Postcards from the Edge

Postcards from the Edge

DAY ONE

Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? My life is over anyway. Besides, what was I supposed to do? He came up to my room and gave me that dumb stuffed animal that looks like a thumb, and there I was lying in bed twelve hours after an overdose. I wasn’t feeling my most attractive. I’d thrown up scallops and Percodan on him the night before in the emergency room. I thought that it would be impolite to refuse to give him my number. He probably won’t call, anyway. No one will ever call me again.

DAY TWO

I was up all night with my head full of frightening, chattering thoughts, walking around and around the halls. After about the sixth spin I stopped waving at the night nurse and just kept my head down.

One of the therapists came in to admit me and asked how long I’d been a drug addict. I said that I didn’t think I was a drug addict because I didn’t take any one drug. “Then you’re a drugs addict,” she said. She asked if I had deliberately tried to kill myself. I was insulted by the question. I guess when you find yourself having overdosed, it’s a good indicator that your life isn’t working. Still, it wasn’t like I’d planned it. I’m not suicidal. My behavior might be, but I’m certainly not. Tomorrow I get out of detox and start group.

I hate my life.

DAY THREE

All of the therapists here seem to be former addicts. They have this air of expertise. Drug addicts without drugs are experts on not doing drugs. I talked to this girl Irene at lunch who’s been here two weeks, and she said that in the beginning your main activity is a nonactivity in that you simply don’t do drugs. That’s what we’re all doing here: Not Drugs.

The woman who admitted me, Julie, is my therapist. I don’t know if I like her or not, but I want to like her. I have to like her, because the way she is is probably the way I’m going to be. I need to make an ideal of someone who did drugs and now doesn’t.

Three people here—Carl, Sam, and Irene—have been to prison. We also have Sid, a magazine editor, and Carol, an agent’s wife, and several others whose names I’m not sure of yet. Most of them are here for cocaine or free-base, but there’s also a sizable opiate contingent. The cocaine people sleep all the time, because by the time they get here, they haven’t slept in weeks. We opiates have been sleeping a lot, so now we roam the halls at night, twitching through our withdrawals. I think there should be ball teams: the Opiates vs. the Amphetamines. The Opiates scratch and do hand signals and nod out, and the Amphetamines run around the bases and scream. There are no real rules to the game, but there are plenty of players.

Tomorrow afternoon after the cocaine video, the nurse takes everyone who’s not in detox on a Sunday outing to the park.

DAY FOUR

It was nice being outside. You feel less like you’re being punished and more like a normal citizen. It’s hard not to feel like an outcast in a drug clinic, but then it’s hard not to feel like an outcast, period. I seem to be the only one here who had their stomach pumped. It’s an interesting distinction.

Carl and I shared a blanket in the park. He’s a fifty-five-year-old black grounds keeper and a would-be ex-free-base addict. He looks like a burnt mosquito. I asked him how he could afford to be here and he said he’s on his wife’s health insurance.

Carl talked so much in the park that I thought I was going to kill myself. His main topic, of all things, was drugs. He talked about cooking up the rock and the feel of the free-base pipe, and how he’d make enough money from Tuesday to Friday to free-base all weekend. I asked him what he took to come down, and he said he didn’t like downers. He said, “Shoot, those drugs don’t do nothin’ but constipate me.”

The fat guy Sid seems really smart. He’s in for lodes. I asked him what lodes were and his eyes started to shine. When addicts talk about their drug of choice, it’s almost transcendental. He said, “You’ve been a downer freak and you don’t know what lodes are?” It turns out lodes are four strong painkillers combined with one weird sleeping pill, which produces an effect like heroin along with a stomach addiction, which Sid had. I can’t believe I missed that drug.

The weird thing about all this is that I had been straight for months—the whole time I was filming Sleight of Head in London and all through my vacation. But then I got home and BOOM! four weeks of drugs. I hated it, I even wanted to stop, but I just couldn’t. It was like I was a car, and a maniac had gotten behind the wheel. I was driven, and I didn’t know who was driving.

DAY FIVE

I let Irene cut my hair today. It’s kind of horrible. She’s only twenty, and her skin is all broken out from PCP and heroin. I got so absorbed listening to her stories of blackouts and arrests for prostitution that I didn’t notice how badly the haircut was actually going.

Julie is so cheerful I want to punch her. And two guys who get out of here next week, Roger and Colin, almost swagger. They’ve got it all over us, because they haven’t done drugs in almost a month. They really know how to not do drugs now. Big fish in a little rehab.

I feel so agitated all the time, like a hamster in search of a wheel. I’m consumed with panic that everyone will find out about this and hate me, or laugh at me, or worst of all, feel sorry for me. Pity me for taking my Everything-That-a-Human-Can-Possibly-Be-Offered and turning it into scallops and Percodan on the emergency room floor.

I can see where people would think that my life is great, so why can’t I feel it? It’s almost like I’ve been bad and I’m being punished by rewards—this self-indulgent white chick whose inner voice says, “Look how spoiled you are. Go on, have another great thing. What are you gonna do about it, huh? What are you gonna do about it?”

The thing about having it all is, it should include having the ability to have it all. Maybe there are some people who know how to have it all. They’re probably off in a group somewhere, laughing at those of us who have it all but don’t know how to.

The positive way to look at this is that from here things can only go up. But I’ve been up, and I always felt like a trespasser. A transient at the top. It’s like I’ve got a visa for happiness, but for sadness I’ve got a lifetime pass. I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere.

DAY SIX

This is hard—I feel like I’ve got bugs flying around inside of me. I called my friend Wallis today, and I tried to get the operator to say, “Collect call from hell, will you accept the charges?”

After not feeling anything for years, I’m having this Feeling Festival. The medication wears off and the feelings just fall on you. And they’re not your basic fun feelings, either. These are the feelings you’ve been specifically avoiding—the ones you almost killed yourself to avoid. The ones that tell you you’re something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and not even someone interesting.

I talked to my agent and ended up in tears, which is not my favorite presentation of myself. Crying to my agent. I tried very hard not to, but I didn’t have a chance. I’ve used up all the Not Cry I was issued at birth. Now, it appears, it’s crying time.

I talked to my mom briefly. I was afraid that she’d be mad at me for messing up the life she’d given me, but she was very nice. She said a great thing. I told her I was miserable here, and she said, “Well, you were happy as a child. I can prove it. I have films.”

What went wrong between what she gave me and how I took it?

DAY SEVEN

How old do you have to be to get past caring?

Sid looked over at me during lunch and said, “You look so unhappy.” I was sort of startled, since the picture of myself that I carry around in my wallet of a head is of a peppy, happy-go-crazy gal. I keep my eye on this picture when evidence to the contrary is all around me.

How could I have gotten all this so completely wrong? I’m smart. I guess I used the wrong parts of my brain, though—the parts that said, “Take LSD and painkillers. This is a good idea.” I was into pain reduction and mind expansion, but what I’ve ended up with is pain expansion and mind reduction. Everything hurts now, and nothing makes sense.

