Wonderland - Jags

the first person to change their mind about things. Then, maybe, you’ll
show up at a support meeting ... just to see.
The Underground
You look around the basement of the old Student Union building. Cheap
plastic chairs. A scarred table with unfinished edges, meant to be
covered with a table-cloth. The faint burble of a coffee machine. Cold
fluorescent lights. A swept concrete floor.
The chairs are in a circle. Several of them are empty and you can feel the
invisible chords of tension as the people in the occupied chairs wait to
see if the missing will arrive.
Mooney is up at the lectern. He’s tapping it—in the relative hush it
sounds overly loud.
MOONEY: “It’s seven-thirty, we’re going to start.” He’s annoyed—you
can hear it—but he exudes confidence and you like that. “If you’re
not going to make a meeting, you have made a personal commitment
to contact your sponsor. That’s important. Personal Commitments are
important. If anyone needs to re-commit, this is the time to do it.”
23
Introduction