by Wynn Wagner
"No."
"Did you go to a meeting?"
"No, but—"
"I'm starting to see a pattern,” she laughed into the phone. My sponsor was laughing at me, and I was starting to get pissed.
"Meeting's got nothing to do with Wyatt."
"You know about the Twelve Steps?"
"Sure."
"Forget about them,” she said. “Twelve is too much for you. I'm going to simplify the list for you. One, get on your knees in the morning and ask God to keep you away from the first drink. Don't ask for help; just ask him to do it."
"None of this has—"
"Two, go to a meeting. Three, talk to another alcoholic. Four, go to a meeting. And five, get on your knees at night telling God thanks for the day even if it was a crappy day."
"But—"
"But nothing, Sean,” my sponsor said. “This is a deadly game you're playing."
"But what about Wyatt?"
"How many of those five things did you do today?"
"I'm talking to an alcoholic right now,” I said.
"One out of five."
"I don't want to drink because of you. I want to drink because I've lost the—"
"You want to drink because you're a goddamn alcoholic. You have five things to do every day, and I've never heard of anybody having the kind of problem you're having if they did all five things."
"I know the drill."
"No, Sean, you know the words. Get your head out of your ass and do all five things today. You got four more."
And with that, she was gone, and I was alone in my apartment.
What I didn't tell you was that I had a quart of vodka that I bought on my way home. I could open the bottle—which was what I really wanted to do—or I could open that fucking book.
"Chapter Five,” I read out loud. “'Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. ...’”
I kept reading for half an hour or so, and that was where I was when I woke up. I looked across the room and found that the vodka still had all its seals. I read myself to sleep, but I didn't open the booze. That fucking Big Book had bored me so much that I didn't drink. Nights like that, I'd take the help wherever it came from.
* * * *
"You look like shit,” Janie Marroquin said.
"Love you too, dear,” I said as I tried to focus.
"You fall off the wagon?” she asked.
"No. Just a rough night. What's going on out there today?"
We talked about the news for a while. I did the show without any of my regular ad-libs. It was just her script and my voice. That had never happened before, and she saw it.
I tried to go out on dates, but it never worked. I just wasn't interested in men, and that was so not like me. It was just me and the job and a whole string of fast-food restaurants. I didn't go anywhere, and I didn't do anything. I went to AA about once a week, and I'd hear from friends who couldn't wait to share their latest Wyatt stories. He was doing great, they'd say. He had a whole new circle of friends, they'd claim. I wanted to throw up.
The group used a whiteboard on a wall to list AA birthdays, and it said Wyatt was coming up on his one year. One year of sobriety. It was a major milestone. In AA, that is probably the mother of all the big deals. I had known him for a year, and he'd stayed sober all that time. I wanted to be with him so much that I could almost taste it, but he had moved on. Seeing his name on the board reminded me that there was a hole in my side, and it really hurt. I wanted to be with Wyatt on his first anniversary. I wanted it, and I think he knew that I wanted it. He had moved on. According to everyone, Wyatt was happy without me.
I got him a birthday card and mailed it to him, but nobody ever mentioned it. I wrote my cell phone number in the card, but he never called. It was over between us, and it had never even had a chance to start.
What I had was a big wound in my spirit where Wyatt once was. When I rode the Harley over some bridges, I considered how easy it would be to crash through the barriers and end everything. Whatever was next couldn't be worse than having to live without Wyatt.
As I was riding, I tried to create a poem, but nothing came. I hated poetry, so I was back to being incapable of verse. Walt Whitman had left the building. Just as well on that. Maybe I could learn to do Ezra Pound or Ogden Nash. The way I felt, all I could guarantee would be Oscar Levant, maybe Edgar Allan Poe. That was so stupid because I did newscasts, and they didn't even let me write them. I had to have adult supervision. That's the only way anybody would let me close to a microphone.
I went out to the ballet with Chico one night, but I sat beside him and cried. He was nice, but I doubted there'd ever be a second date between us.
