Remaining Anonymous

by Michael J. Cherkezian

STORY SUMMARY:
 
In *Remaining Anonymous*, a young man, John, is sentenced by the judicial courts to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for a drunk-driving charge. Listening to the testimonies of three recovering alcoholics, John experiences an existential awakening and learns that he has more in common with the alcoholics and the outside world than he is ready to face.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
 
Michael J. Cherkezian was born and raised just a few miles outside of Manhattan in northern New Jersey. When he was a freshman studying at Boston College, Michael had an enthusiastic Jesuit professor named Father Robert Barth who introduced him to great classics and modern literature and poetry. Short stories by Raymond Carver, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jack London sparked his imagination and fueled his passion for creative writing. Michael graduated from Boston College in May of 2006 with a B.A. degree in Communication and Mathematics and is excited for the opportunity to have his writing published in Nuvein Magazine.
 


“Just as a physician might say that there very likely is not one single living human being who is completely healthy, so anyone who really knows mankind might say that there is not one single living human being who does not despair a little, who does not secretly harbor an unrest, an inner strife, a disharmonyx” 

-Soren Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death

‘Why not?’ Andrea inquired pleadingly responding to John’s decline.  John wanted to answer Andrea genuinely but his pride made him withhold the truth.

‘I can’t go out tonight at all.  I have made prior arrangements,’ John responded vaguely without making eye contact with Andrea.

‘What prior arrangements? I am your girlfriend,’ Andrea argued mounting with frustration over the fact that John was being unusually secretive. ‘You shouldn’t have to lie to me.’
‘I’m not trying to lie to you.  I’m just busy tonight and I don’t want to explain why right now. Okay?’ John said reasoning with Andrea while struggling to keep his unstable temper under control.  For a brief moment, John felt he had settled the minor quarrel, but before his angst had pacified Andrea instigated the hostile discourse again.

‘I just don’t understand what could be so important that you have to hide it from me.’ Andrea rebuked continuing the dispute. John anxiously gritted his teeth as Andrea ranted over the importance of having open communication in their relationship. John breathed deeply as all the muscles in his body tensed up with his rising temper.  

‘Please,’ John uttered under his quickened breath. ‘I don’t want to fight over thisx’ he said trying to subdue his own escalating rage.

‘Why don’t you listen to me?’ Andrea asked interrupting John. ‘I have always been honest withx’ she said still enduring the discussion.   John bit his lips trying to mollify himself but his emotions erupted and John’s patient disposition became raving and unbridled. 

‘Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!’ John shouted standing just inches away from her face. ‘What the fuck is your problem? I told you I can’t go! Didn’t I?  I told you that and you still won’t listen to me or respect me!  I cannot go to dinner with you and your parents!’ Andrea began to cry and she cowered fearfully away from John’s menacing position, towering over her.  In flushed with tears, she wrapped herself in her own arms and sat down in a chair by herself

John stood there seething with anger but the sight of his girlfriend, who he truly loved, so upset weakened him. He suddenly hated himself for his barbaric behavior. ‘I am sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to yell at you like that.  I am really sorry.’ He apologized gently kneeling in front of her.  John put his arms around Andrea and they embraced forgivingly.  ‘I’m very sorry for yelling like that.’  John despised his explosive personality for so many years.  When he was younger he was diagnosed with several personality disorders and had been taking prescribed lithium to curb his volatility.  

While continuing to rock Andrea’s tears away, John shut his eyes and cursed himself for losing control over his emotions.  Over the past few weeks John had decided to stop taking the medication in hopes that his disorders might have magically disappeared in the years since he was first diagnosed.  He desired to be off the medication forever and to be able to freely to stand on his own two feet but, to John’s disappointment, his disorders were as apparent and gripping as the day he was first diagnosed.  John did not know if staying off the medications was a smart decision but he did know that he wanted to be liberated from the dependency of the pills. He also knew how persistently difficult and painful this choice was for him.

‘I didn’t want to yell at you like that,’ John said again continuing to apologize.

‘You know I cannot handle my parents on my own,’ Andrea said sobbing. ‘I need you to be there with me.  I just can’t do it by myself, John.’

‘I know.’ John said wiping the tears from Andrea’s face. ‘Andrea, I cannot go out to dinner with you tonight.  I want to be by your side and make you feel strong but tonight my hands are tied.’

‘Can you please tell me why though?’ Andrea begged John. After seeing how anxious Andrea had become from anticipating the dinner with her parents and how upset he had made her from his outburst, John felt the least he could do to ease her pain was to be honest with her.

‘I didn’t want to tell you because it is embarrassing and I did not want you toxI don’t know. Four nights ago, I got arrested for driving under the influence.  I was barely over the legal alcohol limit but the judged needed to make an example of me or something stupid. My sentencing was settled the day of the arraignment and the judge ordered that I attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting tonight in the basement of St. Peter’s Church on Fairmont Street. I also got my damn license suspended.  I was being stupid and I didn’t want you to think less of me.  I didn’t want you to think I’m some kind of boozing jerk.’

‘Arrested?’ she said with a small smirk.  She was evidently amused at John’s misfortune.

‘Yeah,’ John answered cracking a complimentary smile. Andrea chuckled to herself and shook her head.

‘You didn’t have to worry,’ she said softly and kissed him on his forehead. ‘You didn’t need to get arrested for me to figure that out,’ she said jokingly and John kissed her back.

‘You are going to be just fine with your parents tonight.  It will be better tonight,’ John said reassuringly to comfort Andrea.

‘I wish I could believe you, John. I’ve been telling myself that for years. It seems like each time they want to see me they are trying to repair the damage from the most recent fight we had but instead the whole thing just cycles and we develop another new problem. It’s a never ending cycle,’ she said desperately.

‘Maybe tonight will be different for you,’ John said trying to console Andrea, ‘You are going to have to try hard.  If you want to end this never-ending battle then you are going to have to try really hard to work things out; maybe even harder than them.  You cannot give up on fixing it.’

