by Sam Harris
Black Magic Woman, indeed.
“Let’s do it again,” I had begged at age eight.
I wouldn’t have my next drink for two whole years. But that one would last for the next twenty-nine.
• • •
It was 2:58 a.m. in Los Angeles. I screened.
“Baby, it’s me. Are you awake?”
What kind of a question is that? It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning! Is she kidding?
But yes, I was awake. In fact I was in the kitchen, noshing from a peanut butter jar while I held my arm over the stove flame, thinking it would be interesting to see if I could find the perfect distance between the gas fire and my arms to singe the hair without burning the skin. The smell of burning hair was acrid as I continued to singe and nosh. I got too close to the flame and dropped the peanut butter jar, which shattered on the iron burner. In an effort to collect the pieces, I cut my finger, which then led me to the experiment of sprinkling Sweet’N Low on the blood and sucking it off my finger to see how it would taste. Then I chased it with another swift gulp of vodka, finishing off the bottle.
It was 6:00 a.m. on the East Coast—way early for Liza to be up.
I picked up the phone. “Hey there. Yes, I’m awake. Are you okay? I’ve left a dozen messages over the past couple of weeks.”
There was a pause as she drew deeply on a cigarette and then exhaled. Finally she said, “Baby, I’m in rehab.”
My heart sank. No one had worked harder for their sobriety than Liza. No one.
She continued. “I’m sitting here with my counselor and Family Week is coming and I want you to come. You’re my family. And I really need you. Can you come?”
I wrapped my finger with a wet paper towel to stop the bleeding. “Yes. Sure, I can come. Of course. Where am I going?”
“I’m gonna hand over the phone to Carol and she can give you the details. I love you so much. You’re my family. Thank you. Dress warm.” And she was gone.
The next morning, I headed to LAX for a 7:00 a.m. flight to somewhere in Pennsylvania and found a days-old tabloid rag stuffed in the car service seat pocket that reported my friend was in rehab. I was so out of the loop.
Six hours later, I was met at the airport by a seventyish, doughy man in blue slacks and white socks, holding a sign bearing my first name only. As I approached him, I took in his kind eyes and noticed he’d missed the same spots when shaving enough times to leave patches of gray whiskers sprigging haphazardly from his full cheeks and neck. He insisted on loading my oversize suitcase into a van and we headed through the snow-covered countryside in the middle of nowhere.
“For just tonight you’ll be staying at a hotel. I’ll pick you up first thing in the morning to drive you to the facility.” The facility. After several attempts at conversation during which I grunted single-syllable responses, he finally surrendered to silence. Then he said, “You’re going to like this place. It really works.” I slowly lowered my sunglasses on my nose and looked at him in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “I am here,” I corrected him, “for a friend.” I pushed my sunglasses back up and hunkered into the worn vinyl seat.
He dropped me at a Days Inn or a Ramada Inn or a Something-or-Other Inn and said he’d be by to pick me up the next day at 6:00 a.m.
“Six a.m.? In the morning?”
What had I gotten myself into? I was tired and edgy, but glad to be there for my dear friend and grateful that she was getting the help she needed.
The woman at the reception desk was perky. She welcomed me, pointing out the restaurant and gift shop across the lobby, and wished me a great night. As soon as I entered my room, it occurred to me that I should get to bed early since I was on West Coast time and the old man was picking me up at what I considered 3:00 a.m. I called room service. “This is Sam Harris. Could I please get a cheeseburger and a glass of wine.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Harris. That’ll be about forty-five minutes.”
“Really?”
“We’re backed up.”
“Then cancel the hamburger and just bring the wine. Could you possibly bring that faster than forty-five minutes?”
I showered and put on boxer shorts and a tank in time for a knock at the door. A girl in her early twenties was on the other side. Her skin was superwhite and starchy, and she would have been almost pretty if not for the bad bleach job and overly applied eye makeup, smudged by a long shift. She was quite bosomatious, and her faded black T-shirt pressed against her polyester pea-green vest bearing the logo “Days Inn” or “Ramada Inn” or “Something-or-Other Inn.”