I rode over to a bar I used to like. It was the same tired old bartender. Some of the same tired old drunks were still sitting on the same half-broken barstools. I hadn't been to the bar in years, but nothing had changed. Nobody there was interesting, nobody I wanted to fuck. I went to the bathhouse and was so not interested in anything on that menu, and I didn't even bother to notice if anybody was interested in me. Everybody at the bar was drunk. Everybody at the “tubs” was on something, maybe meth. It was a recipe to keep me really bored. Drunks are no fun to be around if you're the only one sober. They think they're so cool or so hip, but they're really sad. So my drunk life had nothing that I still wanted, and my sober life was refusing to let me have what I craved. Ugggh. I was beyond anger, because anger wouldn't help anything. It didn't make me mad, just sad at my whole sorry life.
There simply wasn't anybody around that I wanted to fuck (or have fuck me would be more accurate). There wasn't anybody around that I wanted to get to know. I didn't want to cook for myself, and I wasn't in the mood to go out.
Okay, I don't usually like to complain, but I was in a really bad place. The only things I wanted to do were cut off from me. I wanted the world to get off my back.
Wyatt had moved on with his year of sobriety. Goody for him (and I meant that). He had crossed over that magical boundary now. Wyatt was no longer a newcomer in my eyes, so all the rules were off. If he wanted to make love to me, that would be awesome. If he wanted us to be a couple, I'd jump all over the chance. The trouble was that he no longer wanted that, and it made me sick.
* * * *
Hi, I'm Sean, and I'm a Wyatt-holic.
Rafa, I said under my breath. Help me, Rafa.
I'm addicted to Wyatt, Rafa. I want to be with him. I need to be with him, and I'm not. He doesn't want anything to do with me. He rejects me because I didn't want a relationship with him when he first came to AA. I did it to protect him, Rafa. If I had jumped into a relationship with Wyatt, it couldn't have been good. Didn't I do the right thing, Rafa? If it was the right thing to do, why do I feel so bad about it now? If I had touched him, it would have been wrong. So I didn't touch him, and that was wrong too. Damned if I know a way out of this. Wyatt is all I can think about, and it isn't just that I want sex with him. He's gorgeous, but he's barely my type. He's so nelly, Rafa. I'm sure guys pick on him, and I never had to worry about that. He's the sweetest guy I ever met, and now he rips my heart out of my ribcage every day. I think about him when I get up, and I cry about him at night. What am I supposed to do, Rafa? You told me to call you if I needed anything. You told me that I had your number. What the fuck am I supposed to do here?
If I ever needed the work of an angel, it was now. I hadn't seen my angel for a long time, not since that night when I found him on top of my apartment fence. Maybe my life was so far gone that not even my angel could fix it. If anybody would know what to do, it was Rafa.
My angel had told me to call him. He said that I knew his number. Yeah, right.
Rafa wasn't with me. No angel, no boyfriend. No nothing.
I disappointed myself. I resented all of Wyatt's new friends. I was lonely and sad, and nothing was working.
* * * *
"What the fuck are you gonna do about this?” Janie said one afternoon after work th
e following week. We were standing in the parking lot of the radio station. It wasn't my favorite place for a confrontation with the only person who was still speaking to me on a friendly basis.
"Me? I'm the victim here."
"Huh?” she said. “What the fuck are you planning to do? You gotta fix this thing."
"Put rocks in my pockets and jump off a cliff? Eat some thumbtacks? Enlist in the French Foreign Legion?” I said. “I don't know."
"No lo sabes?"
"Yeah, I don't know."
"No me chingas, Joto,” she said. “No se? What do you mean, you don't know?"
"That's Senor Joto to you, puta,” I said.
"Besame el culo!” she said like she was ready to punch me in the stomach. I agreed to go to a coffee shop with her. She said it was important. She drove, and I just sat in the passenger seat. It was only a couple of blocks from the radio station. I could have walked.
"Cafe solo,” she told the waitress.
"Lo mismo, pero con hielo,” I said.
"Frio?” the waitress said.
