The Key
On my best days I'm a staunch and extremely verbal atheist; on my worst a sort of quite agnostic. So what in the hell was I doing down there on my knees? And why was I calling on him? Why the lucky carpenter, why the Magic Jew? That bastard son of a whore never did a thing for me. I mean unless you count dying for all my sins, but how can that count if I wasn't even born yet? Who's to say if I ever would have sinned at all? I hadn't sinned yet when they taught me that he died for all my sins, and that was my first question too. What sins? Father Bennett explained it to me like this, "The sins you have yet to commit my son." And he knew too; a year later he gave me a good jump start into the world of sin back in the old storage shed behind the church. I know what you're thinking, "He was just the messenger." Well that may be true and all, but I have to say that the message sucked too.
Let's see if I got it straight. Jesus died for everyone's sins, and if I believed that deep down in my little heart then I was going to get into heaven right? So why bother with the whole mess? I mean I sin, he forgives me and I get into heaven, or I sin and I don't believe in him and he forgives me and I get into heaven. Even when I was six I found it incredibly hard to believe that some little one liner about "taking him into my heart as my lord and savior" was the deal breaker. I asked Father Bennett about that but he couldn't answer, his mouth was full. So what was I doing groveling on my knees before the Christ?
It all started with a couple of little chips. The first chip was about the size of a half dollar. It was made out of metal and had a Roman numeral two right in the middle on one side. On the flip side it said, "Serenity". It was given to me at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting a couple of years before. That was the night I made my decision; the night they gave me my two year anniversary chip. I looked at like this; I had two years clean, two years free from alcohol and drugs, and I had to admit that my life had improved drastically. I had a job, an apartment and plenty of good friends, but there was still something missing. I didn't just go to meetings every night and dump all my problems either; I really got involved. I was the secretary at one group and the treasurer at another. I hung out with recovering addicts all the time and maybe that's where my idea started.
You see most of the addicts I hung out with were in their late thirties or early forties and I was only nineteen at the time. The problem was that I had just not done enough drugs. It was that simple. I mean I had drunk like a fish, smoked crack and taken tons of Valium, Percoset, Demerol and Codeine. I had dropped LSD, eaten shroons, smoked hash, did Bella Donna, and one time in reform school I even ate moldy bread with citrus acid from an orange peel on it, although that made me more sick than high in the end. I had snorted tons of cocaine, crank, crystal meth amphetamine and over the counter speed too, but when all was said and done, I still felt like an imposter in those meetings. I just really felt like I hadn't done any serious hard drugs yet. It was that same old feeling I grew up with, the feeling that I didn't belong, that I didn't fit in. The night I picked up my two year chip I knew what I had to do. If I was going to fit in, I was going to have to shoot some dope.
The idea didn't just pop into my mind like that though. It wasn't like, "hey man you need to go out and shoot some smack. It was more like I made a decision to start my life again, on my own terms. It was more like an awakening. I started slow. The change was barely noticeable, but it was there. A few nights later I was in like my ten millionth NA meeting and I raised my hand. The guy running the show picked me. Everyone got quite and prepared for me to reaffirm what a loser I was. That's how I saw it anyway. They looked at it like admitting that you had a problem and acknowledging your weaknesses. But that night I just had enough. I wasn't going to say, "hi I'm Matt and I'm an addict" one more time.
I had said it every day and night for the last two years, probably a million times. But that night on the way to the meeting I got to thinking about it and it just felt wrong to me. Why did I have to say that all the time? I hadn't done any drugs in the last two years. So I guess I could have opted for "hi I'm Matt and I'm a recovering addict." That intro was popular too, but not for me. For once I just wanted to say the truth; my truth. I just wanted to be me for a change. Not me the drug addict. I mean I lied a lot too, but did I go around introducing myself as Matt the liar? The whole thing just seemed defeatist and admitting that the drugs were more powerful then me. I believed they were more powerful then me once they were in my system, but not now, not anymore.
So I just said, "Hi I'm Matt." The room was dead silent. I mean it was OK for a newcomer to do something like that, but not an old timer like me. After a few uncomfortable seconds someone said, "I guess he's just visiting." and everyone laughed. Then they all chimed in, "Hi Matt." I "shared" about some nonsense and the meeting continued as normal. After the meeting I got the cold shoulder though; people who knew me for my entire two years clean walked right by me like I didn't exist. A few of my closest friends in NA asked me why I did that. I explained my reasoning and my confusion to them and they seemed to accept it, but they started pulling back. I could feel it at every meeting I went to after that.
