A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [50]
The Lecture starts and he turns away from me. On the Stage, a man about my own age starts telling his life story. He drank some beer and smoked some pot as a Kid and got sober when he was fourteen. He joined AA and he found a Higher Power and it changed his life. He got straight A’s in High School and he went to Harvard. Now he’s an Investment Banker and he’s engaged to be married. He still goes to Meetings, places all of his trust in his Higher Power, and he gets down on his knees every night and he prays before he goes to bed. As he speaks of his nefarious past, he refers to pot as grass and beer as brew. He talks about having the spins and taking sips from a flask at a School Dance. He talks about the guilt and shame he felt in committing these acts.
I do not relate to this man in any way whatsoever. I do not relate to drinking brew and smoking grass and the spins and sips from a flask. I do not connect these things to any sort of true and dangerous addiction, I do not connect these things to any sort of need for recovery. I suspect that this man would have joined a Twelve Step Group had he felt he had been watching too much television or eating too many hot dogs or playing too much Space Invaders or picking his goddamn nose too many times a day. I suspect that had he not found the Twelve Steps, he would have found the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Pentecostal Christians or the Hassidim or the UFO Redemption Group. I suspect that his membership in AA doesn’t have anything to do with brew and grass or any sort of addiction to them, but to a desperate need to belong to something. Belonging is not something I have ever concerned myself with and is not something I give two shits about. I have lived alone. I am about to die alone.
I stand and I start to make my way out of the Aisle. As I pass Leonard, he reaches for my arm. I push his hand away and I keep going, past the rest of the seated men, toward the door, out and into a Hall, toward another door that leads outside. I reach the door and I open it and I am hit by the cold and the rain and the wind and the sleet and I am hit by the darkness and I am hit by what lives within the darkness.
I button up the jacket and I flip the collar and I take a deep breath and I stare into the black. They are waiting for me. The drink and the drugs and the Dealers and the Addicts and the Criminals and the Whores and the Pimps and the Killers and the Slaves and the pipes and the bottles and the smoke and the vomit and the blood and the human rot and the human decay and the human disintegration. They are there in the darkness and they are waiting for me.
I step out from beneath the cover of the door and I start walking. One step at a time, away away away. The cold is quick and bitter, the rain and sleet are hard and wet, the ground a mosaic of mud and rock and water, the darkness the darkest darkness. Away away away, one step at a time, it is waiting for me, it is waiting for me. About twenty feet from the Entrance, I hear the door open and I turn around and I see Leonard coming outside. He’s not wearing a jacket and he’s immediately drenched and he is heading straight toward me.
Hey, Kid.
I turn away from him and I keep walking. I hear his footsteps in the wetness and I hear the pace of them increase and I hear them getting closer to me. I keep walking.
Wait up a second, Kid.
I don’t wait, don’t stop, don’t turn around.
Where you going?
Footsteps closer.
Where you going?
A hand on my shoulder. I push it off.
Stop for a second, Kid.
A hand on my shoulder. I push it off. Hands on both my shoulders. Stronger than I expected. They stop me and they turn me around. Leonard is drenched and dripping. He speaks.
Where you going?
I push his arms off of me.
Leave me alone.
I start walking.
Where you going?