You Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish

by Jimmy A. Lerner

  I jumped off the bench, startling the ex-cheerleaders.

  "No, Dwayne, I'm not going to hit you. But if you're not out of here in three seconds… I WILL BREAK YOUR FUCKING NECK!" The cheerleader moms all scurried away down the sidelines.

  The Monster feigned fear, mocking me, before sliding off the bench and strolling casually toward the parking lot.

  It was the F.W. who later gave me the battery jump.

  * * *

  The girls begged off for the rest of the weekend, having accepted invitations for sleep-overs. On Monday morning they would leave on buses for a two-week camping trip near Lake Tahoe. They wanted to be home on Sunday night to pack.

  After buying a new battery from Exxon (the teenage battery specialist determined that my three-month-old one would not hold a charge) I spent the rest of that Saturday at my computer, chain-smoking and putting together financial projections for the new dot-company I would shortly join. The instant that the phone company offered me the cash buyout (Rumor Control said my group would "receive coverage" this week) I was gone. Out the door. Good-bye, Empty Suits.

  My friends (all phone company marketing guys but without the bell-shaped heads) had already received their cash buyouts and leased office space on Market Street in San Francisco. Initial funding would come from our cash buyouts, and we were confident of quickly picking up venture capital once we firmed up the business plan.

  We were going to make millions through an on-line telecommunications management company. We would guarantee to save businesses 20 percent off their phone bills, and our fee would be a percentage of those savings. A slam-dunk, no-brainer proposition.

  We would simply follow the model of traditional "resellers" and billing "aggregators" who made high-volume (and highly discounted) wholesale toll purchases from long-distance carriers and then resold it to business customers. My Lotus spreadsheet profit projections were very simple to build: buy millions of MOUs (minute-of-use) at three cents a minute and resell at five to seven cents. Not too profitable— ha!

  The bankers or venture capitalists would resonate and salivate.

  Bill Gates would want to either buy us or crush us.

  From my phone company supplied "workstation" in the living room I watched the mailman screech his van to a halt in front of the mailbox. I watched him stuff it and then returned to my fantasies of dot-com deification and millions in equity ten minutes after the IPO. The mail could wait.

  Sunday morning, sporting my old ratty bathrobe (with fresh cigarette burns), I unhinged the mailbox to release the new bills and advertising circulars ("$2.00 off your 2nd large pizza!"). Mostly junk except for the comp offer from the Excelsior Hotel in Las Vegas. I had played blackjack there a few months ago with my marketing buddies, and we had made our usual donations, losing maybe two hundred dollars in total.

  No good deed goes unpunished. The Excelsior was going to make it even easier for me to lose money in the future. The Excelsior "VP Staff" had just elevated me to "Diamond Player" status. As a "preferred Diamond customer" I (plus a friend) could avail myself of "two complimentary nights in our Diamond Executive 2-bedroom/living room suite." Any two nights of the week.

  As long as they fell between a Sunday and a Thursday.

  And it had to be during the off-season— in the blazing-hot summer.

  I suspected there were levels even higher than "Diamond."

  I spent the rest of the day and early evening with Dr. Blackjack, practicing my counting techniques. Dwayne called twice to apologize. I hung up both times and let the third call go to my answering machine. I screened the call— it was not an apology:

  "COCKSUCKER! DON'T YOU FUCKING HANG UP ON ME! NOBODY TALKS TO ME LIKE YOU DID AT THE SOCCER GAME! NOBODY THREATENS ME. THIS IS WAR, COCKSUCKER, AND YOU ARE A DEAD MAN!"

  Without thinking about it I pressed Message Save and then massaged the surgical scar on my throat. I made a trip to the medicine cabinet and then returned to Dr. Blackjack, quickly amassing $3,000. Within an hour I was up almost $10,000. This called for a celebration.

  I opened up a bottle of cabernet and poured myself one glass. No harm in just one glass of wine. The key was to control the intake. The problem with the alcoholics in A.A. was that they just hadn't figured out a good control strategy. I would sip the wine. Like a gentleman.

  By nightfall I was up $40,000, my dot-com projected profits were up to the billions, and the bottle of cabernet was down to nothing.

  Life was good.

  When the Monster called again at 9 P.M. to apologize again, I didn't hang up. He had just been kidding at the soccer game and carried it too far. Really sorry, pal. For all those offensive remarks. He certainly hadn't meant that last call as a threat. No, we were pals, he'd never threaten me. He was just frustrated, pissed off at himself and letting off steam.

  After five minutes I accepted his apology and begged him to shut up already. We talked about a pool hall in Brooklyn— Spinelli's on Church Avenue. With my girls gone to camp we decided to go to nearby Oakland this week to a pool hall. Shoot some New York-style pool— straight pool, a game of skill, none of this eight-ball slop so beloved by Californians.

  I told him about my dot-com billions, my new Diamond status, and my Dr. Blackjack winnings. Maybe we'd even go to Las Vegas together.