I had broken some unwritten rule, probably the most important rule too. It was ok to come into meetings confused, but after you established yourself there it was not ok anymore. It was ok if you relapsed; that just reaffirmed why we were all there. In fact, I think relapse was encouraged as long as you crawled back into the meetings like a whipped dog and begged re-entry. It was also ok to fuck your best friend's wife, daughter or sister. It was ok to put the moves on underage girls who were fresh in off the streets. Who cares if they'd been abused for most of their life? A little more abuse in the name of recovery wasn't going to kill anybody right?
It was ok to lie and embellish your past. It was ok to commit fraud. Shit, I knew at least fifty guys from NA that were in on some kind of boiler room scams. One was even my sponsor for a while. He told me he was using his addictive behavior for a positive goal now. He got me a job at a boiler room. I had no idea what they did there. I thought it was a sales thing. Three months later a guy called me crying. The fuckers had taken him for everything he had. His retirement fund went to my sponsor's new car. I quit that day and got a new sponsor. My old sponsor gave me the cold shoulder. He was part of the "in" crowd at the meetings so that put me in the "out" crowd. Honesty was not ok I guess.
I went to AA meetings instead. Mostly they were blue color people in their sixties. I liked the meetings better, but those cats were bitter. Talk about your grumpy old men, I mean those people were neck deep in the shit. They held that AA blue book like a Baptist with a bible and they revered Bill Wilson like a God. There was no questioning the wisdom of the program or its literature. The old timers were the front line of defense. They sat in every meeting defending the book and it creators and dropping pearls of wisdom before the swine. I dug the scene, but they didn't dig me. No fucking nineteen year old had earned a place among them. They had put twenty years in on skid row alone to get here. Most of them were pushing carts when they got here and you could feel their resentment for anyone who hadn't hit rock fucking bottom.
I found some low key NA meetings. There were gay meetings which were relatively new back then and so there were fewer regulars dug in. That kept the meetings fresh, but to be honest the gay meetings were more like a gay bar without the alcohol. Everyone was colorful, everyone had a great sense of humor, and more importantly, everyone was gay. They didn't mind my presence in the beginning, but once they figured out I wasn't converting or coming out, they lost interest and gave me the cold shoulder as well. One guy even asked me why I came there. "The same reason as you" I told him. "To meet hot guys!" he laughed. I laughed too, it was funny. But I didn't go back anymore.
There were a few "alternative" meetings that challenged the basic principles and tried to re-define what recovery was and truly run without leaders. Those were fantastic meetings. They were filled with people like me who didn't believe in a higher power and weren't willing to sign any contracts with God or walk Bill Wilson's Twelve steps. They just had a drug problem and they wanted to hang out with other people who had drug problems too and maybe help each other out from time to time. Those meetings were great and they reassured me that I was not alone; that other people hated the hypocrisy, the gossip and the literalness of the regular meetings too. The problem was those meeting didn't last too long. Most of the people who attended so called "alternative meetings" were on their way out the door, for better of for worse.
So I returned to the regular meetings and I found out it's not ok to question the system. You can do just about whatever the fuck you like, but don't rock that fucking boat man. Same old, same old. Every crowd I'm with is like that. You do whatever you like as long as you're one of them. At Church, you don't question the existence of God, at least not for long anyway. On the street, you're cool as long as you stay on the street. If you do anything to get off the street, you're a sellout or a narc. Fucking punk rockers accept everyone right? No, they are about as open minded as a bunch of college Frat boys. You can hang with them and they'll even give you a nick name and make you feel like you belong, as long as you do what's right by them. Dye your hair, get pierced, get tattooed, say fuck all the time, that's the drill and the uniform. You might as well join the marines.
Don't even get me started on hippies! I mean fucking hippies are the most closed minded people I've ever hung out with. I mean everything is cool as long as you are a free thinker one hundred percent of the time. As long as you question authority! As long as you think that all you need is fucking love right? But if you even question the validity of a leftist argument for one second, they go berserk. They are by far the most vocal and judgmental group I've ever hung out with. Don't you even try to buy a pack of Lucky Strikes or god forbid Marlboros. If you don't smoke cloves or American Spirits, you might as well be a conservative.
It was right about that time that the seed of dissention was planted in my head. I began to imagine a life without the Twelve Steps. There's a Joy Division song the sums up my feeling at the time best.
"I feel it closing in. I feel it closing in. I feel it closing in! Day in, day out, day in day out, DAY IN, DAY OUT!"
I knew exactly what Ian Curtis was talking about, and I just wanted out. No more smoke filled rooms, no more checking with my sponsor before I made any decisions, no more "one day at a time". I felt as if I had signed my life over to some very large and very dysfunctional family and I wanted it back. The day that I didn't say I was an addict was the first step of taking my life back. And let me tell you, they sure don't make it easy for you.
