Chapter 32
"The coffee tastes horrible here," Rickie said.
"Drink too much of the stuff and it could suck the marrow straight out of your bones," Shank replied. "More than one member here has contracted pernicious anemia from the java they serve."
"I notice you drink your share."
"Not from here. Starbuck's is my brew."
Earlier, following up on Rickie's expression of her desire to attend his AA meeting, he'd transported her down the hill from Mulholland Drive to the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Whiteoak Avenue, the juncture which sported, besides the brute physical and financial necessities of Jamba Juice and Pacific Crest Bank, the spiritually fulfilling, prominent brick structures of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. It was there, in the smoke-filled basement, she found herself in the company of an eclectic mix of women and men, a dozen or so of which were seated at a horseshoe arrangement of long folding tables and chairs, the focal point of which was a table headed up by a man and a woman.
"That woman is our speaker for the day, and that guy in black is the leader of the meeting," Shank explained.
Rickie snickered. "That guy's your leader? He looks like Maynard G. Krebs! Check out the black turtleneck and the goatee."
"AA has no leaders. Not in the strictest sense of the word."
"Why not?"
"Because alkies have severe authority problems. They can't be led anywhere."
Rickie continued her appraisal of the beatnik, who, judging by his dress and demeanor was the sort of individual to be found solemnly intoning arrhythmic indecipherable verses in places where everybody was stoked on too much caffeine and liberal thinking. "All the same, I think your leader is a bit left of center on the normality scale."
"What do you want? This is an AA meeting in Encino, not a stockbroker's downtown watering hole. At least the guy's alive. This isn't about chic--it's about survival."
"My name is Wayne and I'm a whole lotta alcoholic," the beatnik said. "Welcome to the noon meeting of the Encino Fellowship."
The place was unbelievably hot, the result of an overactive heating vent directly behind her. Rickie found herself falling prey to a sudden bout of near terminal claustrophobia. Normally, deep breathing would have allayed her anxieties, but a number of people were sucking down cigarettes at record breaking speeds, their elaborate exhaling of smoke fouling the air and rendering breathing of any sort nearly impossible.
"It's hot as Hell's hinges in here," she said.
"Keeps the rats out."
"Funny."
"Always be grateful for something."
"This is what's kept you sober for eleven years?"
Shank stared up at the ceiling and smiled. "Yeh. This is it."
It being noontime, a number of people dressed in work attire poked around in their brown bags, extracting and consuming lunch items, chief of which appeared to be sandwiches, and not a few candy bars. She thought of her own paper sack, containing one dead cat. Perhaps she did belong here. She'd give it another few minutes.
Wayne led the group through the Serenity Prayer, wherein, as far as Rickie could ascertain, God was petitioned to dole out a modicum of serenity to those in the group who couldn't accept the lot God ladled out to them earlier. That bit of business done, Wayne turned his attention to the next order of business, the ferreting out of newcomers in their midst. At Wayne's insistence, she introduced herself.
"I'm Rickie. Don't hang a label on me. It's just plain Rickie."
"Hi, Rickie!" Hearing her name chorused in this fashion, as it were, by a dozen strong voices, sent a chill straight up her spine. She'd never before experienced such a positive recognition, never heard her name shouted aloud.
"I'm only visiting," she hastened to add, a feeble attempt to justify herself in the eyes of her beholders. The collection of faces aimed in her direction smiled benevolently, rolling their eyes as though to a child who'd only lied about breaking into the cookie jar. Of course, she could almost hear them thinking. We know why you're really here, dear. In time, you'll admit it. Perhaps even today. You're a friggin' full-blown alcoholic!
"I think today we'll skip our Step Study and have a newcomer meeting," Wayne advised the group.
"Oh please," Rickie said. "No need to do anything special on my behalf. Go ahead and have your Step Study, whatevertheheckthatis."
As if on cue, a round of raucous laughter exploded at some hidden joke. Her embarrassment was acute."
"Is there a hole around here someplace I can crawl into?"
"Sorry, Rickie," Wayne said, "Please don't be offended. We're laughing at ourselves, really. Newcomers put us all in mind of our first meeting, when we still thought we were the center of the universe."
"Not to worry," Rickie said.
"AA is a place where self-centeredness often proves to be fatal," he continued.
"I get the picture."
Shank gave her knee a gentle squeeze under the table, which she took as a show of solidarity, enabling her to stand up to the discomforting coterie of feelings engendered by Wayne's last remark and the scope of things in general.
