Last Call (13 page)

On this particular night Jim had decided walking in that when his turn to share came around he was going to pass. He was exhausted, his healing liver ached like a rotten tooth and he just wasn’t in the mood for dredging up the past.

Dr. Langtree was chairing the meeting tonight and he must have sensed Jim’s unease, because he corralled him at the coffee urn and asked him to read the A.A. Promises during the preamble. Jim almost refused, but didn’t want to appear rude.

Imagine that
, he thought, accepting the laminated card with the Promises listed on it.
Not bad for a guy who just a few weeks ago thought nothing of shitting himself on a Transit bus.

And goddammit, as he read the Promises aloud he began to feel better, as if he were a part of something now and the words he was reading held some truth for
him
. He could see Dr. Langtree smiling with pride.

In a full voice, Jim said, “The A.A. Promises. One: If we are painstaking about this phase of our recovery, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. Two: We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. Three: We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it...”

And when the preamble ended and Jim’s turn to share came around, Dr. Langtree said, “Jim, last time you were telling us about life on the street. Feel like picking up where you left off?”

Jim said, “Yeah, sure, the street. I adapted quickly. I guess I had a knack for the lifestyle. I was a liar and a con and, thanks to my father, pretty handy with my fists.”

A heavily tattooed teenage girl seated across from him said, “Your father beat you?” and Jim said, “Naw, he paid for boxing lessons.” He said, “For a while in my teens I wanted to be Muhammad Ali,” and a few people laughed. “I got pretty good at it, too. And it served me well on the street, depending on how shitfaced I was at the time. I had the crap beat out of me dozens of times. Spent a month in the hospital after one episode, two weeks of that in a coma. But mostly I fared pretty well. This one night I got into it with these two bums tried to roll me for a bottle...”

* * *

He’d seen these two douchebags before, big-gutted bullies in filthy twill shirts, rousting people from their hovels and boosting their shit, and there was no
way
they were getting his bottle. He’d worked all day to acquire it, and as soon as he was done crippling these pricks he was gonna sit his ass down by the trash fire over there and drain the sucker dry.

He set the bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 on the ground by the overpass wall and picked up a length of two-by-four he kept handy for the edification of assholes like these. They were almost on him now, acting all cool like they were just moseying over for a chat.
Dipshits.

The first one, the guy with the wizard’s beard, said, “You’re CD, right?”

“Who wants to know?”

The other guy, this one wearing aviator shades in the dark, said, “What’s the plank for, buddy? You building a house?”

Both of them laughed. They were closing in now, flanking him like jackals, fat fists coming out of empty pockets to hang ready at their sides.

Jim said, “I use it for dance lessons,” and clipped the bearded guy on the knee, sending him hopping off in pain. The second guy kept coming and Jim feinted with the two-by-four and kicked him in the balls. The guy went down hard and Jim was on him, mashing the sunglasses into his face with the butt end of the board.

“You shitheads wanna steal from me? Well, bring it on, bitches, bring it on.”

* * *

Jim said, “Something came loose in me that night. If the cops hadn’t shown up when they did, I would’ve killed that guy.”

Around the circle heads were nodding.

“I developed a taste for codeine on the street, and this one night me and my buddy DelRay broke into a drug store downtown. The owners lived upstairs and called the cops. We got busted going out the door. DelRay tried to run and they shot him in the leg. I got tied to a string of other robberies and ended up serving three years in the Kingston pen. That’s where I met my mistress. Heroin.”

Jim had an unfamiliar sensation then.
Is it shame?
Stymied by it, he said, “Anyways, I did my time and they put me back on the street. After that—”

Langtree said, “Jim, before you go on, why don’t you share your experience in prison?”

Jim put his head down. There was that feeling again. He said, “I don’t think I want to talk about that.”

“This is your third week here, Jim,” Langtree said. “As recovering addicts, the parts of our lives that have caused us the most pain are precisely the parts we must purge. This is the place to do that. So please, share with us.”

Jim kept his eyes on his lap and shook his head.

