A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [70]
I like Hank.
He likes you.
You’re friends?
We hunt and fish together, play cards. He’s sort of my Boyfriend.
I laugh.
Tell him I said hi and that I’m taking good care of his coat.
He’ll be glad to hear it.
We done?
I hope not.
I stand.
We’ll see.
She stands, hands me a card.
That has my Home phone number on it. If I’m not here and you need me, call.
What if you’re at Hank’s House?
He sleeps at my House.
I laugh.
Thanks.
I walk to the door and I walk out and I close the door behind me. I walk through the bright Halls and back to the Unit. As I enter the Upper Level, I see most of the men have gathered on the Lower Level. They are sitting on the couches and the chairs and the Bald Man is sitting on a chair in front of them. He’s speaking, and Lincoln is standing off to the side watching him. I walk down and I sit on the floor. I am near enough to hear, but far enough away so that I’m still alone.
My worst experience, and the one that I want to share with you, was the one that made me finally decide to come here.
He looks down, takes a deep breath.
I’m from Toledo. Two years ago on Halloween, a little girl in our neighborhood was kidnapped and killed by a man in a lion costume. It really shook everyone up, so to try and prevent it, our Neighborhood Council moved Halloween to October first, the thinking being that we could control things more and prevent another tragedy. My two little Girls, Laura, who is six, and Jennifer, who is nine, love Halloween. They’re real dramatic Kids and Halloween is their favorite Holiday, and every year they both get dressed up like Princess Leah and I get dressed up like Luke Skywalker. I put them in the back of a wagon and I pull them from House to House and we pretend that they’re riding in the Millennium Falcon and that I’m piloting it.
He stops and he looks at Lincoln. Lincoln nods and he holds up a fist as a sign of strength. The Bald Man returns the nod and he looks back at us.
A couple months ago, I made a deal with my Wife, whose name is Terry, to stop drinking. Part of the deal was that I could drink nonalcoholic beer when I really felt like I needed something. Being me, I went out and bought twenty cases of the stuff, hid nineteen of them, and kept one in the Garage refrigerator. I have trouble sleeping, and I can’t sleep without drinking, but I found if I drank fifteen nonalcoholics a night, I got enough in me to put me to sleep.
He takes a deep breath.
So every night for six weeks I ran out to the Garage during commercial breaks on the TV and I slammed nonalcoholic beers so I could sleep. It sounds dumb, but you do what you do, and you do what you need to do, and that’s what I did.
A couple of men laugh. Lincoln gives them a hard look. They stop.
The problem with my plan was that because I was drinking fake beer every night, I never stopped wanting to drink real beer, and if anything, the fake stuff made me want to drink the real stuff even more.
He stops, looks at the floor. As he speaks, his voice cracks.
Now it starts getting tough.
Lincoln speaks.
You’re doing great. Just keep going.
The Bald Man looks at him, nods, and looks back at us.
So my Wife had to go to New Jersey for her niece Tina’s Bat Mitzvah. We would normally go to something like that as a Family, but the Bat Mitzvah was on the morning after our Neighborhood Halloween, so me and Terry decided that I would stay home and do Halloween with the girls and Terry would go to Tina’s Bat Mitzvah.
A tear starts running down his cheek.
I took Terry to the Airport and I promised her I wouldn’t drink. As soon as she was on the Plane, I went straight to the Airport Lounge and I ordered a vodka and cranberry.
He stops, wipes