“My personal life is a mess, Ray,” she began. She sounded as though she was confiding a secret.
He said, “Okay.”
“No, really. Do you have time to talk?”
Like he had anything else. “You haven’t told him yet.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Ray! I don’t want to get into it. I don’t think I’m up to it.”
“If you put some clothes on, you’d feel more competent.”
She laughed. “It drives you crazy to talk to me when I’m naked, doesn’t it? What’s the matter? Is it too honest? Or does your own clothing make you feel inhibited? Are you secretly a closet nudist waiting to be exposed?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then you’re jealous. It’s not that I’m naked, but naked with a strange man in my house. We could be doing it right now while I’m talking to you. That turns you on, doesn’t it? Turns you on and repels you at the same time.”
Ray cleared his throat. “I find telephones to be a distinctly dishonest medium. You can see a lie in most people’s faces, but telephones hide the expression and garble the pitch of the lie in the voice. It protects the liar while revealing the innocent. That’s why telemarketers have replaced door to door salesmen.”
“So who are we protecting, me or you?” She was teasing. “Maybe you’re just as naked as I am, sitting on the desk with the office door closed and the shades drawn. Are you, Ray? Are you naked?”
“I don’t like to be naked.”
“That has the ring of truth, even over the phone. I can believe you. I bet even when you’re alone you dress in the dark, you shower with your eyes closed. I bet there are parts of your own body you’ve never even seen.
“It’s funny. I have a vivid imagination. I can look at people in restaurants, on the street or shopping in the mall and beneath their tacky suits and polyester blends, I can see their swollen bellies and whale-white legs. I mean, I can picture them in perfect detail. Surgical scars, varicose veins, inappropriate tattoos. Women who have bruises from their abusive husbands.
“I can imagine what a man would look like in bed. It uses the same skill sets. When I was hooking, I did it all the time, a split second appraisal so I could set my rates based on a disgust surcharge.
“But I can’t see you, Ray. It’s like you have shadows everywhere there should be light. Your clothes are full of smoke. Sometimes I think that if you even unbuttoned your shirt you would suddenly dissipate, lose coherence. Your form as we understand it would cease to exist. Why do you think that is?”
“Because you don’t know me well enough. Or maybe too much. I don’t know—it’s your imagination, not mine. Maybe you’re spending yout time making too many false assumptions.”
“It’s because you love me, isn’t it?” She said, laughing. Ray imagined her playing with the telephone cord, twirling it into knots with her long fingers. “Admit it. You manipulate me every time we talk because you don’t want me to see. You show me only what you prefer, and that isn’t very much. Are you afraid I’ll like what I find, or that I’ll be shocked by it? Are you trying to attract me or drive me away?”
He felt his face getting hot. He could no longer tell if this was teasing. “I thought we were going to talk about the shambles of your personal life.”
“I already know all the details of my life. Admit it.”
“I don’t have any shambles that would be interesting.”
“Not to you, because they’re yours. Admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“Admit it,” she said again. “Admit you love me and I’ll leave you alone. Unless, that is, you don’t vant to be alone.”
The phone chirped at him, made him jump. He managed to bang his knee hard against the desk, and he grimaced at the impact. He bit down on his tongue.
“I’ve got another call,” he grunted.
“Oh, all right.”
She hung up.
*
“Center for Addictions Treatment, this is Ray.” He worked both pep and syrup into his voice. He tried to sound eager to help. Hi, I want to help. I would be pleased to help you. I’m very happy to help you, really. Nothing would please me more.
It was difficult to be convincing in the middle of the night.
“I want to stop drinking.”
There was music in the background, muted. Honky-tonk or maybe Jimi Hendrix. Could be Jefferson Airplane. It had that general background quality specific to bars. A music that denied definition, that you inevitably heard without recognizing, snatched up in bits and pieces without ever precisely noticing. Drinking music. Psychadelic funk; psychadelic drunk.
The voice which blocked the music was thick, tired, the speech pattern beginning to slur.
Ray felt both his body and his own voice stiffen in response. He massaged his bruised knee.
“You’re looking for some help?”
