That man means business, she says.
Can’t mean no more business than that, I say.
We laugh, and there isn’t anything in our laughs but truth.
Tonight the rink’s crackin; I’m talking a fusillade of couples, cliques, one or two drowsing in solo-dolo, a few dudes I balled against in grade school, a trio of chicks in flourescent leggings — one of whom I smashed too recent for me to be blithe about it. The chick gives me the eye, gives Kim the eye, and she’s modest about the shit like none, a sign hard to ignore but I hope my girl ain’t peeped it.
You know her? Kim says.
Yes and no, I say.
And that means? she says.
In passing, I say. Why, cause she’s mugging us? That ain’t nothing but hate.
Hate on who for what? Kim says.
Cause look at you, I say. Look at us.
Alright, Champ, she says. Whatever you say.
I slip on my skates and lock away our stuff. The next song muddles over the speakers. Slow-mo skaters lap the rink. Kim stands and pirouettes and faces me. What a great idea, Babe, she says. Why can’t we do stuff like this all the time? She puts out her hand and says, Come, let’s show them how to do it.
I tell her to give me a sec, but only so I can watch her make the rink alone. What’s better than watching your girl swoon through a crowd under strobes. Oneiric is right, damn near everywhere we go, my girl’s the girl, that dark skin, eyes always one color and then another, legs you could climb to heights. I love, love it. Love being out with her. No lie, when we’re out my nuts swell up from seeing (as long as that shit don’t approach disrespect) mortal niggers awed.
The DJ calls couple skate and plays a slow jam. Here comes Kim gliding off the floor, her hair floating behind her. Babe, come, she says, reaching out. Get up, will you.
Now? I say.
Yes! she says, and tugs me off the bench and onto the floor. We catch each other hand in tender hand and lock a tandem stride for laps. The DJ mixes one slow song into the next. The chick I hit rides by snickering with her bright-clothed crew. Superskate flies by in a backwards scrawl and nudges me into a stumble. My girl grips me tight, keeps me steady.
Look at us, she says.
Right, I say. Look.
Chapter 9
That I’ve been searching for the same things ever since.
It’s like lightning, like love, like the cure. And if you haven’t felt it you can’t judge — or at least shouldn’t. If you haven’t felt it, how could you ever really know what us addicts, us experts, are up against in this life of programs and counselors and sponsors, what we face because of or in spite of our earned expertise? Ask, and if any one of us is telling the truth we’ll admit that our kind of lying is like a religion.
This is why they say no one does this alone. Why they say once an addict equals always one. Why they say your program membership should be lifelong. Why they mandate ninety meetings your first ninety days. It’s tough to guess how many are here except to say that it’s more maybe than expected and never enough as it should be. Up front a new group leader — he’s a shaggy redhead with freckled arms — sits on a table and sips a steaming mug. He raises a hand and waits until the gabbing stops, until the members scrape their chairs into place; he waits and clears his throat and sets aside his drink and stands.
Hello, I’m an addict and my name is Randy, he says. Welcome to the Learning to Live chapter of Narcotics Anonymous. I’d like to open this meeting with a moment of silence for the addict who still suffers. This settles us. Randy hops off the table and pads near a portable chalkboard.
Is there anyone attending their first meeting? he says. If so, welcome. You are the most important people here. All we ask is that everyone present follow one law: Never attend a meeting with drugs or paraphernalia on your person. If you’re carrying, please take it outside and leave it and we’ll welcome you back. This protects our meeting place and the NA fellowship as a whole. Randy moves near the first row of seats. He’s short and soft, a mix that usually gives grown men a complex, but somehow commanding. You have to make five years or more to lead a group, which means for us — or at least those of us know who’ve been in this place, those who’ve tried and failed, who’ve quit and joined — Randy is an apostle. If you’ve used today, please seek out a fellow member at the break or after the meeting, he says. It costs nothing to belong. You are a member when you say you are.
As is my habit, I scan the shoes of the members in my row — it ain’t a clean pair among them — then off to my sides. My neighbor’s arm is sprent with needle pricks, his thumbnail discolored. No way to justify this life, my life, but slamming a needle is a whole other harm. Randy leads us in the we version of the Serenity Prayer: God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
We finish and members volunteer — everyone’s always so eager to submit — to read from the basic text.
Who is an addict?
What is the program?
Why are we here?
How does it work?
The twelve traditions.
The meetings begin the same. So goes a theory of resurrection.
An addict, any addict, can stop using, lose the desire to use, and learn a new way of life, they say.
They say and they say and it sounds so easy, as if living clean is no more than hitting the right switch, as if it takes something less than heroics to face history dead-on, to accept the life we’ve earned. The meetings are meant to be havens, but not everyone comes for safety. Last week. I wasn’t but few blocks away last meeting when this guy approached me — breath smelling like the worst breath — claiming he had what I need. I’d seen him in the meeting, reciting the steps, even stuffing money in the seventh principle basket, seen him running his glazed eyes up and down the rows. No, I think I got what you need, I said, and offered him a handful of mints.
We make fearless and searching inventories.
Hello, I’m an addict and my name is Mark. My drug of choice is meth. I used to deal it, then, bam, my first hit. Couldn’t breathe without the shit after that. Every day spent chasing the next score. The next hit and nothing else. Up for a friggin week straight sometimes, getting high, no food, a sip of water when I remembered. A real addict too. Would piss myself if the dope wasn’t finished and a trip to the bathroom meant missing a hit. It wasn’t long before people I’d known all my life turned their heads when they saw me coming, seen someone resembling the old me, with the way, on a good run, I’d shrink down to a percent of myself, skin with a few sharp sticks inside. Got so bad I couldn’t friggin stand to walk past a mirror. The dope dropped me so low that I broke in my mom’s place and stole her wedding ring. Worthless man, no other way to put it. Scum who didn’t deserve to live.
We make fearless and searching inventories and tell the fearful to keep coming back. Keep coming back and it works. We can stand up and testify when we so choose. But what would I tell them? That the first time I took my eldest. That Dawn, my best friend, promised I’d feel better and forget. That I’ve been waiting for that to happen ever since. Though when we tell our story, a bit of our trouble becomes another’s, there will be no fearless and searching inventory for me. Not today. My business is my business until it isn’t.