"Si, por favor,” I said. I don't know much Spanish, but you pick up a little here and there when you spend any time around Janie Marroquin. It isn't always the most polite form of the language, but you always know a way to get your idea across. And when you don't know a word, you can just say it in English. There are lots of words that I don't know, so listening to Janie and me talk will give you whiplash.
"Mira, gatito,” she said, holding out a mirror from her oversized purse. I think she keeps a whole zip code in that purse. Need an instruction manual for canning Swedish lingon berries? Ask Janie Marroquin, because she probably has one with her. Everything but money. We never seem to have money.
I took the mirror, and I saw lines where there used to be smooth skin. I was twenty-five years old but going on eighty.
"Okay,” I said, “yo veo."
"No, you don't see nothin', cabron,” she said. Whenever she gets pissed or excited, Janie forgets everything about English grammar.
"I'm telling you that this thing is killing you,” she continued. “You're distracted when you're at work. Listen to me, if you don't do good on the air, you're endangering my life. Go fuck with yourself if you want, but I got kids. I need this job, so don't go fuck it up. If you get fired, we all get fired. My kids need to eat. Don't fuck with my kids, man. Ronny has a girl in parochial school. Parochial school this year. College next year. He needs that job. He's a fucking good engineer, and he always makes you sound better than you should."
"Yeah."
"Yeah? All you can say is ‘yeah'? I'm serious, salame. You got no clue, and you don't even see what it's doing to Wyatt."
"Huh? He's doing fine. I've seen him out with a whole new group of friends."
"Friends? Bullshit. I saw him here in the coffee shop a couple of days ago, and he had lots of people around him. They weren't friends. They were leeches. Wyatt is the prettiest man I ever saw. Just sitting next to him makes you look better. I wish he could bottle whatever shit he got from his parents, ‘cause we could make a fortune. Damn, he's pretty, and you act like you don't even notice. Oh, and he does tattoos for a living, which makes some guys think he's a little bit dangerous. He got bags under his eyes now, you big dope. You don't get bags under your eyes when you're in your twenties, and they didn't come from doing tattoos."
"So what should...?"
"Pull your fucking head out of your fucking ass, maricon. There's a lot of us who wish we had what you just thrown away. You're busy throwing away the best man you're ever gonna see in this life or the next. Wake up, dude. And Wyatt ain't just pretty, he's sweet. And he isn't just sweet, he is out of his fucking head in love with you. Don't be a pendejo, man. God don't give you many guys like Wyatt, so don't throw it away."
"So now what?” I asked. “He rejected me. I didn't throw him away."
"Go to him, Sean."
"I don't—"
"I'm scared, Sean. You're scaring the crap out of me. I can't lose this job. You need to fix this thing in your life, because what you do affects me. If you don't give a flyin’ fart what happens to you, then you gotta fix this for Ronny's kids and mine."
We sat without saying anything. I hadn't thought about my pity-pot causing trouble for anybody but me. I saw it was tearing me up, and I had no idea what to do about it.
"I'm sorry, Janie,” I said as I got out of the booth. I threw a five-dollar bill on the table and walked out of the coffee shop. It was just a couple of blocks back to the station, and I wanted to walk. If Janie drove down the street, I didn't see her. Back at the station, I just leaned against my bike for several minutes.
Just like the old days. I could fuck up a wet dream, given half a chance. Beats me what I did that was so wrong.
I got on my motorcycle but just sat there for about twenty minutes. I tried to think of a way to approach Wyatt. When I tried, he pushed me away. He didn't even want to be in the same AA meeting as me. Should I just ignore that?
If Janie Marroquin is right, he isn't so happy with his new circle of friends. Maybe if I could just talk to him. Start slow, but I'm so scared of him
I love Wyatt.
There, I said it. I said it aloud: I love Wyatt. I've loved him since the first time I saw him, and I've been running away from that all this time. I love Wyatt, and I would do anything for him. I'd let him do anything to me. I know he's effeminate, but he's also a top. We're compatible in bed. All that time I thought we wouldn't have anything in common in bed, but I was so wrong. I thought we'd make good friends but lousy lovers. I fucked that up. We were awful friends, but we could be great lovers.