“That’s why I called, isn’t it? This fucking beer an’ whiskey an’ shhhit, man. I got nothin’ but fucking shit from it. T’day I had two cases. Two. Then I came here, an’ they said I can’t have no more. I need help.”
There was nothing plaintive in the request. It was a demand—it was always a demand, though Ray was experienced enough to know that it wasn’t just a population thing that made his clients act this way. It was an alcohol thing. Obnoxious Drunk. The substance of that perception was so common, it had become a cliché. It should have its own dictionary entry.
The key to dealing with the intoxicated, especially over the phone, was to speak slowly. Use short sentences. Repeat everything at least once, and realize most of what you were saying just wasn’t reaching them. Ray hated callers from bars, and not just because they were demanding and annoying when a little broken down sincerity would have gotten them much further in the game of life.
He hated them, in fact, for a couple of reasons reasons.
He hated them because in response to their haranguing, howling, hedonistic environment he had to talk loudly to get over the noise. That was part of it. Shouting at someone over the phone when you’re more or less the only one awake in a house full of sleeping people makes you feel just plain stupid.
But even more than that, the weight of his significant disdain was purely a product of time and experience. When a drunk called, it wasn’t so much that one guy Ray was talking to, but every one who had ever called with the same complaints, who had gotten the same answers, who hadn’t then bothered enough to listen to what he had to say. Not any damned one of the four to six times he would repeat to them the information they had called to hear.
Stop drinking.
Check yourself into a facility like this one.
Go to an AA meeting.
Quit using and pay attention.
And take a cab to wherever you go when you decide whatever it is you’re going to do so you don’t kill somebody.
If Ray had been the meditative type, these phone calls could have qualified as a mantra.
The truth, of course, was that the calls were a waste of his time. The bars closed at two; the calls came between one-thirty and three. Pleas for help that either meant homelessness (though that was largely a winter phenomenon) or split-second assessments, drunken moments of clarity. Well, hey, look at me! I am a slobbering drunk! I should stop my ass from drinking before it kills me! Or some vaguely attractive six-pack worth of woman had pointed out the unnecessary you drink too much as a way of getting the guy to stop hitting on her and messing up her new dress, and the drunk perceived the intention of cleaning up as a way to gratify the immediate need of sexual relations. _I agree with you, ma’am. I drink too much, but I have given ver-ry serious thoughts to checking myself into a rehabilitation facility. After which time I understand that I can fully expect to locate your whereabouts and perpetrate really nasty sexual acts against your body. Ma’am._ (Tip of the hat).
Middle of the night callers had no staying power. Certainly, they viewed treatment with an obsession at the time, but come morning, come thirst, they’d wake up and scan the dingy walls and smell the alcohol sweat of their roommates and disappear. They believed they wanted help. Ray had no argument with that. When you’re that drunk, you can believe anything for any number of reasons. But the truth was that weren’t done drinking yet. It was not an uncommon occurrence, and part of the reason the average alcoholic did seven treatment episodes before they were able to string together any significant (measured in weeks) sober time.
Like all addictions professionals, Ray had learned how to evaluate a client or potential client almost instantly. By appearance, tone of voice, level of intoxication, content of initial communication, any number of other factors. The admission process to a detoxification facility took almost two hours with a sober patient, longer with those so drunk they kept passing out. Even longer with the vomiters, the seizers, the fallers down, and especially the drunk and just flat out belligerent. Why the fuck you need all this? Why do you ask so many damned questions? I just want to go to sleep. I feel real bad—look, man, I’m getting the shakes. I need some meds.
They spent more time arguing about why they had to answer the questions than it would have taken to just answer them in the first place. But try to explain that to them.
They couldn’t, wouldn’t understand that the questions could be the difference between life and death, that they were the questions the doctor would ask again in the morning when he did his cursory exam. The doctor would not accept a plea of “too drunk” from the admitting staff. The two docs were, after all, on call half the year and twenty four hours a day for a measly 16k. Their goal was get in, get out, avoid glaring malpractice errors. Like drive-thru exams. Would you like some Ativan with that hangover, sir?
