Quinn watched the man across the table, saw his eyes drifting off. He knew that look. Pain. And he knew to wait.
“So I’m the straight kid, but Herbert, my little brother, not so much. Short story is, he left us about three years ago. Heroin.”
“I’m sorry Stan. Really. That sucks.” Quinn watched the man’s face, saw him take that pain and tuck it away again.
“Yes is does. So now and then, when I run across a man or woman that is trying to keep their shit straight, I tend to lean a little farther one way than the other. In your case, I’m leaning very far.” The man looked at Quinn, waiting. “And there have been times when I have seen a good person with a weak alibi pay a less than just price. Do we continue this conversation?”
By way of answer, Quinn spoke. “I was up on that roof smoking and thinking. I couldn’t tell Detective Barnes exactly when I came down to my apartment because I can’t remember. I just got lost in my thoughts up there, struggling with some shit from the past, you know. Dark shit. My old man, the beatings I used to take, like I said, dark shit. As far as my neighbor goes, I didn’t hear anything, I didn’t see anything, and that’s all that I know. I woke up in the morning with the cops banging on my door.”
Perkins eyed Quinn, seeming to weigh the words hanging in the air. “I think we are done here. Besides, my shift is going to be starting soon. Here is what I can and cannot do. I cannot discuss the investigation into the death of your neighbor. That’s in the hands of the detectives. What I can do is give you a second piece of advice. My hope is that it will be more useful than the first piece. My advice to you is that no matter what happens regarding the death of Mr. Watson, you play it straight. There is no law against losing track of time while smoking a cigar and dredging up your past. But I would urge you to make sure you have your ducks in a row if you have to speak to Detective Barnes again. Clear?”
Quinn nodded. “Yeah, clear.”
Perkins stood up from the table, towering over Quinn. He paused, as if in mid-thought. “Quinn, you watch that dark shit, yeah? Stuff will creep up on you if you let it.” Without a word, he turned and walked across the room with huge strides, leaving Quinn sitting alone.
Chapter 16
Meeting
The red plastic upholstery of the stool squeaked a muffled protest as Quinn rotated left, then right. Ten degrees left, ten degrees right. Squeak, squeak. Under the sole of his well-worn right shoe, a forgotten patch of syrup clung to the checkered linoleum. If he pushed his shoe down, then rolled his heel up, the drying syrup made a noise like packing tape ripping loose. Squeak, squeak, rip, squeak, squeak, rip. He felt the older guy at the next stool give him the eye. Yeah, sorry about the tweaker impersonation. Quinn stopped fidgeting and reached for the glazed ceramic mug of coffee.
He was lucky to be sitting down at all, even on a squeaky stool at the end of the counter. The cafe was packed. Outside the small diner, folks were milling around on the sidewalk. Quinn had slipped in at the very end of the first rush but before the late morning Saturday hipsters made a last mad dash for brekkie. Flying solo and loving a seat at the counter had always served Quinn well. He had bagged the last open spot in the place. Balancing the mug between his hands, he watched the busy hubbub around the counter.
During the long evening following his surprise meeting with Perkins, Quinn had struggled to regain some semblance of balance. He had two long phone conversations, one with Sonya and one with Scotty B. After clicking off his phone, he knew he needed a plan. Not another crappy plan like trying to catch a killer single-handedly, but a good plan. The first part of the plan was simple, a huge breakfast of pancakes and bacon. No more getting blindsided on an empty stomach. Whatever weirdness was waiting around the corner, at least he would have a belly full of carbs and a head full of caffeine. The second part of the plan was to hit a meeting. Quinn knew he needed a reality check in a very big way. A noon meeting was on his agenda, right after this breakfast challenge. Part three of the plan, that was the easy bit. He was going to hook up with Sonya after the meeting for a long hard walk in the hills of Washington Park. From there they would disappear back to her apartment for the remainder of the weekend. Some fuel, some serenity, and some endorphins. Keeping it simple, Bucko. Good plan.
