by David Poses
He removes his Chicago Blackhawks hat and explains the social order while double-fisting jelly sandwiches. “If this was high school, you’d have jocks at one table and nerds at another. In rehab, cliques are based on drug preference, and status comes from ‘clean time.’ You’d think it was a contest, the way people count and compare days.”
“How long have you been clean?”
“Dunno. I haven’t been keeping track.”
After dinner, we file into the lecture room. I sit with Steve in the last row, talking music. It’s nice to meet someone who shares my opinion of Prince’s guitar prowess.
“I’ve been playing for ten years,” he says. “If I’m alive in another ten, I still won’t be able to play the solo at the end of “Let’s Go Crazy.” You play anything?”
“The stereo. I tried to learn guitar.”
“You should learn. Chicks dig a guy who can express himself musically.”
“I make mix tapes. The right songs with the right lyrics and a decorated cover.”
Steve sings Prince’s “Kiss” in a whispered falsetto. I laugh. Vanessa turns around in her seat and glares at me.
“You think it’s funny now ’cause you don’t get it,” she says. “When you do, trust me—you won’t be laughing.”
eight
On the seventh day, they bestow phone privileges on me, and I make the first call to my mother.
“I think this is a mistake. Between the religion and the people and—”
“If you’re not careful . . .” The seriousness in her voice makes my heart sink.
“What, I might accidentally become an alcoholic, chug a thing of hand sanitizer?”
“These people know what they’re doing.”
“It’s a business. They’d lose money if they said I didn’t need this, or the program wasn’t a fit for my philosophical sensibilities.”
“David, I think you need to listen to them.”
“And give my life to Jesus? And admit I had as much choice about doing heroin as you had about cancer.”
“I got cancer, David. You have an addiction. There’s a difference.”
“Not according to them.”
Ron is outside the circle, leaning on the back of an unoccupied chair. “Why do we ask God to restore our sanity in the second step?”
“Because drugs fried our brains,” Claire says.
“Drugs don’t help,” Ron says. “But it’s the addiction that seriously impairs our cognitive thinking. That’s why our lives become unmanageable.”
He stops moving and hovers in front of me. “Dave, does that sound like powerlessness to you?”
“Not exactly.”
Alex cracks a slight smile and chuckles, and Ron steps left, blocking my view of him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Seriously impaired doesn’t mean impossible.”
Vanessa says “Fuck you, Dave,” and starts bawling. Gobs of mascara streak down her cheeks.
Ron grabs a box of Kleenex from the windowsill and hands them to her. She dabs the corner of her eyes and catches her breath. Crossing my arms, I slide down in the chair and stare at a missing chunk of linoleum on the other side of the circle.
“I thought it was me when I kept going back to that roof and those guys,” Vanessa says. “Now that I know it was the disease, ain’t nobody telling me it’s my freakin’ fault.”
“You were powerless,” Ron says. “That disease was trying to kill you.”
“But I didn’t know that until I hit bottom.”
“Can’t recover until you hit bottom,” Ron says. “No one can.”
“Maybe Dave hasn’t hit bottom,” Vanessa says. A balled-up tissue lands on my lap. I swat it away and feel everyone’s eyes boring holes into my head.
“Dave’s hit bottom,” Ron says. “But his mom tells me he’s never been honest with himself, and like the Big Book says, ‘Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.’” He crouches in front of me. “Make sense?”
“No. Are you saying that remission from a disease can only be achieved by putting your life and will in God’s hands and not lying to yourself?”
“You’re really in denial, Dave.”
Before dinner, Ron summons me for another powwow with Nancy.
“Darn it, Dave,” she says, hammering her fist on her desk. “I’m just plain miffed.”
I fake a cough to hide a laugh.
“It’s not a joke,” Ron says. “Unless you want to end up dead in a ditch, you must start taking responsibility for your actions and let go and let God.”
“Why does God get the credit if I’m not dead in a ditch, but anything bad is my fault?”