The lady next to Wayne, a tiny middle aged woman in a dark blue power suit, set aside her sandwich and began to speak. "My name's Arlene and I'm an alcoholic."
"Hi, Arlene!"
The woman seems proud of the fact she's a former boozer, Rickie thought. Has she sunk so low?
"Whenever I see a newcomer," Arlene continued, "I remember what it was like. Rickie's presence helps to remind me no matter how long I've been in the program, I'm no closer to a cure than the day I first walked in. I'm reminded I'm only one drink away from a drunk."
You can't possibly know what it's like for me. If you must know, I resent being used for your psychic projection of your past life. You can call that selfish, or not, whatever, it's your show.
Arlene smiled at her. "That's all I want to share."
Wayne surveyed the group. "Who else wants to share?"
A man raised his hand. "I'm Vic, an alcoholic."
"Hi, Vic!"
"Shank, look at that guy! He looks like he only crawled out of the gutter!"
"He did. About twenty years ago. He crawled in here."
"Has he bathed since?"
"Probably not. Once you kill a brain cell, it doesn't grow back."
"I remember how angry I was at my first meeting," Vic was saying. "About what it was like, I remember the time I got drunk at a party and raided the medicine cabinet looking for some downers. There were some pills in there, and I took them all and crashed on the couch. The next morning, my best friend's old lady came out and wanted to know why I ate all her birth control pills."
About a half hour into this ritual of sharing, in which stories of every description were heard concerning what it was like, Rickie's rapid metamorphosis from skepticism to angst to acceptance was finally completed by this most efficient and gentle brainwash, its mesmerizing formula of hot, stifling air, burnt coffee and wild stories effectively penetrating her soul beyond the battlefield of her emotions to a place long empty and in urgent need of filling. The vault of her soul, a long neglected room, a lonely place in need of a wild and crazy party, found a source, a fountainhead of experience, strength and hope.
"Shank, I have to tell you something."
"Yes?"
"This may sound odd, but I suddenly feel like I belong here."
"Oh my."
She knew it. She was where she belonged and was even now at the party of lost souls created by the dozen recovering alcoholics who knew her, really knew her, way deep down, in a way no others possibly could. They somehow survived similar lives of brutal and often bizarre chaos and understood fully her present craziness, her fears, her hopes. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives became unmanageable.
Her private reverie was interrupted. Wayne's voice. "Rickie? Would you like to share?"
Would she? Yes! She'd like t
o shout the truth from the top of the church steeple for the entire Valley to hear. She was home! She'd found her tribe! The voice that came out was slow, and fledgling, needing time yet to dry and stretch its wings before it could take flight. Nonetheless, she made the attempt to give way to the soul crying out within her.
"Well ... like I said ... I'm Rickie."
"Hi, Rickie!"
"Hi. I only want to say, it's not like I know anything for sure. At first, I was angry to be here, but after hearing your stories, I feel very connected to you guys, and that's not something I've ever felt before. When I first got here, I wanted to run, but now I feel like I could sit here all day, drinking this horrible coffee and listening. It may sound funny, but I feel safe here. So much so, I don't ever want to leave this room."
Here I am, she thought, in an overheated basement with a bunch of ex street people and beatniks, the sweat pouring down my pits. Yet there's a curious order to the process that's irresistible.
"A lot of you talked about how your lives were unmanageable. Well, I've got only about the most unmanageable life on the planet right now. My husband sent a couple of hit men to my door this morning. He did that because yesterday I tried to blow his brains out. I missed, but the bullets whizzing past his head caused him to have a heart attack and collapse into a pitcher of Bloody Mary's."
She'd grabbed their attention. "Wait, there's more. An hour ago, I asked Shank here to kill my husband. Shank showed me his sobriety was worth the world to him. He refused my request and brought me to this meeting instead."
The surrounding silence was thick; they were giving her some much needed space, something she hadn't received from anybody for quite awhile. Quietly, the seconds ticked on. She finally understood their silence. This is my admission, my First Step. It's time to admit I'm an alcoholic with an unmanageable life. That's why they're so quiet. They're waiting to hear me say it.
"Okay," she said. "There's something else I want to say. I know it's probably too soon to say it, but here goes." She paused, feeling something moving inside her chest. With a start, she realized it was her beating heart. The dad gum thing was about to burst with pride. She took a deep breath and prepared her lips and tongue to launch the syllables which would propel her into a brave, new and hopefully sober, world.
"My name is Rickie. I'm, uh, I'm ... wait, let me start over. My name is Rickie ... I'm, uh, that is, I'm an, uh--"