“Okay, short stack with bacon. I’ll be back to top off that coffee.” The counter guy pirouetted in the narrow work space, grabbing two of the orders piling up on the kitchen bar and rushed off. In his wake he left a stack of huge hotcakes in front of Quinn, hotcakes so big that the plate supporting them was not visible. The giant brown wheels seemed to float an inch above the counter, levitating over the worn surface. The poor little plate of bacon strips was dwarfed by the expanse of the steaming cakes. And they call this a short stack. They should call it a wide stack. Quinn added butter and syrup to the field of pancakes, knowing he was defeated before he plunged the fork in for the first bite. Maybe someday, if they had a cot handy, he might finish a short stack. So what? After that, there was The Stack, too big to even contemplate. Despite the foregone conclusion, Quinn powered into the sweet pile of carbohydrates.
Try as he might, thirty minutes later Quinn was pushing away the plate. Swimming in a puddle of syrup and butter, a quarter of the stack remained unconquered. Yes, you have won today, evil food monster, but someday I will defeat you. Buoyed by a serious food, sugar and caffeine buzz, Quinn paid the check and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Folks waiting for a table looked at the door, hope etched across their faces. The hope changing to disappointed when they saw only a single customer departing. Quinn threaded past them and turned south, beginning the six block walk to the meeting.
He was already in his seat as the last of the people were settling in. As the clock ticked noon, the Secretary’s voice sent them hurrying to find empty chairs. Quinn smiled to himself. A good meeting starts on time and ends on time. During the reading of the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, he scanned the faces in the room. Some were familiar, others not. He nodded to a few people, receiving nods and smiles in return. With the preliminaries concluded, Quinn focused his attention on the member who had volunteered to chair the meeting.
“Good morning everyone. My name is Ellen and I am an alcoholic. Thanks for letting me chair today, I really needed this.” A chorus of “Hey Ellen” and “Hello Ellen” sounded in the room. The woman looked down at the laminated sheet she held in her hand. Following the agenda listed on the page, she asked if there was anyone in the group new to AA. No hands. “Okay, do we have anyone celebrating thirty days of sobriety?” Pause. “Sixty days?” Another pause. “Ninety days? Six months? One year? Multiple years?” A young man in his early twenties raised his hand, a broad smile on his face. “Yeah, I’m Tom, grateful alcoholic, and as of yesterday I’m celebrating two years clean and sober.” The room erupted in applause, whistles, and calls of congratulations.
“That’s great, Tom, really great. Two years is a big deal.” The chairperson consulted the page again and continued. “I’m going to read from the Big Book and share my experience, strength and hope. We’ve got a big group today, so let’s make this a tag meeting. After your share, please call on the next person. Please try to keep it down to four or five minutes so everyone who needs to can have a chance to share. We’ll save a few minutes at the end of the meeting for anyone with a burning desire, okay?”
Ellen reached into her lap and retrieved a battered blue copy of the Big Book. “I’m going to read from pages sixty-seven and sixty-eight of the Big Book, the section on the Fourth Step and fear.” Of course, thought Quinn. He wasn’t even surprised. After twelve years around the tables, he had long since lost track of the number of times he had dragged his ass to a meeting only to hear exactly what he needed to hear. The synchronicity of the program was just another unexplainable piece of the magic. It had to be magic, right? At least a little bit. Yeah, magic, a big pile of willingness, and a boatload of hard work. By the time Quinn had stumbled into his first meeting, he was so beaten, broke
n, and scared, he was willing to do anything that anyone told him. In the months that followed, as the fog cleared little by little, he kept doing what the crusty old-timers said to do. Even when he hated every single AA cliché that came rolling out of someone’s mouth for the umpteenth time, he kept showing up. Sometimes he only came out of spite. He’d show them. He would stay clean, no matter how many times he had to hear the same stories, the same readings, the same sayings. Eventually, Quinn found himself going to meetings because he wanted what those old bastards had, a more desperate desire than he had ever known in his life. Now, twelve years later, here he was, willing to keep coming back.