(Ray was aware that his opinions of the doctors contracted to the facility were unfair and largely incorrect. At 16k, they were practically, at least in a physician’s universe, volunteering—which made him what? Wouldn’t the underground railroad be ashamed of what was going on in one of their depots…)
They also couldn’t understand that the more they resisted the performance of some simple paperwork tasks with an overnight monitor who wasn’t exactly pleased that they were currently pissing on his shoes, the more intractable the night shift guy was going to become.
Point being: at nearly two a.m., it was Ray’s prerogative to judge the motivation of the caller and encourage or discourage treatment as appropriate. Technically, he should always encourage. It was not just the facility’s mission, but also, the drunk you send away is often the same one who wipes out a family of four while driving home rather than taking a cab to detox.
(Ray had recently come to realize that particular chain of events had become so expected, so moralistic, that it had been upgraded to fairy tale status. Don’t you let your friends drive drunk, children, or the wicked drunk drivers will come and take your very own family away! The possible truth behind the cliché was largely debatable, but he was generally not in the mood to argue the veracity of such claims.)
At the same time, there was nothing altruistic in Ray’s seeming blithe acceptance of such an anecdotal argument. He didn’t suggest this or that drunken lottery winner cruise down for treatment because he imagined he was saving some faceless family from auto-alcoholic eradication. His motives were much more pragmatic.
If in the aftermath of a fatal accident—whether any fairy tale family involved themselves in the tragedy or not—it were to come out that his was the last agency of contact and he had offered no services, he became (personally and corporately) liable for any felonies committed.
But tonight, with all the beds full, Ray’s decision was easy.
“There’s not much I can do for you, friend. I’ve got no beds tonight.” He made himself sound sad.
“Huh?”
“I’ve got no beds.”
The caller mulled over that information. “Then what good are you? You got no help when a guy needs it.”
“We should have an opening tomorrow.”
“Bullshit.”
Which, in fact, it was.
“Hey, really.” Ray put a little steel into it, a clang like a portcullis closing.
“What do I do, then?” There was a sneer, belligerence working its way to the surface. Addicts want (what they want when they want it), and fail consistently to appreciate the difficulties of the treatment milieu. They expect service when they ask. “You tell me, what am I supposed to do? They’re startin’ to close here.”
“Go to the hospital.”
Official referral. Recommendation for further services at a qualified, alternative agency.
Ray was now legally off the hook.
The caller flipped him a virtual finger. “An’ get a fuckin’ PI? That’s six blocks.”
“Take a cab.”
“I don’t got no money.”
Of course not. He was calling from a bar, calling right before closing time, and therefore using the last bit of change he had in his pocket. QED. Ray had expected nothing else.
He said, “That’s too bad.”
“Why don’t you call one for me. You got them vouchers. I know.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why the fuck not? I said I need help.”
Those were normally the magic words, the incantation, the open sesame to all the vaults of social service and government program entitlements. It was all about liability issues, about who got money and did something quasi-productive with it, about who managed to hide their body count the best.
Career alcoholics were not idiots. They knew all of this. They knew they could not be denied services, by law, once those services were requested. Any facility displaying a pattern of request denials without justifiable cause could and would be denied funding (by order of Congress, no less). Thus, there were laws (which the addict knew generally) and entitlements (which he knew from experience) and the threat of funding denied to any agency shown to inadequately leap at the client’s command to which this caller was quietly alluding with his repetition of the word “help”.
It was, of course, largely a myth the community of non-recovering (or, more precisely, anti-recovering) addicts had convinced themselves was a reality. It sounded good, it made them feel like they had some sort of safety net from falling too far, and in some ways was actually legitimate. Except the skid row caliber addict tended to forget that no one in the legal or political bureaucracy was going to believe the testimony of a social loser. Especially when detox facilities made a community feel good, made them feel like they were doing something to help with “the drug problem”. Better an incompetently managed facility than no facility at all (not that Ray would have said in any way that the facility or its staff was incompetent; it was fully the clients who were incompetent…)
“I told you what to do,” Ray said simply. “I’ve given you a plan. If you choose to disregard that plan, there is nothing else for us to speak about.”
Plan. Recommended course of treatment specific to a client (or potential client). Ray’s ass had now been covered. He was practically the Merrimac he was so covered.
