Read The Ninth Step Online

Authors: Grant Jerkins

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The Ninth Step (7 page)

BOOK: The Ninth Step
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20
I NEED FOR YOU TO NOT TALK TO ME

Elmore held a Yorkshire terrier on the exam table while Helen attempted to get the proper placement of a Schirmer test strip in the dog’s lower eye. The dog had developed a thick, yellowish discharge from her eyes—pretty common in Yorkies. She likely had KCS, deficient tear production. The lack of tears allowed bacterial organisms to overgrow the eye. The Schirmer test strip would allow Helen to confirm that KCS was behind the chronic eye infections. It was simply a small strip of absorbent material that was placed inside the dog’s lower eyelid. The strip would change color as it absorbed tears, and Helen could then measure it against normal values.

Typically, it was an easy test, and Helen could not remember ever having this level of difficulty in placing the strip in a dog’s
eye. Elmore was doing his part and held the Yorkie’s head perfectly still, but every time Helen attempted to get the strip placed inside the lower eyelid, her hand shook too much to perform the task. At one point she had scratched the dog’s cornea. The dog whimpered, and so did the nervous owner. Yorkshire terriers tended to be high strung, and so did the people who owned them. Helen decided to try one last time, but as soon as she got close to the dog’s eye, her hand trembled like she had Parkinson’s disease. She was very much aware that Elmore was likewise very much aware that something was, alas, very much wrong.

“You know what? I seem to be having a bad morning. There’s no reason to put Francesca through this. I’m certain that it’s KCS like we talked about. I’m going to prescribe cyclosporine drops. Three times a day. If you don’t see an improvement within two weeks, I want you to bring Francesca back.”

Helen stood outside the clinic building near the rear fire exit. She had stopped on her way to work that morning and bought a pack of cigarettes. Normally, she never smoked at work. It wasn’t professional. She took one out and lit it. She had to have something to settle her nerves.

The midmorning sun was shining directly on the building, and the bricks had already absorbed a good bit of heat. It felt good to her. And the smoke felt good in her lungs.

The steel exit door creaked open, and Helen ditched her cigarette, but not before Elmore saw her.

“Caught you.”

Helen shrugged.

“Little shaky in there.”

“We all have bad days, Elmore.”

“Some are worse than others.”

Helen nodded.

“If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

“Are you sure you want to do this with me? Are you sure you want to play amateur psychologist?”

“Right. Sorry.”

Helen lit a fresh cigarette. Elmore motioned for one as well. She gave it to him and offered him a light.

She couldn’t figure out how to interact with human beings without alcohol flowing through her veins. How did people talk to one another without a buzz? How was that possible? Where did they find the courage? The motivation? Anytime you interacted with another person, you were putting yourself at risk. You were opening yourself to criticism, derision, or even downright hatred. She wondered how this could be tolerated without booze soothing your brain, telling you it didn’t matter what other people thought of you.

How could life be lived without alcohol? What was the point?

Elmore said, “You know, we never have as many secrets as we think we do. People figure things out. When I told my parents that I’m gay, they were like, we were wondering when you were going to tell us. I had built up in my mind that it would be this huge shock to them, but they had always known. They were just waiting for me to catch up.”

“That’s a touching story. They should print it up in
The Advocate
. Really. But not now, okay? Now is not the time for a Hallmark moment. I need for you to not talk to me.”

Elmore gathered his courage. Dr. Patrice was not one to share aspects of her personal life. Their relationship had always been an easy one, but this was new ground he was breaking.

“I’ve smelled the booze on your breath.” That one just kind of hung out there for a minute, kind of like the
Hindenburg
hung out there before it exploded. Elmore lit the match: “People think that vodka’s odorless. But it’s not. And I’ll tell you what smells even worse. Not drinking. A drunk who stops drinking smells sour. That’s how you smell. That’s how I used to smell. Sour.”

Helen stared at Elmore, waiting for the anger to subside enough for her to speak. To speak in a tone that would not belie her emotions. She did not want him to know that his words had found their target.