Andrea took a deep breathe looking into John’s eyes for inspiration and then softly replied ‘I’ll do my best.’

John kissed Andrea goodbye and guiltily left her alone apartment. “Alcoholics Anonymous for getting behind the wheel after two drinks,’ John muttered bitterly as he rode down the elevator to the lobby, ‘This is just ridiculous – as if a group of degenerates are going to cure the alcohol addiction that I don’t even have.’  Squinting to read the analog hands on his watch, John quickly zipped up his coat and waited for the elevator to reach ground level. Once the doors opened, he hustled across the lobby and out of the building to hail a taxi.  John opened a fresh pack of cigarettes and lit one to enjoy a smooth smoke.  He smoked only half of the cigarette when a taxi pulled to the curb.  John tossed the cigarette onto the street and entered the back of the taxi.

In the driver’s seat was a middle-aged Jamaican man talking on his cellphone.  He paused from his conversation as John entered the back seat. ‘Where to, boss?’ he asked in his thick accent.

‘St. Peter’s Church on Fairmont, please,’ John responded shortly.

‘You got it,’ the driver affirmed shortly and continued to his conversation on the phone.  ‘Listen, I will be home by midnight.  I am doing my very best.’

The conversation caught John’s attention. He tried to make some sense out of the words the driver was exchanging.  John cast his stare out the window while eavesdropping.

‘I am sorry that I couldn’t make it tonight, but you know that I need to work.  What else am I supposed to do?’  The driver glanced at John through the rear-view mirror acknowledging his presence in the midst of an uncomfortable situation.  ‘Hyasin, I will talk to you later.  I lovex,’ the driver’s last sentence trailed after his wife on the other end of the call hung up the phone.  The driver and John sat quietly for a few moments.  They made eye contact a few times through the rear-view mirror but before the silence became too awkward the driver spoke.

‘Did you graduate from college?’ the driver asked John breaking the tense moment.

‘Yes,’ John replied courteously.

‘Good,’ said the driver and then asked, ‘Do you have a good job?’

‘I work at a health insurance company,’ John said and the driver impressively raised his eyebrows, pouted his lips, and nodded his head as if to say, “Not bad at all.”

The driver asked hesitantly, ‘Do you make good money?’

‘Yes, for my age I make a good salary,’ John said politely without managing to sound too arrogant.

‘That’s very important,’ the driver commented, ‘I work long hours and I need to support my family.  I got a wife and a girl.’

‘That’s nice. How old is your daughter?’ John inquired.

‘She is nine years old,’ the driver said proudly looking at John through the rear-view mirror.  The driver’s tone changed as he continued to express his personal financial issues that have been weighing him down. ‘I love my family very much but I don’t have much of an education to tell you the truth.  I work hard, real hard, everyday and night but it sometimes doesn’t cut it.  My wife cannot work too much because she needs to care for our child.’

‘That sound very difficult,’ John said empathizing with his Jamaican driver.

‘I don’t mean to tell you all my problems.  It’s just that I don’t have anyone really to talk to about these kinds of things.  You know what I mean?’

‘I don’t mind, sir.  Continue what you were saying.’  John said encouraging driver’s disclosure.

‘She worries a lot and gets very upset. She isn’t that same warm person she used be and our relationship is changing, too. I do not want this family to fall apart. I work really hard for the money.  Money will solve everything.  I can get my daughter whatever she needs and my wife will be happy again.  So I work extra shifts many days a week so I can make my money and keep my family together.’

‘Do you think that working all those extra hours will fix those problems?’  The driver sat quietly running the question through his head.

‘I don’t know what else to do. There aren’t any other choices.  I have to keep working though.  Everyday I have to work because I don’t know how else to get my wife to stop worrying and to make her happy.  So, I work hard everyday to make her happy.  I feel like I am chasing my tail everyday.  It’s like axaxwhirlpool.  You couldn’t imagine what it is like to feel like to be a goddamn dog chasing his tail trapped in a spiral.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ John said reflecting on his evocative emotions and the volatile temper that seemed inescapable.

The cab slowed along the curb finally reaching its destination. ‘That will be twelve dollars, boss,’ the driver reported to John.  John fished through his wallet and pulled out a twenty.

‘Keep the change,’ John said with a smile and exited the cab. 

‘Thank you.  Have a good night,’ the cabbie replied with delight. As he waved goodbye to cab, John entertained the thought that his small gesture could make the difference for instilling a sense of hope; even if only for the rest of his night’s shift.

John turned around and gazed up at the sentry Catholic Cathedral that ominously watched over the city. He reluctantly marched up the marble steps to the entrance. John opened the Church’s heavy wooden doors and stepped inside of the warm and dimly lit lobby.   John spotted a small sign a few feet away that directed those attending the A.A. meeting down into the basement of the church.  John chuckled quietly to alleviate the frustration of dealing with what he viewed as a pointless sentencing and waste of time. ‘This should be interesting,’ John joked as he began descending down a flight of steps that lead to the basement.

John arrived early to the meeting.  In the front of the room there was one man setting up posters displaying Alcoholics Anonymous famous “12 Steps”.  A young woman stood at a small refreshment table fixing a cup of coffee while next to her a small man stood hunched over a box of Dunkin Donut Munchkins searching for his favorite type.  They chatted casually and laughed. The room was filled with more people than John had expected.  Roughly fifty individuals were peppered throughout the room chatting with each other as if the support group was a social hour. John uncomfortably entered the basement hall and maneuvered over to the refreshment table where he helped himself to a handful of Munchkins and a cup of coffee while deliberately not making eye contact with anyone surrounding him. 

Despite his effort to keep to himself, a middle-aged man approached John and introduced himself.  ‘Hi, I’m Peter,’ the man said.

John ignored the introduction by pretended the man was not addressing him.  The man leaned closer and tapped John’s shoulder. ‘Hello? Are you new here?’ Peter asked.

