Wrong Room, Right Guy

by Liam Livings

  I walked into the room, two men were making themselves a hot drink. One was sat in a chair arranged with others in a circle in the middle of the room. A man in his late thirties, shaved head, couple of missing teeth, blue tracksuit walked towards me, holding his hand out. He shook it very firmly and I noticed both his well weathered toned arm, and a series of cuts along the wrist. 'All right mate?'

  I shook his arm. 'Yeah. First time. Bit nervous. What shall I do? Is it sit anywhere, or do we have special seats?' Shit, these are real people. Real people I'm lying to by just being here. Even if it is only three weeks. This is going to be harder than I thought.

  'Sit where you like. Drinks over there.' He pointed to the corner where the two men were still busying themselves with hot drinks. 'Smoking outside please. That is, if you do smoke?'

  I shook my head.

  'We start by telling the group what brought us here, and how we're finding life, without using. You all right to talk about that, err, what's your name? I'm Jay, I'm the group's leader. One of the perks of being sober for three years, never would've thought it when I first came, but here I am now.' He shook my hand. A firm, manly shake.

  Shit, I hadn't thought about this. Should I use my real name, or make one up? Could I be Daniel, in homage to the autobiography, or would that get really complicated, along with remembering all the other stuff. Nope, best stick with Simon. Keep it simple. 'Simon.' I smiled and walked to get myself a coffee.

  Jay clapped his hands, and everyone sat around the circle, cupping their hands around their mugs. I felt cold and wished I'd kept my hoodie on. Looking around the room, most of the other men had done as I'd done: their heavily tattooed arms bulged as they folded them across their chests. One of them was leaning back in the chair, his arms above his head, revealing both a belly button and what looked like a nice pair of abs, and some armpit hair too. I felt myself begin to stir in my underpants. This was exactly the sort of guys I used to go for back in the Vauxhall clubbing days. I'd discovered a whole sportswear scene back then: clubs which had strict dress codes of trainers, tracksuits and sportswear. If you turned up in jeans and a nice shirt, they didn't let you in. I knew this from experience, trudging all the way back from Vauxhall to the end of the Central Line in Essex, over an hour on the Tube just because I had the wrong clothes on and refused to parade around in my underpants all night instead.

  As expected, we went around the room, each man telling the others a bit about themselves, what had brought them to the group, some shared their worst time, their rock bottom moment, as it was described. Others just shared their names and that they wanted to learn to live without cocaine, to get back to a normal family life.

  I was surprised by how friendly and open they all were, but when I thought about it, I realised that was exactly the point of groups like this. The language was all about recovery from the addiction, which was described as a 'persisting, chronic illness' rather than something people could just stop doing at will.

  It was a space where you could tell people your worst moment, and they wouldn't judge you, they'd support you not to repeat it again. Over half the men had lost access to their children, or been thrown out or split up from their girlfriends or wives. One man told us how his wife had asked him to pick their daughters from school as she was working, but he'd spent the afternoon at home, sniffing coke, watching daytime TV. She got a phone call from the school asking her who was picking her daughters up. When she rang the husband, he was so high he couldn't have a conversation with her, never mind drive to the school, so she had to pick the girls up herself. 'Then she threw me out, see.' He said, wiping his eye and sniffing.

  'Bit harsh, I reckon.' Another man said, leaning across to pat his back.

  'It weren't the first time though. She'd done it before a couple of times before, see. Said this was me last chance. And I knew I could do it, I knew I'd be there at the school gates, sober and good, until I got that call.' He looked up and the others nodded together. 'This mate called, said he'd just got some really good stuff, did I want to have a go, his treat.' He looked up, his eyes filling with tears again. 'What could I say? Can't say no to that can you?'

  Jay stood and started clapping. 'Thank you for sharing. Anyone else who wants to share.' The others clapped along with Jay as he walked over to the man and patted his shoulders. 'Simon?'

