But the main thing to remember is that addiction isn’t a bleak dead end. There’s hope. I know an awful lot of formerly helpless dope fiends who now live bright new lives of sobriety and have all the good things that come along with it. Did they stumble along the way? Sure, almost all of them. The important thing is that there’s a desire to live free from drugs. If you slip and fall on your journey to sobriety, just start over. Don’t be defeated. As they say in twelve-step meetings, “Keep coming back. It works if you work it.” And it does.
HAPPY #12 AND #35
I’m happy just to be alive …
I may have grown older, but I still enjoyed the things that made me smile when I was a kid. Here I stood under purpling skies as the sun set at the end of a cool and pleasant day in Los Angeles, just south of downtown. I was alone in the square in front of the glass-and-steel façade of the Staples Center on Chick Hearn Court. This wasn’t here when I was a kid and I tagged along at my dad’s side, amped up for a night of Lakers basketball at the Forum in Inglewood before we’d enjoy a guys’ night on the town, just the two of us, over in Chinatown for a postgame meal. At a restaurant called Hop Louie’s Golden Pagoda, heavily accented Chinese waiters in starched white shirts and heavy crimson vests delivered a steady stream of hot, steaming plates piled with shrimp fried rice, chow mein, and great, golden, greasy stacks of egg foo yung that swam in some sort of unidentifiable brown sauce. “Eat up, Bobby,” said my dad as he downed a gin and tonic in a highball glass filled with ice. There was a large aquarium along one wall, lit with a single bulb that gave the lone lionfish that swam among the plants and rocks of this artificial reef an eerie glow. “You know, Bobby, those things are poisonous,” said my dad as he pointed at the aquarium with his chopsticks.
“Do people eat them?” I asked.
“I think the Chinese do. They eat a lot of different stuff.”
“Is it good?” I asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Looks too spiky for me to ever want to try one.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’d like it either. Especially if it’s got poison in it,” I said, going back to my plate.
One of the waiters took away an empty platter that sat on the table and said something about “armond chicken.” I lifted a small, handleless cup filled with tea and took a sip right as my dad shot me a comical look in reaction to the waiter’s remark. I laughed hard, and warm, heavily sugared tea erupted out of my mouth and nose. Later, after we couldn’t eat another bite, a solemn waiter brought a small tray with a couple of fortune cookies. “Crack it open, Bobby. See what the future holds,” said my dad. I took one of the brittle treats and snapped it in half. Inside was a little strip of paper. I pulled it out and was disappointed to see that all the writing on it was in Chinese. “I can’t read this,” I said. My dad motioned for a waiter.
“Could you read this for us, please?” he asked, and handed the paper to the waiter.
The waiter looked at the little strip and then said, “It say, ‘You have very good-a ruck.’ ” My dad and I broke into gales of laughter.
Here on Chick Hearn Court, I waited for Flea and Chad Smith, the rhythm engine that powered the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I had called Flea earlier. “Hey, man, we should go catch a game.”
“Let’s do it tonight,” he said.
“Cool. Meet me at the Magic Johnson statue,” I said.
An individual might be hard to locate in the kind of crowd the Lakers draw, but it was impossible to miss the recently erected tribute to Magic Johnson. Seventeen feet tall and cast in bronze, it depicted the former Lakers point guard frozen midaction in his gold uniform and old-school shorty-shorts as he led the team on a fast break, one hand palming the ball and the other pointed down court. And so I waited for my friends as the pregame crowd grew larger and made its way inside. I reached in my pocket and fished out a piece of nicotine gum. I fumbled with the foil backing and finally managed to peel it away to get to the mint-flavored lozenge inside. Four milligrams’ worth of nicotine in a chewy treat. I had managed to quit cigarettes, but I still needed regular doses of nicotine. I figured that even if I had given up all my old vices, I should hang on to at least one. So it was nicotine and caffeine. Pretty safe when I considered all the other stuff that used to pump through my veins.
“Hey, man!” I heard, and looked up. Flea