“This isn’t about credit and blame,” Nancy says.
“But if I’m powerless, how can I also be responsible?”
Nancy twiddles a pencil between her index and middle fingers. “You might think I’m some old fuddy-duddy, but twenty-two years ago, I was a junkie, living with my boyfriend. One day, in the dead of winter, when we were both sick and had no money and owed every dealer in town, Jim said he was going for a walk. Two hours later, he came back with five bags of dope. I didn’t ask how he got it—didn’t matter. We were saved.” She stabs the pencil into her Green Bay Packers mug.
“The next morning, four cops showed up and arrested him. Turned out, he’d cold-cocked an old lady and snatched her purse. We’re talking about a guy who’d scoop up a spider with a newspaper and let it out the window instead of killing it, and there he was, in handcuffs, charged with assault and battery. Obviously, this was before I became a counselor, but even then, I got it. Jim was powerless. You tell me: Was he responsible for what he did?”
“Of course he was.”
“And he was powerless.”
“Well . . .”
Nancy scrunches her face. “He just up and walloped that poor old lady? Addiction had nothing to do with it?”
“Can’t wait to hear this,” Ron says, rubbing his hands.
“It’s an equation.” I look at Ron and then at Nancy. “I don’t know what goes on in anyone else’s head, but if it was me and it came down to mugging somebody or going into withdrawal, I’d go into withdrawal.”
“So everybody’s selfish and you’re not,” Ron says. “Everybody’s—”
Nancy cuts him off. “Have you ever been in Jim’s position?”
“No.”
Ron says, “Keep living in denial and you will. I guarantee it.”
“I don’t want to be a junkie. I’d have no use for heroin if I wasn’t depressed.”
In a flabbergasted calm, Nancy says, “Heroin is pure evil, Dave. It has no medicinal value. None.” She gets up and empties a bottle of water into a leafy, dark green potted plant. “You used because you’re an addict. Once you admit that, you’ll see that you never had a choice.”
nine
Every day, a fresh batch of kids arrive and experience near-instantaneous religious awakenings. Ten days in, I still don’t see how this is going to help me.
In group, “addict mentality” is the topic du jour. Ron says, “We rationalize and justify because the truth is too painful. It’s easier to tell yourself that you’re getting high because your girlfriend left than it is to tell yourself that you’re getting high because you have a disease.”
Everyone nods in unison, a roomful of unblinking eyes.
“Dave, I take it you disagree?”
“I think it’s easier to say I’m getting high because I have a disease than it is to say I don’t know how to deal with the hole in my heart, so I’m spackling it over with dope.”
“What were you spackling over?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
I pan around the circle. Everyone is looking at me, their faces washed in a sick green from the lighting. Tears form in my eyes. I bring my knees to my che
st and put my feet on the seat. “It’s a fucking hole. Holes are fucking empty.”
Ron flashes an approving smirk.
“Nice to see you taking this shit seriously for a change,” Vanessa says.
Staring at the floor, I wipe my eyes and say, “If it’s shit, why would I take it seriously?” I wait for a laugh that doesn’t come. A chair squeals. I look up. Vanessa approaches with a frown. I tell her I’m sorry. “When I get scared or nervous, I sometimes have a tendency to get what you might call mouthy.”
Vanessa waves at me to get up. I think she’s going to punch me but she hugs me instead. The contact feels good. She smells good. I can’t stop crying, and my tears land in her oversprayed hair. I squirm away. She stays in my face—almost like a ritualistic dance—until I sit back down.
After group, Ron says, “Kudos, Dave. You really dug in today. It will get easier.”
“It would be easier if I had music. My birthday’s coming up. How about an exception to the no-music rule to celebrate the occasion? A few songs on my Discman?”
“Dave.”
“How about one song?”
“How about we’ll see? You keep opening up and maybe. How’s that?”