  During the man's speech, I had drifted off slightly - and I'm ashamed to admit this given what his story had been about - and I'd noticed a man on the other side of the circle of chairs. He had a black Adidas tracksuit with red stripes, white trainers, a black hoodie and a grey scarf pulled up around his face. The tracksuit looked new, but not modern. It wasn't like the others in the room, it had a certain, retroness about it. It was vintage. He sat with his legs apart and the trousers had ridden up slightly revealing dark hairy legs. I strained to see if I could see the outline of anything interesting in his tracksuit bottoms, but between my distance from him, and the position of his legs , there was sadly nothing, no little lumps or bumps or clues to what was underneath the man-made fibres. There was something about his look, which was more than just sportswear, it had a retro, curated, deliberate feel about it. Then I noticed his lips. He had blowjob lips. Unmistakeably they were blowjob lips. I'd seen lips like that before on the guys I'd picked up - or been picked up by, depending on your views - down in Vauxhall. He caught my eye as he looked up from my feet, lingered on my groin then to my eyes. Bingo!

  'Simon?' Jay was staring at me now. 'You all right, mate? Okay for you to go next, yeah?'

  So I told the story of how I'd gone clubbing in London, we'd ended up in someone's house having a party, and someone had offered me a bit of cocaine when they saw me yawning as dawn approached. 'I'd never seen it before, never mind taken it. I asked what it did, and they said it keeps you awake and makes you talk. So I thought, that sounds okay, and I gave it a go. Just one little line and I was away for the rest of the night. Soon I was having it before I went clubbing, while out clubbing, and then I couldn't go out unless I knew I had some. This one time I remember sitting at home, watching daytime TV, and Richard and Judy were talking about something. So I'm sitting there, curtains closed, with this big pile of coke, sniffing it, smoking and watching TV. Next thing Richard and Judy were back on, talking about something else. I thought, that's funny, they were just on a minute ago. Then I realised, I'd sat there in my place on my own, just sniffing away, for twenty four hours, they'd come back on TV the following morning. And that's when I knew, I said to myself, Simon, you've got to sort it out. So that's why I'm here.' I paused to see if there was anything else from Daniella's story I needed to include. I didn't want to peak too early and use up all the good material. I was tempted to check my bit of paper, but resisted.

  Jay clapped and the others followed his lead. A few men leant across to me and patted my back - this was evidently the way straight men comforted one another, without it getting too close.

  Jay started to tell his story, of how he was an office worker in the City of London, where he was expected to work very long hours. He used a bit to keep himself going in the long evenings, adding up the numbers, or whatever it was they did in the City. He did try to explain, but I drifted off. 'Work hard, play hard, is what they told me. Only I think I played a bit too hard, know what I mean.' He looked around the room. 'At my worst, I was up to five grams in the week, that's one a day, and then another four for the weekend. It got to the point I couldn't function for work without it. I was going to the gents to top it up, just so I could carry on.'

  The room started to clap slowly, since Jay hadn't started it this time, after his story. There was some leaning across and patting Jay's back too.

  Next was an unemployed man who said he 'Did a bit of coke, to pass the time after going to the job centre with me mate.' His mate wasn't really described in much detail, and definitely wasn't in the room with us. 'I went to an interview once, and couldn't stop sniffing. My eyes were running too. I could hardly sit still i
n the seat. They thought I had a cold, or something.'

  'Did you get the job?' someone asked.

  'Na. They said I wasn't the sort of person they were looking for.' He tutted, like it was the most awful and unexpected thing ever.

  I bit my tongue from saying anything. Who were these people, who thought they could carry on with normal lives, and be high all the time? What sort of person does that make them? Then I remembered, I was meant to be one of these people. I remembered what I was doing, why I was here, listening to their stories, and I swallowed loudly and waited for the next person to share with the group.

  Then it was the turn of Blowjob Lips Retro Tracksuit Man. His real name was Darren, and when he opened his mouth, I felt a little bit of my heart burst. He had a really authentic Essex accent - none of your mockney 'I grew up in Hertfordshire but sound like I sell apples and pears in Bow' - this was a good old fashioned Essex accent. If I'd have asked him for something to write, he'd have said ''ow about a pencil?' ending it like daffodil, but adding a w to the end.