“You should share all these observations, bons mots, and life experiences with your career counselor at the unemployment office. I’ll mail your last check. Good-bye.”

21
THE DRONING ROBOT

Still wearing his neck brace, Edgar drew a triangle on the chalkboard. He labeled the sides
A
,
B
, and
C
. He turned to face the class. He looked at his students for a moment and realized he didn’t know what to say, so he picked up his textbook and began to read, covering the same material yet again. He just couldn’t get past triangles or his old friend, Pythagoras.

“The Pythagorean theorem posits an absolute truth in regard to not only the world, but the…” Despite the fact that he was reading, Edgar lost his train of thought. “Universe. The Pythagorean theorem asserts that…”

In the back of the class, the trouble spot, Jack Mendelson, pulled a wet wad of purple bubble gum out of his mouth and dropped it down the back of Martin’s shirt. Two onlookers
snickered, then laughed out loud when Mendelson shoved his fist into Martin’s back—setting the gum. Edgar looked up and saw it happen, but he was having such difficulty maintaining his thoughts that he decided to keep moving forward with the lesson and deal with behaviors later.

“That is, the theorem asserts that for a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.”

Notes were passed. Girls whispered. Boys drew. No one listened to the droning robot teaching this class.

22
MEALS FOR ONE

Edgar pushed a shopping cart through the frozen foods section. He just couldn’t stomach Jane’s cooking. The grocery store’s prepackaged meals were only marginally better.

Edgar’s cart was almost half full. In sharp contrast to the piles of items in the other shoppers’ carts, Edgar had arranged his goods in a very ordered, almost geometric design. Nothing was out of place.

As he pushed the cart, one of his items shifted out of place. Edgar stopped and rearranged all of the items until everything was packed in a tight precise construction that could easily withstand a trip through a war zone.

At the checkout, while Edgar waited his turn, he loaded his selections on the conveyor belt that would transport the food to the cash register. He noted a pattern. Certain words and phrases that appeared over and over again.
Meals for one. Solos. Single serving.

23
THESE PEOPLE WERE INSANE

It was a church basement set up with tight rows of folding chairs and a folding table off to the side set up with a coffee urn and foam cups. There were about forty chairs, and roughly half of them held occupants—mostly white with a scattering of other races, and about equally split with men and women of different ages.

A fiftyish woman with frizzy salt-and-pepper hair and wearing a maroon velour tracksuit stood up. “My name is Martha and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi, Martha,” the group responded in unison.

A teenage girl with a bright red patch of acne engulfing her chin stood up. “My name is Pearl and I’m an alcoholic.” The
group welcomed her, and Pearl added, “I also enjoy crack and hydrocodone.”

A man with muttonchop sideburns went next. He said his name was Walter and that this was his first meeting. Even though he elected to forgo the usual declaration, he was welcomed heartily. Then there was an older woman whose finger was set in a splint and wrapped with white gauze.

Helen wondered if the woman with the finger splint had fallen and broken her finger while she was drunk. And the girl with acne was downright odd. It was like she was placing the worst sort of personal ad:
I like sunny days, long walks on the beach, and I also enjoy crack and hydrocodone. Let’s get together.
And speaking of odd, hadn’t muttonchops gone the way of Jack the Ripper? Helen was more certain than ever that she didn’t belong here. Maybe she could slip out before it was her turn to stand up. Or just do like Jack the Tippler and say that it was her first meeting, thank you, and keep on moving. Yes, she could do that, but then everyone would think of her just exactly what she had thought of old Jack: that he didn’t yet have the balls to say it, to say that he was an alcoholic.

Maybe she could try explaining to them that she had been one of the invisible victims of radiation poisoning.

Taped on the wall above the coffee urn was an edge-worn poster. It listed the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Step one stated:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Okay, right there, Helen already had a problem. Yes, fine, she was an alcoholic. She had come to terms with that years ago. And if it made these people feel gushy
inside, then she could stand up and state just that. No problem. The issue was that her life was certainly not unmanageable. She was a college graduate. She had obtained her doctor of veterinary medicine degree. She owned her own home, her own vet practice. Hardly the hallmarks of a skid row derelict straining Sterno through a befouled pair of underwear. Yes, she was an alcoholic, but she was a
functional
alcoholic.