Pretending to be startled John responded, ‘What? Me? Yeah, I don’t come here often.’

Peter’s face lit up with excitement hearing John’s reply. ‘It is very brave of you to come tonight.  Would you like me to introduce you to some of my friends here?’

Becoming increasingly uncomfortable, John replied trying to be cordial, ‘No.  I mean no thanks.  I would like to take my time here. I don’t want to be rude, but I would rather make friends on my own.’  John excused himself stepping away from Peter as if afraid of catching a contagious virus. ‘It was nice meeting you, Peter.’

‘If you would like to meet some people here then perhaps we can talk later?’ Peter gently suggested.

‘Yeah,’ John responded vaguely to Peter’s invitation and then John turned his back to Peter.  John hustled to the back of the room, weaving in and out of the conversing alcoholics without addressing a single individual.  The hall became more crowded and noisy as eight o’clock approached. A leader of the meeting set up a few more old tattered posters. Written on the posters were individual inspirational commandments which read: But for the Grace of God, Easy Does it, Live and Let Live, First things first. ‘Oh how, poetic,’ John thought to himself sardonically.

 John sat anxiously glancing at his wristwatch every few minutes waiting for the meeting to commence.  He guarded his personal space and privacy by casting an unwelcoming glare on incoming members of Alcoholics Anonymous.  

John thought the effect of attending the meeting would be to realize how inane and adrift the lives of the alcoholics were so that John, in comparison, could appreciate and reevaluate his own fortunate life.  Maybe that was the point the judge was trying to make.  John thought maybe the judge was trying to scare him straight by showing John how run down other some people’s lives were and reveal the promise of John’s own life.  John did not know how he would really react.

The room continued to become more congested with a range of people from all different demographics.  Old men, teenagers, sorority girls, housewives, truck drivers, high school drop outs, law school graduates, and custodians were all scattered throughout the church hall. The people in the hall looked too common and ordinary for John to feel comfortable. They looked normal and some of the conversations on which he was eavesdropping sounded perfectly normal and coherent.  This irked John greatly.  Where were the homeless, toothless, dirty, slurring degenerates that always go to these meetings? John’s heart started to pound when it became logically impossible to continue to neatly compartmentalize the alcoholics into a demeaning stereotype. 

A man who was as wide as he was tall approached the front of the hall and positioned himself behind a lectern.  He tapped on a microphone and cleared his throat.

‘Hello.  Good evening everyone,’ the man said, ‘I think its time we about got started. I’m Steve, for those of you who do not know me.  Rick and I alternate hosting each week.  I am an alcoholic. Before we continue, I have a personal announcement I would like to make. I just want to thank everyone here for the support over the years and because of you all, next week I will be seven years sober.”

Everyone sitting before Steve applauded the big milestone in his life.  John clapped because he thought it was the polite thing to do.

‘Thank you, everyone,’ said Steve said with a proud, grand smile. ‘Tonight there are a few people that want to speak so I want to introduce the first man of the night.  Jerry, please come up’. 

Jerry popped up from the front row and, walking with a slight hunch, approached the lectern.  He had a deep pot-marked, scarred face and a nose that looks like a rotted bees nest.  He greased his thinning black hair straight back.

Jerry’s eyes were crystal blue but vacant.  His eyes were so clear that it seem that you could see right through to the person that wasn’t even there behind them. The carpenter jeans that were dirtied and baggy and were held up by a black belt tied tight around his waist.  He had a black leather jacket that must have been nearly a decade old and was so worn that large pieces of leather from the jacket had flaked off in the years past.  He was no taller than five foot two inches. Jerry is standing by every alley and outside every convenience store begging for quarters holding an empty coffee cup or asking to borrow a spare cigarette.

“Hi, my name is Jerry and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.” Jerry said introducing himself.

‘Hello, Jerry” the crowd of alcoholics said in unison.

Jerry had a very unusual and startling voice.  Although, it was ratty and course, his voice was remarkably high pitched.  John heard the man sitting behind him comment he sounded like Joe Pesci with a sore throat. Jerry began his personal narrative very frankly and unflappably.

“I’m forty years old and I’ve been drinking and abusing for the better portion of my life.  Well, I guess I should say where it all began.  I was in junior high school when I started boozing.  I was in eighth grade when I started to booze before school and come to class all jammed out.  I really did badly in school because of it.  There was no way I could do any of those math problems.  Math was a mystery, sober or drunk.” Jerry said with a chuckle.  The alcoholics laughed too.

“Uh, I was sixteen when I realized high school wasn’t the thing for me.  I didn’t know what I really wanted.  I knew I was a good cook so I decided I was going to be a chef. So, I worked hard for a month or two and got my GED.  I applied to culinary school and I got in. I thought I had it made. I thought I was on the right path becoming an adult and independent person but Alcoholism took over.”  Jerry’s voice trailed off and his focus dissipated in recollection , but Jerry quickly rebounded and he continued his casual self narrative.

“I drank a lot once I started to live on my own.  It was hard to get my hands on my booze most of my time but I found a way.  If there is a will there is a way. By the time I was only seventeen, I was drinking and smoking dope everyday.  When I was working, I would come to the restaurant where I worked drunk and high as a kite.  The boss could see it sometimes and one night he told me if I ever showed up like that he would throw me to the curb.  I told him it would not happen again but a week later I came in all spacey.  He asked me to take a urine test.  Do you know what Urine test stands for in my books?  ‘You’re in’ trouble tests.” The alcoholics found the pun to be especially amusing.  John could not help but smile a little.  Jerry continued his speech very matter-of-factly.

So, I tested and I failed and the boss did as he promised – he fired me.  So I am seventeen and I am out of a job.  First thing I did was to go to the nearest liquor store and steal a bottle of Vodka.”  Jerry prefaced his story, “Vodka was my weapon of choice.  I could go through an entire handle a night and it wasn’t too long until I was doing just that.”