  I leant back on the chair and allowed his voice to wash over me, and to become swept up in his narrative arc. I began to imagine what his narrative arc looked like, then realised that made no sense whatsoever, not even in a double entendre, so instead focussed on his story.

  'I was saving up for a deposit on a flat to buy with my ex. I found out they were gambling all the money away. It had taken us months of scrimpin' and savin' and they were just wastin' it on the online 'orses or whatever it was. I know this isn't clever, and don't really make sense when you hear it like this, but at the time, what I did made perfect sense to me. I 'spect that's why I did it, see. I thought I'd cheer myself up about the lost money, by treating myself to some sniff, with my money. Sniffing away to forget.'

  A couple of people laughed very quietly. Jay told them to be quiet, as it was Darren's turn to talk.

  'I know, stupid isn't it? Turned out, the ex hadn't lost as much as I'd thought. But I really went for it, see. Arguments, mood swings, shouting at each other. Course it didn't 'elp the ex was well into the coke too. Turned out they'd done a bit when they was younger, and when I got it, the ex remembered how much they'd missed it. Course we lost the flat. And I'm back at me parents' in disgrace.' He looked at the floor. 'The ex, they said I should see someone about it - the addiction. I said so should they, about both addictions!' He looked up and smiled weakly around the room. 'Dunno if they did or not, don't see 'em any more. It was me parents saying I should get help, that's why I'm here. Oh, and they said if I didn't I couldn't live with them.' He cracked his knuckles.

  Jay thanked him and asked how it had affected his work, which I was learning was another areas of people's lives, apart from their relationships, which it affected.

  'I'm a self-employed plasterer, see. No boss to nag me. I've kept it up. It fits around me. If I don't feel up to jobs, I don't bid for 'em on the website. There's a website where you bid for jobs. I only have to do a few a month to pay for my keep to Mum. And I have been.' He looked at me then down to the floor.

  It was like a beacon, how he'd played the pronoun game, as I called it. His ex, had only been referred to as 'they' plural, not singular, which grammatically was incorrect, but that wasn't for now. He'd not said she, which is what others do, because the ex is a woman, and he'd not said he, because he wasn't comfortable enough with coming out in this sort of company. That's the thing about coming out. You don't just do it once, and that's it. You continue to come out every day of your life: every time you meet a new person, every time you talk about your partner, or ex to another person, you have to make a conscious decision to use he, or to play the pronoun game.

  Or, I could be completely wrong. He could be just keeping the identity of this ex, extra protected for some reason.

  Jay thanked Darren and started the clap which always followed a story, which we all copied. 'That's it for sharing. Do you want to grab a tea or coffee and after we can talk about triggers for using. What thing, means you have to have a line of cocaine? Five minutes okay, and back in the circle.'

  I met Darren at the hot drinks table, we introduced ourselves, not shaking hands because that felt too formal. He didn't extend his hand, so I kept mine to myself too. 'Do you still see them - your ex?'

  He shook his head. 'At the end it got pretty nasty, I'm better off out of it. Milk?'

  I took the milk and accidentally touched his hand, the skin was rough from a life not spent at a desk. 'How did you get into plastering?'

  'Family. Dad was a plasterer, his dad before him. Seemed like something to do, instead of wasting another few years at college. Didn't want to be a mechanic so I thought I'd give plastering a go.'

  'What did they do, the ex?'

  'Job hunting, that's when they did the gambling. I thought they were looking for jobs, but actually … online gambling. Liar.'

  I let that hang there between us for a moment, surprised at how he'd spat out the last word. 'I'm a teacher. At the school, in Fiddlers Hamlet. The one they built on the green belt.' I laughed to myself nervously.

  'What's that like?'

  'What building a school on the green belt?'

  'Being a teacher, you wally.'