She held a tray bearing the tiniest glass of wine that I had ever seen. Impossibly small. Tragically minute. Barely more than vapor. I asked where the rest of the glass of wine might be. She chomped her gum and laughed, acknowledging it was small. I signed the check, threw back the glass, and replaced it on the tray with a sturdy whack. “Could you bring another or do I have to call room service again?”
“I can do that,” she said, slightly kittenish in a gum-smacking sort of way.
“Make that two. They’re small.”
“No prob.”
A few minutes later, she returned with two of the tiny glasses, filled to the brim. “Better?” she asked with a smile. “I dig your tattoos. Where’d you get ’em?”
“One in Los Angeles and the other I have no idea.”
I signed the check and bid her good night.
Twenty minutes later I was not sleepy and was nervous about the next day. I didn’t want to drink too much because I needed to be fresh. But a little more wine couldn’t hurt. It was just wine. Ordering by the glass seemed uneconomical, so I called room service for a bottle. I’d throw out what I didn’t drink.
While waiting, I realized I was starving, but I’d already made such an issue of the forty-five-minute burger that it would be humiliating to call back and order food. I decided to see if anyone had left anything in the hall. Sometimes you can get practically a whole meal from people’s leftovers. I carefully positioned the chain lock so that the door would remain lodged open and headed out to scavenge. Sure enough, someone had left part of a Philly cheesesteak and more than a handful of fries. I carefully cut off the chewed part, added a little mustard, and stuffed the remainder in my mouth.
Suddenly I heard the elevator bing. Someone was coming! I rushed back to my room and accidentally hit the door so that the chain slid down and the door locked. I stood in the hallway in my boxers and tank with cheesesteak Cheez Whiz and mustard running down my chin. The same room service girl rounded the corner with her tray. She gave me a flirtatious once-over.
“I locked myself out,” I said, mouth full, stating the obvious.
“Good thing I came along first, huh?” she replied, and used her pass-card key to open the door.
“I was looking for the ice machine,” I floundered, finally swallowing.
“It’s by the elevator. But next time you might want to take an ice bucket.”
I realized she’d put her hair up and reapplied her makeup since her last visit.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” she continued.
“No. That’s why I’m staying at a hotel . . .”
“Do you need any help with that bottle of wine? We’re closing soon.”
Seriously? The room service girl wanted to join me for a drink?
“I have to get up early so I’d better not,” I said, and tipped her generously, thanked her for all her trouble, and bid her good night for the third time.
Once inside, I poured most of the bottle into a tall glass, plopped on the bed, and turned on the TV, hoping to find something dull. I soon got up for a refill and on my way back, I tripped on a shoe and spilled some of the wine on the polyester bedspread. I guessed the equivalent of a small glass had been lost, just sitting there, a reservoir of yellow floating on top of the heinous flowered print. I considered funneling it off the bed and into my glass like a little river, but I’d seen a 60 Minutes where they’d shon
e a black light on hotel bedspreads, and the fluids that permeated them were epically grotesque. I had to draw the line somewhere.
“Goddamn it!!” I screamed, and I headed for the phone.
“This is Sam Harris and I just spilled the entire bottle of wine. Can you send up another?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Harris, room service is closed.”
“But the girl was just here ten minutes ago. I’m not asking you to cook anything. Just bring up a bottle of wine. I’ll pay extra. I’ll pay double.”
“Truly sir, we’re closed.”
“What if I come down and get it myself?”
“We’re locking up, Mr. Harris. We open for breakfast at five a.m.”
“Oh goody. Breakfast at five a.m.,” I spouted facetiously. “Should I put my order in now?”
I slammed down the phone and went to the bathroom, where I chewed an Ambien to make it work faster, then chased it with what was left of the wine.