DAY EIGHT

Drama in Drug Ward Six!

Irene got kicked out of the unit for smoking dope in her room. She offered some to Carol, the agent’s wife, and Carol came to me crying and asked me what she should do. I told her we should turn Irene in, so we told Stan, the therapist who was on duty.

Stan called Irene in, and she had this real defiant look on her face, like she’d been caught doing something noble for her country and now she was going to be killed for it. Carol was crying and I was sitting and holding her hand. Stan said, “Irene, we hear you’ve been smoking dope.” Irene said, “Well, I didn’t know where I was gonna be when I moved out of here, if I was gonna go to a halfway house or whatever, and I was confused so I smoked dope.” Stan said, “There are a thousand excuses and finally no reasons to do drugs.”

Most of the people in here share the desire to seem cool. They can be aching from heroin withdrawal, but ask how they are and they’ll say, “Pretty good, man. Hangin’ in there.” The answer comes too quickly, and hovering over a grin, a look of desperate loneliness gazes across the abyss. The only thing worse than being hurt is everyone knowing that you’re hurt.

DAY NINE

So, essentially I could have died. Not only this time but probably several times, forgetting how much I took and when I took it, not to mention why I took it. Was I celebrating, or drowning my sorrows? Or celebrating my sorrows?

The junkies were up in arms this morning. Half of them wouldn’t speak to Carol and me because we snitched on Irene. The other half thought it was pretty stupid for anyone to have smoked dope at a drug rehab. They had to call a special little group session to defuse things. These aren’t people with a good handle on their emotions, and without their chemical coping skills it’s every man for himself. It doesn’t run hot and cold here, it runs hot and hotter. Bart, the homosexual triple Scorpio, called me an asshole in the Ping-Pong room.

It turns out Irene got the dope from one of the cleaning men who she was fucking in the stairwell during lunch. My kind of people.

DAY TEN

Three new people checked in today. Marvin, a retired bus driver in his fifties, is probably here for alcoholism. Wanda is a heroin addict who says she’s a model and brought the makeup to prove it. And Mark is a crazy kid from Vacaville—I don’t know what his drug of choice is, but I don’t think it matters anymore. This is a cross section of village idiots from all over the state. Everyone you ever would have thought was too loaded at a party is in one place.

After group, Bart apologized for calling me an asshole and told me a story about the time that he spilled amyl nitrate on his testicles and his balls melted into the sheets, and he had to take the sheets and his balls to the hospital and have them separated. I told him it was a great idea for a TV movie.

We had lunch and watched The Outer Limits. Drug addicts pretty much all have the same taste in shows: science fiction and MTV. It’s so bizarre. Everyone is acting like where we are is sort of normal, and we’re in a drug clinic.

DAY ELEVEN

The new people came out of detox today and joined our group. Marvin said he wasn’t an alcoholic, but he likes it here. He thinks all of us are interesting. It’s like he’s on a field trip for Psychology Today, or a segment of Bloopers, Blumpers and Bleepers where they send a healthy person to blend in with a wardful of addicts just to see if anybody notices.

Wanda was in the hospital recovering from a suicide attempt (carbon monoxide in her car). She called her dealer to bring her heroin because she couldn’t sleep. She overdosed in the hospital, so they just transferred her down here.

Mark was brought in by his parole officer directly from Vacaville. He’s nineteen, and he looks like he’s been on medication of some kind for most of his life. His blond hair is greasy and parted down the middle, and he has very wild eyes. When he walks down the hallways, he hugs the walls, which Carl says is a prison thing. Mark has already been in jail for three years for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, and now he’s in a drug clinic. His father came in today to bring him some clothes. He seemed disappointed at the way Mark’s turned out.

My mom is probably sort of disappointed at how I turned out, but she doesn’t show it. She came by today and brought me a satin and velvet quilt. I’m surprised that I was able to detox without it. I was nervous about seeing her, but it went okay. She thinks I blame her for my being here. I mainly blame my dealer, my doctor, and myself, and not necessarily in that order. She didn’t like my hair very much, but pretended to. She said it was “interesting.” She thinks my life would work better if I got a new business manager. She washed my underwear and left.

In the last few years I’ve become an accepted eccentric at best, and a fuckup at worst. I feel like I’ll let people down if I take away the behavior they’ve grown accustomed to disapproving of. They try to discipline me, I refuse to be disciplined. They object, I’m objectionable. We all know exactly what to do.

Julie talked to us today about the family and friends of the addict, the Alanons. She said they become very caught up in the whole downward spiral of watching the alcoholic slowly die. It can become their whole lives. Addicted to addicts. “It’s like an Alanon jumps out the window and someone else’s life flashes in front of their eyes,” said Sid. I wished I’d said that, but then, I probably will.

I keep thinking that if I could marry somebody, this would be less embarrassing. I’m so jealous of Carol because she has a husband. It makes it seem less final that she’s here. It gives her something to go back to, someone to be with, and someone to be. I have no situation that requires me to be more than I am. It just seems like when you get two people together, and one’s in a suit and one’s in a dress, how could they be unhappy? Unless their kid murdered another kid or something.

I envy people who have the capacity to sit with another human being and find them endlessly interesting. I would rather watch TV. Of course, this eventually becomes known to the other person. I once told Jonathan that I would pay more attention to him if he got better programming. It always seems that in the beginning with someone, nothing they do could ever be wrong, except that they don’t see you enough. And eventually it gets to the point where you just want to say, “Get off my leg, okay?”

What’s the difference? No one would marry me with this haircut, anyway.

DAY TWELVE

This boy Brian was checked in this morning by his mother and his aunt. He wore a red knit hat and stunk of beer. He was about eighteen years old, and he did not want to be in a drug clinic. He had a concert to go to Wednesday night.

Brian’s brother was killed last year in a car accident. He was lying in the street and someone released the brake on a car, and it rolled over him because he was too loaded to get out of the way.

They sent Carol and Bart and me to convince Brian to stay. He said he was impressed that someone like me actually stayed in the clinic, and that he wanted to be an actor, but he couldn’t be persuaded to stay. He said he was too young to stop drinking and drugging. All his friends did it.

He knew he was probably an alcoholic—he drank all day and smoked a lot of dope, and did cocaine when he could get it—and he knew that his brother had, in effect, died of it. Still, he couldn’t handle what it meant to be in a drug unit. He wouldn’t examine it. It was too heavy and it was definitely too hard. It couldn’t be true, therefore it wasn’t. And so he split.

The whole thing made me think. I used up so much energy explaining why I was late, why I didn’t show up, how I wasn’t really loaded, I was just tired, I had jet lag. Avoiding looking people in the eyes because I couldn’t stand how I felt when I saw the disappointment in their faces. That ate up a lot of energy. If I could accept that I’m a drug addict, I could have all that energy back.

