Drunken Angel (9781936740062) (32 page)

At the North Beach open mike I read the title poem, “American Cruiser,” from my book and received a rousing ovation from the twenty or so people present, mostly other poets come to read their own work. Among them was a black woman in a wheelchair who was not a poet.

She waved me over. “How much for that book?” she asked.

“Three dollars, ma'am.”

“Give me one, please. No, give me two. I want to give one to my son.”

She removed a small bead-covered purse, unsnapped it, and counted out six singles, all she had.

Heart wrenched, I held out the two books and said: “Ma'am, it would be my pleasure and honor to sell you two for the price of one.”

“Nonsense!” she snapped, wagging the bills at me. “Take your money. Give me my books. That's a beautiful poem you wrote, and real poets like you gotta eat, just like the rest of us. You don't look to me like you're getting properly fed. Big tall good-looking fellow like you should eat well. Who's taking care of you, son? I can see your momma's not around for a thousand miles. Is that right?”

“Right now, I'm in God's hands, ma'am.” And to my own amazement, realized that I truly meant it.

She began a reply but the words caught in her throat and her eyes grew moist. Though I took the money, her hand remained aloft, inviting me to hold it, which I did. She said: “Not too many people would give that answer these days, son. You're a very beautiful man. A very beautiful man! And you are God's poet. It's God puts words like that in a beautiful man's mind. Will you sign my books, please? Make mine out to Lucille and his out to Bobby.”

I did as asked, thanked her, and went around to other tables
hawking my wares. To my utter amazement, the books sold. Willie Deuce rejoiced at the prospect of lo mein.

“Dude! You made about twenty-five bucks in there!” he panted as we cut across Columbus Avenue, past City Lights Books, and down Kerouac Alley to Sam Ho's Noodle Shop, a little dive with steamy old dumbwaiters and crawlspace tables, but the food was cheap and plentiful and we each ordered big plates of egg rolls, bowls of wonton soup, and heaping portions of beef lo mein.

We didn't speak until the food came, realized there was nothing to say, and fell to it, slurping down the noodles, spooning in the wontons, ravenous, crunching down on egg rolls; washed it all down with big drafts of hot tea. It was a great feast and we made it last. Not a speck of food left. Finished off with fortune cookies that we recited to each other.

Willie Deuce read his: “To have good friends you must be a good friend.”

I read mine: “You have only one life. Live it clean and sober.”

He looked at me. “You made that shit up.”

I smiled and said, “Let's go have a cigarette.”

Bellies full, we walked over to a good spot in the sun, a wall off Columbus Avenue, and, sliding to a sit, contentedly lit up cigarettes. Willie Deuce put his hand out and shook mine. “I know you don't want to hear me say thank you and how much I appreciate you taking me along like this, buying me this good meal—”

Before he could finish the thought, I peeled off ten bucks, stuffed it into his shirt pocket, and said: “And are you also eternally grateful for the tenner I just gave you and you will never be able to repay me?”

Willie Deuce laughed. “Don't get all hard-assed on me, now. We both know you're a good man. No point avoiding that fact, bud.”

“Okay.” I grinned. “I'm a good guy. Just take care of yourself, okay, Willie Deuce? Don't drink today. Agreed?”

He stood up, smiled. Walked off.

I never saw him again.

IN A TENDERLOIN SPECIALTY PET SHOP I BOUGHT a pretty little goldfish that I named “Debra.” Only later did I realize that Debra is the name of my brother, Howard's, wife. What possible psychological implications this might have I dared not even to consider.

At first, she was just a nice surprise when I got home to my room—to find her gliding in her small round bowl, alive, a life other than mine. The pleasure that I took in her surprised me. Fed her a pinch of food, watched her nibble on a flake, her mobile color form antidote to the drab rooming house.

