Part 15 (2/2)
In the front of the room, a lady asks for a moment of silence, and people on either side of me bow their heads Are they serious? I look over at the buff musician and his friend-heads down, plus the tweedy classics professor Lord, I think, this is souy at the front reads so they're not a sect or church, reiterating how nobody's the boss of anybody-we're all the sah school, where, in fact, the reigning hierarchy would've tied stones to the feet of druggy teens like es
Then a la the roo a line at a tiet in trouble Be good and you won't get in trouble and and Stop having fun and grow up Stop having fun and grow up and and Tell everybody how you're bad and face the firing squad Tell everybody how you're bad and face the firing squad
A woher power helped her through a fah her soused-up relatives tried to force all variety of cocktail down her gullet, and it's all I can do not to bolt out the door Higher power, her power, , and Church is a trick on poor people Church is a trick on poor people I look over at the classics prof, now giving the thun like she's scored a touchdown, and I think, What fun-house land have I crossed into, where the rich seek the counsel of the poor? Any et up and start stoe wife passes a hat I slather on e of uy at the front calls on a lady in a boucle Chanel suit, co down She es of Town & Country Town & Country azine She relates how she used to tuck her vodka bottle inside a turkey carcass stashed in the base dinner, she'd run down and yank it out and guzzle a bit And her fa laundry ha to no avail for her stash Then one night, she tells us in a demure voice, the frost had built up so deep she couldn't uzzling out of it azine She relates how she used to tuck her vodka bottle inside a turkey carcass stashed in the base dinner, she'd run down and yank it out and guzzle a bit And her fa laundry ha to no avail for her stash Then one night, she tells us in a demure voice, the frost had built up so deep she couldn't uzzling out of it
She says, And that was , Other people just don't drink like this
Rather than scorn her like school theives a startled smile And because I've never drained vodka from an icy bird, I think I'uy talks about burying bottles all over his ed into rehab Fresh out, he needed only to secret inside his Speedo bathing suit a plastic straw Then he'd grab a towel and so he wanted to catch soh the sliding door, totally flu in-drunk and beet-red-at sundown More laughter, and I hear myself join in since the company is more raucously alive thanwhere ahireen, and at dusk, his wife tilted open the garage door to find hi drunk, on tiptoes, half conscious She cut his He then went into the kitchen and blew out the pilot light and stuffed towels around the edges of the roo pills into his mouth and finished the last of the whiskey
Three days later, he ith a crushi+ng headache, and his first thought was, Boy do I need a cigarette So he patted around on the front of his shi+rt and pulled out a stogie Then he drew the Bic lighter frole flame
He didn't hear the explosion as the walls of the room were blown out In his next conscious instant, he was sed off
When have I laughed so hard in coreat poetry reading I'd sat through, when some outcast put a fresh name on the unnauys who crawled out fro for hot coffee and a bowl of soup But the folks aroundthe acadee uy who pours my coffee at the local donut shop When they share share-a word that right off makes me want to dip snuff-about how hard it is to ether by a coat hanger will hold, I realize how far I've rew up around
The next instant a gray-haired lady in pearls s, I'm not like you, lady I'm not like you, lady
Nonetheless, I raise et called on, I yank it down and start sitting on it again How far I've fallen fro fresh on inside, as if opposing inner judoeach other One e The next, their laughter bounces off o outside to smoke
In the coonized forht at hted s and hear a woible voice
The door opens a crack, and in the spilled, triangular glow, a tall kid wearing a red bandana over his strea brown hair slips out He stops six feet away and bends slightly forward-al, Excuse me, Miss Karr Mind if I join you?
Who is he? With his forlasses, he could be a student-so as I flash racious,stones you're flaunting We met before
And we had David was a Harvard PhD candidate in philosophy I'd once been introduced to at the back of a reading by h his red bandana is the flag of gangster or biker, ditto the unlaced Ti, and he says not hardly any tiet it, and I say if I got it, I wouldn't be out here s while he drank a lot, he mostly did marijuana, which can't be so bad because it's natural
I say-cleverly, I think-Strychnine's natural
He concedes that's true but also points out how, since the average pot smoker doesn't tend to steal your TV, people don't frown on it like they do, say, suard
We stare at the cannons facing us, both agreeing we really have better places to be as we grind our cigarettes with our boot heels Clihted doorway, he holds the door, bowing as he says from his scruffily bearded face (this is the pre-scruff USA), After you, Miz Karr
It brings me up short-his outlaardrobe paired with the obsequiouswithwithto his T-shi+rted chest
Then it strikes me that he's just a shy kid from the Midwest raised to say ma'am ma'am like I do to every waitress and dry cleaner We scuttle inside like a pair of field e like I do to every waitress and dry cleaner We scuttle inside like a pair of field e
Back in my chair, the filter of rateful, as in I'rateful to sit here with you nice sober folks I'rateful to sit here with you nice sober folks I look around and think, Your lives must suck worse even than mine if this constitutes fun for you
Eventually, I raise et called on I announce that I doubt I's, and nothing particularly bad has ever happened toWhile I expect soary smile I mistrust and nods, and the lady next to rabs hands to pray, it's like so-around-the-rosy, and I refuse to h to go along The musician and his friend do, and the professor Perfectly sure
On the way out, I pass bandana'ed David talking with great speed and anier in soical fallacy that they're tellingyou don't have a disease, since this a priori implies that any citizen who denies they have this ailment is no doubt infected
Like me, he's obviously here to educate the
On the sidewalk, the night is cool and wet, and a few passing wo call anytihtly pitiful on their parts What do they want?
One says, For otten around to happening Another says she'd wondered just like I had whether she really needed to quit drinking, but that underperfor a bleak inner life is a severe consequence of drinking even without an external loss like job or child
The comment stuns me in a way Inside I say to myself, How dare you suppose I have a bleak inner life! Driving home, I check my puffy eyes in the rearview and tell myself that I look as cheerful as the next ladydon't I?
I know that I don't, and while I sit in the driveway sh me-a streak of the kindness I'd witnessed at the coffee urn Just to be on the receiving end of a war so fenced off frosthat peculiar coive their phone nuers What losers I stuff the slips of paper in the car ashtray
Inside, with my small family abed, I pour my tuering upstairs to pass out, I fix a second, since I'll invariably wake around two or three, unable to cork off again without a fes
The next rabbing Dev to piggyback downstairs There, standing over the sink, I look at the watery drink and say toto pour it out So I swill down those dregs Only this tihteously claiht myself in In fact, I never poured poured the drink Just drank it the drink Just drank it
It's a snippet of a revelation, Dev's solid weight onthrough me like a hard-hit ball David's phrase; I have a disease whose defining sy you don't have a disease I have a disease whose defining sy you don't have a diseasebut I' to the screwed-up inner voice that's been ordering me around for a lifeti said-and go on living without me
22
Mass Eye Each spectral port,each huoes in there, where it feeds a blaze In a flashthe baby's old-Heather McHugh, ”The Size of Spokane”
Down in Texas, a botched cataract surgery has nearly blinded Mother, and I suggest she have the corneal transplant to repair it in Boston Since Mr Whitbread serves on New York Hospital's board and likes to flex that helping es me to write him to find a doctor I suspect (is this true?) Warren really fancies Mother's presence will let hirateful when Mr Whitbread right off cops for Mother an appointeon, who bu she co on a tissue randson, she says I'll look after hirade or write in your study
You're blind, Mother
Not entirely I mean, too blind to drive, but I can keep him away from sharp stuff
The first day she does babysit, but the second, Dev scaht behind, and do I want to go to the park? By the third day, Motherannouncement: I don't do kids