  'I used to love it. I used to think I was going to change the world from my classroom, to teach a whole generation of children to love reading, literature. In my head it was like that film with Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society, where they all stand on their desks at the end, protesting that he's leaving.'

  'Not much like that then?'

  'Not so much, no. For most of them the most they write is text messages. And the spelling people have, they write like they text, all these abbreviations. Drives me mad.'

  He laughed.

  'What's so funny?'

  'You, getting all worked up about text message writing. I've never seen anyone even talk about it. But you, it really winds you up doesn't it?'

  'I suppose it does, yeah.'

  I heard Jay's clapping and shouting for us to return to the chairs for the next bit. I turned to walk back to my seat, holding my drink.

  'A plumber.' Darren said.

  I turned to look him in the deep brown eyes. 'Who?'

  'The ex. That's the jobs they were looking for, when in fact they were spending our money on gambling.'

  'Handy. Between the two of you, you could have done up the new place all on your own.'

  'That was the plan.' He sat opposite me in the circle, his legs open, revealing a little bit of a hairy ankle on one side. Still no clues underneath the tracksuit bottoms.

  Jay's session about triggers was fascinating. He talked about gateway substances, the things which then led us to the next substance, which led to using cocaine. He talked about how once you've identified your gateway drugs, or situations, at first it's better to avoid both. 'I didn't go to a pub for the first year I was clean.' The room was silent at that. 'I do now, because I know I'm strong enough to go to a pub and just order an orange juice, or fizzy water. At first, there was no chance. If I was in a pub, I was having a drink. And if I had a drink, I was calling my dealer and getting some coke.'

  I wrote pages and pages of notes, at first conscious of being the only person doing so, but then just getting on with it. They wouldn't think I was noting it down for use in a story later, they'd just think I was noting it down for future reference, to help me through the twelve steps of the programme. It was only me who felt like an outsider, peering into this world: a world I had no business being part of. My thin disguise, thanks to my celebrity memoir, appeared to have worked so far.

  Jay drew the evening to a close and asked for help stacking the chairs and table back at the edges of the room.

  Before everyone left I said out loud what I'd been rehearsing in my head for the previous five minutes: 'Anyone fancy going to the pub over the road for a quick one?'

  Jay shouted across the room, while stacking chairs against the wall, 'Gotta get home. And I'm not telling anyone else what to d
o, but all I'll say is it took me a long time to be able to go in a pub again.'

  This was followed by a room of nodding heads as others acknowledged this quandary.

  'We could have another tea, just sit chatting?' I looked around the room hopefully.

  'Afraid, our time's up,' Jay said, glancing at his watch. 'It was up ten minutes ago. I've got to lock up.'

  I walked to my car alone, nodding at the group of smoking men, who I now recognised from the CA group.

  I sat in my car and slowly banged my head on the steering wheel. Going to the pub, what an absolute twat. What a complete and utter idiot. These are people struggling with addiction, and I suggest we go to a place which has the most readily available addictive substance in the western world. I wasn't sure where I'd got the western world bit, but the rest of it, I stood by.

  I was a complete and utter twat. The horn beeped and I opened my eyes. It was me, I'd leant on the horn, not the edge of the steering wheel. Another bit of twattery to add to my long list for the evening.

  I started the engine and remembered what he'd said about the ex. A plumber. How many female plumbers had I heard of? Why would he have said that very male job, having played the pronoun game so well up to then? He could have just said hairdresser - okay, maybe not hairdresser, how about a nurse, something very female, and I'd not be thinking about it now, sat in my car, going over my evening of deception and twattery.

  Or maybe, I was reading way too much into all of this, once again.

  Chapter 5

  Lucy and I were at the far end of a long table of teachers in the pub next to the school, called the Bag o'Nails, which we referred to as the Bag o'Shite. Its only redeeming features were that it was right next to the school, hence facilitating very easy lunchtime pints for emergency conferences between Lucy and me, which we didn't want to carry out in the staffroom, full of flapping ears and leather clad elbows. It also had a big leather squashy sofa in a bay window.