I lay down on the fiber-filled wine-repelling comforter, leaving the pool intact in case I changed my mind about drinking it, and channel surfed to Tony Robbins’s gargantuan mouth telling me that “personal power equals action! ” It was only ten o’clock. Seven o’clock in Los Angeles. How was I going to fall asleep at this hour? It was ridiculous that they couldn’t bring up a bottle of wine and I was furious. How dare they?! I watched Tony’s teeth for another twenty minutes. “Make decisions, take action, clarity is power!” Having consumed nearly two bottles of wine and a sleeping pill, and inspired by Tony, I had a really good idea.
I carefully set the chain between the door and the frame again and crept down the hallway, into the stairwell and down the fire escape stairs, tiptoeing, barefoot in my boxers. When I got to the lobby floor, I cracked the door enough to see that the woman at the reception desk was reading a book. The coast was clear.
The tile floor was cold as I darted behind a column, then to another.
Scamper, scamper, scamper, hide. Scamper, scamper, scamper, hide.
I could see that the faux-iron gate at the restaurant’s entrance was chained, but there were arch-shaped, faux-brick windows along the side of its wall. I scampered once more to another column, and when I was sure the woman at the desk was engrossed in her book, I hoisted myself up and through a window, into the dark restaurant.
I snuck around the cash register and counter and into the kitchen. The floor was syrupy and my feet made a sucking sound with each step. An ambient glow emitted from an industrial glass-doored refrigerator that housed milk and faux-cheese and gallon-size screw-top jugs of cheap wine. It was padlocked.
Apparently, I was not the first guest to get this idea.
Suddenly from nowhere, the bosomatious bleach-blond girl appeared.
“Looking for me?” she inquired, adding a provocative smack of her gum.
I nearly jumped out of my boxers.
“Uh, no, I was . . . uh . . . looking for . . . milk. I have this brownie in my room and you know how horrible it is when you don’t have milk.”
“You’re drunk,” she giggled.
“No, I’m just jet-lagged and I have to be up in a few hours and . . . yes, I’m a little drunk.”
She cozied up to me, rubbing against my thigh.
I continued, “And a little . . .”
“What?” she said, coyly.
“Gay . . . a little drunk and a little gay.”
“Cool,” she said. “No prob. How’d you get in here?”
I pointed to the window and begged her not to tell anyone. She promised she wouldn’t.
“I like your tattoos.”
“You mentioned that.”
“I have the key to the fridge, if you want some . . . milk.”
She removed the padlock from the door and handed me one of the giant jugs of wine.
“You sure you’re gay?” she whispered.
“Pretty sure,” I replied.
“No prob.”
• • •
The next morning, I managed to get up before dawn and prepared my head for Family Week at rehab, whatever that might be. I was there for Liza. She needed me. She was an alcoholic and I would do anything to help her.
At 6:00 a.m., it was colder and frostier and so was I. The same driver met me in the lobby. He’d shaved, but had missed the same spots. This time he didn’t attempt conversation, for which I was grateful. We drove through the sterile, snowy landscape and arrived at the lodging area for guests. I was told I would be staying at “the Villa.” Things were looking up after the crappy hotel I’d barely slept in the night before.
The Villa was an old, masculine colonial building in need of fresh paint and some sprucing up. I pulled the collar of my coat closer around my neck and dragged my enormously oversize suitcase to join other family members who had just arrived at the steps of the columned, wooden porch. Their faces reflected the defeat and hope that had brought them here, and polite conversation was limited to only the essential.
A chipper attendant in her midfifties, with closely packed, overly permed Chia Pet hair, wearing high-waisted jeans and a “One Day at a Time” sweatshirt, carried a clipboard and shrieked in a cartoonishly high-pitched voice:
“Please form two lines. Those staying at the Villa, make a line on the left. Those at the Château, to the right. As you enter, please leave your bags on the porch and make sure they are labeled. They will be returned to you after checking for inappropriate contents.”
I wasn’t so concerned about inappropriate contents, but I was afraid that I’d be judged for the inappropriate clothes I’d brought. Clearly, I was not going to need my Ted Baker shirts or Hugo Boss suit.
