Me: yeah thats what i have been pondering, the how to
Dad: make sure when you talk to people you seem like you are wondering and trying to figure stuff out, not whining. we both need to remember how lucky you are to be there. these are high class problems.
Me: yes i understand
Dad: am going to be home working on Trib Co. ping if you need me. and always remember to update me on your tiny victories in addition to your persistent challenges. I am so, so proud of you.
Me: 10 4. thanks fahja
Dad: tenfourxo
He was right, as always. I had to turn this job into a real job, and even though his correspondence was endowed with wisdom, he couldn’t do the work for me. I had to do it myself. I look at interns now and feel a genuine pang of empathy. We are all just humans looking for something to do well that will earn us our place on this orb.
My communication with my dad during this period was frantic, intense, and voluminous. I was on the other side of the world, and yet we were so close. He wanted so badly for me to “make it,” but all he could do was sit and hear about my failures and small wins after the fact.
After a couple of months, I figured out some things that I could do. I ran for coffee, organized the past archives of the magazine, took phone calls, did research, and kept my neediness to myself. I had few friends to speak of—it was hard for an American to break in socially at VICE and in London itself. Or maybe it was just me. But still, I kept at it.
I spent most weekends wandering around alone at the Tate Modern, which was fine by me. Money, or the lack thereof, was deeply problematic. Since I was really not supposed to be paid, VICE would often stiff me. My paltry paycheck was bounced around from department to department; no one wanted to pay the £1,375 per month. My math had them paying me about $480 per week, but I didn’t care as long as my rent check cleared, though it usually didn’t. An additional hurdle was that I did not have the proper visa to work in the country. I sent frantic emails to my dad about my pathetic attempts at trying to cover rent and food, and he electronically shook his head. Hadn’t I gotten a job in order to take care of this very issue? Jill and Dad were from an earlier era, where lending money to their kid was simply not done. Having now graduated from college, I needed to figure out a way to make the money thing work on my own.
After four months, I was told that a visa was not going to come through for me to continue working at VICE. I was quietly relieved. Now, I had a reason to go home. I had given it the ol’ college try, and for that I had earned a spot back in my dad’s heart. The gruffness that I had felt from him during my college years began to dissipate. He had zero patience for laziness. I always knew he loved me, yes, but respect was a different matter. He needed to know that I could find a place to live, figure out money issues, and try my damnedest at a gig even when I was the lowest on the totem pole.
I would need to start the process of decision-making all over again, but at least I would be in New York, near my support network, and I wouldn’t have to fear the first of the month in a way that had become unmanageable. I asked my mentor for advice on an exit strategy. Here was his reply:
Spend a lot of time on how great it has been, and how much you have learned and then say you are probably going to split because of $ and visa. You’ll know what to do.
As I say, I couldn’t be more impressed by you dolly.
David
check this…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/business/media/23tribune.html
And so, after all that, I was back on that airplane.
10
Holiday Party Advice
VICE mercifully agreed to hire me to work at their New York office as an associate producer despite my unexceptional time in London. They felt bad about the visa situation and offered to give me a shot to try the gig in New York. But first I needed to secure housing that I could afford. Upon my return from London, my dad had given me a deadline: “I want you to be out of the house in two weeks.” Then he explained very matter-of-factly that he did not want to start the now-normalized cycle of baby bird coming back to the nest. Tough love had worked for him, dispensed by his father, John Carr, and he wasn’t about to go all soft on me. I also gleaned that I was not, let’s say, the best living companion, and he needed to get me out of the house and out of his hair. I played my music loud, ate what was in the pantry without replacing it, and was basically your average shitty early-twenties adult.
My initial foray into New York living involved a spruced-up squat on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was the first and last apartment I interviewed for; I wasn’t very picky. I knocked on the heavy metal door and heard deep footsteps shuffle toward the entrance. A tall man with a well-groomed beard and small blue eyes appeared on the other side of the door and introduced himself as Shawn. He didn’t remember which candidate I was. I smiled widely and introduced myself. I knew instinctively to use the VICE name and to imply that I would be mostly at work and not one of those unfortunate roommates who spent 24/7 inside their room dicking around on Reddit.
