The room was tiny and stank of sweat and stale smoke and fresh smoke. The walls were painted a pale yellow and covered with brown splotches like grease stains. The sheets were coarse and all twisted up around us—the tattered wool blankets heaped on the floor—smoke from our burning cigarettes filling the air, thick and suffocating. Our clothes were strewn everywhere. We’d stay locked in there for maybe fifteen or sixteen hours at a time. We talked and talked and talked and talked. And if I’d ever doubted it, I mean, after all that, I know I really could grow to love her.
But I guess all that’s gonna have to wait.
I mean, we can still make plans to be together, even if I’m pretty sure we both know it’ll never happen. I’m lookin’ at a year in New Mexico with nothing but a bunch of recovering alcoholic men. Hell, and who am I kidding? It’ll be a year if I’m lucky. It’s not like I’m gonna make enough money there to strike out on my own. Nah, I’m at the mercy of my fucking father. And he’ll just do whatever the counselor people tell him. So I could keep getting bounced around from one center to the next for the rest of my goddamn life. I’m sure my dad thinks that’s exactly what I need. At least he’ll sleep better that way—and be able to devote all his attention to his real kids.
But for now, yeah, I’m gonna try with Sue Ellen. She bought me a calling card before I left, and I promised to phone her every day—which I will, I mean, I want to.
At the airport, man, she cried so hard. She held on to me and cried and cried, and I wanted to cry, too, but for some reason I just couldn’t. I forced myself to walk away, down the corridor to my gate, and I swore I wouldn’t look back, but then I did and I felt my stomach squeezed so tight the crying finally came. She was still watching me go, and I wanted to tear off my skin and cut myself deep, up and down both arms, and rip my eyes out. I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s just not fair. We actually had a shot together—a shot at a life we both maybe wanted to live. But now… fuck, now we’ve got nothing.
Nothing.
And there’s just no way out.
My plane doesn’t crash.
It touches down in Albuquerque.
Ch.15
In twelve-step meetings and rehabs, they always say this thing about how the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Of course, they mean it in the sense that as addicts, we keep trying to use again even though we suffer such devastating consequences every time. But, I’ll tell you what, walking off the plane to go meet up with the director of this fucking program feels pretty goddamn familiar. The only difference is that this time I’m not expecting different results. I know how insane it is for me to be here. So I guess that makes the rest of the people in my life the fucking crazy ones. And, me, well, I guess I’m finally fucking sane.
Not that it matters.
I still have no choice but to play along.
So I walk down to the baggage claim.
The director of the program has no trouble identifying me from the description Melonie must’ve given him. I mean, I definitely don’t look a thing like the other passengers standing around. Especially ’cause I’m wearing this stupid, fringed tapestry jacket that was Zelda’s ex-husband’s and these bell-bottoms that were actually Zelda’s.
“You must be Nic,” he says, sounding very masculine and chummy, like we just met at a goddamn football-watching party or something. He shakes my hand, doing his best to show me just how confident he is. A confidence, I’m sure, that can be achieved only after spending a year or more at his very own recovery frat house high up in the New Mexico desert. He smiles at me like, “Trust me, little queer boy. Give me just one year and I’ll make a man out of you yet.” Seriously, I mean, these all-male treatment programs really are cults—run by smooth-talking con men with their smug “I’m enlightened” Tom Cruise smiles. And this douche bag here’s not a fucking bit different. He shakes my hand hard, like a man should.
“Chip Barnes,” he says, proudly. “Glad to meet you.”
He’s short and squat with a thick, ’70s porn star mustache.
He’s wearing a shiny suit and a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots.
Christ.
I get my bag, and we walk out to the parking lot together.
His car, of course, is this monster sport-utility vehicle. It’s got a built-in camera on the back bumper so you don’t have to turn around when you’re backing up. The leather interior smells kind of lemon-scented. I ask if I can smoke, but I’m just being an asshole.
He tells me I’ll have plenty of time to smoke when we get to Gallup.
He laughs deeply, like he just said something really funny.
Fucking Chip Barnes—the man who’s finally going to set me straight. The man who’s gonna teach me whatever it is I’m gonna need to know to become a confident, successful, influential male.
Driving his luxury SUV.
Air-conditioning on full blast.
Hair slicked back.
Smiling that fucking smile.
Not shutting up once the whole goddamn ride.
“Nic, I can already tell, this is gonna be exactly what you need. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded on the principle of men working with other men.”
He laughs at the joke he’s about to make. “And that was back when being a man actually meant something, you know what I mean? Not like today, where we’re supposed to be ashamed to even own a pair.” He laughs some more, smirking and laughing and smirking again. “Am I right?”
He takes one hand off the wheel