So, I’m a drug addict. I guess we’re allowed just so many drugs in one lifetime, and I’ve used up my coupon. From here on out, there’s just reality. I think that’s what maturity is: a stoic response to endless reality. But then, what do I know?

DAY THIRTEEN

This is not necessarily where I envisioned myself when I was young. I didn’t stand up in school and say, “My goal when I’m older is to be in a drug hospital, eating cafeteria food and watching The Outer Limits and fighting in group therapy and playing volleyball in the park and not dealing with my feelings.”

I talked to Thomas on the phone today. He said he’s been trying to reach me, but the line is always busy—it’s a pay phone. Thomas sounded so calm, so okay, so not me. Somehow I absorbed the world’s genetic horror, while my brother inherited the sweetness and patience of someone who befriends birds. He’s one of the few people who, when you ask how he is and he says fine, you don’t question it. It reminds me of the scene in The Exorcist when the priest looks into the devil inside the possessed girl and cries, “Take me!” and the devil leaves the girl and enters the priest. It’s like I’m an exorcist, taking all the darkness and letting it gather inside me, while Thomas absorbs—well, maybe not light, but certainly lighter colors. There’s some sad buoyance in him. He ambles and strolls, moving through life in smooth easy motions. I told him that the great thing about having me as a sister is that I make him look even better by supplying him with contrast. He said, “The really great thing about having you as a sister is that you’re the only adult I know that keeps a bowl of Tootsie Rolls for her guests.” I don’t know why, but this made me feel better.

Sid said that drugs weren’t the problem, life was the problem. Drugs were the solution. I think Sid has a crush on me. He gets me up in the morning by coming into my room and holding my feet until I’m totally awake. I like having my feet held, even if it is by Sid.

Marvin still doesn’t think he’s an alcoholic.

Mark showed me his letter from Manson today. It didn’t seem to make much sense—something about redwood trees. Mark says Manson is deeply misunderstood and a “cool guy.”

DAY FOURTEEN

Today Mark threatened Sid’s life. Nobody quite knows what happened, but Mark was given Haldol, an antipsychotic. Now he has all this mung in the side of his mouth, and he looks wilder than ever. Carol and Wanda say they’re going to put trash cans in front of their doors tonight, because there are no locks in drug clinics.

Carl’s mad at me because I gave him ten dollars to shut up. He says I’m a spoiled movie actress and I don’t know the first thing about real life. Maybe he’s right. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got my nose pressed up against the window of a bakery, only I’m the bread.

DAY FIFTEEN

A lady came in today to beef up our spirituality, AA-style. She told us a couple of great stories. First, she explained why people who bring us into AA are called Eskimos. There was this guy named Harvey, sitting in a bar up in Alaska. Another guy, Tony, came into the bar and started talking to the bartender about God. Harvey said to Tony, “Do you believe all that stuff?” Tony said, “Yeah, I do,” and Harvey said, “Aaah, I tried that God stuff. It’s a bunch of crock.” Tony said, “What do you mean? What happened?” So Harvey said, “Well, I was in this really, really bad snowstorm. I mean, I’d been lost for days and I was dying. I was desperate. Finally, I dropped to my knees and prayed. I said, ‘God, if you’re up there, please get me out of here. Save me!’” “Then Harvey stopped talking, so Tony said, “Well, what happened?” And Harvey said, scornfully, “Oh, nothing. An Eskimo came and got me out.”

Then she told us this story of how her first AA sponsor had gotten this horrible kind of cancer, and her sponsor believed in God. So this lady couldn’t understand how she could believe in a God who would make her suffer like that. And her sponsor said, “God never gives us any more than we can handle, so if he gives you a lot to handle, take it as a compliment. It’s because he believes that you can handle a lot.” It was such a powerful thought, I wanted to brand it into my brain.

When I got back to my room, there were flowers from the guy who pumped my stomach. The note said that he could tell I was a very sensitive person. I’d have to be sensitive to need all that Percodan.

I’m tempted to marry him, just to be able to tell people how we met.

…That’s it, I’ve quit. This time I’ve really quit. I’m not doing cocaine anymore. If someone came up and offered me cocaine I wouldn’t do it. I doubt that anyone will offer it to me, though. No one offers cocaine anymore. It used to be a way that people got friendly, sharing a few toots, but now everyone hoards their cocaine.

My first party without drugs. Interesting. I mean, when I was a little kid I always went to birthday parties straight, but that was a while ago.

I wonder if anyone here even has any cocaine. That guy Steve looks like he might, he usually has some. I loathe that guy, but he always has great cocaine…

No, I promised myself I would not do any cocaine, because that last time was such a nightmare and… But it was fun in the beginning. Sometimes it’s fun. I don’t know, Freud took it, so how bad could it be?

But this is the new me. I’m totally on a health kick. I have not taken any cocaine in four days. I don’t even like it anymore. I never really did like it, I just did it ’cause it was around. And I don’t think I was really heavy into it, not like Steve over there. Steve is really, really into cocaine. I would say he’s got a problem. He can’t stop. Well, sometimes he stops for a while, but he can’t stay stopped. I really think I can. I think I have willpower, I just haven’t used it in a while. I’ve been kind of on a willpower break, but now I feel it’s coming back. I really think I can stay with this commitment of not doing cocaine.

Besides, this healthy life is great. I really love this being straight. You know, you see people jogging and you think, “ Yuuucccchh,” but I’m getting on. I’m in my late twenties, and I think taking drugs was all part of being young. I don’t think I had a problem, I think I was just young. And that by definition isn’t a problem, it’s just a point in your life when it seems okay to take a lot of cocaine. And then that point passes.

I don’t know, I think it was the bad relationship I was in that really determined my drug intake. And now Joan’s left me, and I really feel good about myself. I mean I want to. And I went to that juice bar today and bought chlorophyll juice, that green drink. It gave me diarrhea, but I really feel good tonight. And I feel like it’s a beginning. You go to a place like that and you buy the chlorophyll juice and the carrot juice, and you’re making a statement. And I bought some new sneakers, I’m gonna start running… I actually got up at nine thirty this morning and moved my exercise bike right next to my bed, so tomorrow morning I know I’m just gonna hop on that cycle. Ten minutes is enough for aerobics, I guess. And then maybe I’ll go to that Canyon Ranch health spa. Maybe then I could meet a really great girl. I think if I meet someone who doesn’t do drugs, then we won’t do them together, obviously, and that’ll really help me. I think all of these choices reflect where you’re at with you.

The only thing that bothers me is the idea of giving it up completely. I should be able to celebrate every now and again. Like if I stay straight for a while, I should be able to celebrate by getting loaded. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Steve does that, but Steve has a problem. I think that once I get this under control, I’ll be able to do it. And I really feel like I’ve made a strong beginning. God, my stomach is upset from that juice, though. I wonder if everything good for you tastes awful. I hope not, because I’m really gonna get into it.

