichrist, I’d say.” Tilman flopped down in a chair. “If that’s Dorian Greenway—and it is—there’s one thing you can count on.” Jack waited, but Tilman apparently wanted him to ask, so Jack asked. “What?”

  “There’s not a word of truth in what he’s saying. He’s not interested in preserving the purity of Alcoholics Anonymous. Hell, this is the same Dorian Greenway who is promoting that carnival of craziness called Whole Addiction Expo.”

  “What is he up to then?”

  Tilman shrugged. “Maybe he really is the Antichrist. If so, then sowing dissension is what he’s about, driving us all toward the chaos of Hell. You read his book, that alcoholism pentagram nonsense, what do you think?”

  “Revenge,” Jack said, realizing, as he spoke the word, that it rang with truth. “He wants to destroy Alcoholics Anonymous itself. He holds it responsible for his uncle’s ruin. He intends to bring it down. He said as much, he said...” Jack fumbled for the quote. “He said... AA, that empire of falsehood, will unravel. In the Great Unraveling, the Old Ones will return and only the just will survive the righteous anger of the Dark Gods.’”

  Tilman nodded. “I expect Greenway numbers himself among the just. And, like most of his kind, he doesn’t count too many by his side.”

  Tilman sighed, stood up. “I guess I better make some phone calls. I don’t like to ask my friends for favors, and it seems that’s all I’ve been doing recently, but if Armageddon is upon us, I guess I don’t have to worry about accruing obligations. When I get back, maybe we should think about driving over to the opening of The Whole Fucking Addiction Expo. Maybe I can find a good stress management book.”

  The Expo was mobbed. Terrorist threats had not, apparently, stopped anyone from attending—and may, indeed, have prompted some to come that would otherwise have stayed at home.

  “It’s that stubborn streak,” Ed Tilman said. “Just try warning an alcoholic off.”

  Young people wearing fluorescent orange vests were guiding cars to parking places in a roped-off fiel
d.

  There was a fifteen-dollar entrance fee, which Aaron tried to get waived. “We are a county rehab,” Aaron said.

  “I got to have fifteen dollars a head, unless your head is under twelve years old,” the kid in the booth said. “That’s just the way it is.”

  “I got it,” Ed Tilman said. “This party is on me.”

  They got out of the car and walked up a hill. Jack studied the crowd. Quite a mix, he thought. There were aging hippies, gray-haired, the men looking dazed but game, the women (many with children in tow) looking weary in the manner of women who have seen too many feckless men. There were upscale couples with upscale kids, sturdy with privilege, and older folks looking tentative (where were the crafts?), and teenagers, much- pierced and tattooed, in costumed clumps, and fat men in overalls wheezing their way up the hill with red-faced purpose. There were dogs too, racing through the chilly twilight, harking with indiscriminate joy under the banks of blazing yellow lights. Dogs, Jack thought, were suckers for any sort of crowded outdoor event.

  Live music was being broadcast from overhead speakers. A rock band was covering an old Stones song, taking some liberties with the lyrics. A shrill, preadolescent voice whined: I cant get no self-actualization, though I try, and I try, and I try.

  A clump of teenagers, jostling and joking, saw Kerry, and a girl wearing a rhinestone dog collar shouted, “Sinead! That’s Sinead!”

  “That ain’t Sinead,” her companion said.

  “Is too!”

  “Is not! Sinead grew her hair back.”

  “Well, she must have cut it off again. I’m telling you, that’s her.”

  “Is not.”

  They kept at it until Kerry turned and shouted at them. “The Pope’s a murdering dog!”

  “See,” the first girl said, looking smug. “It is Sinead!”

  Jack turned and frowned at Kerry. “Cut it out,” he said. Kerry smirked. There were booths with people selling cotton candy, glazed apples, hot dogs. Another booth sold balloons and dolls and T-shirts.

  Jack stopped at a booth that sold something called a Pocket Sponsor. It was a little calculator-sized device with a small LCD screen. It was, Jack thought, fairly sophisticated. Set it in the OLDTIMER mode and the tiny screen spelled out straightforward messages like, “Keep the plug in the jug” and “One day at a time.” If you clicked on the GURU mode you got more elaborate stuff like, “The unfolding of any event is neither right nor wrong; it simply is. The event is always God-manifest; it is in the context of self that the world is altered, judged, found wanting.”

  This same booth sold a board game called Chemically Challenged. A player could choose his addiction (alcohol, narcotics, glue, PCP, marijuana, cocaine) and then draw cards from the pile of his choice. A marijuana card might read, “Dude, your girlfriend has been gone for two weeks! She is not coming back, man! Speed King’s Carry-Out Pizza called. You are fired. Lose two turns.” A PCP card: “You shot your dog. He was your best friend, asshole! Pay dealer ten self-respect credits.” Alcohol: “No insurance. Go to social detox. Cigarettes stolen. Go to AA meeting in van. Admit powerlessness; collect First Step card. All other players must hug you.”

  Ed Tilman came up to Jack. “My people are here,” he said. “The guy eating cotton candy. And that guy with the plaid jacket, standing in line for the Bad Trip ride.” Tilman held up a cell phone. “They get a line on anything, they’ll let me know. In the meantime, we might as well look around ourselves. Everybody stick together.”

  They all entered a big yellow tent. Gates was, as usual, complaining. “This ain’t got nothin to do with nothin,” he said. Gretchen patted his arm, absently. She was trying to be supportive, but her eyes kept sifting the crowd, as though Martin Pendleton might be standing in line to get his picture taken with the cardboard cutout of Bill Wilson or buying a gag beer bottle (you squeezed it and a snake popped out) at the Drinking Novelties booth.

