“Get up,” he demanded. “Coffee’s on.”
And poof, he disappeared.
Get up. Easy for him to say, but hard for me to do because my arms and legs wouldn’t move. I tried the gradual approach, clenching my fists, then curling my toes, then bending my knees. Fifteen minutes later, according to my trusty Timex, I was on my feet, though precariously so. Thank God I’d slept in my clothes and needn’t suffer through dressing.
I stumbled into the bathroom, peed, threw water on my face, ran a hand through my hair and admired my bloodshot eyes in the mirror. After exiting, I followed the coffee smell into the kitchen, where Merv was seated at a large round table, reading the News. A cup and saucer sat to his left and a place setting opposite. A coffee pot rested mid-table,
He looked up and peered at me through those weird half-specs that old farts wear.
“Sit.” He pointed at the chair across from him.
I followed his finger and sat.
He continued to read the paper while I poured myself some coffee and sipped. To my surprise, it stayed down. To my further surprise, it tasted good. I was making progress. Hell, I might even live, but that depended on this guy and how badly he wanted me dead.
Merv removed his spectacles, set them aside and folded his hands on the table. “Is this your way of forcing a meeting?”
Since that merited no answer, I gave none.
So he got serious. “What triggered it?”
I might have played dumb, but that hadn’t worked lately so I told him about Wonderman. By the time I finished, he looked almost as sad as I felt.
Of course, he swiftly reverted to his usual self. “That’s no excuse. The death of someone close to you can hurt like hell. I’ve been there. But using booze to numb the pain is a lousy way to recover.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I remained silent.
Merv, unfortunately, kept going. “As I’ve said before, lots of drunks relapse in the early stages, so there’s no need—”
“I’m not a drunk, at least not anymore.” That established, I added, “One slip does not a drunk make.”
“No it doesn’t. Neither does a stupid all-night bender. In fact, drinking does not a drunk make.”
The bastard was trying to trip me up, taking advantage of my weakened condition to lay a Chinese puzzle on me. On top of that, he smirked in my face.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” he said.
No, and I don’t understand Mandarin either.
To him I said, “No, because you’re not making any sense.”
“To you.”
He pulled his bathrobe tighter, as if girding for battle. “You don’t get it yet,” he said, “but you’re a drunk—”
“Stop calling me that.”
“—and always will be.”
Terrific. Then why even bother? Why go to the trouble of not drinking? Why put myself through all this shit, including him? I was tempted to bolt but any sudden movement might hurt, so I stayed put and waited for the next assault.
Which came all too soon. “Look, why do you think we call ourselves recovering alcoholics, rather than ex-drunks, former drunks or used-to-be drunks, or even recovered alcoholics?”
I knew he wasn’t interested in my answer, not that I had one, so I played along. “Why?”
“Because we know we’ll always be drunks. And by that I mean we’ll always be people who can’t drink alcohol because we’re not normal, meaning we can’t stop at one drink like ordinary people. We want another and another and another and then another. The experts tell us the reason for this is physical or psychological or both. Doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that, for whatever reason, you can’t drink. Unless, of course, you want to keep pissing your life away.”
I’d suspected all that—known it, actually—but didn’t want it to be true. Now I knew why. Merv’s saying it aloud sounded like a death knell.
“So the upshot is,” he kept tolling, “if you don’t want to keep pissing your life away, you need to lead an alcohol-free life. And as long as you follow the program, you will.” This tune sounded familiar, seeing as he’d sung it a thousand times before. “I know, I know,” Merv said. “You hate the steps and all that God stuff. You’ve told me so often enough. But I’ve thought about it, and I don’t agree. What you hate is commitment.”
“Oh please, not that—”
“You can oh-please me all you want. The fact remains that you hate commitment. To anything, not just recovery.”
“Bullshit.”
“Good point, but it doesn’t persuade me otherwise.” He leaned forward, signaling a blitzkrieg was on the way. “What have you ever committed to, Nate? And by that I mean what someone or something or some idea have you ever been loyal to, despite your reservations and its imperfections. Tell me … what? We both know you haven’t committed to God. How about a belief or a philosophy? A political party? Your country maybe? A job, your family, a girlfriend? Anything, for chrissake?”
He sat back and laced his hands behind his bright, shiny head, a model of repose on a leisurely Sunday morning. I wondered if Pilate had been this relaxed when he ordered the Crucifixion?
“Commitment, Nate,” Pontius continued. “We all have to believe in something, and commit to it. Otherwise we’re zombies, wandering aimlessly, alive and lifeless at the same time.”
He stopped to sip his coffee, so I figured what the hell and sipped mine. It still tasted good, though a little cooler.
“Not to get off track,” Merv resumed, signaling he was about to go off track, “but this commitment thing applies to more than our beliefs. It applies to whatever we undertake. If we don’t commit to it, we’ll never get ’er done.”
He paused, maybe because he was through, I hoped. But not a chance. “You once told me you wanted to write a novel,” he said. “How much have you written?”
“Of my novel?”
“No, of your diary.”