Steve looks kind of loaded now. That looks so awful. You see people and they’re loaded and… Look how dumb it looks. That looks so stupid. I can’t believe I ever did it. I feel so good about being on the other side of it now. It really erodes your self-esteem to make a decision like not taking drugs and then taking them. The thing is, I also think you can take a little bit, and not do it to excess. Not everybody can—obviously there are some personality types who can’t do anything a little bit—but I’m not one of those. There are certain areas of my life where I do a very little bit, and I think if I practice, one of those areas could be cocaine.

Well, maybe not cocaine, but maybe I could take a speed pill every so often. I love what speed and coke do to my weight. It’s unnatural, I know. I could just exercise…

God, there’s that great feeling right at the beginning. If you get some good coke. From now on, I’m just gonna do good coke. When I do it, I’m gonna make sure. I’ll never go to the dealer in Brentwood again. Never. I think that was the problem. His coke hurts your face, it becomes a chore to do it. I’ll just do pharmaceutical, that’s not hard on the membrane, and I really want to take care of my body. I think I’m unusual, because even during all those years when I was doing drugs, I still sometimes went to the gym. Joan accused me of trying to maintain my body so I could destroy it with chemicals, but I think that’s a little harsh. And even if I did, I’m certainly better off than someone like Steve, who’s just frying himself and eating burgers and sugar. I eat no carcinogenic food, I’m drinking some juices now… I went overboard today, but…

I’m tired. Who’s that girl? She’s attractive… Aauugggh, I don’t want to get into another relationship thing again. God, I’m so tired. I shouldn’t be drinking. I shouldn’t have started drinking, ’cause I associate the two, alcohol and cocaine. I’m just gonna not drink now. Oh, he sees me, he’s coming over. I should ignore him so he gets that I’m not interested in doing any—

“Hi, Steve, how ya doin’? Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. No, I feel okay. I don’t look that bad. I have a stomach thing today. How are you? You seem very up. No, I’m… I’m not doing any right now. I’ve quit. Yeah. No, I feel great. No, I’m serious. What do you mean, that’s not a great line reading? I feel great. I’m absolutely committed to this. No, I don’t mean it like a judgment on you. I think it’s fine that some people still do coke, you know? I don’t think it’s weak…

“No, I don’t think I had a problem. It’s just that my nose started… I don’t know. I’ll probably end up still doing a little bit every so often, you know. Not right now. Maybe… well, like, maybe… I don’t know, let me just… Is there food at this party? All right, maybe like a hit, but that’s—who is that girl over there?—that’s it, though. I’m gonna do… No, this is… I’m not… All right, give me one hit. But don’t give me any more even if I ask you to. This is good coke, right? It’s not from Brentwood? All right, one hit.

“(sniff) Mmmmmhh! (sniff) Ooohhhh, fantastic. Oh, great. Shit, that’s great! Mmmmhhhhh! It just burns a little bit. There’s not much cut in it, right? Yeah? It’s good. No, I really don’t need any more. I mean, I can handle it, I just think that was it. You know, people come to a party and they do one hit to break the tension, and I think I can really master that now. I can do a little bit.

“God, I feel so… I really feel good about my commitment to not doing drugs. I mean, just doing a little bit of drugs. Feel my arm. I feel really good. Well, I know I don’t look that great, but I didn’t sleep that much and I drank this bad juice.

“Let’s go over and talk to that girl. I wanna go over and talk to that girl. Who is that girl? Lisa what? What is she, an actress or something? I loathe actresses. She looks smart, though. Smart people always wear black. Who’s the guy she’s talking to? Craig? I wanna go talk to her. God, he’s such a loser. I should talk to her, I’m like a real guy. I have to go talk to her. Give me another hit of that stuff, maybe I’ll go talk to her. I know what I said, I know what I said. Just give me one more hit. What are you, stingy with the blow now? I’ll help pay for it. I’m just gonna do it… Like, I’m gonna celebrate not doing it by doing a little bit. (sniff) Mmmmhh! (sniff) Yeesssss!

“I wish there was something like holistic blow, you know what I mean? That there would be some way in nature you could take blow and it would be good for you. I wish my doctor would make me take it for some weird ailment I have. This is good coke, though. This is really good. How much did you pay for this? Not bad. That is not bad. And who did you get it from? Oh, yeah, I had some once from him that was so great. Remember the night we… Give me another hit. Give me one more hit.

“(sniff) Aaaahhh! (sniff) Ooooww! No, it’s not the coke, it’s me. I had this cold last week. Actually, I think it was more my sinuses. I have a sinus problem, or I seem to more in the last couple of years. I don’t know, I have to go to a doctor at some point.

“Nah, I don’t want to talk to that girl anyway. I wanna talk to you. I’ve missed you. I really feel like I can talk to you, I really feel we have a lot in common. I know we don’t see each other much socially, but I’ve gotta say every time that we’ve spent time together, I’ve enjoyed it. Remember the night in Vegas when we met? You weren’t actually dealing then, were you? Someone said you were a dealer once, I nearly punched the guy out. You’re like a really good guy, man. I really like you.

“Think we can get any more of this stuff? ’Cause, I mean, I’m quitting after tonight anyway because, I don’t know, I should start taking care of myself. Whew, my heart is really palpitating. You think if I took one more hit it might calm me down a little bit? I know that sounds like a dumb cocaine question, but I think if you do a certain amount and then taper off, you can hit that peak and really be buzzing, you know, when you feel like the world is lined up just exactly right. God, I sure love life. Can I have another hit?

“I think this is good for me—to test my resistance. I mean, I think it’s wimpy to give up cocaine. Master the drug, that’s the key—the total key to the whole thing. I mean, people who actually have to go and give it up—it just shows they’re weak. They go to groups like Cocaine Anonymous and those people, they always fuckin’ talk about drugs. You know? It’s like all they do is not do drugs. Well, man, I’d rather do drugs. Do you have another hit?

“Man, this party’s a drag. I don’t know, I feel so agitated and, you know, itchy to… Can we go to your place? Hey, come over to mine. Well, let’s just go outside then, let’s walk around. There’s nobody here that I like. God, look, they’re eating. Uuggh, look at that shit, it looks awful. Come on, let’s go outside and talk.

“Did I ever tell you I graduated with honors from high school? Yeah, I was a real brainy kid. Very precocious. I don’t know, I thought I’d go into writing because it interested me. But I gotta tell you, the environment at the networks is just not that exciting. I’d rather be in music, you know, but I don’t play an instrument. Maybe I could learn, though. I feel now like I could learn an instrument. Do you play an instrument? That’s interesting, that’s very interesting. We both don’t play any instruments. But, you know, I feel that you, like me, we have the spirit of musicians. You know, sitting around communicating. I think artists do that.

“That girl in black, maybe she’s an artist. I’ve always wanted to meet someone who wrote poetry and went to jazz clubs, and she’d draw me into her life and we’d become soulmates. I wonder if I have a soulmate.