  How could I stay mad at a guy when life was so good?

  * * *

  On Monday morning I was so hungover I forgot the girls had left for camp. I was almost at the F.W.'s house when I remembered they were gone for two weeks. I made a U-turn and raced back toward work. My mouth was a foul thicket of cotton, and an invisible hammer was pounding out a bass line inside my skull.

  This has to stop, I thought. You're losing control. No— you've already lost it. I resolved right then and there to return to A.A. To raise my hand and start all over— on Step One if necessary. Right after work I would go to a meeting.

  When I arrived at Cube World, there was a message (a Post-it note stuck to my computer monitor) from the secretary to go see my boss for the "cash-benefit coverage." (She was familiar with my message "aging" system and knew better than to send me an urgent voice mail.)

  So today was the day. A cornucopia of cash and stock just to say bye-bye! My only thoughts were yes, yes, and YES!

  An hour later I emerged from my Empty Suit's office with an obscene grin and a stack of forms including one whereby I waived my "exit interview." I was taking the money and running. I technically had thirty days to clean out my desk; however, I had elected the "accelerated departure option." Imagine. They would actually pay me a bonus for each day that I left under the thirty days.

  It took me only two hours to get out of the building.

  I first spent a few minutes on the phone to make arrangements to roll my 401(k) over into an IRA. I then called my new dot-com comrades in San Francisco. I would join them in one week, bringing my final marketing and financial plans.

  Feeling more excited, more hopeful than I had in many months at the office, I visited the cubes and offices of the few friends who were still left. I shook lots of hands, gave and received hugs, exchanged numbers, and then piled my personal belongings in a cardboard box.

  I took some books, my personalized stapler, my three-hole puncher, and my (faux) brass business card holder. There were lines of people holding boxes up and down the corridors, waiting for the elevators. They were all smiling. Unlike all our previous downsizings, this was a sweet deal.

  For me this felt like redemption. Like a new beginning.

  * * *

  I drove directly from work to an A.A. noon meeting in Danville.

  I was relieved that none of the familiar faces (like Luther or Doris) from my Monday night meeting were there. When the secretary asked if there were any new members or any members in their first thirty days of sobriety, I raised my hand and stood up.

  Everyone clapped for me and there were shouts of "Welcome."

  I sat quietly through the meeting, leaving a few minutes before
the closing prayer. I didn't want to talk with anyone.

  Back at the house I went through the kitchen cabinets. I emptied out what remained from a pint of Chivas. I uncorked a full bottle of cabernet and poured the contents into the sink. There was a half-empty can of Foster's beer in the cabinet under the sink— I tossed it. I was stunned to find an empty half-pint bottle of vodka hidden behind the box of Frosted Flakes. I didn't remember buying it. The vodka was inside a brown paper bag.

  Where did that come from?

  I was scared. No, I was beyond scared— I was totally freaked out.

  I thought I had this problem under control. Well, if not under complete control, at least there had been no blackouts. It was like discovering that the alcoholic monster you thought was secured safely in a cage had somehow managed to sneak out undetected a few times.

  Late at night. When no one was looking.

  Like the rebellious teenager grounded by his parents who waits until midnight and then slips out through his bedroom window to meet his friends and go party.

  I was filling a plastic garbage bag with the evidence of my insanity when the phone rang. I picked it up warily, heart pounding. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was the police telling me not to leave town because I was the chief suspect in a hit-and-run.

  Instead, it was the A.A. police.

  "Welcome back, asshole."

  "Luther?"

  "I was wondering when you'd get sick and tired of being sick and tired. How is it Out There? Did the booze work for you this time? You know in all my years in A.A. I have yet to hear anyone come back and tell me how great it is to go out, how great it—"

  "Luther, it's so nice to hear your warm and supportive voice. How the hell did you know I was at a meeting?"

  "I got spies, Jimmy. A.A. in a small town is the same as getting drunk in public in a small town. Everyone knows about it right away. You realize you got to start all over again and your first step better be to quit hanging out with that guy Dwayne. Doris says she saw you with him at the movies in Berkeley. He's a drug dealer. This time around in the program you better get a sponsor right away. Forget about that drug-dispensing shrink of yours. Get rid of all your pills. Get rid of that quack doctor. A.A. is all about one alcoholic talking to another. About sponsorship! As a matter of fact I'm not doing anything right—"

  "Luther, I appreciate your calling but you caught me in the middle of a project here. Let me call you back later."

  "All right— just remember HOW."

  "How?"

  "Honesty, openness, and willingness! The three things you never brought with you when you came into recovery. Probably the reason you slipped and—"

  "Luther, let me—"

  "And HALT, Jimmy, don't forget that."

  "Halt. Uh, let me guess. This is not a Lutherism, it's another A.A. acronym, right?"

  "And this one might just save your life, smart-ass. Just remember HALT: never let yourself get too hungry, too angry, too lonely, or too tired. And don't even think…"

  And on and on until my head hurt. I was almost sorry I had just dumped out the Chivas.