The caller gave him a few moments of dead line, open line. Honky-tonk, Ray decided.
“Fuck you,” the man shouted, then slammed the phone down.
It was not the first time.
*
Despite his presentation, there was one thing Ray made sure his co-workers understood. The appearance of spite was just that, an appearance. He did not hate the clients he encountered either in person or via the telephone while on the job. Not the ones who relapsed, not the ones who blatantly used them as a rest area between binges, not the cantankerous, cursing bastards who had been drinking longer than Ray himself had been alive and wanted to treat him and his recovery bullshit accordingly. He didn’t hate them at all. He couldn’t say he cared about them enough to have an emotion of that implied strength anywhere even vaguely in their direction.
But he could act the part convincingly if it helped to keep a client in line.
*
The next call, though he fully expected it to be, was not from a drunk.
“How are you doing, Ray?”
He recognized the voice at once. Sam Boler was a sort of co-worker in Ray’s mind. Officer Boler to most people. A tall, lanky cop with frighteningly red hair, but an easy smile and smooth, almost placating demeanor (which tended to obscure the fact that he had also once been an airborne Ranger). Two or three times a week he brought over slobbering pieces of human flotsam who had responded favorably to arrest, given little to no hassle, or seemed like generally okay folk. Ray could not decide if these gifts were given in lieu of a PI charge for those reasons or in lieu of paperwork Officer Boler did not himself want to do. This ambivalence should have made Ray suspicious of him, but as Ray just as frequently had to call Sam for drunken elopers (a highly technical term for those who decided to leave the facility while still above the legal intoxication limit—yet another liability issue), they had developed a sort of professional amiability.
Besides, the last thing a solo night shift worker in his field wanted was an antagonistic relationship with cops.
“I don’t have any beds, Sam,” he said.
“That’s all right. I don’t have any drunks. I’m off tonight.”
“Congratulations. Suddenly I find myself feeling more secure.”
Sam chuckled, and they shot the breeze for awhile. Not very long, and only generally. Ray was aware that he had little to say when Sam was out of uniform. It was odd. They had once stood in the parking lot for two hours while a passed out drunk slept off a binge in the back seat of Sam’s cruiser and exchanged job stories, compared divorce notes, and argued about who got screwed most by the court. (Loser: Ray. The legal fraternity sticks together, even in personal matters, but even then it had come down to the month Ray had lived in his car while paying his exes lawyer fees).
“I broke department protocol when I called you this morning,” Sam said finally. “I’m not apologizing for it, and I’m not sorry now. What I do on my own time is my business, right?”
“Except for that whole confidentiality thing.” Ray was not going to tell him that his call had been little more than official confirmation for the six other calls from AA sources he had received on the morning of the accident itself.
“There is that.”
Ray’s throat tightened. “Anyway, go ahead.”
“That kid, the suicide. There’s some trouble brewing. The lead investigator talked to a lawyer representing the family today. I think they’re nosing around for some evidence of negligence on your part.”
“It’s a voluntary program.”
“I know, and he was sober when he left. I assume, anyway. I don’t have toxicology to confirm that. This is all grapevine stuff. Can you believe this shit? The kid’s not even buried yet and they’re trying to cash in. Figure he ought to be worth something dead; whatever he wasn’t when he was alive, anyway. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”
Ray thought about that, hesitated. “His mother called tonight. About midnight. She wanted to talk to him, so she said. I didn’t have a release.”
“Jesus, you didn’t tell her anything, did you?”
“Of course not. No release of information; I said that.”
Sam expelled his breath. “No doubt she was baiting you—on the advice of counsel. It’s slimy as hell, calculating, but a good way to show in court that you play fast and loose with the rules. That’d be a good step toward proving negligence. God, what a bitch.”
“I figured she hadn’t been told yet.” Ray let out his own sigh.
“You’re entirely too gullible, boy. How have you survived that job this long?”
“Just lucky.”