I walked inside and took in the space; I had never seen anything like it. It was cavernous, more like a warehouse than an apartment. Salvation Army furniture littered the room. The floor was wooden and uneven but beautiful in its own right. The kitchen was covered in multicolored graffiti with a metal basket stocked with potatoes, onions, and a couple of lemons hanging down from the ceiling. This place looked lived in. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wooden swing hanging from the ceiling, like something you would see in Georgia outside a modest colonial with a white picket fence. I took a perch on a soft lime green couch and gave Shawn my practiced spiel, and he nodded in agreement. He laid out the downside, trying to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. The apartment was cheap, but there was only one bathroom; would that be an issue for me? There would be five of us. Sharing one bathroom.
I weighed the pros and cons as he showed me what would potentially be my room. Small and dark with a tiny window off to the side, it had obviously been part of the original kitchen before it was subdivided. I asked about the previous roommate, a man who had in some LSD-infused trip painted a maroon man on the wall, like a prototypical caveman. I tried not to notice it. Shawn shook his head. “He partied too much and disrupted the flow of our home. Do you like to party?” He smiled slyly as he asked.
I wasn’t sure what the correct answer was. I knew how I drank, but he didn’t really need to know this.
“I drink every now and then,” I responded nonchalantly. I told him I would pay cash, and I had the deposit and first month all ready if he wanted to pull the trigger. I didn’t even ask to meet the other roommates—that would be adding more variables to this already complicated process. I had charmed Shawn and he said yes, I could move in in a couple of weeks.
Jill and Dad agreed to spend half a day moving me and my sparse belongings into the apartment. My dad was the first to enter the space. Once again only Shawn was home. He and my dad shook hands. My dad laughed at my choice and said, “Yep, this seems about right.” I elbowed him in the ribs and said, “Well, this is what I can muster on a $27,500 salary.” He nodded in agreement, knowing all too well what it was like to be barely getting by. He was just glad to be rid of the visa and rent red-flare emails I continually sent him from London.
My dad dropped off the dinged-up cardboard boxes in my new hobbit hole. I was going to use the bed that the previous tenant had occupied—I had no cash for a new one. Jill was fairly disturbed, reminding me to “disinfect this entire room before sleeping in it.”
We did a quick taco dinner at a restaurant nearby before they sped away back to New Jersey. I felt like I had when they’d dropped me off at college, a little nervous to begin my own life without the gimpy training wheels.
I bought some Clorox disinfectant wipes and haphazardly ran the cloth along the dus
ty surfaces. I needed to turn my attention toward prep for my first day at VICE New York. I spent time on the website, dutifully taking notes and trying to ascertain what material they felt allegiance toward. I fell asleep with my laptop beside me.
My alarm beeped loudly at 7 A.M. I didn’t have to be at work until 10:30, but I wanted to give myself time to compose myself for the day slowly and thoughtfully. I poked my head outside of my makeshift door. The bathroom was occupied. No worries; I could do some more research on Twitter. From inside my room, I heard muffled conversations and a door opening and closing. Another person had beaten me to the morning shower. With growing annoyance, I realized that this is what life would be like with a mess of roommates. Damn, I wanted to get into the shower. My face was oddly itchy, and it was cold as hell in my room. Was the heat even on?
After waiting (not so) patiently, I finally hopped into the decrepit shower, still damp from someone else’s body, and felt repulsed. Suddenly, I missed yelling loudly at my kid sister to hurry it up. I missed bouncing down the white-carpeted stairs to arrive at the dining room with my dad seated amid a flurry of newsprint. I’d ask which paper I could read, and he’d hand me the front section of The New York Times. The coffee pot would gurgle with anticipation, and I’d delight in the sounds of domesticity. Now, though, I was on my own.