Jerry continued his story, “Anyway, the very night I got fired I took a walk with my friend the vodka bottle. I didn’t know where I was walking to or going or coming from.  I had only a little money saved.  I was a FBI – a Financially Broke Italian.”  The crowd laughed again at the squeaky man’s jokes.  John laughed, too.

“I just wandered down the street looking for something or someone but I never found neither. Anyway, I walked up to parking meter on the side of the street and I thought about all the money that was in one of those machines.  Anyway, I tinkered with it and who would have guessed but it opened!  Pay day!  I scooped out nearly thirty-six dollars off of that one machine.  That became my profession.  I started to rob these parking meters throughout the city.  I would come home with hundreds each night for months at a time.  I was the Quarterbandit.  It was a huge scandal throughout the city.  They called it Quartergate.”  Everyone listening to Jerry’s testimony roared with laughter included Jerry himself.  He was a hit.  Jerry held the audience like a performer at an open-mic night.  His energy had built as he excitedly recalled the earlier years of his life.  Jerry took a breath and calmed himself to continue explaining the story.

“Now, the city started changing their meters but not fast enough to stop me from making a killing off of them. All the money really did was help with feeding my alcoholism. When I wasn’t stealing, I was drinking.  I would end up in dirty, cold allies completely alone many nights throwing up blood with my pockets full of quarters.”

Jerry paused grievously. John listened.

“Then one day I was robbing a machine on a side street and I was caught red-handed by the police.  I tried to run but they caught me.  It was not a smart idea to resist arrest after stealing money from the city.  I also had some dope on me.  I was eighteen and I was sentenced to sixth months in a jail.

In jail, I worked the kitchens because of my cooking experience. They told me to prepare food a lot of the times for the inmates.  I got my hands on some of the mixers they used and I drank that.  I would drink that whenever I had the chance to get zoned out as much as possible.  I eventually got caught and they threatened me with a longer sentence if I didn’t straighten up.  I understood straightening up just meant being more careful.  So at the end of my prison term I was released back into public.  I really had no place to call home, a job that I’m good, or even people who need me. So I left.  I just left not knowing which way to go.  First night out I got my hands on my old friend Vodka.  I drank down the whole bottle and then later that night threw it all back up. Just like old times.  I was back to my old games.  I remember one night I couldn’t get any booze so I stole a bottle of rubbing alcohol.  I drank most of that but I felt real sick and I remembered that it make you blind or could kill you so I threw up the alcohol and lots of blood in some alley.  I was almost 21 and I weighted probably only 120 pounds.”

Jerry sighed.

“So, I was officially homeless and I began collecting cans. I was a really good can collector.  You could even call me a professional canner if you want.  I was making good money. I collected cans at a local fair for a long time when I was noticed by a man working at the fair.  He offered me a job to host an exhibit for Zambora the Gorilla Girl.” Jerry said with a small chuckle. Jerry continued to oscillate through his cycle of emotions and dipped back down to his painful regret.

“The guy I worked for paid me shit wage but it was still enough to get my vodka, some little Debbie snacks, and a pack of smokes.  I was doing well enough to keep killing myself.  I lived in a box outside the of the carnival property until I was offered to live in one of the tents.  Every day was the same situation.  Rise, work, and drink. When I was done with my work, I grabbed my bottle and no one could bother me. Same death, different day. I would go to my tent and drink because as they say, baby wants his bottle.  The carnival closed down after a few months of me working there and again I was out on my own with no place to go. I hitched to Atlantic City during the summer where I slept out by the beach. And that is where I made my new home,” Jerry concluded vaguely.  As Jerry fell deeper into his haunting memories, he began to shed from his fading clownish frontage to reveal his core identity; a man hurt, abused, and worn out from life. Jerry swallowed hard.  He cleared his voice and, with his deflated confidence, began to speak timidly causing everyone to poke their heads forward to listen more closely. 

“I had a breakdown one night,” he said, “I prayed to God for me to have a second chance in life.  I cried in the sand and stared up at the stars hoping that he would save me from the hell my life had become. Funny, the next morning he answered my prayers and I was found by a Christian man on the beach.  He spoke with me for a while about God, my health, and my life. After listening to the man’s pleas to let him help me, I agreed to let him take me to a hospital.”  Jerry took another deep breath and held it.  He exhaled with a sigh and persisted on telling his story.

“I was diagnosed with Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.  I spent a lot time in the hospital getting better but my sickness caused me to slip into a coma. I was in a coma for 2 weeks.”  Jerry shook his head as if he was listening to the disappointing story of some other weary stranger.  Jerry’s voice grew shaky.

 “I’ve been sober for four years now. I am on 4000 bucks for meds a month.  I’m trying real hard to keep it together.”  Jerry grabbed both sides of the lectern with his hands firmly.  He lifted his head, casting his stare into the crowd of alcoholics; he made eye contact with John.  Upon the connection, a shiver ran down Johns back causing him to awkwardly jerk his back and reposition himself in the chair. Jerry held the eye contact even though Jerry’s direct focus made John’s skin crawl.

Jerry spoke again explaining, “I’m trying hard to get a grip, you know. I have nothing, but that’s still so much to lose.  The damage I did to myself is unforgivable.  I just wanted to be free.  I don’t want to lose what I got now.  I feel blessed that I have a second chance. I am very grateful for what I have left.    It’s a tough illness we all got.  Doctors say we are mentally ill before we had even had our first drink.  It’s a fight for us and it will be a fight till dog-day afternoon.”  Jerry looked away from John.

“I guess what I really can appreciate now is that I am able to concentrate,” Jerry said conclusively, “The real difference now is that I know the difference.  It’s been real ugly, but I’m doing the basics. I ate three meals today and I feel great. Glad to be sober.   I’m doing the basics and being honest.  That’s my story. I’m four years sober and I’m glad to be here.”