“Can I have some more blow? One more hit, ’cause I’m like really cresting now. Maybe we could just buy a little, what the hell? This is a party. I have not been getting loaded. This is a reason to celebrate.

“(sniff) Aaaahh! (sniff) Ooohhh! There is like an edge on this, though, don’t you think? Am I sweating? I look all right, don’t I? I don’t look paranoid, do I? Sometimes I get paranoid that I look paranoid. I don’t want anyone to think I’m paranoid. It’s not like I care what people think, but sometimes I do. I admit it. I’m a human being. I’ve always cared a little bit what people think.

“But anyway, I like it when it’s like this, you know, and we’re just talking. This is a great conversation, man. We should be taping this. So, what do you do? You’re writing? What are you writing about? Articles on stereo equipment. That’s fascinating. So should we go buy some more of this blow? He’s out? Well, let’s go to Brentwood. No, that’s true, he usually has shitty blow, but it’s not that expensive and he’s always there.

“Are my gums bleeding? It feels like my gums are bleeding. I don’t know why, I must have cut myself talking. Maybe we could get a lude, too, because I’m starting to feel very… unhappy. I don’t mean unhappy, literally, but it’s like I wanna be somewhere else but I don’t know where I wanna be… let’s go to Brentwood. Let’s just, fuck it, let’s go to Brentwood. Leave your car here, I’ll drive you back later. How many toots do we have left? Shit, well, let’s go to Brentwood.

“God, I wish I hadn’t had that wheatgrass juice, I feel awful. Shit, they really should give you instructions with health food. Anything taken to excess can be unhealthy, even healthy stuff. But forget about excess, I don’t even think it’s that good for you in moderation. Nothing green can be good for you, can it? Uuugghh! Give me some more. Let’s just do the last hit, just so we can get into the car and get to the next stop. (sniff) (sniff).

“What’s the matter with you? You look tense. Are you okay? God, what time is it? Sometimes I get so nervous and I don’t know why, you know? I heard this phrase once, ‘contentless fear,’ and I think that’s what I have now. ’Cause there’s no reason why I should be this jumpy. I mean, I’m comfortable with you, or I was comfortable with you. I’m sorry I’m talking so much. I don’t know, it just must be the night. God, what a night.

“Jesus! Where did that guy come from, I almost ran him over. Jesus! Jesus. Okay, okay, I am slowing down. I don’t know, somehow it got up to seventy-five. Jesus. Let’s do the rest of the blow in case we’re stopped. What did you do, hog it all?

“God, man. I should never have done this. I should never have done all this blow. I hate myself. Why did I do this? Now I have an upset stomach from the wheatgrass juice and the fuckin’ thing with the blow. I wonder if that girl with the black dress is still at the… Here we are, this is his block.

“I feel so dumb now. Why did I do that? Well, I didn’t do anything dumb. It was probably the blow. That blow did burn a little bit. Now we’ll get some better blow. I hope he has some good blow. I hope he has some blow. Maybe he has a lude, though. You know, if I could… Well, now I’m maybe in kind of a two-lude mode…

“What do you mean, I’m talking to myself? Well, obviously I’m talking to myself. I can’t talk to you. What do I have in common with someone who writes articles about stereo equipment? Jesus.

“All right, let’s just get inside, we’ll get inside. How much cash do I have? Hundred and ten, a hundred and ten bucks, that’s good. Maybe he’ll take a check, that’d be okay. I don’t like to do that, though. What if they…

“Alex. It’s Alex!”

What is this asshole, deaf?

“Hi! Hi, man, how ya doin’? Yeah, yeah, I know it’s late. Yeah, well, we were just drivin’ around and… You know Steve. Yeah. Well, can we come in? Thanks.

“So, do you have any coke? Half a gram? What do you mean? I thought you were a dealer. Can you get more?”

Oh, shit. Oh, shit!

“Well, do you have any ludes or anything? I’m really on edge now, I’m so on edge. Well, yeah, get the half a gram, and see if… Whatever you have. Anything you have. I just want anything you have. And Steve wants whatever else there is.”

Goddamn it, why did I do this? Just give me that half a gram, and then I’ll take the half a gram, and then I’ll try and decide what to do. I’ve gotta figure out how I’m gonna get down… I don’t want to be with these people. Who are these people? I loathe these people. Look at the skin on that guy, God, it’s enough to drive anyone insane. What is that, a bug on the floor? Look at this place. God, what a dive. What a miserable dive.

I hear people. Why do I always hear people? Wait, now, this is the coke, just calm down. What’s the big deal? Just calm down. I can’t believe this, I’m not gonna be able to drive. I feel like digging a hole in the carpet. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.

Is that the sun coming up? No, it’s probably just… It is, it’s the streetlight. I just hope those birds don’t come out. I’ll kill myself, I will, I’ll kill myself if those fuckin’ birds come out. I’ve gotta have those ludes, gotta have a set of ludes just to get me down. Maybe I should check his medicine cabinet, but he’s a dealer so wouldn’t he be smart about that? Nah!

“Can I use your bathroom?”

I loathe this guy. Let’s see, what’s he got? Anacin. Afrin. Actifed. Lomotil—sure, ’cause he’s got the runs all the time from the baby laxative in his fuckin’ blow. Percodan! Jesus! Two. Two’s not usually enough, but fuck it, I’ll take the two. Endo 333, oooh, my favorite. I better run the water so they don’t hear me close this. Aaahh, that’s good, that’ll be good. I’ve taken so much blow, though. Two Percodan on all this blow won’t even matter. Maybe I should go get health food… Tomorrow I’m really…

That’s it, man, this is it. I’m gonna remember this, I’m always gonna remember this. That I’m sitting here in Brentwood with two loser guys that I have nothing in common with, doing drugs and trying to make conversation. I could kill myself. I loathe my life.

I’ll never feel those Percodan. Goddamn it, I hope he’s got some ludes. Please let him have ludes.

“Oh, man, I feel a little better after going to the john. Hey, listen, man, you wouldn’t have any ludes or anything? I mean, I know I asked you already, but I had like a very tense day. I had some bad wheatgrass juice and… I don’t know, maybe it’s an astrological thing, but…

“Ecstasy? No, but I’ve heard of it. Yeah, right, who hasn’t? Aren’t you supposed to be with girls or something? Really? It just puts you in a good mood? Well, great, give me some. A good mood? Oh, great. No, no, I’m in a good mood now, I’m just in too strong of a mood. No, let’s, let’s… Give me one of those. Sorry, I didn’t mean to grab.

“Great! They’re big, aren’t they? Do you have anything to wash it down? Any tequila or anything? Yeah, beer’s fine. Oh, wow. So how long do these take to kick in? No, not since that juice this afternoon. Really? That quick? What’s in it, do you know? Somebody said there was heroin in it. Not this stuff? Okay, good, ’cause that’s the one thing I don’t wanna do. Well, one time I snorted some, but I would never do any needles. I really think that makes you a drug addict, and me, I’m like a neck-up person.”

