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had been looking up at Rose the Hat on the Roof O’ the World platform and trying to keep from
strangling himself with his own hands.
Hurry up, Casey. Please. Before I lose either my courage or my breakfast.
Casey might have been the one with the shining . . . or perhaps he saw something in Dan’s eyes. In
any case, he cut it short. “But he defied my expectations and got well. For every seven alcoholics who
walk through our doors, six walk back out again and get drunk. The seventh is the miracle we all live
for. One of those miracles is standing right here, big as life and twice as ugly. Here you go, Doc, you
earned this.”
He passed Dan the medallion. For a moment Dan thought it would slip through his cold fingers
and fall to the floor. Casey folded his hand around it before it could, and then folded the rest of Dan
into a massive hug. In his ear he whispered, “Another year, you sonofabitch. Congratulations.”
Casey stumped up the aisle to the back of the room, where he sat by right of seniority with the
other oldtimers. Dan was left alone at the front, clenching his fifteen-year medallion so hard the
tendons stood out on his wrist. The assembled alkies stared at him, waiting for what longtime
sobriety was supposed to convey: experience, strength, and hope.
“A couple of years ago . . .” he began, and then had to clear his throat. “A couple of years ago, when
I was having coffee with that gimpy-legged gentleman who’s just now sitting down, he asked me if I’d
done the fifth step: ‘Admitted to God, ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our
wrongs.’ I told him I’d done most of it. For folks who don’t have our particular problem, that probably
would have been enough . . . and that’s just one of the reasons we call them Earth People.”
They chuckled. Dan drew a deep breath, telling himself if he could face Rose and her True Knot, he
could face this. Only this was different. This wasn’t Dan the Hero; it was Dan the Scumbag. He had
lived long enough to know there was a little scumbag in everyone, but it didn’t help much when you
had to take out the trash.
“He told me that he thought there was one wrong I couldn’t quite get past, because I was too
ashamed to talk about it. He told me to let it go. He reminded me of something you hear at almost
every meeting—we’re only as sick as our secrets. And he said if I didn’t tell mine, somewhere down
the line I’d find myself with a drink in my hand. Was that the gist of it, Case?”
From the back of the room Casey nodded, his hands folded over the top of his cane.
Dan felt the stinging at the back of his eyes that meant tears were on the way and thought, God
help me to get through this without bawling. Please.
“I didn’t spill it. I’d been telling myself for years it was the one thing I’d never tell anyone. But I
think he was right, and if I start drinking again, I’ll die. I don’t want to do that. I’ve got a lot to live
for these days. So . . .”
The tears had come, the goddam tears, but he was in too deep to back out now. He wiped them
away with the hand not fisted around the medallion.
“You know what it says in the Promises? About how we’ll learn not to regret the past, or wish to
shut the door on it? Pardon me for saying so, but I think that’s one item of bullshit in a program full
of true things. I regret plenty, but it’s time to open the door, little as I want to.”
They waited. Even the two ladies who had been doling out pizza slices on paper plates were now
standing in the kitchen doorway and watching him.
“Not too long before I quit drinking, I woke up next to some woman I picked up in a bar. We were
in her apartment. The place was a dump, because she had almost nothing. I could relate to that
because I had almost nothing, and both of us were probably in Broke City for the same reason. You all
know what that reason is.” He shrugged. “If you’re one of us, the bottle takes your shit, that’s all. First
a little, then a lot, then everything.