“So of course by this time I had a little over a year in the program, and I said, ‘Not to pry, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want, but did he ever try AA?’ She looked at me with the most astonished look on her face. I swear, this is going to sound like a joke, but this is what she said. Word for word. She said, ‘Oh my goodness. No. He wasn’t that bad.’ ”
August paused to allow a burst of reaction. It could have been a big laugh. AA was known for big bursts of spontaneous laughter over confessions that outsiders might consider too somber to evoke cheer. But August’s son had died. So the burst took the shape of puffs of breath and the shaking of heads.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I couldn’t get it out of my head. Because my wife didn’t think she was bad enough for AA, either. At least she never thought so when we were together. And it’s not for me to say. But it’s funny how you can take something that turns out to be fatal and classify it as not worth fixing. So I haven’t had one drink since I got the phone call about the accident. Not one sip. I don’t know if I’m what you might call a true alcoholic or not. I just know I came in with the desire to stop drinking, and that’s all I need to claim my seat. And whatever I was, it’s bad enough because I decided it’s bad enough, and that’s my call to make. And I hope you respect that and accept that I qualify for this program, but I figure you will, because I’ve told a version of that same story to a lot of people at a lot of AA groups and not one person has failed to respect me yet.
“And . . . I don’t know . . . now I’m just suddenly running out of steam. I think there was something else I was going to say, but now it flew away completely. But I guess that’s enough out of me anyway. I know that’s not really much of a proper lead. I didn’t do the whole ‘what it used to be like, what happened, what it’s like now’ thing. I’m not sure how much you adhere to that here. I just feel done. Thanks for asking me to lead. Thanks for being here with a meeting when I needed one.”
August sat back against the hard wood of the chair. Pulled in a long breath. The group applauded, which made him jump. His home group didn’t applaud speakers. He knew some groups did, and he had even been to some groups that did. But it caught him by surprise all the same.
“Want to call on somebody, August?” the group secretary asked.
So August pointed to one of the men across the table from him, because the man had been listening with the look that made August feel most understood.
The man said, “I’m Tom. I’m an alcoholic.”
And the group said, “Hi, Tom.”
“Really glad you found your way in here tonight, August. Partly because you’ve got a hell of a story. Partly because this is a damn small town and we’ve been sick to death of each other’s stories for a very long time.”
And with that the mood lightened, and the hard part was over. And August just listened. And breathed.
After the meeting a woman approached August as he was doing his best to make it to the door.
“What do you teach?” she asked. “I’m a teacher myself. That’s the only reason I’m asking.”
She was ten or fifteen years older than August, with a kindly face and eyes that still had some spark left. She didn’t look the least bit burned out or worn down.
“How long?” he asked, thinking maybe it was a second career for her.
“How long have I been a teacher? Almost thirty years.”
“Wow,” he said. But then he chose not to elaborate.
“So what do you teach? What grade level?”
“Science,” he said. “High school.”
“That must be hard since your son died.”
“No,” he said. Then, noting the odd look on her face, he added, “Well. Everything’s hard since Phillip died.”
“All those kids around his age. It must make you feel . . .”
After she trailed off, it took a minute for August to realize she was waiting for him to finish the thought. And the fact that he didn’t see that right away let him know that he was disconnecting. The way he did during the school year.
“Nothing,” he said. “I feel nothing.” Silence. August thought about just heading out the door. But he hit it head on instead. “I teach like I’m walking in a dream. The kids in front of me, I teach them and I talk to them, but they don’t even look three-dimensional to me. They don’t even look full color. And I feel nothing. I keep waiting for somebody to say they notice the difference. Or even let on without saying it straight out. The kids, the other teachers. Nobody ever does.”
“It must be one of those things that you’re more aware of from the inside.”
“I guess,” he said.
“I don’t suppose that numbness will last forever,” she said.
“No,” August said. “Unfortunately, I think you’re right about that.”
Chapter Five:
THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT
When August opened his eyes, it was light. He was asleep on the fold-out couch bed in the motor home. The boys were sleeping on the thick cushions of the folded-down dinette area on the other side. Except Seth wasn’t sleeping. He was half sitting up. He had the window shade partly raised and was peering out.
Woody had chosen their side. Their bed.
August sat up and stretched, and Woody leapt onto his bed to wag good morning. He rubbed against August’s side like a cat.
Seth said, “What is this place, August? It doesn’t look like a campground at all.”
“It’s not. It’s just some guy’s driveway.”
“What guy?”
“Just a guy I met at my meeting last night. By the time the meeting was over I was too tired to go much farther, so I asked a couple of people at the meeting if there was a campground close by. But there was nothing really as close as I wanted. But one of the guys invited me to park in his driveway for the night.”
“Oh,” Seth said. He didn’t say more, but the “oh” was loaded with questions he seemed to know he shouldn’t ask.