Before lecture, Nancy goes up to the podium and says a lot of new people are arriving tonight. She reminds us for the hundredth time that physical contact with the opposite sex is prohibited—other than quasi-preapproved hugs in certain circumstances.
“Recovery is an extremely vulnerable time,” she says. “You might meet someone and think you have something in common, but more likely, you’re both desperate to soothe your wounds. That’s why we have the rule and why we strongly encourage you to avoid getting romantically involved long after you leave here.”
Every morning, a female aide unlocks a closet and wheels a double-decker cart to the area by the ladies’ room. The cart overflows with makeup, perfume, deodorant—you name it. The girls locate what they need and line up to use them under supervision.
Save for the mornings when I happen to bump into Steve in the hall and we stop to yell moo at the girls being herded into the beautification room, my routine usually involves an uninterrupted walk to the smoking area. Today, I pause by the cart and try not to get caught staring at a new girl: mussed dark brown shoulder-length hair, plaid flannel shirt at least two sizes too big, short jean shorts with neon pink tights—that certain je ne sais quoi, even first thing in the morning.
Joking to Vanessa, the new girl says, “I had to come to rehab to learn you can get drunk off perfume.”
I mosey over and introduce myself and relay my recent education in other common household products that will get you high.
“No fuckin’ shit,” Chessa says, reaching for a bottle of Calvin Klein Obsession. “When they told me, I was all, ‘Hello? I paid a lot of money for this shit. You think I’m gonna drink it?’” She leans in close, grabs my arm, and lowers her voice. “I didn’t literally pay a lot of money for it. I stole it, but you get the point.”
Rocking on the heels of green low-top Chuck Taylors, Chessa looks at my thick slippers. “Your little piggies must be awfully toasty in those bad boys.”
I slide off a slipper and show the underside of the tongue. “‘Made from genuine leather. Lined with imitation shearling.’ Yep, my feet feel like they’re crammed up a rabbit’s ass.”
“Except no rabbit’s ass is lined with imitation shearling. I’m pretty sure no rabbit’s ass is lined with genuine shearling, either.”
During a special afternoon lecture about I don’t know what, Chessa and I sit next to each other, scribbling notes back and forth on a blank page in my AA book. “This is so boring. I’d rather be sitting in traffic. Tell me your darkest secrets.” At the end, Chessa writes “You’re so cool” and draws an arrow pointing toward me.
At dinner, Chessa enters the dining hall, waving my AA Book. “I must’ve taken it by mistake.” She hands it to me, and for a fleeting, erotic moment, our hands touch. Index finger touching her lips, she glances at the book, which seems to have a slight bulge. Did she specifically take the book to write a note and put it inside? My blood races. I bus my tray, run to my room, and fan the pages. A scrap of paper falls out—a heart around the lyrics to the chorus of the Divinyls song “I Touch Myself.” Chessa signed it in cursive.
It’s as though all the music I listened to before that night came from crappy headphones plugged into a great stereo. The headphones weren’t on my head, but I could hear music if the volume was cranked. Then Chessa yanked the headphones out of the jack. Now I can hear. The treble snaps. My entire body vibrates from the bass.
Ron steps into the smoking area. “Nothing like the rich, smoky taste of a skinny white flaming turd,” he says. Everyone laughs like it’s required. He curls his finger at me. I follow him inside to the coffee station.
“Nancy and I decided to make an exception to the music rule for your birthday.”
“Thank—”
He held up his hand. “Bup, bup, bup. Hold on, Dave. Ground rules. You get one song. One. And you need to tell us what it is first, so think long and hard. Do not pick a trigger.”
“Easy. ‘So What’ by Miles Davis.”
Ron repeats the title and asks me to write down the words. I tell him it’s an instrumental. “Instrumental? Why that song?”
“It’s the longest track on the CDs I brought. I haven’t listened to my music in two weeks, and I figure if I’m trying to stop overthinking the shit out of everything, what could be more apropos.”