I gave up any and all positions of responsibility at the meetings and then I fired my sponsor. Firing my sponsor actually gave me the best feeling I'd had in years. He was a nice guy and he was trying hard, but to be honest I think he needed me more than I needed him. He was a wreck after I dumped him. Then I stopped going to meetings everyday. I went once or twice a week for a month or two and then I started to skip a week here and there and then I would show up maybe once a month.
Each time I went was more and more depressing; the same old people talking about the same old shit. I walked into a meeting I hadn't been to in like a month and I felt like I have just gone out to smoke a cigarette. I mean it was exactly the same faces and exactly the same stories. It was all so depressing. I thought they could use a professional there to mediate and maybe move things along. And every time I went I got the same strange looks and the same cold shoulder. Now, people would just walk right up to me after the meeting and ask me straight up, "Are you still clean?" "Sure, I just took a shower yesterday" was always my answer. They didn't think that was funny.
One of the last meetings I went to was an AA meeting in Coconut Grove. I went with this guy Carlos whom I had just recently met. He was a middle aged punk rock queen from Brazil. He just moved to Florida from New York and he was very atypical for AA meetings at that time. He was overtly gay with bleached white hair, an impeccable sense of style, and the sexiest accent I'd ever heard. I think that Carlos was getting tired of the scene as well. We had been to a few meetings together and we both honestly listened and tried to hear the message, but invariably we would end up outside afterwards laughing at other people's misery.
So at this meeting, a guy named Jeff was sharing for the three millionth time about the horrors or living with his mother. Jeff was in his mid forties and still lived at home with his Jewish mother. I had heard him share about her forever. The obvious never came up. He just talked about learning to cope with her moods and her guilt trips and her anger etc... So this time, when Jeff is done lamenting, Carlos raised his hand. "Hey Low, I am Carlos and I am an addicted."
"Hi Carlos," the group chimed.
"Jeff, excuse me, but you're mother is a bitch. Maybe you should move out no?"
The room fell silent. Jeff put his head in his hands and began to sob. The leader of the meeting cleared his throat and began to share. He changed the subject immediately. Carlos had just broken another rule. Don't ever state the obvious. Carlos looked over and gave me the sign for "Let's split." As we were leaving I heard this quite giggling in the back of the room. I looked over to where it was coming from and stopped in my tracks. Sitting way in the back with four discarded coffee cups by her feet was the cutest punk rock girl I had ever seen.
She had bleached white hair on top but around the sides and the back it was shaved close and jet black. She was wearing some strapless Salvation Army summer dress with a dirty white t-shirt over top. Her incredibly long legs were covered in black and white striped stockings that disappeared into her beat up black DM's. Her face was beautifully pale with shockingly red lipstick being the only color. No eye shadow, no eyeliner, nothing; just like a ghost with bright red lips. The final straw was the eyeglasses. They were just reading glasses with thick black plastic frames, but they did the trick for me. I was in love instantly. She was staring at me and still giggling. I was thinking that if there was a library in the Movie Blade Runner, then she would be the librarian. She was still staring but she had stopped giggling. I made the international sign of "do you want to come outside and smoke a cigarette with me?" She nodded her head yes. My life was about to change.
She picked up her enormous black leather biker's jacket and followed me outside, ignoring the three of the four coffee cups at her feet. We found Carlos under a tree out front and as we walked up the three of us burst out laughing. "I can't believe that you said that," she said laughing. "I've been hearing him say that same thing for years and nobody has ever said anything to him. It's like nobody cares. We all just listen to him share and then we think what a loser he is and then we forget about him."
"I don't think he's a loser" Carlos said, "I think he's kind of cute. He could move in with me if he wanted, but I would be a much stricter mother." We all laughed again. I took out two cigarettes and lit one and handed it to her then lit the other for myself; Carlos was already smoking.
"What's your name," I asked.
"Christie, and you?"
"I'm Matty and this is Carlos."
"I know Carlos; he works next door to me." Carlos just nodded.
"Do you live around here?"
Right down the street on Franklin what about you?"
"I live with my mother" I said and we all started laughing again.
I heard some of the people in the meeting were going to a movie at the Bakery Center and since I wasn't excommunicated yet I thought I might like to go. I asked Christie if she wanted to come along. She said ok. It was weird, but I wasn't nervous with her at all. I had been with a bunch of girls by that time, but I didn't really like any of them and I was always very nervous. I was much smoother with men. With men, I was in control. But this Christie was different. I felt at ease with her right off and I was talking and acting like well... I was just smooth. That's all I can say.