The men and women listening John applauded for his personal triumph. John wanted to clap but he could not lift his arms.  He suddenly felt very nauseated and thought that if he moved even an inch that he might throw up on the person sitting in front of him.  It was not food poisoning or a virus caused that his stomach turn, but an unsettling realization that shook John to the core. The realization was very simple. He no longer saw these members of Alcoholics Anonymous as the one homogenous group of so-called degenerate alcoholics which he first prejudicially labeled; however, John now saw each person in the light of their own individual humanity.  They were no better or worse than John just a little more worn out from life. Each of these alcoholics at the meeting was an individual; a person who loves, hurts, laughs, cries,  fights, and lives. John applied the classification of worthless alcoholics to all the individuals at the meeting because it made it easier for him.  It helped to disassociate him from the alleged weak and troubled alcoholics.  As reality set in, John gripped himself uncomfortably  because the line John fabricated to divide the lost-soul from the person who was in control of their life suddenly became very indistinct and jaded.  John felt unstable because he could no longer see the separation between any of these people and himself anymore.  Before he could say, ‘Well, at least I’m not this broken person’ but now John was not even sure of that.  

The leader of the evening’s meeting returned to the lectern, thanked Jerry again, and introduced the next recovering alcoholic to speak.  He was introduced as Tom.  Tom was an Irish man who had the sturdy disposition and defensive posture that could have only been developed so perfectly by the difficult life of the rough streets.  He was a brick-layer with well-built shoulders and he stood roughly six feet and three inches from the ground.  Tom childishly pinched a piece of paper that held the notes for his speech between his fingers. Tom ambled towards the lectern and introduced himself.

“Good evening.  My name is Tom and I’m an alcoholic and abuser,” Tom said.

“Hello Tom,” the supporters replied in unison.

“I want thank Jerry for speaking so openly tonight.  Like I said, I’m Tom.  I grew up not too far from here.  I was born and raised in Southie.”  Tom nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot creating the silly illusion that he was slow-dancing with the lectern.  Most people listening to Tom could tell that he was not comfortable speaking in front of large groups. It was also apparent that there was a lot Tom needed to say mostly for the reason that this was one of the first times ever he had anyone to listen to him.

Tom began to share his story, “I guess I should say that growing up was not easy for me.  For starters, my family did not have a lot of money and none of any of us had any real good education. 

 People used to tell me that my dad was a boxer in at this local ring. My dad also had little odd jobs through out town to support my family, but he got sick when I was young and he died of cancer when I was only three years old.  After he died, my mom raised me and my sister all by herself.  It was really hard for her and when I was nine she became mentally ill.  She had to be hospitalized for her illness.  I started drinking when I was ten. I started to drink abusively because it made me feel okay.”  Tom spoke very hesitantly, pausing between each sentence as if to check if what he was saying was appropriate or inoffensive.

 ‘It made me feel like I was going to make it,’ Tom said, “especially with my mom in the hospital.   It grounded me so I wouldn’t lose my mind.  Drinking held me together in the short run, I guess, but in the long run it was tearing me apart.  I did not really have anything in my life. At ten years old, to think that your life was already ruined made me feel really desperate. I just wanted to drink more.”  John realized that Tom did not consciously bring alcoholism into his life anymore than Tom had asked for such an unfortunate childhood.   It would have been settling for John if he could blame Tom for his actions but he could not.  Alcohol gripped Tom now and, at the present moment, filled him with immediate and unaccountable despair.

Tom continued his story-telling, “When kids were at school I was busy dealing and stealing.  I remember how I borrowed a friend’s car and went to a town fair one summer by myself.  Those places have a lot stuff lying around and there is never good security so if you are quick up in the head you can come home with a thing or two and some good money.  I drove down to the fair and parked in an alley between two buildings.  I found a side entrance that gave me super easy access inside the fair.  I remember I was able to sneak out with some valuable items like some nice vases and a few women’s bracelets without a problem.  I threw them in the back of the car and then I went back to the fair for more.  I took a lock box full of money and quickly ran away.”

John visualized himself running with Tom, short of breath and with surges of adrenaline spurting through his adolescent frame.  John felt his sneakers pound the pavement as he and Tom tried to escape with the loot without being spotted.

“Someone saw me running with the money and chased after me,” Tom recounted trapped in a consuming trance of his memory experiencing sheer panic. “I got to my car and started the engine.  Two security guards stood in front of the car but I floored it anyway and hit the two guards.  They rolled over the hood of the car and I just sped away. I was fifteen at the time. I was just a boy,” he said.

Tom spoke of himself with self-pity just like Jerry had done, shaking his head in disappointment of his directionless and troubled youth.

“I was into some heavy substance abuse by then also. Boy, did I drink with a vengeance.   I would do whatever I could get my hands on.  Coke, pills, heroine – whatever could help me forget about my life,” Tom said frankly.

John realized that Tom was a man who hated himself and would do whatever he could to escape himself. He wanted to erase his life and rid himself of his own existence.  Tom would do whatever was necessary to tolerate himself day-by-day, minute-by-minute, and second-by- second.  It was constant and biting without any room for hope or restoration.

“People always wanted something from me.  Bill collectors wanted my money, junkies wanted my drugs, and landlord wanted rent or for me to move out.”  Tom spoke spitefully of the insensitive people he grew up around, but then he looked up at the crowd with understanding and softness in his eyes.  For the first time since he started his speech, Tom made eye contact with other alcoholics listening to his testimony.

“People always tried to get stuff from me when I didn’t even have a dime to my name.  But you guys, right now, you don’t want anything from me but to do well and that means a lot,” Tom spoke genuinely and then looked back down at his notes which rested on the lectern.

Anyway, I guess I was about twenty seven years old when I was taken to a hospital after getting robbed for my drugs.  I got stabbed in my stomach but it wasn’t very serious thankfully. The doctors ran a few tests on me and said that if I didn’t stop abusing my body the way I have been doing that I was going to die young and soon. 

