Beautiful Boy (31 page)

A month passes. Two. In June, I am going to LA to conduct an interview. I ask Nic if he wants to meet me for dinner.

I pick him up in front of his apartment. We hug when we see each other. Stepping back, I look at him and try to take in what is there. By now I have learned enough to know that at some point, addicts, especially meth addicts, don't recover—at least for a long, long time. Some never recover. The physical, never mind the mental, debilitation can be permanent. But Nic's eyes are light-filled brown, and his body seems strong again. He's young enough to bounce back, or at least it looks as if he has. His laugh seems easy and honest. But I have observed this transformation before.

We take a walk and make small talk—the upcoming election, stuff like that. Movies are always safe. "I want to apologize," he says, but his voice catches and he is silent. For the moment it seems to be impossible for him. Maybe there is too much to apologize for.

We meet again the next evening and I accompany him to an AA meeting. While drinking tepid coffee from paper cups, we introduce ourselves. "I'm Nic, a drug addict and alcoholic," he says.
When it's my turn, I say, "I'm David, father of an addict and alcoholic, here to support my son."

The meeting's speaker says that he has been in recovery for a year. There is applause. He tells stories about the impact on his life. Last week, he says, he found himself alone with a friend's girlfriend, to whom he had been attracted for years. She began to come on to him. Any other time in his life he would have been elated and wouldn't have thought twice about sleeping with her, but he started to kiss her and then stopped himself. He said, "I can't do this," and he left. Outside her apartment building, walking home, he began crying uncontrollably. He says, "It dawned on me. I have gotten my morals back." Nic and I look at each other with ... what? Tentativeness. And for the first time in a long time, tenderness.

I am continuously reminded that nothing is easy for Nic. My heart goes out to him. I want to do something to help, but there's nothing to be done. I want him to acknowledge the traumatic past and promise that it will never happen again. He can't. When we talk, in fact, I realize that Nic has discovered the bitterest irony of early sobriety. Your reward for your hard work in recovery is that you come headlong into the pain that you were trying to get away from with drugs. He says that he sometimes feels optimistic, but other times he is depressed and desolate. "Sometimes I don't think I can make it," he says. He feels overwhelmed by this relapse. "How could I have fucked up so badly?" he asks. "I can't believe I did it. I almost lost everything. I don't think I can face starting over again."

Nic admits that sometimes he fantasizes about relapsing. He dreams about it. Again. Always. His dreams are vivid and ghastly. He feels at once the abhorrence and the seduction of drugs. He can taste them. He tastes crystal, smells it, feels the needle pierce his skin, feels the drug coming on, and the dream turns into a nightmare because he cannot stop. He wakes up panting, in a sweat.

I know that being sober is more difficult for Nic than I can comprehend. I feel sympathy and pride for his hard work. When I get angry about the past—the lies, the break-ins, the betrayals—I restrain myself from saying anything or even reacting. It does no good. I think it was in New York that Nic and I saw
The Royal
Tenenbaums
together. Nico—her voice pained—sings Jackson Browne's "These Days." I hear her sing the haunting lyric: "Don't confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them." I have to remind myself that if Nic's relapses horrify me, it's worse for him. I suffer, Vicki suffers, Karen suffers, Jasper and Daisy suffer, my parents suffer, Karen's suffer, others who love Nic suffer, but he suffers more. "Don't confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them."

Today was particularly tough, Nic says when he calls. Indeed, he sounds depleted. His car broke down on his way to an interview for a job he's excited about. As a result, he missed the interview. I always worry if these normal, everyday frustrations will be too much for him, but he and Randy went riding. They rode for hours and talked about the program, AA, the twelve steps, and how difficult it is to open up to the world, but how much there is to gain when you do. Sobriety is only the beginning, and is the only beginning.