I love Wyatt. I love this man. I love every inch of him. He's so soft and wonderful. He's one of the funniest guys that I ever met, and his mind works so fast.
I love Wyatt, and I completely fucked things up between us. I didn't mean to make a mess, but it was clear that I had a royal piece of crap on my hands.
Maybe Wyatt and I could go out for coffee if I could find him at a meeting. I could take off a day, maybe pre-record the noon slot. I was sure Janie would help me do that if she was trying to get us back together. Yeah, that might actually work.
Okay, I had a plan. It was something that I could try. It was something that I needed to try. Start slow.
I was going to find Wyatt and crawl back to him. Maybe he wouldn't just run the other direction, and that would be a good enough start. I'd take whatever he offered: probation, anything. Walk on glass, anything.
I had a plan, and it was enough for me to start the Harley and ride back to my apartment.
Back at the apartment, I picked up the Big Book. This fuck-up that I called my life was now requiring me to read that stupid book. We seldom had friends at our homes...
"Why?” I screamed at nothing. “Why, Rafa?"
Chink came a sound from the bedroom. A window breaking? I couldn't imagine what it might be, so I got up to go see.
Smoke. There was smoke in my bedroom.
Smoke? Holy shit!
I jumped back into the living room just as everything stopped. It was all black and quiet.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Seven
Chink and smoke and then nothing. Everything was dark and empty. No sounds. No movement.
When I came to, there was something in my mouth. Tubes. I had tubes going down into my throat. Can't swallow. My arms were tied down. I saw what looked like a police uniform, so maybe I was under arrest for something. My head was foggy. So foggy that....
It was all I saw. I got little blips and chunks of time. There was no sequence to anything, and nothing made sense. I barely had any words that popped up. Everything was a blur.
"We don't know if he's going to make it. I'm sorry,” and then nothing. Who wasn't going to make it? Me? Was I about to die with tubes in my mouth? Was that uniform about to take me somewhere for execution for some crime? Green pill. Mushrooms. Blue caterpillar.
"Sean?” Mother? Co
uld that be my mother? I hadn't seen her in a few years. Was somebody saying I wasn't going to make it? I was dying? My arms couldn't move. Nothing could move. So tired.
Hand. Soft hand. Felt good. No, it felt nothing. Hand was smooth but couldn't... move....
I remembered Janie. What was Janie's last name? Janie had a last name. I was supposed to know her last name. I thought I remembered Wyatt. Wyatt? Yeah, maybe he was there for a while. My AA sponsor, Sharon. Yeah, she was there. She was almost drooling at the morphine dispenser. Was it morphine, or was it the state prison, and they were about to execute me for some awful crime with an injection of deadly chemicals? No, morphine. Hey, I knew the feeling of... okay, so I was in a hospital. Sharon was coveting my morphine dispenser. I remember trying to laugh at how attentive Sharon was to my dispenser, and she was the one talking me out of drinking a beer. Once an addict, always an addict. It's all mine, bitch. Go get your own fucking morph... can't fucking move....
I got a hundred of these little snippets. Conversations were all weird and out of context. I got words but no meaning. Sometimes I got meaning but no words. So fucking confusing. Such a prison... can't move... people touching me and moving me.
My hands were so swollen. My arms were puffy to the point that I thought they might pop, but I thought that somebody had told me it was caused by the drip they had going into my arm. Drip? It wasn't anything to worry about. I thought that was what they said, but my hands looked like a cartoon, with big puffy gloves on each hand. The skin of my hands was ready to pop, and it looked scary. It all looked so... morphine, definitely morphine.
Janie was definitely there. Is that her name? Shit, it is Marroquin. I remember. Yeah, Janie Marroquin. Ronny came with his kid, but he made the child stand against a far wall. I didn't even know Ronny's other name. I didn't know his kid's name. So much I didn't know. I had to learn it all. I had to get up. Somebody else, maybe the station manager. No, it was the news director. I remembered the news director. I would have sworn that Wyatt was there too, but he hated me. Why couldn't Wyatt forgive whatever I had done that was so bad?