I feel a little nauseous all of a sudden. It’s probably the juice.

“Hey, this is a nice place. I’ve never really noticed that you have a nice apartment. It’s like, kind. I don’t know if that’s an appropriate way to describe decor, but it seems so… friendly. Particularly for a dealer’s house. What is this music? This is fantastic music. Really? I usually hate Led Zeppelin. It’s so interesting, so interesting. Do you mind if I lie down near the speakers? Do you have a pillow or anything?”

God! I feel like I’m making such a fool of myself. I don’t even know these guys and I love them. I guess it’s gotta be the drug, but it doesn’t seem like the drug. Maybe this is the Percodan. I know it’s not good to mix so much, but this feels like such a good blend. Maybe this is exactly right. Maybe from now on I should only do a little cocaine, a couple of Percodan maybe, and then that Ecstasy, and listen to Led Zeppelin. And that’ll be my recipe. Like when I’ve been good, like I have for the past whatever. I’ve been straight… I mean, I was drinking, but I don’t count that. When I’ve been straight for this kind of a while and I really get on edge, the way to take it off is to be with these guys. I love these guys.

I mean, I don’t want to have sex with them, but that idea is not totally repellent to me, either. Steve, even though he has bad skin, is a great guy, and he’s got an ass like a girl. I never noticed that before. Oh, I’m so happy. I think I’ve really turned this experience around.

“Steve. Don’t ever leave me. I can’t imagine being separated from you people. Ever.”

I want to bond with them on some level. I want to show them how I feel. Maybe this is too excessive. Yeah, I should just get more into the music.

That girl at the party in black… Even the party seems nice now. Maybe we should… No, I’d have to move. Maybe I could call the party and tell them to send the girl here. That would be perfect.

I just feel at one with everything. I remember the time I took acid, and I took the wrong end of the cardboard and it never came on. Maybe this is like acid. But everything looks the same, it just looks nicer. Nicer to be with. Maybe I should decorate my apartment like this.

My nose still hurts, though. Maybe I should never take cocaine again. Yeah, from now on I’ll just take Ecstasy every so often. It’s probably better for me. They only just made it illegal, so how bad could it be? And they haven’t even said it’s bad for you. They just don’t really know yet what it does to you.

How could I not have found this before? I’m so happy. Maybe I should just call the party and ask for that girl. What’d he say her name was? No, maybe I’ll just… Is it rude to jerk off in people’s houses? I’ll just get up and…

“No, no, no, I’m okay, man. I just wanna use your can. What? No, I’ve snorted heroin, but I would never shoot it. Oh, you would do it for me. Well, I suppose that doesn’t count, then, right? But I wouldn’t have to… ? And it’d just be a little bit, right?”

It seems like it would be good. Heroin’s like the natural drug. I don’t know, though. This is so weird.

“You wouldn’t do anything bad to me, would you? You have such a great expression on your face right now. All right, sure, I’ll trust you. But just give me a little bit. And Steve, you’re driving us back, right? Well, maybe I’ll just crash here then. That’s cool, right? I like Brentwood.”

I can’t believe this. I’m tying off. This is so weird. I never thought I would do this. But I’m just gonna do it once.

“Okay.”

Oh, my God! Now I understand everything. This is so intensely great. Smack. It sounds like a breakfast cereal. It sure doesn’t feel like a breakfast cereal. Shit, I love this. It’s like floating down the Nile in your mind. Deep sea diving in your head. This must be well-being.

Does this make me a drug addict? No, I’m just celebrating tonight. What a great night this is.

I’ll never do cocaine again. Uh-uh. Maybe a little Ecstasy, a little heroin, but I’ll never do cocaine again. And I’m gonna start working out tomorrow. I’m gonna start an aerobic workout tomorrow on my bike. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. I wish I’d never had that wheat-grass juice, though. I feel sort of nauseous.

“Oops, sorry, man. Let me clean it up.”

God, that was the easiest puke I’ve ever had. I wish I could have always thrown up that way. That felt almost good.

“Sure, take my car. I’ll wait here. I’ll just… be… here…”

What a nice, kind apartment this is. I think everyone should just love each other. That’s what I think.

I don’t know when I’ve felt this rested. I’ve never truly been relaxed. I’m finally relaxed. I feel like Jesus slipped me in the pocket of his robe, and we’re walking over long, long stretches of water.

My parents were so fabulous to have had me. This is just…everything. My teeth feel so soft. This is why people take this. It wouldn’t even be so bad to die of really good heroin. I wouldn’t mind just living two more weeks and dying at the end of it if I could have two weeks like this. Although it would be much better to have years and years. I don’t think you can even call this a drug. This is just a response to the conditions we live in.

I wonder what that art student at the party is doing. She had such soft, silky hair. She seemed so invested in everything, like the now was exactly where she wanted to be. And now I know how she feels. This is perfect.

If she were here now, it would be like Adam and Eve. We would make this the Garden of Eden, this apartment. Anywhere we were would be the Garden of Eden. And I could really communicate with my heart. It’s just a question of finding the right person. If she were here now, I would just hold her and hold her and hold her, like we were twins waiting to be born out of this apartment in Brentwood.

She’s probably my soulmate. What if I met my soulmate and now I’ll never see her again? But we met and kissed on the astral plane. We flew in the astral plane, and now I’m flying toward her. If she’s my soulmate, and I truly believe she is, we’ll meet again. We’re always meeting. There is no meeting for soulmates. They’re always together and never apart.

We’ll have a child, and we’ll bring it up on heroin so that it’ll have a happy childhood. And I’ll buy her lots and lots of black shirts and sweaters. And she’ll play the bongo drums in a jazz club in the East Village, while I recite stream-of-consciousness poetry that everyone thinks is brilliant. I am brilliant. I’m everything.

Sometimes I wonder if I really am Jesus, but I just haven’t grown into it yet.

I wonder what color Jesus’s eyes were. And if he needed glasses.

He had the sweetest face…

DAY SIXTEEN

They brought a new guy in today, Alex. He’s very good-looking, in a Heathcliff sort of way. He had a seizure an hour ago. I didn’t see it, but Sam said it was pretty amazing.

Carl told me Sam was in jail for rape. My reply was, “Oh.” I casually asked Sam about it, and he said he was framed—that his friend had done it. I asked him what he did when he wasn’t in jail, and he said he was a scalper. He told me he’d sold tickets to the concert of an ex-boyfriend of mine, as if to say, “What a coincidence that we should finally meet.” Sam is homophobic and hates Bart. He calls him “Barf.”

Wanda told me she likes to be tied up and have her clothes torn off before sex. She said it really makes her happy. I don’t know what makes me happy, but that doesn’t ring a bell.

…That fucker Steve! How did he find my parents’ number? How could they have put me in a drug clinic? This is humiliating.