Nobody likes a smart-ass, and I didn’t like this one, especially his current line of inquiry.
“I’ve done an outline.”
“And?”
“Written the first chapter.”
“Great. When’s the last time you worked on it?”
I refused to say.
In return, Merv shook his head.
“Commitment, Nate. You wanna write a novel? Commit to it, or you’ll spend the rest of your life not writing it. You wanna get sober? Commit to it, or you’ll spend the rest of your life not recovering.”
He paused again, seemingly to let this portion of his speech sink in. But I was in too much pain and way too tired to let anything seep, let alone sink, in.
And yet on he droned.
“Commitment to sobriety is a helluva lot harder than most drunks think. Even when we think we’re committed, we’re not, and we’ll use any excuse to drink. Our boss done us wrong, our woman done left us, we just got fired, we just got promoted, our shoes are too tight, our pants are too loose … hey, let’s have a drink! And if a close friend dies, well, if we’re not committed we’ll drink after months, even years, of abstinence. That’s why we need the program, to shore us up during the bad times.”
He went silent again, and a still small voice whispered that Merv might be right, about both my writing and recovery. What was it with me and getting things done? The truth is, I sucked at it. Was I commitment-phobic? The term was too glib for my taste, but maybe I ought to consider the idea at least. Not now, though, when all I wanted was to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.
I didn’t say that to him, exactly, but I did suggest we bring this session to a close, as I was about to fall asleep in the middle of my enlightenment. Thankfully he agreed, and excused himself to get dressed.
Fully clothed in his usual uniform of slacks, turtleneck and sports coat, Merv drove me to my car at J’s Place. Before departing, he got in one last lick.
“Do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
/>
“Commit your ass to something. Maybe even sobriety.”
He drove off and I chauffeured myself home, arriving shortly before noon. Without passing Go I removed my clothes, crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head.
Then slept like a dead man.
Chapter 89
I awoke the next morning realizing I hadn’t imagined the past two days’ events. I’d found out Wonderman had passed on (to use the quaint euphemism) and I’d responded by getting hammered, thus ending a seven-month sober streak. Also, Merv had nailed me to the cross, and while he was at it called me an uncommitted drunk. As a bonus, he’d informed me I had an incurable disease. Or something.
I had something all right; I knew that for a certainty now. And clearly whatever it was not only drew me to alcohol, but drowned me in it once I got there. I’d also been aware—though I’d tried to deny it—there was no cure for this thing, this malady if you will. I could control it, however, through abstinence.
Which I’d tried.
Unsuccessfully.
So the question now was, how did I achieve sobriety once and for all, so that no matter what happened—like a friend dying—I wouldn’t succumb to the siren call of alcohol. My sponsor insisted the surest path was the AA program, and since my resolve to remain sober hadn’t worked, I resolved to follow his suggestion.
And the earth moved under my feet.
#
Two weeks to the day after my bender, I read the Twelve Steps over morning coffee.
Step One called for admitting I was powerless over alcohol. Given my rotten track record, that was no problem. Finally. Maybe the other steps would also be easier than I thought.
That bubble burst with Step Two, which asked me to believe a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. In case I doubted what that power might be, Step Three removed it by suggesting I turn my will and my life over to the care of God. That’s God, spelled G-O-D. Three other steps mentioned the Deity, and one referred to Him, with a capital H.
Yet all was not lost. There was that whole Higher Power thing. Though none of the steps cited such a power, the Big Book mentioned it several times. Some members used the term to stand for almost anything, including their AA group, as long as it was something other than themselves. Something greater than those selves. Maybe I too could make up a Higher Power.
But that would be difficult for me, because there was nothing in reality that appealed to me as a Higher Power, and I had a hard time envisioning something for which I had no reference point. In my novel, which I’d resumed working on last week (hold the applause, please), I merely embellished real people and events rather than creating them out of whole cloth. But since I had no model for a Higher Power, I’d have to embellish what wasn’t there. And just how did I do that?
I thought of discussing my dilemma with Merv but he’d just talk in riddles, and on this subject I didn’t want to hear them.
I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want to hear them.
Picture a light bulb going on.
Maybe I could hear my Higher Power, meaning maybe I could call on it for advice and guidance without actually seeing it. After all, the Bible itself talked about listening to that “still small voice.” I’d even heard one during Merv’s interminable monologue at my first AA meeting. Maybe if I purposely listened, I could hear it more often.
I read once that deep inside, most of us knew right from wrong. We simply had to look within, which meant—to me anyway—that we had to listen to our conscience. Sounded hokey at the time, but maybe I was being too critical, dismissing the notion prematurely.
Anyway, I decided to give my version of a Higher Power a try. Couldn’t hurt, and if it worked I’d move on to the other steps.
Yes I would.
#
Resigned to accepting a Higher Power in my life, I realized the term itself rankled, maybe because most AA members meant God when they used it. Or maybe I wanted my Higher Power to be unique to me, if that wasn’t too grandiose. Or maybe I was just being persnickety. For whatever reason, I decided to call my Higher Power something other than that, or at least give it a nickname. The Light, The Sage and The Guide came to mind, as did The Counselor and The Wise One. Also The Guru. But none of these filled the bill. They were either too mundane or too ethereal, or in The Guru’s case, too overworked—thanks partly to the Beatles, who’d made headlines by consulting a swami in India.