At the movie we sat next to each other and she made me laugh like crazy the whole time. She was really funny. I mean like holding your stomach with tears in your eyes funny. In fifteen minutes we were reaching across the seats and pulling on each others arms and stuff. People were telling us to keep it down which only fed the fire of our laughter. At one point I was crying from laughing so hard. Then you know that moment when you realize that the laughing is about to stop and your breathing is starting to return to normal and you just chuckle a few more times. I love that time. That and the first ten minutes after I achieve orgasm are my favorite times. My thoughts are the clearest then. So I was at that point, wiping the tears from my eyes when I looked over and I realized I was in love for the first time. The movie was dark so she didn't realize that I had started crying again.
After that we were inseparable. We ditched Carlos after the movie and she invited me over to her place. What a wreck it was too. I should have seen trouble coming from the state of that apartment. There were clothes every where; not old dirty soiled clothes, but brand new designer clothes. Besides the clothes, there were Diet Pepsi cans scattered everywhere too. Some full, some half full, others with cigarette butts crushed into the top. Even in the bathroom which I later discovered was her favorite place to smoke. One thing I have to admit is that the place had a certain character. She had book shelves that were actually filled with books. She had a lot of fucking cool clothes. She made us some coffee with an antique coffee kettle and we sat at her kitchen table smoking and drinking coffee until two-thirty or three in the morning. It was the best conversation I had in years.
Christie had about one year off of alcohol and was feeling pretty much the same as me about the meetings. She was bored and so was I. We were both ready to move on. We talked about her past and mine too. I told her straight up that I had been a hustler and had slept with men for most of my life. I told her I didn't have much experience with women. She told me she was a drunk and a whore and she didn't have much experience with men either. At least not while sober. We laughed like crazy all night long. I had never met a girl who could make me laugh that much. For once, I wasn't acting. I was just being myself with this girl, the same way I'd be with a guy. I fell deeper and deeper under her spell.
At around three AM we were talking about her family and she said she wanted to show me some photos. We moved into the bedroom. That bedroom looked as if a tornado had just ripped through a New York fashion show. I shit you not, there must have been an entire retail store there scattered on the floor. There was an antique wire clothes dummy in one corner wearing no less than three dresses, two coats, twelve necklaces, and two hats. The bed was completely covered in tights, stockings, panties and socks. The closets were full, but very little was hanging. Most of it was just piled up on the floor. I think this is wear my love for women's clothing began.
Christie partially cleared the bed and got out an old leather photo album. I sat down next to her on a pile of panties, my left hand directly on top of the crotch of a pair of fishnet stockings. She showed me photos of her family and herself as a child. The normal stuff, ski trips, summers at the beach, Christmas morning and such. I tried to concentrate but the fishnets were overwhelming me. Not just them, but all her clothes; they were all so girly. I couldn't focus on the pictures. I examined every inch of her room, every visible garment.
"Sorry it's such a mess" she kept saying.
"It's ok" I answered.
"Have you been with any girls" she asked.
"A few."
"And how many men?"
"Too many to count."
We both laughed hysterically for a minute. I couldn't stop. I was laughing so hard my eyes were watering again. I took deep breaths and tried to regain my composure. When I looked up she was right there, her face no more then a couple of inches away from mine. Her lips were now pale pink without the red lipstick. She licked them once slowly. I held my breath.
"You're beautiful you know?"
"Not really" I said.
"Yes really" she said
I looked down at the bed. She took my chin in her hand and gently turned my head up towards hers. I opened my eyes just in time to see her lips sliding down past them. When my eyes were equal to hers our lips met as if by accident. Like she was trying to look me in the eyes and it was just coincidence that our faces were exactly the same proportions which caused our lips to meet. We didn't kiss; not yet. We just sat there looking into each others eyes for a bit with our lips softly touching.
Christie closed her eyes and very slowly licked my lips with just the tip of her tongue. She let the tip of her tongue very slowly explore every part of my lips. Then she opened her eyes and took my face in between her hands. She stared at me for a few seconds as if she had never seen me before. Then her thumb began to trace the line of the scar on my lip. "You're so beautiful" she repeated. And then she kissed my scar.
Trouble was bearing down on us like a freight train. In order to avoid being crushed on the tracks I bought a ticket and climbed onboard. "I'm in love with you." I said.
She looked into my eyes and then kissed me again softly on the lips. She pulled back and cocked her head to one side exposing her slender neck. I kissed her lightly there and then bit down just a little. I pulled back just a fraction of an inch and let my hot breath dry the wet spot on her neck. I pulled back more and took her face in between my hands.
"You're beautiful." I said. The train was pulling out fast.
"I love you" she said.
I reached out and grabbed her hand and pulled her onboard. The train picked up speed. We never looked back. We never looked at our tickets. We didn't care where we were going as long as we went there together.
We didn't get out of bed for three days. She had a carton of cigarettes, a huge bag of coffee and a case of Diet Pepsi and that seemed to be all we needed.
To be continued...