So I overdosed. Well, of course I did. I’d never shot heroin before. I told them I’ll never do it again. I was on Ecstasy and I thought it would be okay. I was more open to the heroin because of the Ecstasy and the Percodan. So I won’t take Ecstasy again. I only took it in the first place because he didn’t have ludes. I’ve gotta get out of here.

How did this happen to me? How did this happen to me? I’m in here with drug addicts. It’s so degrading. I keep telling them I’m not an addict, but they laugh at me. My problem isn’t drugs, it was just those two drugs that made the other one possible. I hope they didn’t tell Joan.

Detox! I took heroin once, what am I detoxing from? My mother—God, she was upset—said something about alcohol withdrawal, but I didn’t drink… Well, I drank every day, but I didn’t drink like they imply I drank. I can’t be an alcoholic. That’s insane. I’m twenty-nine years old.

And they expect me to go to these meetings, these Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I don’t like groups. I like to be alone. I’m kind of a lone animal by nature. I can just imagine the kind of scum you’d meet there. Greg Friedman used to go all the time, and he had to stop. He said, “I never would have taken drugs with half those people. How am I supposed to get straight with them?” He died of cocaine poisoning, but I really trusted him.

It’s so wimpy to have to lean on groups of people. Do it alone! It’s a private matter. I think it’s bullshit to go to a public place to handle a private matter. I don’t want someone getting in my face and talking about drugs all the time. It’s just mindless. And then what happens? You give up drugs, and then you do something else to death. I want to do this to death. If I’m going to do something to death, I mean, which I don’t think I am. You learn from your mistakes, I think. You’re human, you have to fall down a little bit, and you learn from that. Pain is growth.

I wish I had some blow…

DAY SEVENTEEN

It struck me today that the people that have had an impact on me are the people who didn’t make it. Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Lenny Bruce, Janis Joplin, John Belushi. It’s not Making It to be Marilyn Monroe, but it is to me.

In our culture these people are heroes. There’s something inside of that—a message that killing yourself like that isn’t so bad. All the interesting people do it, the extraordinary ones. A weird, weird message. Most of the people I’ve admired in show business—comedians, writers, actors—are alcoholics or drug addicts or suicides. It’s bizarre. And I get to be in that club now. It’s the one thing I cling to in here: Wow, I’m hip now, like the dead people.

Romancing the stoned.

…I can’t believe Suzanne Vale is here. I never knew she was an addict. She looks a little puffy, but she’s definitely cute.

This is so Not Hip. I don’t mean everything has to be hip. This is probably good for some people, but… Look at these people. I have nothing in common with any of them, except Suzanne. She’s been here a couple of weeks now. She seems like she’s really into this, but she’s an actress. Actresses can seem like they fit in anywhere. I’m mainly gonna talk just to her. It would be great if we fell in love. That would show them, if I came back from the drug clinic with Suzanne Vale as my girlfriend.

Jesus, that black guy! If he doesn’t shut up I’m gonna put a pillow over his face at night. How can they let people like him in with people like me? There should be different clinics—one for the assholes and one for the people who just have drug problems but aren’t assholes. Not that I have a drug problem, but I’m gonna be here for a month so I’d better do what they want me to do. I’ll just tell them I think I’m a drug addict, ’cause it’s the only way I’ll ever get out of here. Hey, if it’s good enough for Suzanne Vale, it’s good enough for me.

She’s got a great sense of humor, which you need in a place like this. I’m really stunned that people like her are addicts. When you hear that somebody famous overdosed, it always sounds like fun when they do it. It’s just part of the big myth. It’s like it happened in the movies when it happens to someone who makes movies. Like, maybe I had an overdose, but it wasn’t the same kind she had. I’d like to think it was, though. I’d like to think I had an epic overdose. I wouldn’t have minded ODing if I was Suzanne Vale.

Maybe I’ll go sit in the park with her. But she’s always talking to that black guy, or listening to him. God, I just want to run out of the room when he starts… That voice of his is like he swallowed weird helium, the kind that makes your voice deep and hollow. He just goes on and on and on. “Let me say this about that.” “Let me say this about that.” Jesus!

How can she go to those AA meetings? I can understand poor people going. They have nowhere to go and nothing to do, but… I don’t know how anybody can stand each other here. I won’t go to an AA meeting unless they let me sit next to Suzanne. I haven’t really talked to her yet. I don’t want to wreck it. I want to seem cool, I want this to build naturally. It’s not like I’m gonna play hard to get, I don’t want to play a lot of games with this, but celebrities don’t like it when you run up and get in their face and come on to them. It’s a turn-off.

I think she’d like me, though. She seems very friendly, and she wants everyone to like her, which could get to be a drag. If we got together, she’d have to stop all that, because it would be too hard on me. Not that I’m the jealous type, but it would be annoying. I’d have to tell her I would rather be the priority.

Maybe I was a little deluded about my drug intake. Okay, I accept it. I took too many drugs. But certainly they don’t expect me to give up alcohol. I’ll give up cocaine. That’s not so difficult. I’ve given up cocaine before. I’ve done it a lot. I’ll just do it again, I don’t care. But what happens if I go to a party and they’re toasting somebody with champagne? What if my brother gets married? Do they expect me to toast my brother with Perrier? No way! I mean, he’s only fourteen, but still, they can’t expect me to give up everything.

That woman who keeps tilting her head, Julie, said I was stuck looking at the differences between me and everybody else here, and that I should look for the similarities. Look at her, she’s overeating. I don’t want to do that. God, when will this be over? Do they expect me to give up wine? It’s absurd. This group is absurd. That fat asshole Sid told me if there were no drugs, I would have been an alcoholic. That’s absurd, and anyway, there are drugs. Shit, I’m next.

“Me? Yeah, I’m Alex. I don’t really know what to say. Uh… I’m in here… Why am I in here? I’m in here because… Well, I took a lot of drugs one night in Brentwood and I had a problem… I had a bad reaction to some drugs. I was allergic… I never… I took some heroin and I had never taken heroin…”

God, Suzanne’s gonna think I’m such a putz. She comes right out and says she’s an addict. Maybe I should just say it. Maybe there’s something manly in that.

“…So I think, yes, you could say I have a drug problem. And alcohol. I drink alcohol, too, but I have to get more information to be really convinced that alcohol is a problem for me.”

That sounded good. That sounded real good.

“I’m aware I can tend to overdo drugs. Have overdone drugs. And I certainly would like to learn as much as I can about how to curb that appetite. I’m glad to be here—well, I’m not glad to be here, but I’m here, and I’m gonna take advantage of the situation.”

That sounded so cool. She was looking right at me. I think she likes me. I think she sees that I’m open, that I’m a man and yet I’m sensitive and aware of my own feelings. She has to respect the process I’m going through. I seemed a little scattered at first, maybe, but overall I was succinct and I seemed to have a grasp of… Let’s face it, there’s something romantic about a fucked-up guy. Not that I’m fucked up, but I’m in a fucked-up place.