Though they have spoken on the telephone with Nic, Karen, Jasper, and Daisy have not seen him since the relapse. We keep trying to explain it to Jasper and Daisy. "He has a disease" doesn't begin to comfort them. It's a wholly unsatisfying, confusing explanation. From their perspective, the symptoms of a disease are things like coughing, fevers, or a sore throat. The closest they get to understanding is Jasper's image of the devil and the angel, competing for Nic's soul. Regardless, Daisy and Jasper miss him. Karen and I are unwilling to let Nic visit us in Inverness. We need more time. Nic seems to understand. We are not ready to have him come home again—not after this last time. Not after the stolen checks, the car chase, the traumatic break-ins at our and our friends' homes, the thefts, the trauma of not knowing—imagining him in the trunk of a car driving east across the country, Sacramento, Reno, Billings, Montana. But in late summer, we are taking a vacation to Molokai, Hawaii, staying in tent cabins above a beach, and Karen suggests that we use some frequent-flier miles and invite Nic to join us. Finally she's ready to see him. For us both, it feels safer to meet on neutral territory, and a vacation is a less complicated time to try to begin to reunite.

***

On the day of Nic's arrival, the four of us drive to the single-runway airport on Molokai to meet him. As always, the reunion combines excitement with intense nervousness.

"Daisy, you have a stuffy little nose, missypants," Nic gushes when he sees her, picking Daisy up in a bear hug and spinning in a circle. "It's so good to see you, little boinky.

"And you, mister," he says, squatting down to meet Jasper's full eyes. "I have missed you more than the sun misses the moon at night." He squeezes him too.

During the long drive to the camp, there is some diffidence and awkwardness, but then Jasper asks for a PJ story, and we are back in safe territory.

Nic begins: "PJ Fumblebumble, London's greatest detective, awoke." He uses a British accent that borrows pitch and tenor from the narrator of
Rocky and Bullwinkle
cartoons. "As everybody knows, PJ Fumblebumble is the greatest detective in all of London. However, for those of you who have spent your whole life living in a cave or in a hut buried beneath snow, I'll just say that if anything were to ever go amiss for you—a missing parakeet, a burglar in the bedroom, no syrup for your pancakes—there's only one man that you need bother to call. That man, as you probably guessed, is the one, the only, Inspector PJ Fumblebumble. Children want to be him, men are fiercely jealous of him, and women swoon at the very mention of his name."

Nic has been telling installments of these stories about PJ and Lady Penelope for years. The kids love them. "The man is tall and thin," Nic continues, "lanky and lean like a lollipop stick with legs and a carefully groomed handlebar mustache. His nose is enormous and hooked. It can follow a scent as well as a common bloodhound. His ears are equally keen and oversized. His hair is beginning to gray and fall out on top, while his eyes require the aid of round, wire-rimmed spectacles. Dashing and bold, he is aging with distinction. The man's hands are large, with fingers of knotted rope. His Adam's apple is round and protrudes marvelously."

The PJ story takes most of the ride to the campsite. After the conclusion—PJ arrests the vile Professor Julian "Poopy Shoes" Pipsqueak—the kids update Nic about school and their friends.

"Tasha has gotten meaner and she always copies me," Daisy is
saying. "She ignores Richard, who follows her around. It makes him cry."

"The snobby little prig," answers Nic, still British from PJ.

We drive along and gaze out on red-earth vistas. In a moment, Jasper quietly asks: "Nic, are you going to use drugs anymore?"

"No way," Nic says. "I know you worry, but I'll be all right."

They are quiet. We stare at the red clay and spy the first glimpse of the breaking surf.

At the beachside camp, the five of us ride rental bikes, play in the sand, and swim together in the waves. Karen reads aloud
Treasure Island
in the shade of palm trees.

One afternoon we go to town for ice cream, to a shop with chairs with twisted wire backs and legs. The assortment of flavors is uniquely Hawaiian: sweet potato, green tea, and macadamia nut swirl.

It is striking to me how our dual realities once again blur. It's probably a vestigial survival mechanism. Now, instead of recalling the overwhelming calamity and evil, I am swept up in the loveliness of the children here together and the natural beauty. I feel as if we are all being washed clean by the ocean and warm tropical breeze. Feeling hopeful about Nic's future, I can tuck the darkness of his addiction away—not to forget it, but I set it aside—and meanwhile appreciate the sublimity. A sunset, the clear green water, poetry in the music that plays on CDs in the car—Lennon singing "Julia," Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks." For the moment, evil is at bay.