“Come on,” August said. “Let’s get up and get dressed and get Woody outside to pee. And I’ll make us some breakfast. And then I’ll tell you what the meetings are all about.”
“These pancakes are good,” Seth said.
“Glad you like them. Woody. Get down.”
Woody, who had briefly been standing with his paws on Henry’s lap, slunk into the corner by the back door.
“Ever heard of AA?” August asked Seth.
“That’s not the one you call for a tow when you break down on the road, is it? ’Cause my dad always calls it Triple A.”
“No. This is Alcoholics Anonymous.”
“Yeah,” Seth said after a time. “I’ve heard of it. It’s for people who can’t stop drinking, right?”
“I guess that’s as good a way to say it as any. It’s for people who want to stop drinking and haven’t had much luck stopping on their own. It seems to work a lot better than when people just sit home and try to use willpower. It’s not an issue that willpower has much effect on. Not if you’re really an alcoholic.”
Seth looked up into August’s face. “Are you an alcoholic, August?”
“I think so. The main thing is I decided I wanted to stop drinking.”
“So that’s why you go to meetings.”
“Right.”
“Even when you’re out on the road.”
“Yes. I try to be regular about meetings.”
“If you skipped ’em in the summer, would you go back and drink?”
“Probably not. I probably won’t get in an accident this summer, either. I may never get in an accident in my whole life, but I still put on my seat belt every time I drive. Besides, I feel better when I go to meetings.”
“How can you not know for sure if you’re an alcoholic?”
“Well . . .” August began. He glanced at Henry, who wasn’t looking at either of them. But August had to assume he was taking it all in. Hard not to wonder what a little guy like that makes of the world. When he won’t ever say.
“I didn’t drink the way some of the people in the meetings did. But I drank enough that I wanted to stop.”
“So, how do you know? How do you know if somebody’s an alcoholic?”
“In the program we more or less leave it that you’re an alcoholic if you say you are.”
“But you don’t even know if you are.”
“I say I am, and I’ve chosen to stop drinking. So I am.”
“Oh.”
A long silence. Henry finished shoveling in his pancakes. Seth took a few more bites but also pushed a few bites of pancake around, leaving little patterns in the syrup on his plate.
“Can I go to one of the meetings, August?”
August thought a minute before answering. It seemed like a complicated question. He had no immediate answer to toss off the top of his head.
“Not sure you’d want to, buddy. You’d probably think they were hopelessly boring.”
“No. I wouldn’t. I really want to go.”
“Why?”
Seth looked down at his plate. Then he stuffed two bites of pancake into his mouth at once. He never answered.
“You don’t drink, do you?”
Seth burst out laughing. Almost spit out some of the mouthful he was chewing. “August,” he said with his mouth still full. “I’m twelve.”
“You wouldn’t be the first twelve-year-old alcoholic ever.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Then why do you want to go to a meeting?”
Seth finished his chewing slowly. Thoughtfully. He swallowed hard. Woody wiggled back and sat at Henry’s feet. But he stayed down, so August said nothing.
“If I tell you,” Seth said, “is it just ’cause you want to know? Or if I tell you, will you really maybe take me to one?”
“It depends on the meeting. Some are open meetings, and that means everyone is welcome. A lot of meetings are closed, so they’re for alcoholics only. I’d have to find an open meeting. I have lists of meetings all along our route, but I didn’t write down if they were open or closed, because I didn’t think I’d need to know.”
“I still don’t know if that means yes or no.”
“I can ask. Next time I go to a meeting, I can ask if it’s open. And if it is, you can come in, too. What about Henry?”
“I guess he’d have to come in with us. He won’t mind. He’ll go wherever I go. But I still have to tell you why before you’ll take me. Don’t I?”
“It’s something of an unusual request for a kid to make. So . . . let’s just say I’d appreciate knowing.”
“I just want to know why people drink.”
“Hard question to answer. It’s probably different for everyone.”
“And why they don’t stop. You know. Even when it’s making problems.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll take me?”
“Sure. Why not? First open meeting I can find.”
“We’ve got another state line coming up,” August said.
“Yeah? Really? What’s the state?”
“Arizona. But we won’t be in it too long. Although we’ll hit more of it on the way home. But we’re just going through the very corner of it today. You’ll see what I mean if you look at the map. Then we’ll hit another state line and we’ll be in Utah.”
“Two more states, and all just today?”
And on that thought Seth reached forward to open the glove compartment.
August stamped on the brake, almost without thinking. The driver behind him honked long and loud, then pulled around and passed him on the left.
“What are you doing?” he asked Seth.
Seth froze, his eyes wide.
“I was just gonna get my camera.”
“What the hell is your camera doing in my glove compartment?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I put it there last night. I just wanted to put it where it would be safe.”
“That’s why I cleared you out drawers and cupboards. So you’d have a safe place to put your stuff and you could stay the hell out of mine.”
