The Falls (4 page)

“But I have plans,” I said, cutting her off.

“Plans?”

“Yeah, Timmy and I were going to . . . going to . . . you know . . . hang out together. Do I really have to come?” I begged.

My mother sighed and got that sad, drowned kitten look. “You don't
have
to come,” she said. “I don't want to force you. It's just that it's a big night for me, and you're not just my family, you're the reason I stopped drinking, and—”

“What time is the meeting?”

“It starts at seven. It should be over by eight or eight-thirty at the latest.”

“But half the night is gone by then,” I protested.

“I guess that depends on how late you're planning to get home,” she said.

“Where is this meeting?” I asked. I'd learned that there were Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every night of the week, and more than just one meeting each night.

“Tonight's is in the basement of St. James United Church.”

That wasn't too bad. That was at least on the way to where Timmy and I were going to meet.

“It's just that those meetings really creep me out,” I explained.

“I don't understand. Everybody is always so nice.”

“
Too
nice,” I said. “Everybody keeps coming up and wanting to talk and shake hands, and everybody acts like they're everybody else's best friend.”

“There are worse things than being friendly. Besides, we
are
like a family, and since you're my son they consider you part of the family too.”

“Don't you think that's creepy?” I asked.

“I think it's creepy to think what would have been our future without AA and those people.”

“Okay, I know it helped, but I don't understand why you have to keep going.”

“I have to keep going because I'm an alcoholic.”

“You haven't had a drink for five years. Doesn't that mean you
were
an alcoholic?” I asked.

“I
am
an alcoholic,” she said. “A
recovering
alcoholic, and without the support of my sponsor and the other members I might lose the recovering part. They keep me going, one day at—”

“Yeah, at a time, I know,” I said. I'd heard that line a couple of million times . . . of course, one at a time.

“Well?” my mother asked. “Are you going to come to the meeting?”

“I don't want to be there . . . but I will . . . for you.”

She got up and came over and gave me a hug. I thought I deserved more than a hug for doing this. Maybe a twenty-dollar bill and a new T-shirt . . . or at least a clean one.

 

 

 

 

“I
S IT GOING TO START SOON
?” I whispered to my mother as I looked around the room. The entire basement of the church was filled with rows and rows of wooden chairs, and almost every chair was taken.

“It's still a minute or two before seven. We don't like to close the doors until we have to. We wouldn't want anybody to see the closed doors and leave.”

“They could always open it themselves, or knock.”

“You have no idea how difficult it is to come through that door the first time. That's why it needs to be open, so they'll know they're welcome.”

I was going to offer some smart-ass comment, but really, I knew better. I was surrounded by AA people, and some of them took this stuff way too seriously. It was like it was a religion or something.

I looked back at the doors. There were still people coming in, and each person was greeted with a handshake or a hug. Strange. These people had probably seen each other at the meeting the night before, and the one the night before that, and the night before that . . . so why the big hellos? Some people went to a meeting every night, seven nights a week, week after week, month after month, year after year. Instead of being
addicted to alcohol, they were addicted to AA meetings. I guess there were worse things. And the meetings weren't just for the locals. People who were on vacation, or who'd just come to town for the day, could attend too. Man, looking at the Falls was boring, but it beat the heck out of coming to one of these meetings.

I scanned the room. Most of the people here were familiar. Some I'd seen around town, and some I actually knew. I recognized lots and lots of people who worked with my mother at the casino. There were so many of them, I wondered if the casino would only hire you if you checked a box that said “Alcoholic” on the job application. There were also teachers from my school, a fireman who worked at the station at the bottom of our street, a lawyer who had his office above the bank, a teller from the bank, the guy who was my soccer coach the last year I played, and a couple of cops. Was it really a good idea for people who had a drinking problem to be carrying guns? Well, at least, hopefully, they weren't drinking now.

My eye met that of our neighbour from down the street, and he gave me a little wave. Reluctantly I waved and looked away. If this was supposed to be Alcoholics
Anonymous
, wouldn't it make more sense if everybody wore a mask over their face? There was nothing anonymous about being here. If it was me, I wouldn't want everybody to know who I was. It wasn't like this was something to be proud of. It was just so strange seeing all these people here. The only thing I could think of that might be weirder was all of us meeting at a
nudist colony. At least here I had someplace to put my hands.

“Hello, Leanne. Hello, Jay.” It was Mrs. Bayliss, my mother's sponsor. She was the person my mother would call—day or night—if she had the urge to drink. She was also a teacher at my school. She was always friendly and said hello to me around the school, which made things even more uncomfortable.

“I didn't think you were going to make it. I was starting to get a bit worried,” my mother told her.

“Things got a little hectic.” She squeezed by me and took the seat my mother had been saving for her. “You nervous?” she asked my mother.

“Not anymore. Thanks for coming.”

“I wouldn't miss this for the world,” she said, and turned to me. “And it's so good to see you, Jay. You must be very proud of your mother.”

“Yeah . . . proud.”

“Five years is a major accomplishment,” Mrs. Bayliss said.

“I feel very proud,” my mother said. “How many years has it been for you now?”

“In September it will be twenty-three years.”

“Twenty-three years!” I exclaimed. “And you keep coming to these meetings?”

“It doesn't matter if it's twenty-three minutes, twenty-three days, or twenty-three years,” she said. “An alcoholic is always an alcoholic.”

“That's what I hear,” I said.