I didn’t listen. When I got out of the hospital, I just continued to kill myself slowly.  It was amazing how many problems drinking can solve when you are in the position that I was in.”

Several people listening nodded their understandingly nodded heads reflecting on their own lives.

Tom began to tell another story, “It was a late December night when I was making a drop for this deal I had.  I was pulled over by suspicious police, got arrested, and thrown in the slammer. I didn’t have much on me so I was let off with probation and community service.   A year later, when I was two months away from getting off my probation, I got arrested for a second time with a lot more drugs on me.  I couldn’t just stop selling.  I needed to survive but nobody really cares what you are going through or how much you hurt.  The police only cared that I was breaking the law.  After a short term in prison, I was sent to a halfway house to live for a while.  I was sober at the time, for the first time – sober after nearly twenty years of heavy drinking and drugging.

I tried to give myself a future and figure things out. I found out that I love music,” Tom said with childlike excitement, “I started to learn how to play the piano.  I would sit down any free minute I had taught myself how to play because if I didn’t keep myself busy; idle hands are the devil’s playground.   I also liked to DJ music so I was able to get a job working at a Sober Dance Hall.  I was having a great time there.  On Saturday nights we had over three hundred people and I was making money!  Real money! It seems like just when things are going alright something hits you when you aren’t looking.”  

“It would be nice if everything was honkey dorey, but that’s not life.  Life sometimes throws you some serious curve balls,” Tom said abstractedly. The truth of the words seemed to resonate with all the attentive listeners. They nodded their head in agreement.  So did John.

“I had a relapse after only six months of being sober,” Tom explained, “See, I met this reverend who came through to the half-way house.  We spoke for a long while and he told me that my alcoholism was no big deal and that it was just all in my head. I told him that he was wrong.  I told him alcoholism was a physical addiction but after listening to him talk about my ‘free will’ I started to believe him.  I thought that maybe I did have control of this disease.  We never have control of it, though. It will always be there with its teeth in us.

Like Jerry said, we were alcoholics before he had our first drink.  The reverend convinced me to go out to a bar with him and a few buddies to have one single drink.  The single beer turned into two beers and then a scotch with coke, and then a double scotch with water, and then to a double scotch straight.  I was putting bar to work.”

Everyone listening became one symbiotic entity with Jerry sharing in connection his distress and disappointment.  

“It wasn’t long until I stopped DJying and playing the piano because I didn’t care to show up or I was too drunk to play,” Tom continued explaining, “A friend from the Sober Dance hall, Satch is we called him, came to check up on me.  He saw what kind of bad shape I was in and he came to my rescue.  He brought me here to AA. I have been coming here for a year now,” Tom said simply.  Tom paused to express his final feelings with precision and detail.  Doing so was especially difficult for him because for his whole life it was something to which he was very unaccustomed.

“I am trying so hard now, but it doesn’t feel like its ends,” Tom spoke with resignation.  “I am on the fence right now and I want to get off the fence,” he said, “The night I came home from my first AA meeting I got on my knees and prayed to God not to make the pain go away but just to make the pain bearable.  What is really important is that I am doing the right thing. Pain is there but I won’t drink. I have been through a mental blizzard.”

Tom rubbed the stubble on his sandpaper-like face with his hands and raised his eyebrows passively,” I have never felt better about myself though.  I really like playing the piano.  I was in a jazz band for a while but all the members of the group would go out to smoke opium on this local church steps at night.  One night I joined them but then I remembered everything I had been through so I quit the group the next morning. I play the piano for myself now and that is good enough for me.  It brings me a lot of joy.”  Tom reached the end of his life story.  He stood at the lectern for a few moments wanting to conclude his speech.  John waited patiently to hear what Tom planned to say.

Tom said, “You know, I work for the O’Leary construction company during the weekdays and on the weekends I still work at the sober hall playing music. I want to keep things simple.  I am so grateful for being healthy now and for my life.  I don’t want to lose that.  I have my own place and I really earned it.  I don’t want to lose anymore. I’m tired of it.  I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I just want to thank all of you for being here and I feel like I’m finally being able to stand on my two feet again. There’s nothing like being free. That’s all and thank you.”

The audience applauded for Jerry and his brave speech he made in front of the group. John could not help applauding because he knew the struggle that Jerry experienced was genuine and although he could not relate to the pain of alcoholism he knew what it felt like to be at constant war with his own self.

John was tapped on the shoulder from a gentleman sitting in the row behind him.  The man handed him a card and a pen.  John read the card, ‘Dear Steve, Congratulations on your 7 years of sobriety.’  Steve, the organizer of the evening’s meeting, was celebrating a milestone in controlling in dealing with his disease.  Various members of the group jotted down a brief laudatory note.

John was astonished at the support and family bond throughout the group.  They were all struggling sinners supporting each other trying to cleanse one another and reclaim a virtuous past.  John noticed that he still held the card and pen in his sweaty palms.  ‘Congrats, Paul.  We’re proud of you. Keep it going strong,   John’.  He tried to not get emotional while writing the short note.

Many of these people were lonely souls who had nowhere else to go or no one else’s shoulder upon which to cry so they became each other’s family and friends.  ‘Keep it going strong,’ John whispered. He could not help feeling that a portion of that charge was self-directed. 

The last speaker of the evening was different than Tom or Jerry. The most notable difference was that she was a woman.  The second difference was that she was exceptionally well spoken and eloquent. The woman’s name was Alice.  She captured John’s attention with her finished poise.

John estimated Alice to be in her late twenties.  She had limp blonde hair that was tied back in a pony tail.   Alice had narrow shoulders and her heaviness seemed to settle just above her hips.  She wore a friendly smile as she walked to the lectern.

Alice stood before everyone with a strong and presentable posture.