Langtree said, “I think the group deserves—” and Jim said, “Why are you pushing me, man?” Looking up now, fists clenched. “I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I understand that,” Langtree said, not letting it go, “but—”

Shaking his head, Jim said, “To hell with this,” and stormed out of the room, thinking,
I
told
you I don’t want to talk about that shit. Are you
deaf
?
On his way out he heard the scrape of a chair, someone getting up to follow him, then heard Langtree say, “No. Let him go.”

He slammed the gymnasium door and bounded up the stairs to his room, his healing incisions punishing him for it. Thirstier than he’d ever been, he stuffed his few belongings into a pillowcase, his mind racing ahead to the pub two short blocks away, his practiced fingers counting out the change in his pocket, not enough to get him all the way there but enough to take the edge off.
Stick this place up your arse,
Lang
tree. What kind of fucked up name is that, anyway?

Then he saw the strip of black–and-white photos he and Trish had taken in a photo booth the day she got her tooth diamond; the day she dropped him off here. He picked it up and studied each frame in the lamp light, the two of them crammed into that tiny booth, making dumb faces and acting the fool.

Rubbing his parched lips, Jim set the pillowcase on a chair and stretched out on the bed with his shoes on. With a tortured sigh, he closed his eyes and slept through the night for the first time since his teens.

At some point in the dark reaches of that night, curled now from the warmth of Jim’s hand, the photos tumbled off his chest to the floor.

* * *

The next evening Jim got a call from Trish, the few other patients he’d gotten close to over the weeks ribbing him about the big ol’ grin on his face as he hustled to the booth to take it.

She sounded tired, saying, “How’s it going? How do you feel?”

He wanted to tell her everything was great, not make her worry, but before he could stop himself he said, “It’s hard, Trish. Everybody poking at you, wanting inside your head. And I get so damn thirsty sometimes it’s all I can think about. They tell me if I’m going to make it, I’ve got to do it for myself.” He felt his face flush. “So far I’ve been trying to do it for you.”

There was a beat of silence then and Jim thought she might be crying. He thought,
You’re an asshole, Gamble
, and said, “I’m sorry, you know. For leaving you. I’ve got no excuse. I did it. Nobody made me. But I am sorry.”

“I know that, Jim.”

Hesitating, he said, “If you still want to, you can call me ‘Dad’. I’d like you to.”

Now she was crying. “I want to. I’ve always wanted to. In the Family Program they talk about letting go of the past, learning to live in today. Why don’t we concentrate on that? I forgave you a long time ago. And if the only way you can stay sober right now is to do it for me, then do it that way. Fake it till you make it, isn’t that what they say? In time, you’ll find reasons of your own.”

Smiling, tearing up now himself, Jim said, “You’re just like your mom, you know it?”

Trish laughed. “I’m not so sure that’s a compliment.”

“I hear you. She’s got her rough side. But if she loves you she’d die for you and that’s not something you find every day.”

“I know. I love her like crazy, too.”

A nurse was waving him out of the phone booth now, pointing at her watch. Jim nodded and said, “Trish, I gotta go. Our recovery meeting’s early tonight ’cause Doctor Langtree’s giving a lecture later in the auditorium.”

“Okay. I love you, Dad. Same time tomorrow?”

I love you, Dad.
It was the first time she’d said it to him.

“I love you, too,” he said. “Same time tomorrow.”

* * *

Once the preamble was done, Langtree centered him out right away. “I’m going to start with you tonight, Jim. I think we should pick up where we left off last time. I’d like you to tell us about your experience in prison. You’re welcome to leave again, but I have to warn you. If you do, you won’t be invited to return.”

No proud smile tonight.

Still glowing from his chat with Trish, Jim said, “I was scared shitless. All I knew about federal prison was what I’d seen in the movies.” He looked at Langtree and saw him nod. “In some ways it was like the street. But mostly it was pure jungle. As soon as you walked in you became part of the food chain.

“I got on the wrong side of this guy...”

* * *

It was late October and a greasy snow was falling, turning the yard into a slippery hog wallow. Jim was leaning against the fence smoking a rolly-o when a muddy soccer ball came out of nowhere and smacked him in the face, ruining his cigarette and making his nose bleed.

A muscle-head with a nose ring charged over and pinned him to the chain-link, his thick forearm crushing Jim’s voice box. One of his confederates ran up with the soccer ball saying, “Hey, Terry, lookit this.”