Step two:
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Sure. Why not?

Step three:
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Okay. Fine. God is great. God is good.

Step four:
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
She could see where that might present a challenge.

Step five:
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Hold the phone. Do what? Fuck that shit. She’d just finished covering up a crime; confessing that to somebody didn’t seem the most prudent course of action. These people were insane.

Helen quickly scanned the remaining steps and thought,
Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of shit to do
. No wonder AA worked for so many people—who would have time to drink? It was just too much. Coming here had been a horrible mistake. A stupid mistake. She wasn’t in her right mind. She was sweating. Her heart was racing. Her hands were trembling. It had to be the radiation.

It was her turn. Helen stood up. “My name is Helen. And I drink. A lot. I enjoy it. I enjoy it so much, I thought I might have a problem. But coming here tonight, I think maybe that it’s all
of you who have a problem. Honestly, and don’t take this the wrong way, but, uh, when you took that moral inventory, did you write down that you’re all just a bunch of pathetic assholes? I mean, for Christ’s sake, put yourselves out of your misery. Have a drink. That’s what I’m going to do.” With that, Helen turned and fought past the knees of the people sitting in her row.

The woman wearing the maroon jogging suit stood up and followed Helen out of the meeting. In the anteroom, Helen was opening the door to leave. The woman, Martha, caught up with her.

“Wait!”

Helen turned and arched an eyebrow in questioning annoyance.

“My name is Martha.”

“And you’re an alcoholic. I know. I get it.”

“No, you don’t get it. In fact, you got it completely wrong, my dear. We did put ourselves out of our misery. We stopped drinking.”

“Is that velour?”

“You’re goddamn right it’s velour. I dress for comfort, not style.”

Helen smiled.

“And you’re quite right about another thing. Quite right. We are a bunch of pathetic assholes. Welcome to the club.”

“Yes, I’m an asshole too, but I’m not quite ready to join up. To make it official. Thanks just the same.”

“Suit yourself, but really, isn’t it a little silly to not at least sit through one meeting? Are you scared you’ll catch sobriety
through osmosis? I wish it were that easy. I’ll sit with you. Come on.”

“I can’t go back in there. I made a fool of myself in front of those people.”

“Dear, my first meeting, I stood up, said, ‘Hi, my name is Martha,’ and then I threw up all over myself. If I can come back after that, you can too.”

24
CHAOS AND CRIME

Detective Lydia Poole looked up at her partner, Detective Alvin Miller, and groaned. Miller had cocked his thumb over toward the detective bureau’s waiting area. When Poole looked in that direction, she saw Edgar Woolrich sitting on the long wooden bench, a stuffed manila envelope resting on his lap. She had gotten so used to seeing him with the neck brace that he looked somehow naked to her now that he no longer wore it. Woolrich looked up, and before Poole could look away, he had caught her eye.
Damn
. She faked a smile and waved him over.

“Mr. Woolrich, good afternoon. I’m sorry, but we don’t have any update for you. Your case is still active, but it’s cold. I’m sorry that’s all I have for you.”

Edgar thrust the bulging manila envelope into her hands.

“More charts?” Poole opened the envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers containing graphs, charts, and equations.

“I’ve been looking into chaos theory. Are you familiar with it? Or maybe the theory of chaos and crime? In any given form of crime, chaos theory tells us that we look for small changes in ordinary variables. Perhaps external variables. Simple things such as car color likelihoods, or what individuals are attracted to what colors. We look for nonlinear transformations in the behavior of complex systems. You can’t find someone based on what colors they like. I mean that’s just nonsense, right? Unless you believe in chaos. Non. Linear. Transformations. That’s critical. Nonlinear. Do you realize—”

BOOK: The Ninth Step
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