“I’m glad to see such a large group tonight,” Alice said initiating her speech.  “I feel very fortunate to be a part of such a supportive network of individuals.  I have been sober for four months.  I attribute much of this success to my family here.  Tom said something very nice in his speech about AA.  He said that all you fellow group members wanted from him was for him to be healthy and do well.   I see all of you as my family now.  I care for each of you and likewise depend on our group for support.  I enjoy coming to these meetings and seeing the positive results it has made in the lives of the members of this organization. 

Alice began to detract from the formality and started to share her story more intimately. She said, “I have always listened to the different speakers testimonies but I was never brave enough to share my own story.  I finally now have the courage and self confidence to speak before all of you.

            I had a very chaotic childhood growing up. I was an only child in a family that demanded a lot out of me.  Although I ranked at the top of my class and regularly out performed all my classmates, I could never quite please my parents with my accomplishments. They liked to point out my flaws.  I could create an award-winning painting and they would say I should have used different brush strokes to make the artwork better.  It was always these subtle comments that pulled me down and like all sensitive human beings, they made me feel pretty terrible and incompetent. After a while I did not need my parents’ criticism to pressure me or degrade my self-worth because I figured out to do it myself.”

Alice spoke bitterly revealing how alienated she felt from her parents. “By the time I was fifteen, I was very shy and withdrawn,” she explain, “I became caught in a strange catch-22.  I did not want to be left alone but I could not muster the courage or self-esteem to build companionship.  I pushed myself to work hard through high school but I was lonelier each day feeling more disconnected from people and the world around me.  One random evening when both of my parents were out together at a fundraiser, I thought I could poke around the liquor cabinet.  I did not know much about my alcoholism or alcohol in general, but I had seen enough to know that alcohol changes things.”  Alice chuckled sarcastically at the simplicity of her explanation.

 “Well,” she continued, “I started to drink and it seemed to work at times.  I started drinking heavily on a regular basis which something was felt very out of character although I craved being intoxicated.  I was miserable so I drank but then drinking made me more miserable.

 I was accepted into Harvard University that spring.   When I tell people that I went to Harvard and that I am now a recovering alcoholic they give me the strangest looks.  But as the saying goes, ‘It doesn’t matter if you are from Yale or from jail.’ Alcohol does not discriminate.”  Alice joked with a forced smile.

“My first semester in the fall, I was extremely depressed,” she said frankly, “I was no longer the smart student in the class but now I was just average.  This amplified all those feelings of little self-worth and incompetence.  This made me spiral out of control and I feel even more disconnected.  By my second semester of college I was drinking extremely heavily and I made a fool of myself all the time.  I would pass out in my bathroom in a puddle of my own throw up.  The roommates I lived with would laugh at me but never try to help me out or talk to me through my problems.  At the end of sophomore year, my grades were an absolutely disaster.  I left Harvard that spring and I didn’t return the following fall.

That summer I abused alcohol heavily.  I would drink all day and night.  It would be a whole day of puking and getting hung over and then later that evening I would think, ‘Boy it has been a rough day; I could use a drink.”  I kept myself in that loop.  I would pray at night for it to be different, but it never was.  By the end of that summer I was so beaten that I couldn’t even tell you my favorite color.

My parents kicked me out of my house when I was twenty one.  I rented my own apartment and found a decent paying job as a receptionist.”

John recognized the next part of Alice’s speech.  He identified it because it had been in past two speeches as well. It was a moment in the past when Alice, Tom, and Jerry, finally had the opportunity to take an external view of their deteriorating lives. It was a moment of breakdown.

Alice proceeded with her story, “The following years seemed very blurry. I remember one evening I returned home from one of my jobs and my apartment was dark and empty.  I was twenty-five at the time.  I slowly stepped into this silent cave of mine.  At one single precise moment everything piled upon me.  I was a total failure, an Ivy League drop-out, an alcoholic rejected by her parents and whose life was directionless and meaningless.  I was completely alone and miserable. It was just too much for me when I added it all up. I felt so bad for myself and hopeless.  My depression was deeper and more consuming than ever and at that evening I decided that I had enough. I wanted to take my own life. 

Alice started to cry and her primp postured buckled.  She bowed her head shamefully.  Alice regained her poise quickly and cleared her throat.  She sniffled as she began to replay her failed suicide.

“The next day the same emptiness still loomed over my head so I stuck to my plan. I rented out a hotel room on the seventeenth floor at the local Sheraton.  The only bag I brought to the room with me was a paper bag filled with brand new bottle of whiskey from a nearby liquor store.  I sat there and drank by myself.  I guzzled down the bottle and when I felt drunk enough I opened one of the balcony windows.”

Alice relived the moment of her failed suicide.  John stood beside her in the hotel room leaning over the balcony feeling the gusts of cold night air from outside rush in hotel room and slam against his face.  The curtains in the room flapped and Alice gripped the railing, bracing herself as she peered over the ledge. They both shivered. John touched Alice’s shaking hand.

“I didn’t quite have the courage to do it,” she said bleary with tears, “I needed to call someone to say goodbye, but I had no one to call.  I didn’t think that I had anyone in my life that would care if I died at that moment.  That was how meaningless and worthless I was.   I dialed a random extension at the hotel. I had to say goodbye to someone – if even if it was a total stranger.  A strange man picked up the phone.  I told him who I was and what I was planning to do.  He was a sweet man and he calmed me down.  He really seemed to care for me, too.  He used his cell phone to call the police.  They arrived at my door and they took me away to a psychiatric hospital for two weeks with doctors and psychiatrists.

            I have to make peace with myself.  That is what my doctors tell me.  I understand what they mean, but I don’t know how to do it.  I’m wandering around aimlessly hoping to stumble upon myself.  I’m trying to find direction but I know I need to make direction for myself.  I know I must be talking in circles.”

Circles, never-ending spirals, and dogs chasing their goddamn tails.           