Sam did not laugh. Instead, he became almost precociously serious. “I’m not kidding you, Ray. These people are hot for your ass, somebody’s ass. I’d love to call it grief or even a smarmy lawyer’s manipulations, but it sounds more like blatant profiteering. That’s on the part of the family, mind you. Lawyers make a living on profiteering. We expect that, so it doesn’t touch us much anymore. But I tell you, Ray, because I’ve seen it before: when the family gets involved, when it’s the aggreived mother and crying brat siblings that want to make the quick buck, this kind of shit can get dangerous to anyone standing in their way.”
“You’re suggesting they would lie.”
“They’ll lie a hell of a lot more convincingly when it’s their idea than when a lawyer is pushing them into something they’re not really sure jibes with their moral fabric, you understand? And like it or not, the current justice system, by that I mean the jury of your peers system, often comes down to theatrics, Ray. Which side lies better and lies more convincingly. That’s the side that wins.”
“Like a Deep Impact and Armageddon thing.”
“Take this thing seriously, Ray.”
“Of course,” he said. “I can worry about it if you think I should. Spend a whole day or two on it.”
Sam seemed to shake his head. ” Don’t jerk around here, Ray. I don’t think they’ve got a case, but they’re fishing…and these days, who knows what a jury is going to do? I mean, spilled coffee is worth two million bucks, for Christ’s sakes! Who knows where a jury would go for a weeping mother with some acting skills? I’m advising you—very unofficially—to be careful who you talk to and what you say.”
“I don’t have anything to hide. I did my job.”
“Sure, you say that now. I’ve seen too many of you soft-hearted liberals break down with guilt in front of the bereaved family. Admit everything from poor penmanship to single-handedly orchestrating the crucifixion. That business corrupts your sense of self-preservation.”
“I’m a Republican, Sam. Don’t worry about me.”
He began to get angry. “Cover your ass, Ray. I don’t want to see you take this fall. You do good work there, maybe even help a few people. One fucked up kid is not worth your whole life, and that’s exactly what they’re angling for. They’ll nail you with a million or two, then go after detox for a few more. They’ll shut you down without giving a shit about the void they leave behind, all those people who can’t afford a hospital. That bitch and that lawyer aren’t the ones who’ll have to pick up the frozen bodies come December.
“That woman lost her son. Big deal. He was nineteen on his way to twenty years in Plainfield, and that’s assuming he didn’t kill somebody trying to maintain his habit. He was a suspect in four home burglaries already. Probably the one shining, decent thing he ever did was step in front of that bus. Saved his momma a lifetime of grief. I’m trying to save you from her share of pain, Ray.”
There was nothing else Ray could say after that. He thanked Sam for calling, for his concern, and excused himself to his job responsibilities.
*
Do I deserve to be saved?
*
Ministers are the world’s only professional, paid codependents. The qualities which are shunned in the mental health field as being inappropriate, destructive, or disproportionate are the same ones preachers and pastors are expected to display on a daily basis. People want a codie God who burns to satisfy their whims. In the absence of a direct experience of divinity, they must take the behavior of the minister as evidence indicative of how much God gives a personal shit about them and their troubles. He is God’s standin for the religiously inept.
The Bible calls the congregation sheep for a reason—they are a boiling, panicking bundle of nerves and stupid anxieties. They want to be told what to do, how to do it. How to be safe, saved, secure. How to be in the right place so the wolves don’t get them. They are not, as a rule, big fans of existentialist philosophy. They find it to be absurd.
The Shepherd’s job is to provide those services, to convince the sheep that all is well. If he fails, the flock scatters. The shepherd has to be a smooth manipulator, making the sheep believe he exists to serve their needs when they, in fact, are serving his—for food, clothing, future provision. They forget that this is the entire reason herds are kept in the first place. Which is okay, because all of that uncertain, insecure unknowability would really fuck with their heads if they thought about it.
There is a parable of the shepherd who leaves his flock to seek one lost sheep. It goes a little something like this.
And he spake this parable unto them, saying, “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, ‘Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” (Luke 15:3-8, KJV)
The popular interpretation of this story is that it demonstrates God’s love for the individual. That makes people feel good, feel loved. But nobody thinks about the herd, the other ninety and nine. Who is guarding the sheep while the shepherd is off chasing the one idiot who abandoned the herd? How loved do they feel? While he’s out saving the isolated lamb, they’re having an ovine existential crisis without any recourse to help.