  Jack marveled at the entrepreneurship on display in the various booths. He stopped in front of a sign in bold red caps announcing Sam and Martha’s Cut Rate Detox. A cheerful man in a sweatsuit introduced himself. “Sam,” he said. “You in AA?”

  Jack supposed that the Expo was a place where that sort of question could be asked without giving offense. Jack said that he was, yes.

  The man handed him a business card and said, “Well, might be you’ll come across a wet drunk that needs drying out. You’ll take him to every hospital in Northern Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., and they won’t, any of them, take him. ‘He don’t have insurance,’ they’ll say, or ‘He’s been here before, and we aren’t taking him again.’ That’s when you might say to yourself, ‘Hey, that fellow gave me his business card at that Whole Addiction Expo.’ You might take that card out and give me and Martha a call. We are an inexpensive detox alternative. We got alcoholism tapes, relaxation tapes, vitamins, Gatorade, television (with cable), and AA speaker tapes. Martha and me are both recovering alcoholics. I can relate to hangovers, withdrawals, paranoia, panic, DTs, hallucinations. I’m a good listener. I don’t take it personal if you don’t laugh at my jokes. When you are feeling better, I drive you to AA meetings. I’m even working on a mild electroshock device that will work wonders on a nervous person. That’s still experimental, you won’t find it in the brochure, but I could have something by next March.” Jack was impressed.

  At another booth, Eunice bought a wallet with the serenity prayer stenciled on it. “I’m getting this for Hubert,” she said, fiercely cheerful, daring anyone to say that Hubert had disappeared, that he could be dead— dead and in another dimension, a dozen times dead.

  Everyone smiled, like it was a good idea, and Gretchen said, “I bet Martin would like one of those wallets,” and fumbled in her purse for the cash.

  Jack felt the usual swirl of conflicting emotion. He marveled at this aggressive optimism and trembled at the shadow of the giant jackboot descending to crush it.

  At the back of the tent, standing at a lectern in a roped-off area, a large woman in a frilly dress was speaking. Her topic, according to the upright sign at the entrance to this enclosed area, was, WRITING THE RECOVERY ROMANCE. She was identified as Hermoine Radcliff, the author of over thirty recovery romances.

  She had attracted a good-sized audience, mostly women, seated in a dense thicket of folding chairs.

  “Plucky,” she said. “You want a plucky heroine. She is a survivor, a tough cookie, and she doesn’t let life get her down.”

  Someone in the crowd raised a hand. “In the novel I’m writing, the heroine marries a recovering alcoholic at the end. Is that all right?”

  Hermoine Radcliff looked thoughtful. “That’s being done these days. I’m told that Jessica La Verne does it, and her novels are quite popular. I...” The woman smiled ruefully. “Well, I’m old fashioned, I guess. When it comes to marriage... well, I like to think that my girls can do a little better than that.” Jack moved on as another woman rose from the sea of folding chairs and began to explain, in some detail, the genesis of her unpublished novel, Breath Mints for Breakfast.

  The night wore on, taking on the fragmented quality that Jack associated with his college days and trips taken on acid of uncertain lineage. He felt anxious and disoriented.

  They entered one of the white buildings, drifted through rooms of addiction-inspired art. Jack moved quickly past a room where young people were reciting angry poetry. He paused and peered into a room identified by a hand-printed sign: SOBRIETY LAUGHFEST. There were seven people in this room, and the six sitting down clutched note cards, were, Jack suspected, novice comedians awaiting their turn at the mike. An elderly man in a black cowboy hat was speaking. “Low bottom. That’s when the room you rent has roaches that do hits of Black Flag to get going in the morning. Low bottom. That’s bragging about the fancy cardboard box you used to live in. Low bottom. That’s...” No one was laughing.

  Ed Tilman came up and said, “I just got word that something big is being powered up, underground. Subterra
nean turbines are kicking in. My man’s worried. He wants to know what all the sound and fury is for.”

  Jack stared at Tilman.

  Tilman nodded. “Yeah. I think he’s right to be worried. I think we never really shut this place down properly. Greenway’s mansion burned down, and maybe the machinery sustained some damage. But most of it was underground, I bet, and if it wasn’t triggered to blow, it’s still there. It is up and running now, humming away under a lot of happy addicts. I don’t feel good about this.”

  Jack didn’t either. He remembered the roaring hurricane machines, the turbulent air misted with blood, the churning swimming pool, huge tentacles flaying the blood-black water, naked cult members plunging to oblivion.

  There was not a comforting image in the lot.

  “We are supposed to meet my man over by the Bad Trip ride,” Tilman said. “I say we leave the others here. They will just be a liability if things get ugly.”

  “Gretchen,” Tilman said, turning to New Way’s secretary, “you and Aaron are in charge here. Try to keep everybody together. Jack and I will be back as soon as we can. We will meet you over there.” He pointed to a blue tent where signs announced a dance (with live music by a band called Freddy and the Unfortunates). Later there would be a drawing for prizes and some lucky young woman would be elected Whole Addiction Expo Sobriety Queen.

  “Where are you going?” Kerry asked.

  “Ed wants to check out an underground power source. He’s worried that Dorian is planning something unpleasant for everyone.”

  Kerry frowned, looked troubled. “Jack,” she said. “I just remembered something.”

  Jack waited, raised his eyebrows, the silent signal to proceed. Kerry clutched his arm.

  “I just remembered. I’m in love with Dorian.”

  “Kerry, he kidnapped you. You are the victim of—”

  “Just like that,” Kerry said. “I don’t feel dizzy or dreamy or excited or sick or... or anything. I just remembered that I love Dorian. It’s sort of like in a dream when you remember you should be in school, but you are not, in fact, or maybe you are in school, naked, in the hallway, but you haven’t been going to classes all fall and it’s almost Christmas and... well, you know. It’s just a surprise, remembering.”