Ellen read from the Big Book in a clear strong voice. Quinn focused his attention on the words. When she concluded her reading, she closed the book and looked across the room. “I think that’s it for me. That reading covers where I’m at today, working with fear, trying to move on with my Fourth Step, just trying to work the program. I think I’m going to call on Tom to start. Happy birthday Tom.” There was a chorus of “Thank you Ellen” from around the room as people turned towards the smiling young man.
Quinn listened as the shares moved around the room, one person speaking, then tagging another person to speak. The tone of the words spoken followed a familiar pattern. Experience, Strength, and Hope. The newer folks tended to talk about their experience, how bad it had been out there, about struggling to stay clean, about the pull of the booze, the pull of the dope. They needed to say those things, and Quinn needed to hear them. It was good to remember the darkness out there. Forgetting the pain and despair of addiction was a solid way to find yourself back in the addiction. Quinn was grateful for the newcomers’ stories. Folks with more years spent around the table talked about strength and hope, how to get it and how to keep it. Their message resonated with the newcomers as it was meant to, but it was reaffirming for Quinn as well. Go to meetings, get a sponsor, be willing, work the steps. He knew what a lot of the old-timers had been through, horror stories that would send normies running for the door. But mostly, these men and women with years of sobriety under their belt, they talked about how good things were now. If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.
A woman sitting across from Quinn finished speaking and called on a white-haired man next to her. “Thanks for letting me share. I’d like to hear from Joey H.”
“Yeah, I’m Joey, grateful alcoholic.” The room responded and grew quiet. “I want to thank Ellen for chairing the meeting, and congratulations to young Tom. Two years is a hell of a deal. You keep coming back.” The old man leaned forward and folded his arms across his knees, looking around the room.
“When I first came into these rooms, I was angry. There wasn’t a thing I wasn’t mad at. You name it, I was pissed off about it. Took me a long time sitting around in church basements swilling a lot of bad coffee before I realized that the thing I was most angry at was myself.” There were smiles and nods around the circle of chairs. “Now, you would think that finally knowing what I was angry at would be a sort of revelation. I’d like to tell you that was true, but it wasn’t. Figuring out that I was maddest at myself only made me madder. Now one day, I was moaning to my sponsor about my anger. I know that folks here today have talked about how important it is to get yourself a good sponsor. I’m living proof that’s true. If you don’t already have someone to work with, you go up to one of these folks after the meeting and ask for help. Anyway, here I am going on about how pissed off I am, and my sponsor is just sitting there listening. Finally, he looks at me and he asks ‘Joey, what are you afraid of?’ Now that set me back, I can tell you. But did I listen to him? No, you know I didn’t. I just got madder. What the hell did he know about it anyway? Well, my sponsor went on to tell me something else. He told me that if I were to scratch at the anger I felt, I would find fear hiding just underneath the surface. Every time, he said. Scratch the anger, find the fear. It’s like what Ellen was reading us there in the Big Book. Fear is corrosive. And it manifests as anger. Course, my sponsor was right, even if I couldn’t hear it right then. But I came to understand it. It took some time, like all of this stuff, but I finally realized what I was angry about. I was afraid that I was no good, that I was a rotten bastard who didn’t deserve to be sitting in these rooms. I knew that when the good folks in here found out about all the horrible shit that I had done when I was out there drinking, they would throw me out. Not long after that, I heard one of the old-timers talking about comparing ourselves to others, how we all shared the same fears, but we generally kept our fears quiet, figuring no one else would understand. I want to share what that old guy said before I use up too much time here.” The old man paused and looked around the room.
“Imagine all of us here sitting around a big table. Each of us has a brown paper bag in front of them, the kind some of us used to wrap a bottle in. Now, each person around this table, they reach inside themselves and pull out all of that dark crap, all of those fears and anger, all of the stuff that we are too afraid of to show to other people. All of us, we take that dark horrible stuff, and we put it in the bag in front of us and roll that bag shut. Then we take our bag and we push it across that table to another person sitting there. We all exchange those wrinkled up brown paper bags, see? I guarantee you one thing. When folks start unrolling the tops of those bags and looking inside, looking at all of the fear and anger in those sacks, they’re going to want their own bag back pretty damn quick.”