Jesus says something about that, too. Should they bother to pay attention, the ninety and nine would not find themselves amused.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. (John 10:11-14, KJV)
Should they pause to think about such things, the rest of the flock might just realize that while in the care of the preacher, the hired hand who’s all hot and bothered to go after the wandering sheep, they’re on their own. Especially when the shit really starts to rain down.
There is no mention in scripture of wolf-killing badass motherfuckers locked and loaded to keep an eye on the flock.
Existentialism being not only beside the point but way beyond the attention span of the average flocked-up sheep, as God’s agent, the minister is then applauded for rescuing the lost lamb. The herd forgets its pen terrors because nothing so bad happened after all in his absence. Even if something had occurred, the minister’s judgment (since he wears the protective mantle of God’s appointed guy) goes unquestioned.
Why do the sheep tolerate this blatant inequity of attention? Because everybody in the herd knows they could be that one lost sheep at any time. They will endure the times of terror in exchange for the knowledge that someone has their back; someone cares enough to come looking if they get lost.
Ray knew this because his father had been a minister. He knew the other part, the flip side, because he knew addicts and the dynamics of early recovery group relationships.
Like sheep, the newly sober treatment group is stupid, stubborn. It is biologically driven. It is want driven. It frequently, as an organism, pisses down its own leg in terror. And like the herd from the parable, any group of addicts braving the wolf-weary pastures of sobriety, knows that they could be picked off at any time. The herd likes the notion that someone is watching over them individually. But because the addict herd is a bit more savvy about survival than the religious herd, the converse fact, the serrated edge of all that existential panic, is just as valid.
When it’s the same damned idiot sheep getting lost time after time, the same one always causing their personal internal crises while the shepherd is off hunting for him, the herd gets pretty fucking tired of the whole thing. They start to feel like the lost ninety and nine and the one found sheep parable. They start thinking about the laws of evolution and the idea of survival of the fittest and wonder if maybe the whole sheepy gene pool wouldn’t be better off without a sheep with poor directional skills.
They perceive that the shepherd’s attention has become consumed by that one to the exclusion of all else. He’s always off saving the shameless, lost little bastard, while the rest of the herd are getting methodically pulverized by the wolves, drowned in the freak high pasture rainstorms or simply starving to death on ground that’s been grazed one time too often.
Ultimately, the wandering lamb has only so many mulligans before his allotment of grace is expended. Perhaps not in the eyes of a loving God, or even those of a codependent minister, but definitely in the perception of the flock at large. In the end, the flock will always advocate for the abandonment of the weak, the stupid and the recalcitrant.
Any yahoo shepherd who decides to ignore the clearly stated mandate of the flock on this score does so at his own peril. Sometimes sheep revolt.
As a result, going after the lost sheep at all in addiction circles was anathema, the ultimate expression of codependency. Individuation of that sort was dangerous to the pacification of the herd. And you would much rather have a quiet ninety and nine holed up in a secure pen where they couldn’t think of wandering into trouble. One lost sheep can’t hurt much but himself; ninety nine could devour the spring crop of an entire community if allowed to run loose.
It was a utilitarian argument, not always kind. But the shepherd in this case is aware that his livelihood depends on the herd, on managing the majority and keeping them in line. The absence of one is no big deal. It costs him nothing. This is an advantage addictions professionals have over ministers in terms of job security.
And if the lamb does not return, who the fuck cares, anyway?
*
At two-thirty, Ray woke up three of the clients he’d awakened earlier to take their blood pressure (again), assess them for withdrawal symptoms(again) and ask them how they were feeling(again). They all dutifully complained about the right things; they all trooped down to the office to receive the one milligram dose of Ativan the doctor had ordered for them and to which they knew they were entitled. In addition, one guy complained of muscle aches resulting from his opiate dependency and demanded the sixty-five milligrams of Darvon he knew he had coming. Ray wrote down everything they said in the appropriate charts and sent them back to bed.
Everyone was more or less happy with the entire exchange.
He used the excuse of a VSG—visual surveillance of grounds, that is, searching for hidden bottles or other contraband—to go outside and smoke.