And then, one day, I came home hurting inside. Though I'd gone to a meeting, and written some poems, the whole reality of my life, being nearly thirty-eight, had crashed in on me. I was living flat broke and still newly sober, managing a run-down flophouse in a sketchy neighborhood, a member of a poetry avant-garde that had little chance of breaking through, let alone of earning money—and to make things worse, at the meeting, a fellow named Charles who
had the same length of sober time as me, six months, showed up dressed to the nines, hair styled, with a knockout girlfriend on his arm and leading a leashed Saint Bernard.

He announced to the group that he could no longer attend our meeting because he'd just landed a great new high-paying unionized job as a master carpenter, and in addition he'd just acquired a cherry vintage black Chevelle SS. He owed it all to recovery, he said, and he looked forward to more great things that his Higher Power had in store for him. Hoped he'd be able to drop in on meetings now and then just to stay in touch.

At his mention of a Higher Power, my insides lurched. Still couldn't claim to have found one or even to have given it much thought. Eugene, my sponsor, had told me not to worry about it. “Anytime you find another alcoholic standing in front of you,” he had said, “looking you in the eye and talking about sobriety, consider that God is there, speaking through him or her to you. Or anytime you're sitting in a meeting, consider that God is there. For now, think of God as an acronym for ‘Group of Drunks.' ”

Those were instructions I could follow. Needed to be baby-fed sobriety a teaspoonful at a time. Too much too fast spooked me. When I told Eugene that, he said: “Sure. That's right. That's why we say fear is just an acronym for ‘Fuck Everything and Run.' ”

Always quick to catch him out, quickly I shot back: “But you once said fear stands for ‘False Evidence Appearing Real.' Which is it?”

“Both. You'll see.”

And he was right.

But now, there was Charles. My age, same time sober. But he was dressed in fine threads, driving a sweet car, hooked up with a high-heeled blonde bombshell, and master of a gigantic and lovable Saint Bernard, a terrific breed, especially when one considered their
traditional use as brandy-bearing rescuers bounding over avalanche snows to deliver a keg full of schnapps right to you. What drunk would not love such a creature?

One day, I confessed my envy of Charles's good fortune to Eugene, who said: “I'm skeptical of whatever it is that you think he's got. What you've got is far more important.”

“What I've got? I've got nothing! A crazy nonjob as custodian of a dumping ground for psychos, malcontents, and petty hoods. A little book of poems that maybe fifty people have read. And a goldfish in a bowl. I'm penniless, heading into middle age, and still eating in soup kitchens. And my ex-wife won't even let me talk to my daughter. What I've got? I'm pathetic!”

“How many meetings did you get to today?”

“Three. I was feeling so poor over Charles's good luck.”

“Uh-huh. Well, while you were feeling sorry for yourself did you do anything to pitch in and help at the meeting in any way?”

“Yeah. I stepped up to make coffee for one of the groups when their regular coffeemaker didn't show.”

“And you wrote today?”

“Yeah. A new poem.”

“You ate?”

“It tasted like mud. But it was food.”

“This guy with the Saint Bernard, he's been in recovery the same amount of time as you, but look at what conclusions he's reached. That he can handle a relationship, care for a Saint Bernard, hold down a full-time job, keep up a high-maintenance car, and he'll do that by dropping in now and then on meetings when he has time. Let's see how well that works. How's that goldfish of yours, by the way? Debra?”

“Swimming.”

“Well, that's wonderful! I would have thought she'd be dead by
now. What's it been? A whole two weeks that you've fed her and changed the water in her bowl?”

“Something like that.”

“So have you figured out why you gave her your brother's wife's name?” He was grinning now from ear to ear.

A black cloud of gloom overtook me. I leaned forward, hands clasped anxiously. “What do you think? Any significance to my choice of that name?”

“Not unless your brother's married to a goldfish. Then I'd say we might need to have a professional look at you. But you're nuts anyway, so what does it matter? You're doing better than I ever expected. I already told you, you're the worst alcoholic I've ever met, and I've seen some bad ones. When I first met you I wouldn't have given five cents for your staying dry a single day. But you're doing great. The hell with Charles. I'll tell you what. You just decide that from here on in, since your life is already a great big loss, you're going to be a pathetic recovery loser who does loser shit like go to lots of meetings and helping other drunks and writing poetry. Let Charles get the bimbos and Saint Bernards. You're the loser who puts recovery and spiritual life before everything. We'll see who comes out on top.”