After trying out names that varied from blah to icky, I hit on one that seemed almost acceptable: The Voice, since my Higher Power would be a voice. But that didn’t quite make it either, nor did the French translation, Le Vox, which, like most things French, sounded tres hoity-toity. Maybe a compromise between French and English would work.
The Vox?
Uh-uh.
Le Voice?
A little cornball maybe, but oddball enough to suit my taste.
I probably should note here that Le Voice wasn’t really a voice, but rather words, there in my head. I didn’t see them, so I guess you could say I heard them, though they had neither pitch nor timbre.
Anyway, it’s a good thing Le Voice was around, because it intervened whenever I indulged in what AA called “stinkin’ thinkin’, meaning thinkin’ about drinkin’. This didn’t happen often, but when it did the urge was, shall we say, strong. For instance, one night while working on the novel I hit a roadblock. The chapter I’d planned next had been rendered implausible by the events preceding it (I’d learned that this and other storytelling dilemmas were not always apparent from an outline). I was trying, without success, to fix the problem when this stinkin’ thought entered my noggin: maybe a little belt, say of Johnny Walker, would get the creative juices flowing. At that point Le Voice stepped in and insisted I go for a walk. A walk, mind you, on a stinkin’ winter night in Detroit.
I objected.
“But—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Go.”
“But—”
“What did I say?”
“You said go.”
“Well?”
“But—”
“Go!”
“You won’t even listen to me, to what I have to say?”
“No. You never have anything useful to say on this subject.”
“But—”
“Do I have to repeat myself?”
Obviously there was no arguing with him, so I bundled up and left the warm comfort of my cozy apartment for the frigid air of a blustery winter’s night. At the first blast of wind I almost turned back, but I kept going, distracting myself by analyzing my literary conundrum. While tramping around the block a few times I devised a solution, and upon returning polished off the chapter I’d been working on, and the next one as well.
And so The Good American Novel progressed, as did my recovery.
Chapter 90
By the last week in November I still hadn’t contacted Sheldon about giving Doreen business advice. What the hell was wrong with me? Maybe now, in addition to all my other problems, I was allergic to making phone calls. Then one Friday night I was watching Spock give Kirk a hard time when Le Voice showed up to give me one.
“Turn that thing off.”
“What?”
“I said turn it off.”
“I was just—”
“Turn … it … off.”
What the hell?
I turned it off.
“Well?” Le Voice said.
“Well what?”
“You know very well what.”
Actually I did, but all I could offer was the lamest possible reply. “I’ll get around to it.”
“When?”
“I—”
“It’s too late in the day now, but call him tomorrow. In fact, go over there. Surprise him.”
I was about to protest, but if I did Le Voice would only do what he did best—turn my objection around so it sounded stupid.
“Okay,” I said.
“Good. Now here’s an extra incenti
ve, because knowing you, you’ll need one.”
I began to object, but since he was right I waited for him to name the inducement.
“Aside from following up on a promise you made two weeks ago, you might consider that Sheldon is the only friend you have left, and you don’t want to lose him due to inattention.”
He was right again, of course. So I promised to visit Dandy Randy’s the next day.
#
The ice cream parlor wasn’t exactly packed at a quarter to noon on a chilly fall day, but there were enough customers to keep two waitresses hopping and demonstrate that Doreen hadn’t exaggerated. Business at Dandy Randy’s Ice Cream and Candy was booming.
Unlike Marty’s, the place looked the same as the last time I’d visited. Ice cream tubs—check. Candy bins—check. Mini-jukes—check. Movie posters—check. Booths, lighting, hardwood floors—also unchanged. Plus the urns were so polished you could shave or comb your hair in them.
Sheldon, on the other hand, looked different. Like he’d lost a few pounds. By no means emaciated, he boasted a smaller belly and fewer chins. He even appeared lighter on his feet as he bounced around behind the counter waiting on customers. His back was to me as I pulled up a stool, and after glancing in the mirror he did a classic double take, then waved at my reflection and said, “Be with you in a sec.”
Three hundred seconds, to be exact, since he was working on one of those twelve-scoop concoctions. He served it to a guy whose fanny occupied two stools, then wiped his hands on his apron and strolled over to me.
“Hey, man, how yuh doin’? Long time no see.”
“It’s been a while.” I indicated the scene behind me. “Looks like you’re doing well.”
“Can’t complain.”
Like hell. I never met a businessman, especially a landsman, who couldn’t complain about something. And that went double for owners of small stores or shops, who were forever kvetching about employees, customers, regulations, paperwork, the weather, or all of the above. Rarely did they acknowledge running a prosperous enterprise. Things were “Eh” or “Could be better” or, at best, “Not bad.” I don’t mean that critically either. I also hesitated to admit when things were going well for me, fearful they’d go south if I did.
Nathan in Spite of Himself Page 49