Before breakfast on March 11, Ron unlocks the contraband closet and retrieves my Discman and CD case. “Happy Birthday,” he says, standing uncomfortably close while I slide Kind of Blue from its sleeve.
Today is also the halfway point of my time here. Two weeks down, two to go.
As the music begins, I close my eyes and I’m in Rob’s grandmother’s Chevy Celebrity. I can see the sagging baby blue velvety fabric on the underside of the roof and cigarette butts in the ashtray, smoked to the filter. A phantom taste of dope teases the tip of my tongue, a hint of crack in the air. There’s such a thing as enough heroin. You take a hit and don’t immediately jones for more. Crack must be smoked until it’s gone. Then you need more.
Crack changed Rob. I don’t miss his crack-related lies, when he’d leave the apartment with $200, come back with two bags of dope and an impossible story, and then spend an hour in the bathroom. But I miss him.
When the song ends, I take off the headphones and give the Discman to Ron. He asks if I’m okay, as if he thinks I’m not.
“Yeah. I was just thinking. What’s your history with drugs or alcohol?”
“Dave, the honest-to-God worst thing I ever did is smoke a cigarette. And I’ll tell ya, I didn’t even smoke the whole thing because my lungs were on fire after a couple of puffs. I don’t know how you guys smoke all those cigarettes out there, day in, day out.”
Ron locks the closet and admits to having an occasional beer. I don’t respond.
“You don’t think I’m cool anymore because I never got high?”
“I didn’t think you were cool to begin with.” I laugh. “No, seriously, all this time, we’ve been talking about addiction and you’ve never experienced—”
“Dave, the training we go through, is pretty intense. Trust me. I understand what you guys are going through better than you do.”
ten
Steve, Chessa, Phil, and newcomers MJ and Doug greet their mothers and fathers. I’m the only one whose parents refuse to visit on the same weekend.
My father throws his arms around me. “Boy oh boy, are you a sight for sore eyes, my sonny boy.” He says my aunt Jo sends her love and so do Donna and the kids—as if I have anything remotely approximating a relationship with his third wife and their infant offspring.
The counselors swoop in and take the parents for a group session. At five o’clock, we reconvene in the lobby, and Pete whisks us to a hibachi restaurant. Filing into the van, Chessa slips a fol
ded note into my hand: “Impeccably timed tryst in the bathroom?”
At a table for two in the cavernous, mostly empty restaurant, Dad flips through a small, spiral-bound notebook. His handwriting—loopy and huge—could be mistaken for that of a serial killer. “Not easy, is it?” he says.
“Nope.”
“Yep. Had a feeling.”
“Yep.”
“Well, I got a news bulletin for you. You’re a dope fiend. Every day, for the rest of your life—even if you never do dope again—you’ll be a dope fiend. Not a pleasant thought, is it?”
“No.”
“Your dick’s on a windowsill. You never know if the window’s gonna slam shut.”
I drop my gaze and futz with the tablecloth, pulling at a loose thread.
“Son, I didn’t come here to blow smoke up your ass. So if it may please the court, allow me to explain a few things to you. Number one: I’ve seen this movie before. Two: If you want to croak, there isn’t anything anyone can do. If you don’t want to croak, you’ve got plenty of help. Howie shot dope for twenty-five years. My friend Cornell has drunk enough booze to fill a hundred Olympic-sized swimming pools. If that’s not enough, then guess what—I’ve done more drugs and drunk more booze than you, everyone you know, and everyone they know, and everyone they know combined, times a hundred.”
My body freezes. I scan my memory for clues. An occasional six-pack of beer in the fridge. A bottle of Remy Martin in the cabinet. I never saw him drink.
“Yoo-hoo, Dave. Look at me.”
I slowly oblige.
“Son, I’m a fucking monster.”
Dad points a chopstick at a skinny waiter standing next to me. How long has he been there? I order a teriyaki steak, rare. The self-proclaimed monster proclaims himself, also, a vegetarian.
“Seeing as I’m no longer eating critters, does the chef have some broccoli?”