 

When I entered my small room, Debra would circle the bowl, small, orange, and streamlined, backlit by a soft lamp. I leaned close, said: “Hi, Deb!” She looked incredibly pretty to me, beautiful even. Had doe eyes and a pert little nose and naturally large wide lips without any silicone. Filling a water glass, I used a small net to transfer her out of her bowl while I cleaned it and changed the water. I returned Deb to her fishbowl and sat with my face close to the convex glass. She came over.

“Look what I got you. A friend!”

I removed from my pocket a tiny rubber deep-sea diver that I'd found in a toy store, and dropped it in. She darted away. It sank right to the bottom and lay there, looking dead. She swam away to avoid it.

“What's the matter, Deb? Don't you like the dead deep-sea diver? That's what I feel like. That's what I find when I go down deep: a diver half dead. I'm so tired.”

I placed Debra's bowl on a chair where I could watch her circling from my cot. She always seemed to pause on the side facing me, as if she wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see her. And in this way, it seemed, we kept each other company.

“Can it be?” I asked her. “Do you have feelings? Are you as lonely as I am? All alone here in this crazy little room and you all alone in your crazy little bowl. Did last night's gunshots from the projects scare you? They woke me. The gangbangers go on the roof and shoot off their guns. They get high and aim at the stars. Can you imagine being in so much pain that you shoot at stars with a gun? I'm in pain, Debra. What have I got to show for my life? What have I done? Did you know that I have a daughter, Debra? Her name is Isadora. She's in Israel. I have no money to see her. I worry about her. I miss her. Every day, I miss her. It's a constant ache in my gut, hurts all the time. How was your day? What'd you do? I saw the food flake gone. Which reminds me, it's your dinner time.”

Swung my legs off the cot, rose, found her food, removed a big flake, and dropped it in. As it floated to the bottom she swam to it, took a big bite, and cut a lazy graceful happy diagonal, nibbling the flake, tiny trapped air pockets bubbling to the water's surface.

“You really are a sweet little fish, aren't you? Huh! I'm surprised how much I like you.”

But as I continued to watch her, and talk, open up more about
myself, how I felt, something occurred that worried me. Immediately, I called my sponsor.

“I just want to ask you something. It's weird, but you said that no matter how weird I shouldn't hesitate to share it with you if I feel truly disturbed.”

“Yeah, that's right.”

“Well, I find myself truly disturbed.”

“By what?”

I hesitated. But knew that rigorous honesty was absolutely crucial to my sobriety. So.

“I'm having sexual feelings for the fish.”

After a pause, my sponsor said: “Okay. So, what's the problem?”

“Isn't that sorta sick?”

“No. Feeling sexual is sane.”

“But for a goldfish? One named after my brother's wife?”

“My guess is, it's more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“Probably you're projecting feelings onto Deb. I mean, Debra the fish, not your brother's wife. Feelings, all feelings, have some sort of sexual component. You haven't felt anything in years, so it might be a little confusing to you. Some of your wires got crossed. Anyway, why worry about it? You're not going to screw the fish, right? Even if you wanted to, you couldn't. So, enjoy the feelings. It'll all work out in the end. You'll see. My guess is, you're bonding with Deb. And there might be some sensual component to the feeling that makes you uncomfortable. You probably have mixed or confused feelings about sensuality. But also, you're taking an emotional risk by bonding with her. Because it means the possibility of loss.”

“You mean she might run off with someone else.”

“Just let the bonding with her continue.”

“Check out Freud of the Fishes.” I laughed.

He didn't. “You mustn't let yourself get Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. HALT. Take care of those. Everything will work out. Did you eat?”

“Not really.”

“Eat something. Are you tired?”

“A little, yeah.”

“Angry?”