She furrowed her brow. “It sounds like you don't completely believe it.”

I shrugged. “You'd know better than me.”

A loud voice called out, “Good evening!” and all eyes turned to the front. There was a man in a suit standing at a podium.

“Hello. It's so good to see so many familiar faces, and so many new faces, perhaps coming out for the first time, or the first time in a long time. I will be chairing tonight's meeting. My name is Frank, and I'm an alcoholic.”

“Hello, Frank!” called out a hundred voices.

Just once I'd have liked somebody to start off by saying something like, “Hi, I'm Barney, and I'm an alien,” or “. . . I suffer from indigestion,” or “. . . I have bad breath,” or “. . . my mother dropped me on my head when I was a baby,” and everybody would answer back something like, “Drop dead, Barney.” Just once I'd have liked that to happen.

“Could we all stand for a moment of silent prayer,” Frank said. There was a chorus of chairs scraping against the floor as everybody rose. I stumbled to my feet.

Cautiously I raised my head and looked down the row. Everybody had their heads down, eyes closed, in silent prayer. I knew what I was praying for—that this meeting wouldn't last forever.

“Thank you,” Frank said. “Next, I'd like to lead you in the Serenity Prayer. ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,'” he began, and everybody in the room joined in with him, “‘the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Amen.'”

Frank raised a glass from the podium and took a big drink. It was probably water, but it could just as well have been gin or vodka . . . that would have been funny.

“There was a time,” Frank started to say, “when the most important things in my life all came out of a whisky bottle.”

“You tell it straight, Frank!” yelled a voice.

“Back then I couldn't tell it straight. If you'd asked me, I would have told you that my wife and my kids were what mattered to me, but I'd have been lying. And I proved that lie every day when I put them all through pain and suffering to satisfy my need for alcohol. Thank the Lord that when I hit rock bottom on that fateful day they were still there, that I hadn't driven them completely away, that they still loved me and forgave me. Their love, and the power of God, pulled me out of that whisky bottle and let me lead the life I'm now living.”

“We're proud of ya, Frankie!” called another voice, and people began to cheer and clap.

“Could we now have our reading from the Big Book,” Frank said.

A woman walked up the aisle toward the front. In her hands was the “Big Book,” sort of the bible for AA. She and Frank hugged and then she took his place at the podium, setting the book down in front of her.

“My name is Sharon, and I'm an alcoholic.”

“Hello, Sharon!” called out the audience.

I should have yelled back, “I'm Jay, and I'm not, and I'm tired of hearing about it!” But of course I didn't.

“For years I wasn't comfortable in my own skin,” Sharon began. “I tried to run and hide, but I couldn't run and hide from myself. Wherever I went, there I was. Same person, same problems, same addiction. It doesn't matter if you're an alcoholic living in Toronto, or
New York, or Niagara Falls, you're still an alcoholic. One day, praise the Lord, I hit rock bottom, and there were people there to help me make the climb back up . . . the climb I continue to make, one day at a time.”

“There's no other way!” called out a voice.

“Let me read from the Big Book,” she said, as she opened up the book and flipped through the pages. “‘Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path,'” she began to read.

I looked over at my mother. She had her copy of the book open on her lap, as did others sitting around us. As Sharon continued to read, my mother followed along in the book, her finger tracing the words, line by line.

“‘Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now,'” she continued to read. “‘If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps.'”

The steps . . . the Twelve Steps. I knew all about the Twelve Steps. The Twelve Steps were like the Ten Commandments of AA, except that instead of “thou shalt not”s there were a bunch of things you had to do.

“‘Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program for recovery,'” Sharon continued. “‘One. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Two. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.'”

Actually, almost all the steps had to do with God. AA was sort of a combination self-help group, church, and
religion all rolled into one—not that I knew much about churches or religion. I really hadn't seen the inside of many churches except for the ones I saw on Sunday mornings when I was clicking around the dial looking for cartoons.

“‘And finally, twelve. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practise these principles in all our affairs.'”

As she continued to read, I heard somebody sobbing from behind me and off to the side. I wanted to look, but I didn't want to be too obvious about it. Slowly, I turned my head. It was a man—he looked like a biker, all dressed in leathers with a big old beard and beer belly—standing in the corner, crying. Two people—a man in a suit, and a little old woman who was old enough to be his grandmother, and small enough to be his lunch—had both wrapped their arms around him, offering comfort. Where in the world would you ever see those three together except at a place like this?

There was a round of applause and Sharon made her way back down the aisle. As she walked, people stood up and shook her hand. She finally reached her seat.

“No matter how many times I hear the Twelve Steps, I still find them moving,” Frank said from the podium.

Personally, the more I heard them the more I wanted to move farther away so I wouldn't have to hear them anymore.

“I'll now read the Twelve Traditions of AA,” Frank said. “No meeting is complete until we have read the Twelve and Twelve.”

I almost wanted to laugh—“the Twelve and Twelve” sounded like a case of beer . . . twelve Coors and twelve Coors Light. I wondered what brand of beer Bobby's brother had got for us. Wouldn't it be strange if it was that two-four?

“Before getting to the announcements, I'd like to remind people that while we live with yesterday, today, and tomorrow, it is only today that matters. Yesterday is gone, and while we remember, we must let it go. Tomorrow is just a dream. We live for today, and take each day as it comes . . . one day at a time,” Frank said. “Does anybody have any announcements they'd like to share?”

A man sitting just in front of me put up his hand.