  The next morning was trash pickup day, so I dumped the empty bottles in the garbage can in my garage and wheeled the can out to the curb. Across the street, in front of Dwayne's house, a slender young black man was also setting out the trash, struggling to balance several plastic bags on top of the cans. He wore bright red gym shorts under a yellow T-shirt that had been torn to display a bare brown midriff.

  The moment he spotted me he waved and seemed to light up with smiles. He balanced two huge cans against the curb, then scurried across the street, swinging his hips and ass in what he must have supposed was a girlish gait.

  "You must be Jimmy. I'm Hakeem, Dwayne's housekeeper. Dwayne called and asked me to tell you that he's sorry but he won't be able to go shoot pool with you. He'll be out of town on business for a few days." Hakeem was barely out of his teens, and his voice had that pleasant musical lilt of the Caribbean.

  This was good news since I had planned to cancel anyway. Hanging out with Dwayne could not possibly fit into my recovery plan.

  "Thanks, uh, A-Key?"

  "Ha-keem." He spelled it for me. Hakeem was very slight and short, and his eyebrows had been plucked out and painted back in. He looked past me to my house. "I understand you just moved in. If you need any cleaning or laundry done, just let me—"

  "Thanks, Hakeem, but I'm fine for now."

  "I could use the money. Dwayne hasn't paid me in almost two months and I'm practically broke. And his place is a total pigsty. He should pay me triple just to enter this pisshole. Have you ever been inside his house?"

  I nodded.

  "And now he says I have to be a house sitter until he comes back— like I'm supposed to guard his little treasures, his stashes, for nothing when he hasn't even paid me yet for all the cleaning. Well, I just don't know." Hakeem clucked his tongue and released one of those exasperated sighs that said, "Life is unfair."

  "When is Dwayne coming back?"

  Another dramatic sigh and roll of the eyes. "Like he would tell me. Besides he would just lie like he lies about everything. Lately, when I ask him about anything— especially for my money— he goes crazy. I thought he was going to tear me apart this morning when I asked him to pay what he owes me. I swear the man is a monster!"

  I went back inside and thought about what Hakeem had said.

  A monster. The word was spat out from Hakeem's lips. In the days and months to come I would look back on this conversation, and the part I remember most vividly is that one word:

  Monster.

  * * *

  I woke up early on Tuesday morning— trash day— to the sound of garbage cans being emptied into trucks. I hoped the bottles I had stuffed into the cans (after wrapping them in newspaper) didn't shatter on the curb. Where all the neighbors could see.

  I spent the entire morning working on the dot-com (we were thinking of calling it Bellboys.com) business plan. I massaged some of the revenue forecasts and wrote a section on the "competitive landscape." For the benefit of our potential lenders I built a series of spreadsheet scenarios with even the "worst case" showing a break-even point after a scant twenty months.

  My "probable case" would, of course, shower the investor with fabulous returns in only twelve months. We had no doubt about attracting capital. Our concern was how to retain as much equity for ourselves as possible.

  By 5 P.M. some of the members of the committee that lives inside my head started talking to me. I recognized a few of the familiar voices: Mr. Jack Daniel's and his pals, Mr. Johnnie Walker Red and Mr. Johnnie Walker Black.

  They talked softly, reasonably.

  Seductively.

  They always did.

  Señor Cuervo and Comrade Smirnoff even weighed in with encouraging and friendly comments.

  At 6 P.M. I jumped into the car and went to an A.A. meeting. In Oakland. It was a forty-minute drive, but I didn't want to run into anyone I knew. Again, I raised my hand when they asked for newcomers. Again, I left early, before anyone could talk to me.

  On the way home it occurred to me just how foolish I was being about the whole drinking situation. I was definitely overreacting. The alcohol wasn't the problem. It was the stress of the job! Well, guess what, Jimmy? The job is now history. So the underlying reasons that led to (perhaps) drinking too much (occasionally) are gone.

  I was on the precipice of a whole new life. Dot-com millions! No more empty suits looking over my shoulder. I'd be my own boss. None of the old phone company aggravations! This was certainly no time to abandon faithful old friends like Jack and Johnnie. I thought of all the great men— all the great artists and leaders and visionaries throughout history— that drank alcohol. In fact, alcohol often fueled business genius and creative accomplishment.

  Just ask any alcoholic, I thought crazily.

  The key, the secret, was all in moderation. Ancient philosophers knew this.

  Aristotle kn
ew it. I would simply employ the Aristotelian Golden Mean.

  My (dwindling) inner voice of sanity piped up: Jimmy, this is insane thinking. Why don't you call someone? Your brain is a very dangerous place. Like a really bad neighborhood. You shouldn't be in there all alone.

  And as I took the I-680 exit to Sycamore Road in Danville I was temporarily restored to sanity.

  For about two minutes.