I threw on a dress and a shitty purple peacoat I picked up from Forever 21 and rushed out the door, the wind bitterly whipping my face near the headquarters of VICE. I felt alive and full of fear. Would it be different this time?
Listening to Le Tigre, I walked briskly toward my new job. It was early December, and leaves blanketed the street. It looked idyllic. I knew this was where I was meant to be. In London, I’d felt unsure every time I stepped outside—where was I going, what tube was I taking, did I have enough money in my account to eat that day and pay rent for my flat at the end of the month? Here I was living cheaply and about to start a real nonintern job at my dream company. I knew how the organization was run and I was hopeful that once there, I would find my footing.
At reception, I was told to have a seat and wait for my supervisor. Glossy VICE magazines littered the textured wooden table, and I picked one up. My dad had taught me not to be that dork on her phone while waiting to meet with someone above your pay grade—it is crucial to express curiosity about the world around you instead of staring at the tiny device we use to combat our own loneliness. I registered footsteps all around me, but didn’t look up until I heard my name called. A Latino man in his early thirties appeared before me. He introduced himself to me as Santiago, Santi for short. He was the director of content and my new boss. He told me there were a couple of other associate producers starting along with me; he also told me not to be nervous. Ugh, was I telegraphing my anxiety that clearly?
I was shown a small pocket of space where I would have a computer and a chair. My email was already set up from my sojourn in London, and I was notified that we had a production meeting scheduled in a couple of minutes. I walked into a small room with a large table. Six or so kids were seated there, chatting easily. I noticed a girl with voluminous brown hair looking down at her notebook. She was the only one who looked like she wasn’t an extra from an American Apparel shoot. I sat next to her and she told me her name was Rhana. She pronounced it phonetically for me, “RUN-na. It’s Palestinian,” she explained.
Santiago told us in no uncertain terms that our job was to assist the producers in research for story pitches. We would act as sleuths on the Web, track interesting leads, compile the data, and deliver it in byte-sized form to a VICE producer. We were to arrive early, leave late, and not be grabby about working on our own material. Other duties included running errands, getting coffee, and the dreaded transcription of interviews. We were one step above interns, but barely.
I took a seat at my new desk as a manic goatee-sporting man ran over to me. His name was Brian, and he explained to me that I would be wrangling post details for the MTV show The Vice Guide to Everything. I needed to track down releases and make sure the production bibles—black binders filled to the brim with daily call sheets, music cue sheets, and personal and location releases (the sexy stuff)—were complete and ready to go. I made a mental note that it seemed like you needed to be very organized to make television, or find someone else to organize it for you. When I asked Brian a follow-up query, I couldn’t help but focus on the gumball machine on the corner of his desk. Rather than gum or M&M’s, the machine was filled with aspirin. Which he proudly took like vitamin C tablets for hangovers and/or deep, unrelenting migraines due to stress. The message was clear: Here, pain, often brought on by excessive drinking and partying, was to be worn like a badge of honor. I would be expected to keep up.
I had been working in the New York office for just two weeks when VICE threw their annual holiday party. I arrived at the office nervous as hell. It seemed like one of the requirements of having a job there was being blessed in the looks department. While I do not necessarily resemble a ferret, my looks are not generally something people remark upon when meeting me. I felt insecure and desperately ugly in the unisex bathroom as I changed into a purple sequined dress that I got in London. I was convinced it could transform me into a full-figured Bond girl instead of the less than stellar woman I saw in the mirror. I added a giant fake-fur coat to complete the ensemble. But perhaps the kicker was that my face was covered in Band-Aids. I had developed impetigo from living in the squat. My dad had wisely cautioned me to sit this one out based on my condition, but I refused.