“Why are you yelling at me?” Seth shouted, obviously working to hold back tears.
August hadn’t realized he’d been yelling. But, having had it pointed out, it was clear that Seth was right.
An exit came up, and August took it. At the end of the ramp, he found a wide patch of dirt alongside a roughly paved road in the middle of absolutely nothing and nowhere. He pulled onto it and shut off the engine.
He looked in the rearview mirror to see Henry crying and Woody nudging and licking the tears. He looked over at Seth, who was looking away. Out the window. As if there were something out there to see.
“Is this about that soda bottle?” Seth asked, his voice heavy and resentful.
August shut his eyes tightly. Careful not to yell. “You have no right to ask me about that.”
When he opened his eyes, August was surprised to see Seth staring at him not with fear but with something fierce in his eyes. Something that looked almost like . . . contempt.
“Seth, I’m sorry I yelled before. Some things are just private.”
Seth continued to stare, his nostrils flaring slightly. August leaned over, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out Seth’s disposable camera. It was lying right on top of the plastic iced-tea bottle. Seth couldn’t possibly have missed seeing it. He closed the compartment door and held the camera out to Seth, who was still staring fiercely.
“Here’s your camera.”
Seth did not reach out and take it.
“You said I could ask you anything. You said I could ask any question I wanted, and you’d either say yes or you’d say no, but you wouldn’t get mad at me for asking. And you just got mad at me for asking. I don’t see what can be so private about it. It’s just an old soda bottle. I just wondered what that was. In it.”
“It’s not soda. It’s an old iced-tea bottle. And you’re right. I said you could ask anything. I’m sorry. This was my fault, not yours. I apologize. Here, take your camera.”
Seth took the camera and stuck it in his shirt pocket without comment. He turned his head and stared out the window again. They sat that way for a time, silent except for the sounds of Henry’s sobs.
“You’d better go comfort your brother. Tell him I’m sorry I yelled.”
A little after six that night, August pulled into an RV park just north of St. George, Utah. He paid up at the office, then—rather than drive straight to his assigned site—he made a stop at the dump station. He turned off the engine and glanced over once at Seth. Seth was awake, staring out the window. He hadn’t said another word to August all day.
August sighed and walked back through the rig to pick up a pair of disposable plastic gloves from the utility drawer. Henry stared at him as he did. Woody wagged and wiggled and let out one long whine.
August sighed again. “Can it wait, buddy?”
“I’ll take him out,” Seth said.
“Thank you,” August said, without trying to define whether that qualified as Seth speaking to him or not.
“What are you doing?” Seth asked, appearing suddenly at his right shoulder.
It made August jump. He was in a squatting position and almost fell over.
“I’m dumping the tanks.”
“The tanks? Like . . .”
“Yeah. Like when we use the sink or the toilet or the shower. It goes into a holding tank. And every few days I have to dump it.”
“Ick.”
“Now you know why I use plastic gloves. So, you’re speaking to me again.”
Seth squatted down next to August. They watched foamy, soapy gray water from the kitchen sink flow from the end of the hose and down the sewer drain.
“I’m sorry,” Seth said. “For not talking to you all day.”
“I thought that was my fault, not yours.”
“You said you were sorry for yelling. That should have been the end of it.”
August nodded thoughtfully a few times. He’d been think
ing the same thing at various points during the day but was surprised to hear it come out of Seth’s mouth.
“I put Woody back inside with Henry,” Seth said.
“Thank you.”
“He did both things. Peed, and . . . you know. I picked it up. I brought one of those bags. I put it in the Dumpster at the end of the road. I didn’t think you’d want it in the inside trash.”
“Thank you.”
“Maybe you could teach me to do this.”
“What? The tanks?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you want to do the tanks?”
“Just to be helpful.”
“You know you don’t have to be perfect, don’t you, Seth?”
“What?”
“You know you can’t be all things to all people. Right?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“No. I guess you wouldn’t.”
They stared at the flow in silence for a minute more.
“I’ve just been in a bad mood all day,” Seth said. “That’s why I was sorry.”
“That’ll happen,” August said.
“I sort of know why. But I don’t want to say. You’ll think it’s stupid.”
August shut off the final dribble of flow from the sink and disconnected the motor home’s sewer hose. Before he stood up to rinse it with the provided nonpotable water nozzle, he looked Seth dead in the eye.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, buddy, but it seems like you do want to say.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then why even bring it up again?”
“You’ll think it’s stupid.”
August sighed. It had been that kind of day. Full of sighs. He stood and began rinsing out his sewer hose.
“Seth,” he said. “The longer you live, the more you’ll see that the inside of everybody is a lot like the inside of everybody else. If you’re feeling something, more likely than not it’s just what anyone would feel.”
“So you think I should say.”
“I do, actually.”
“I’m already homesick.”
“I don’t think that’s stupid.”
“Really?”
“Not at all.”
Take Me With You Page 5