Joey leaned back in his chair and looked across the room with a smile. “I’m going to call on Quinn. I don’t usually see him up this early in the day.” Amidst the chorus of “Thanks Joey,” the faces in the room turned towards Quinn.
“Hello everyone. I’m Quinn, alcoholic and addict.” The room answered. “Thanks for calling on me Joey. I’ve heard a lot of good stuff here today. Thanks to Ellen for chairing and Happy Birthday Tom. Two years, Man. Good on ya.” Quinn paused, looking at the faces around the circle. “I’ve been coming around these rooms for a while now and it never ceases to amaze me how I’ll walk into a meeting and hear the exact thing I’m struggling with. Today is just another example of that. I’ve been having a really hard time with anger lately. It feels like I’m being buffeted about, you know, like a little boat out on the water in a big storm. The truth is, most of this storm is really outside of my control. I know we talk about that a lot, about handing control over to our higher power, about not being in charge, but this feels different. It feels like there are big forces pushing at my life, trying to push me in a direction I don’t want to go. I have to tell you that my reaction to all of this has been anger, lots of anger. Even when I recognize it, when I feel it pushing at me, I’m still falling into that anger. So I guess I’m falling into the fear that’s under the anger. I’ve been calling my sponsor and talking about all this stuff, but it just seems like I’m down in some kind of deep hole, like an old well or something, and I can’t find a way to climb back out. I can see some of it, you know? Like the old saying, don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. I wasn’t paying attention to some of the basic stuff, forgetting to eat, things like that. So I’m trying to concentrate on the basics, right? That’s what we do. I’m not going to drink or drug over this, that’s for sure. But I didn’t come through those doors to be miserable either. This last week or two I’ve been getting pretty close to misery. I gotta tell you, it sucks just as much as it used to.” Quinn paused. He thought about the new people in the room, thought about Scotty B. Okay, strength and hope Scotty, you got it.
“So, like I said, I’m going through some shit right now. But you now what? I’m going through it sober. I’m going through it clean. That’s a miracle. Whatever happens, I didn’t drink or use yesterday. I’m at a meeting right now, talking about what’s going on in my life. This meeting is my insurance policy for today. There isn’t anything going on today that I can’t make a whole lot worse by picking up a bottle or reaching for
that dope. Yeah, so whatever life has in store for me, I’m facing it sober. If I keep coming back, keep working the program, I can stay clean through anything. That’s what this program does, it gives us the tools to stay sober out there in the real world. In here, in the rooms, it’s safe and cozy. Out there, through that door, that’s the real test of my sobriety. Thanks for letting me share. I see Bobby over there, so I’ll tag him.” Quinn sat back in his chair as the chorus of “Thanks Quinn” and “Keep coming back” fell away.
After the meeting, there was the usual milling about, the post-meeting conversations. Quinn turned to find Joey H. standing next to him. “You okay Quinn?” Another old-timer with clear piercing eyes.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a struggle lately, like I was saying. But I appreciate what you were sharing. That helps Joey. Always does, you know?”
“You need to grab a coffee? Maybe talk this over a bit more?” Again with those eyes, not looking away.
“I can’t today Joey. Sonya’s waiting for me outside.”
The old man chuckled and smiled. “Well, there’s one damn fine reason for staying sober right there. Hey, it was good to see you. You should try to make the Nooners more often.” He held out his hand. Quinn took the firm grip and returned it. Joey pulled him into a hug, a real hug, and then released him. “Okay, don’t keep that pretty girl waiting over a craggy old bastard like me. I’ll see you soon, yeah?”
“You know it Joey. Okay, gotta go.” Quinn turned and walked past the huddles of people talking, leaning on chair backs, drinking the last of the stale coffee. He went out through the door of the room, down the hallway, and back out into the real world.
Blood Rust Chains Page 14
