'But I used to.'
'Yeah?'
'I loved it,' I said. 'Whiskey, mostly, but I probably drank enough beer over the years to float a light cruiser. Do you have a law-enforcement background yourself, Mr. Shorter?' He shook his head. 'Well, I do. I was a cop, a detective. I drank myself off the police force.'
'Is that right?'
'I never got in trouble for it,' I said. 'Not directly, but I would have the way I was going. I walked away from it, the job, my wife and kids, my whole life…'
I don't see what he could have for me, I'd told Elaine. Maybe you've got something for him, she'd said.
Maybe I did.
The way it works is remarkably simple. A day at a time, you don't drink. You go to meetings and share your experience, strength, and hope with your fellow alcoholics.
And you carry the message.
You do that not by preaching or spreading the gospel but by telling your own story- what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now. That's what you do when you lead a meeting, and it's what you do one- on-one.
So I told my story.
When I was done he picked up his glass. He looked at it and put it down again. He said, 'I drank myself out of the job at Q-C. But I guess you know that.'
'It was mentioned.'
'I was kind of shook, finding the body and all. Not the sort of thing I'm used to, you know what I mean?'
'Sure.'
'So I was hitting it a little heavy for a while there. It happens, right?'
'It does.'
'General rule, I don't drink that much.'
'They say it's not how much you drink,' I said. 'It's what it does for you.'
'Have to say it does a lot for me,' he said. 'Lets me relax, unwind, get some thinking done. That's some of what it does for me.'
'Uh-huh. How about what it does to you?'
'Ha,' he said. 'Now that's something else, isn't it?' He picked the glass up again, put the glass down again. 'I guess you're pretty strong on this AA stuff, huh?'
'It saved my life.'
'You been sober awhile, huh? Two, three years?'
'More like ten.'
'Jesus,' he said. 'No, uh, little vacations along the way?'
'Not so far.'
He nodded, taking it in. 'Ten years,' he said.
'You do it a day at a time,' I told him. 'It tends to add up.'
'You still go to the meetings after all this time? How often do you go?'
'At first I went every day. Sometimes I went to two or three meetings a day during the early years. I'll still go every day when I feel like drinking, or if I'm under a lot of stress. And sometimes I'll let my attendance drop to one or two meetings a week. Most of the time, though, I go to three or four meetings a week.'
'Even after all these years. Where do you find the time?'
'Well, I always had time to drink.'
'Yeah, I guess drinking does pass the time, doesn't it?'
'And it's easy to find meetings that fit into my schedule. That's a nice thing about New York, there are meetings around the clock.'
'Oh, yeah?'
I nodded. 'All over town,' I said. 'There's a group on Houston Street that has a meeting every day at midnight and another at two in the morning. What's ironic is the meeting place was one of the city's most notorious after- hours joints for years. They stayed open late then and they still do today.'
He thought that was pretty funny. I excused myself and went to the john, stopping on the way back to use the phone. I was pretty sure there was a late meeting on East Eighty-second Street, but I wanted to make sure of the time and the exact address. I called Intergroup, and the woman who answered the phone didn't even have to look it up.
Back at our table, Shorter was still looking at the same half-ounce of beer. I told him there was a meeting in the neighborhood at ten o'clock and that I thought I would probably go to it. I hadn't been to a meeting in a couple of days, I told him, which was a lie. I could use a meeting, I said, which was true.
'You want to go, Jim?'
'Me?'
Who else? 'Come on,' I said. 'Keep me company.'
'Gee, I don't know,' he said. 'I just had these beers, and I had one or two earlier.'
'So?'
'Don't you have to be sober?'
'Just so you don't start shouting and throwing chairs,' I said. 'But I don't think you're likely to do that, are you?'
'No, but-'
'It doesn't cost anything,' I said, 'and the coffee and cookies are generally free. And you hear people say really interesting things.' I straightened up. 'But I don't want to talk you into anything. If you're positive you haven't got a problem-'
'I never said that.'
'No, you didn't.'
He got to his feet. 'What the hell,' he said. 'Let's go before I change my mind.'
17
The meeting was in a brownstone on Eighty-second Street off Second Avenue. An AA group had rented the second floor and held half a dozen meetings there every day, starting at seven in the morning and ending at eleven. In concession to their residential neighbors, there was no applause at the late meeting; one indicated approval or enthusiasm by snapping one's fingers.
The speaker was a construction worker with five years' sobriety, and he told a basic, straightforward drinking story and told it succinctly, wrapping it up in twenty minutes. Then there was a break with announcements and the passing of the basket, and then we continued with a show of hands.
I was glad of that. All he had to do was keep his hands in his lap and he wouldn't have to say anything. No reason he should be put on the spot at his first meeting, the way he would be if they went around the room.
When I first came in, the last thing I wanted was to open my mouth in a roomful of alcoholics. And I kept finding my way to round-robin meetings. My name is Matt, I said, time and time again. I pass. I'd have a dozen things buzzing around in my head, but none of them made it past my lips. My name is Matt. Thanks for your qualification. I'll just listen tonight.
At eleven we went downstairs and out. I suggested a cup of coffee and he said that sounded good. We walked to Eighty-sixth, where there was a diner he liked. I was hungry enough to order a grilled-cheese sandwich and an order of onion rings. He just wanted coffee.
He said, 'I almost raised my hand. I was this close.'
'You can, any time you want. But you don't have to.'
'People say anything, don't they? I thought what one person said would relate to what the person before him said, but it doesn't necessarily work that way, does it?'
'You say whatever's on your mind.'