I looked around at the silent line in their gray and black overcoats, shuffling forward, their breaths pluming in the bitter cold. They checked in, stacked their luggage, and disappeared into one of the side-by-side structures. They were following orders. They had nothing and everything in common. When I got to the chipper attendant, I couldn’t help but ask, with all my charm, “Which is the line for the barracks and which is the line for the gas chambers?”
She stared at me vacantly and pointed to where I should deposit my luggage.
I entered the Villa and schlepped up three flights of stairs with other guests and finally found my room. It had no lock on the door. It was tiny. Grim. Like a 1930s dorm room that hadn’t been painted since the 1930s, when apparently dull beige was all the rage. Two twin beds with transparently thin coverlets hugged opposing walls and a small table was squeezed between them. There was no phone. No TV. No clock. A door, which opened just enough so you could squeeze through before hitting a bed, led to a minuscule fluorescent-lit bathroom, shared with the adjoining room. I tried calling Danny but there was no signal. I imagined an invisible lead shield dome over the facility to restrain communication and undue influence.
I fell back onto one of the twin beds and it was so rock-hard that it stunned me. It had apparently petrified since the 1930s. The chipper attendant appeared in the doorway, clipboard in hand, and a young man brought in my suitcase. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “Quitting is for Quitters.”
“Find everything okay?” she chirped.
“I don’t suppose there’s a terry cloth robe behind that door,” I joked.
She stared back at me with a blank, overextended smile.
I tried again. “Or turndown service with a little Godiva chocolate on the pillow.”
“Okay then,” she clipped, and left the doorway.
“Or a minibar . . .” I muttered.
She reentered the doorframe in a flash, her eyes a little wider. “Beg pardon?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Okay then.” And she was gone.
I lowered myself slowly onto the stone bed, tired and hung-over. I closed my eyes. We’d been given no schedule and I could use a nap. Suddenly a bullhorn boomed, no, blasted, from just outside my door. I sat up in a start. The building must be on fire. The chipper attendant’s voice blared, no, trumpeted,
through the speaker: “Welcome, family members and loved ones. Please meet in the GRAND ROOM on the third floor. Please meet in the GRAND ROOM on the third floor.” The bullhorn sounded again to signal the end of her announcement. The first one wasn’t enough.
Where the hell am I? I pulled myself up from the slab and joined in the herd of slump-shouldered guests, shuffling down the stairs. No one spoke.
Like the misnamed Villa and Château, there was nothing grand about the Grand Room. It was a fake-paneled, stained-carpeted, forty-by-thirty room with a low cottage cheese ceiling and folding chairs facing a smallish TV on a metal stand. The lights were dim and I found a seat in the back row. An instructional video had begun, which featured a doctor, grimly facing the camera:
“. . . to give you a better understanding of what your loved ones are going through. Alcoholism is the great leveler. Rich, poor, young, old, presidents, and paupers. You are not alone.”
The woman next to me seemed exhausted, spent, barely functional. “Who are you in for?” I cleverly whispered.
“My son.”
“I’m here for a friend.”
I felt a tapping on my shoulder. It was a man in his midfifties, with closely packed, overly permed hair, wearing high-waisted jeans and a “It’s alcohol-ISM, not alcohol-WASM” T-shirt.
“Could we please have quiet?” he said. “What we don’t know can hurt us.” I smiled and nodded. Oh, brother. As soon as he was gone, I leaned in to the woman and spoke in a hush, barely moving my lips, like a ventriloquist. “I know all this stuff. My mother and my brother both went to Betty Ford . . . which is a hell of a lot nicer than this, by the way. They have swans.”
The woman politely smiled, but her eyes were empty. “We should probably watch this.”
Okay then. The video used animation to explain the way the brain responds to alcohol: little dopamine characters, pleasure centers, the alcoholic’s need to drink more and more to achieve the same effect, just to feel normal. It ended with the doctor, in a close-up this time, saying, “It is a vicious cycle. One that, unless broken, can end in incomprehensible demoralization and even death.”