On the neon-lit party bus, I settled in next to the ad dudes and took giant slugs from a bottle of Jim Beam. The bus reminded me vividly of being the odd kid at summer camp with no partner to talk to. I prayed the booze would work quickly and, sure enough, there came the warm blanket coating my tongue and making everything feel just a tad brighter. I closed my eyes and reminded myself to monitor my intake—this was my first Christmas party at my first real job. I needed to get in and out of this without undergoing a colossal embarrassment.
The potion worked its magic. I strolled into that glittering Russian bazaar like I owned the place. I spotted Rhana, and she took in my appearance: “It looks like you’re already having fun,” she remarked. I raised my eyebrows at the drink that had somehow appeared in my hand. I confessed to her that I thought she was smart and cool and I wanted to be very close work allies. She responded nicely, but I could tell she was waiting to see what happened next. I got out on the dance floor and busted a move. This is all going to work out! my brain shouted. And that is the last thing I remember clearly.
I woke up the next day in my loft bedroom, in someone else’s old bed, forgetting for a second where I was. I still had the dress on, the sequins pinching my skin and the giant fur coat draped over me like a blanket. At least no one was in bed with me. I tried to cobble together fragments of memory. Did I really go up to the head of the company and strike up a slurred conversation? Did I try to hit on that older ad exec? What else? I had just started this gig, and I knew my behavior wouldn’t fly. I checked the time—fuck, I had to shower and get to the office.
I skulked in barely on time and lowered myself into my desk chair, concentrating solely on not puking up the bread and whiskey in my stomach. A PR guy spotted me and said, “Carr: Top Five Drunkest.” He repeated it three times. I could only assume he was saying that out of the hundreds of employees, I had made quite the impression. My face was a deep scarlet by the time he walked away. I had been found out. The drink, shame, hangover cycle was alive and well in me. The impetigo would go away in a couple of weeks, but my reputation would require a more dedicated recovery.
I didn’t tell my dad about the holiday party. I just couldn’t; I needed this job to work. We’d shared almost everything about our lives up until that point, including alcohol-related lapses in judgment, but this felt different because I knew it would keep happening if I continued to drink. I also c
ouldn’t bear hearing him say “I told you so.” I always thought that when I entered the real world I would put away childish things, so to speak, and for me that meant my drinking. I worried that this was not the case, that I couldn’t stop. So I did what a lot of people do when it comes to drinking mistakes: I pushed the feelings deep inside of me and ignored them.
11
Far from the Tree
Growing up, in the years before high school, alcohol was not something I thought about too much. My stepmom would have an occasional glass of red wine, but I never saw my dad drink or talk about missing it. My father did not drink alcohol—it was just a fact—like he worked at The New York Times and enjoyed popcorn with extra butter at the movies. I once saw a case of O’Doul’s on his work bench in our basement, and when I asked about it he told me to look at the label. I peered closer. “Oh, it is nonalcoholic beer.” He nodded and told me out of the corner of his mouth that it “didn’t taste the same but it was better than nothing.”
It turned out that alcoholism and ongoing struggles with booze were some of the many traits I shared with my father. My dad knew intimately the siren call of substances and the temporary relief they offered. He had empirical evidence that his genetic code, when combined with vodka, led to handcuffs and treatment centers. Still, long-term sobriety eluded him for decades. Our birth changed all that. After Meagan and I were born he remained fully sober for fourteen years. Until something changed. And he began to drink again, on and off.
* * *
—
When I was seventeen, in the summer of 2005, Dad was supposed to take my sisters and me up to the family cabin in the Adirondacks. Jill was on a work trip. I was obsessed with television at the time (still am), and I secretly delighted as the hours dragged on and it started getting late, as it meant we might not go to the cabin after all. My sisters, however, were a different story. “Aren’t we supposed to be going soon?” Meagan asked as we heard our dad shuffling around on the porch. “Shh,” I said. “Buffy is on. Let’s talk after this episode.” She went back upstairs with a huff.
All That You Leave Behind Page 6