John took a slow panoramic look at filled church sanctuary focusing on each person sitting around him and absorbed each person’s own struggle.  John started to realize why he was so reluctant to remove the stereotypes of the homogenous group and why it filled him with so much fear to assume these people as individuals.  He sat pensively all night until he was finally pinpointed the thought and when he did, desperation swept over him as his mind followed a singular train of thought which lead him to realize the truth; that the struggle extended far beyond the dark halls of the Catholic Church.  It stretched out of the parking lot of the church in all directions.  It traveled down side streets, alleyways, into homes, and apartment buildings.  It entered high schools, work places, and taxi cabs. It was the struggle that reached every human on this planet who hurts. It reached him, Andrea and her parents, and the struggling cab driver and his family. The struggle was not with alcohol but within them and all people. The Alcoholic Anonymous group only defined their particular struggle more explicitly than the everyday person of the outside world. 

He sunk lower into his chair feeling a wave of nausea from the perpetual hopelessness in considering that this meeting of people was just a microcosm, an artificial biosphere, of the desperate world in which we all lived.  Alcohol seemed to be just an intermediary which amplified the alcoholic’s ultimate struggle. The warn-down, the lost, the lonely; Jerry, Tom, and Alice. Just before John thought he could not take it anymore, Alice closed her speech with a few more words. 

“I guess I have a lot of problems,” she said, “We all do. I don’t want to trivialize this disease, but alcoholism seems to be just the tip of the iceberg for me and maybe it is the same for many of you, too.  I am glad I have all of you here to help me get through this mess day by day.  I just have to take it one day at a time and these meetings help me as a person not just me as an alcoholic.”

The audience was quiet and hanging onto each of her soft spoken words.  Each person sat leaning forward listening to her testimony while reflecting on their own life.  They hung onto each word of inspiration hoping that a sentence or two would give them a single wise maxim with which they could empower themselves through another day.  Her simple words fed the auditors with small bits of optimism in the same manner which John gave his Jamaican cabbie the large tip.

Alice’s voice sounded different as she finished her testimony.  John did not know if it was due to the pitch or tone but it changed in a way that made each person including John sitting among the alcoholics feel her testimony was a conjured with heartfelt honesty.

‘You know,’ she said and paused. ‘I woke up yesterday morning and my house was real quiet.  I looked out my window and watched the sunrise.  Boy, it was damn beautiful, I thought to myself.  I looked over to small oak tree in my backyard and I saw a bird’s nest, which I never saw before, for the very first time.  I saw a mother bird feeding its little baby birds.  I never saw those birds before.  It was such a nice surprise.  A new day and these young birds were alive for me to see.’  Alice paused again to think and express her jumbled thoughts to her best ability. ‘You see, I know how hard it is to wake up in the morning each day.  You know how it is. I have my problems with my mother.  You may have problems with you wife or self image or job or whatever, but I guess what I am trying to say is this.  I can still wake up in the morning and have a chance to see those birds; this new life. There is more to life than just getting through the next day. I guess if I could see these new birds ask myself what other things wonderful things are out there and await me.  What other beautiful little things and new lives.   Maybe this doesn’t make sense to you but to me it makes me feel okay.  It tells me things are going to be alright for me.” Alice stepped down from the lectern, and sat back in the seat with her fellow friends. 

The lost were seeking, the broken were rebuilding, and the lonely were loving.      

John was baffled how three people could change his perceptions and enlighten him.  He realized that a damaged person is beautiful and fascinating.  It is as if he or she has a fracture in their humanity where if a person see a part that is completely naked.  It is possible to see their fragility and vulnerability.  There is no facade, just the true nature of the person and if looked at the right angle a person can see the greatest purity within some of the most distorted, people and environments.

The host of the evening returned to the lectern again and thanked all of the brave individuals who disclosed their personal stories.  John felt touched by the man’s honesty and even felt some admiration for the speakers tonight who confronted their alcoholism head on and were not afraid to try to gain some control of their lives.  John thought about his own unstable personality disorders that he tried to ignore and with which he tied to disassociate himself and realized that the people at the meeting tonight were more honorable than him. They were at least true to themselves and brave enough to tackle their problems.  They stood tall persistently regaining their footing each time a wave of despair knocked them to their knees, but not John.  John cowered timidly in the shadow of his illness fearfully submitting to defeat.

‘It will be a fight till dog-day afternoon.’  That phrase rung in John’s head loudly.  John realized that there was no victory guaranteed, in fact, there were no guarantees at all.  It was all about not giving up, to put the next foot in front of the other even when muscles become sore, bones ache, and the mind cries ‘defeat.’   

Finally the host of the evening asked all the people sitting at the far seats of the aisles to rise and move towards to center filling in the empty seats.  Now, the scattered individuals throughout the room were concentrated as one entity and John stood at the heart of the mass of people.  The host instructed everyone to link hands with the person on their left and right. They began reciting the Lord’s Prayer in unison and John became connected with all. John felt his prejudice, self-righteousness, and denial melt away.   He did not even listen to the words he was reciting because he was too focused on how the chant and the connection bonded him with everyone around him.  He closed his eyes did not resist his belonging at the meeting.   He felt the energy, faith, and determination surge through his neighbor’s palm on his left, into John swirling and building and generating an internal fusion, and then flow out into his neighbor on his right.  John kept his eyes closed as he felt the dream of this group pump right through him.  As they finished the prayer, John recognized that it was going to be an uphill climb for him, for all the alcoholics, for Andrea, and for the cab driver. It was a common theme for all the people that maybe when it seems that things have become too difficult and too overwhelming that it all becomes about not giving up.   It comes from understanding that although it might be a fight till dog-day afternoon there is always hope there in a brighter tomorrow.

John stood up from his seat and without saying goodbye to a single person found his way to the exit of the church.  He pulled took out the pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and crushed it in the palm of his hand.  He tossed the broken pack into a garbage can and tilted his head back to look at the night sky. He drew a long breath of cool air. 

The moon was shining brightly down upon John.  He felt it was out there just for him lighting his path homeward.  John turned back to look at the Cathedral for a last time and he proceeded to walk his path putting one step in front of the other under the light from the pale moon.