A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [72]
I know a bit about the loss of dignity. I know that when you take away a man’s dignity there is a hole, a deep black hole filled with despair, humiliation and self-hatred, filled with emptiness, shame and disgrace, filled with loss and isolation and Hell. It’s a deep, dark, horrible fucking hole, and that hole is where people like me live our sad-ass, fucked-up, dignity-free, inhuman lives, and where we die, alone, miserable, wasted and forgotten.
The Lecture ends and I leave and I go back to the Unit and I sit through an exercise on Rational Reaction Therapy. Ken leads it and explains that Alcoholics and Addicts tend to react irrationally in situations involving stress. Rational Reaction Therapy is a method of decision making to counteract that irrational behavior. When you’re in a situation, consider all options. Take your time, stay calm, choose the option that is the most healthy and productive. It is a very rational philosophy.
After the exercise there is another Graduation Ceremony. Three men I don’t know are leaving. They have done their time and they have worked their Programs and they are ready to face the outside World. They are happy as they receive their Rocks and their Medals, two of them cry when they give their speeches.
The Ceremony ends and everyone claps and some of the men start playing cards and some of them start watching television and some of them get changed and go to the Gym on the other side of the Clinic. The Graduates leave. I go to my Room and I put on Hank’s jacket and I go outside.
There is no Sun. The life that showed itself yesterday has retreated. The ground is cold and hard, the air oppressive, the Sky black, the trees bent beneath the weight of frozen branches. I walk and I smoke and I find a Trail and I let the Trail lead me. It is dark and quiet beneath the canopy of dense, heavy wood, and the only sound is that of my feet forging through piles of crackled yellow leaves.
I listen to the leaves. I stare at the ground. I try to lose myself. I try to forget where I am and why I’m here, I try to forget about what lies in front of me. I try to forget about death, Prison and recovery. I try to forget that there is a World outside of that which is in my head and I try to forget that there is a World within my head. I try to forget everything. The whole fucking mess.
I walk, stare, try to lose, try to lose, try to lose. The crack of leaves fades into a sharp tumbling roll of small stones and the stones lead me to a long, narrow Lake covered with delicate sheets of thin, fractured ice. I stare at the sheets. In the shallows beneath, packs of small fish dance, solitary weeds lie still, algae clings to whatever it can find. A shell sits lonely and silent and I stop and I watch it. Somewhere within there is life. At some point life will shed its shell and reemerge. I stare at the shell in the shallows beneath a delicate sheet of fractures. Life reemerging. I want to forget, but I can’t.
I walk again, continue to try, continue continue. The shore drifts into a wide stretch of tall, dead, yellow grass and my feet become silent on an artery of hard, black, packed dirt. As they carry me through the grass, I run my hands along the sharp frozen tips of the grass and they tickle me and I laugh and the sound of my laughter calms me. Forget, lose, forget, please lose. It tickles me and I laugh.
The packed dirt graduates to bog and I step onto an Elevated Walk of faded pine, imbedded screws and tall, firm Rails. The deep stench of Swamp seeps up and through, too strong to be killed by the cold. As I walk, I lean over the Rail and I breathe in stench and I stare across a murky,