The night is filled with the sounds of crickets and mice skittering across the wood floor. From their tent with three single beds, we also can hear Nic reading to Jasper and Daisy. He has picked up
The Witches
where he left off more than two years ago.

After goodbyes at the airport, we board separate jets, Nic for LA, us for San Francisco.

A week later, I am with Jasper in Point Reyes Station, where we pick up the mail. There's a stack of bills, letters from their school with a schedule for the new year, and a letter for Jasper—from Nic. Jasper opens the envelope carefully. He unfolds the letter and holds it in his hands, reading aloud. In his neat script on paper torn out
of a notebook, Nic writes, "I'm looking for a way to say I'm sorry more than with just the meaninglessness of those two words. I also know that this money can never replace all that I stole from you in terms of the fear and worry and craziness that I brought to your young life. The truth is, I don't know how to say I'm sorry. I love you, but that has never changed. I care about you, but I always have. I'm proud of you, but none of that makes it any better. I guess what I can offer you is this: As you're growing up, whenever you need me—to talk or just whatever—I'll be able to be there for you now. That is something that I could never promise you before. I will be here for you. I will live, and build a life, and be someone that you can depend on. I hope that means more than this stupid note and these eight dollar bills."

JOEL

How exactly is this going to work tonight?

(As Mierzwiak talks, the room colors start to fade. Mierzwiak's tone of voice is also affected; it becomes dry and monotonous.
)

MIERZWIAK

We'll start with your most recent memories and go backwards—There is an emotional core to each of our memories—As we eradicate this core, it starts its degradation process—By the time you wake up in the morning, all memories we have targeted will have withered and disappeared. Like a dream upon waking.

JOEL

Is there any sort of risk of brain damage?

mierzwiak

Well, technically, the procedure itself is brain damage, but on par with a heavy night of drinking. Nothing you'll ever miss.

—C
HARLIE
K
AUFMAN,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

My article "My Addicted Son" appears in the
New York Times Magazine
in February. Nic and I both hear from friends and strangers, sharing the feedback. Both of us are encouraged, because it seems as if our family's story has touched many people—and, according to some, helped them, especially those who have been through some version of this, or who are going through it now.

When Nic is asked to write his memoir, he enthusiastically goes forward. And the reaction inspires me to want to write more about it—to go deeper. Soon I have a book deadline, though I would continue writing without one. Writing is enormously painful, and writing this story is sometimes excruciating. Writing every day, I go through the emotions I felt at the time of the story I'm remembering. I relive the hell. But I also relive the moments of hope and miracle and love.

Later in February, we plan to spend the weekend skiing at Lake Tahoe. Nic gets a few days off work so he can join us. The kids ski together. In the evening, Nic tells them PJ stories by the fire.

When we talk about it, Nic seems emphatically committed to his sobriety. I have learned to check my optimism, but still, it's good to hear Nic discuss the life he is rebuilding and building anew in LA. In addition to his book, he is writing short stories and movie reviews for an online magazine. It seems so fitting that he's reviewing movies, since they are such a big part of his life. Every day in
LA, Nic bikes, swims, or runs. Sometimes he does all three. Nic and Randy ride up and down the coast from Santa Monica. They ride through the canyons, up hillsides, through the city, and along beaches.

When I drive him to the airport after his visit in the mountains, he tells me that he loves his life. He uses those words. "I love my life."

He says that his rides with Randy enliven and sustain him. "The high is so so so so much better than drugs ever were," he says. "It is the high of a full life. Riding, I feel it all."

Yes, I am optimistic. Do I stop worrying? No.

It is June 2. A few days before this year's step-up ceremony at Daisy and Jasper's school—she is stepping up to fourth grade, Jasper to sixth. Karen and I are home in Inverness. Suddenly I feel as if my head is exploding.

People use this as an expression. Not this time. I really feel as if my head is exploding.

"Karen, call 911."

She stares at me a minute, doesn't comprehend what I'm saying. "Are you..."