Terry looked at the ball, then back at Jim. He said, “You got blood on my ball,” then cocked his head like a dog watching a squirrel circle a tree. He said, “You work in the kitchen, right? Washin’ pots?” He looked at the dimwit with the soccer ball. “That’s where I seen this jackoff before, right, Woody?” Woody nodded, saying, “Potsy,” and Terry said, “Good one,” returning his dull gaze to Jim, the two of them close enough now to kiss. He said, “From now on, fuck face, that’s your new name. Potsy.” He pressed a finger to Jim’s lips, two other muscle-bound psychos closing in now, Terry saying, “Nice pie-hole you got there, Potsy.” Grinning, showing some really bad teeth. “I just figured out how you can make it up to me.”

Jim thought,
Fuck this
, tensed to knee the guy in the nuts and run like hell—and a guard broke it up.

Strutting away, October frost on his foul breath, Terry grabbed his crotch and said, “You look like a meat eater to me, Potsy. I like it right after supper. You see me right after supper, hear?”

* * *

“They came for me in the kitchen. Three of them. I knew I couldn’t fight them all, but I had to try. A lot of wretched shit happened after that night, but I’ve never been as scared as I was in that moment.”

* * *

Terry, Woody and another yard ape, this one tattooed over every visible inch of skin including his face, came up on him at the pot sink. Without a word or a glance, the other two guys working cleanup left the area at a quick march. Jim said, “Thanks, guys,” to their backs and picked up an iron skillet.

Terry said, “I told you to see me after supper, Potsy. I told you that’s when I like my head.” Jim brandished the skillet and Terry chuckled, saying, “You gonna smack me with that, Potsy? Go ahead, give it your best—”

Jim swung the heavy skillet with everything he had. Cat quick, Terry stepped inside the attack and plucked the skillet out of his hand, in the same smooth motion tapping Jim on the head with it, dazing him.

“Hold ’im,” Terry said, tossing the skillet into the sink. “On his knees.”

The other two forced Jim to his knees. Terry unzipped his trousers.

“Grab his face. Open that honey hole.”

Seeing stars, Jim said, “Put that thing in my mouth, I’ll bite it off.”

Terry kicked him in the stomach hard enough to make him retch. Gasping for breath, Jim said, “Bite...it...” He bared his teeth and clicked them together, grinning now, saying, “Right...the fuck...off.” Now that he was in the situation and they’d hurt him physically, a lot of the fear drained away.

Terry studied him a moment, then said, “Alright, flip him over.”

The two cronies dragged him to his feet and doubled him over the sink, one of them dunking his face into the soapy water. Terry yanked Jim’s pants down and grabbed him by the hips.

“Now hold him steady,” Terry said. “If he fights, drown him. Fucking virgins, always talkin’ about biting.”

The three men laughed.

Then Jim felt the man inside him and heard the ring of his own screams in the stainless steel kitchen. By the time the last of them got through with him, Jim had sworn he’d kill them all. But he never did.

They left him there with his pants around his ankles, blood drizzling his thighs, the three of them talking about watching the game on the tube tonight, Terry saying god help any stupid son of a whore who tried to change the channel.

* * *

You could hear a pin drop in the gymnasium, the circle of listeners a frozen tableau. A few of the women had tears in their eyes. Jim did, too.

He said, “The next time they came after me they hit me up with heroin first. Within a week I was going around to the bastard’s cell, begging for more. I was a junkie from my first taste. I...did things with him...to him. For the junk. Things I’m so....”

But he couldn’t go on. He looked at Langtree and said, “Happy now?”

“Of course I’m not happy,” Langtree said. “But I am very proud. That took real courage, Jim, the kind of courage it takes to leave this place at the end of your stay and live a clean, productive life on the outside. The sad truth is, relapse rates for alcohol and narcotics are extremely high, greater than sixty percent in even the most motivated patients. But based on what you’ve accomplished here tonight, I’d say if anyone’s got a chance of beating those odds, it’s you.”

A tinkle of applause grew to a roar that echoed off the stark gymnasium walls, and for the first time since coming here—maybe for the first time in his adult life—Jim felt as if he might just have a chance.