I think it would be great publicity for this clinic if it got out that Suzanne Vale met this great television writer here. It would be good for her reputation to be known as somebody who’s going out with a writer. It would give her more credibility.

She’s so funny, and she has great eyes. Who is this asshole therapist Stan busting her for using her humor as a weapon? An “affably hostile weapon.” We’re here for drugs, not to have our personalities dismantled. They better not try it with me, or I’m gonna punch that guy out. They’re just jealous because they have to be in this clinic all the time, and she’ll probably leave and make a TV movie about it. Maybe I’ll write it. Oooh, this whole thing could really pay off.

I wonder if they let you fuck in the clinic…

DAY EIGHTEEN

Sid graduated today. There was a little ceremony to see him off and launch him back into the now, like a little detoxed boat. It was actually sort of moving, with all the junkies sitting in a circle of chairs in the television room. A coin was passed around, and everybody held the coin and said something encouraging and wise (or at least tried to) for Sid to carry with him. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I sang “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” Carol cried.

I rarely cry. I save my feelings up inside me like I have something more specific in mind for them. I’m waiting for the exact perfect situation and then Boom! I’ll explode in a light show of feeling and emotion—a piñata stuffed with tender nuances and pent-up passions. Until then, though, no sobbing for Sid.

I’ll miss him holding my feet, though. I don’t miss whole people usually. I mainly miss the things they do:

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to cry, and what it could possibly be that would set me off. The image of Heathcliff looking over the moors, holding Cathy’s newly dead body? The memory of my father forgetting my twelfth birthday? The sweetness of Sid holding my feet, recalled one day in traffic?

The new guy Alex may be good-looking, but he also seems like kind of an asshole.

…“I’m an alcoholic.” “I’m an alcoholic.” Why does everybody have to humiliate themselves by talking about it? I’m also a Leo, why don’t they talk about that? They should have us stress the good parts about ourselves instead of dragging up all this bile. Why not a positive, uplifting approach?

I’m gonna go over and talk to Suzanne. Maybe we could even have dinner together. I want to talk to her…

So who are all these people? That Wanda, she’s pretty, but that guy Sam told me she tried to kill herself. I don’t like suicides. I think it shows a real weakness, to asphyxiate yourself and then overdose in a hospital. How do they know all this stuff about each other? Is your chart just available for scrutiny at any hour of the night? We might as well put out newsletters. God, there’s no privacy here…

There’s one thing I didn’t try that I bet works: hypnosis. I think that might be the key. And I could join a gym. I mean, I could go to the gym I already belong to. But I don’t like to go ’cause it’s all gay people. But maybe I’ll get a friend and start going to the gym. And do hypnosis. There’s lots of things you can do before you end up in meetings. I’m not gonna become one of those AA Moonies for the rest of my life.

Unless Suzanne goes. She seems open to this meeting thing. I’d go to meetings with her. Then it wouldn’t be so bad if my friends found out. I could say, “Hey, I went with my girlfriend, Suzanne Vale.”

I hope nobody tells Joan I’m here. She’d just say, “I knew it. I knew it all along.” That bitch! I was never loaded as many times as she thought I was. I’m just naturally very hyper.

Her other boyfriend before me was a druggie, too. I don’t mean… He was a druggie. I liked drugs, but he was a druggie. It’s like she just goes out with people who take drugs so she can pick on them. Joan of Narc, patron saint of the addict. And every time I would do something good for myself, she’d make fun of me. Like when I bought the exercise bike and she called me “Mr. Health” and said I’d never use it.

I couldn’t tell her anything. I remember when I read that they found out aluminum cans could be a cause of Alzheimer’s, and when I tried to warn her she said, “Oh, please. You dump poisons into your system and you’re gonna get on me about my diet soda?”

She could never stand to see me have a good time. She always looked like she smelled something funny when she was with me, with her head back and her shoulders as close to her neck as they could get, like I’d done something really sick. I took drugs, that’s all. She should look after her own stuff. God, I’m relieved that’s over. I can finally breathe. Aaaaahhh! I hope she doesn’t find out I’m in here. That’s all I need. I can hear her now: “I told you so. I knew it. Nyah nyah nyah.”

That’s why it would be good with Suzanne. She could never point the finger at me because she ended up in a place like this, too. Joan will feel so bad when she hears I’m going out with Suzanne. But I want this thing to start very slow. I don’t want it to be really obvious. I don’t think she has any idea at all that I’m watching her. I don’t sit near her in group and I don’t sit at her table for lunch. I’m keeping my distance, playing it cool. I think that’s a very good tactic. She’s probably used to people flinging themselves at her. I’ll just keep off to myself and look a little sad and sensitive, and eventually she’ll come to me.

Maybe this was all for the best. I have a better idea of my life now. I’m gonna have a relationship with Suzanne, and I’ll get my career back on track and pay my parents back all the money I’ve borrowed over the past couple of years. That’ll be good. Then my dad won’t look at me with that disdain he thinks is so funny, and my mom will stop picking on me. Maybe I’ll get a bigger apartment and…

I feel good! This is a good time to sit back and reflect, and get a grip on my life. I think I’m taking a really realistic view of it all—probably for the first time, to be brutally honest about it. Maybe I’ll even get involved in politics, who knows?…

DAY NINETEEN

Another new guy checked in tonight. He actually checked himself in, but not before he stopped at the bar in the building next door for a couple of drinks. He was in excellent spirits when he got here, and he was wearing a very festive Hawaiian shirt. His name is Ted.

When he leaned down to sign the admission contract, a cocaine bottle fell out of his pocket. “Oops,” he said, and giggled sheepishly as he retrieved the vial. “My lucky cocaine bottle. Look, the spoon was handmade. It’s bronze.” Lucille, my favorite nurse, took it out of his hand and said, “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen one like it.” He started explaining the history of this coke spoon, and Lucille listened to him as if it was the most fascinating story about a coke spoon she’d ever heard. He was still describing the workmanship as she steered him into his room.

Carl watched all this with me. When they were out of earshot, he said, “Shoot, any coke spoon was my lucky coke spoon, as long as there was coke on it.” I love Carl. He’s like a disc jockey from hell, and you can never change the station. His impact on people is undeniable. Alex literally perspires when Carl is around.

I could swear Alex is deliberately not looking at me. He still hasn’t said a word to me. Somehow I don’t think I’m missing anything.

…Look at Suzanne. She acts like she’s really getting into this shit, but it’s obvious she’s just as bored as I am. She’ll go through this whole thing, and then she and I’ll be in a bar in about two months. I can tell.

No one could be seriously cooperating with this situation. At least nobody smart, nobody decent. There’s no way I could seriously feel like this was a good thing. And I’ve gone to these meetings now, so it’s not just what they call “contempt prior to investigation.” I’ve been. Greg was right. They’re boring and you can barely breathe in there because everyone is smoking. Smoking and drinking coffee. Aren’t those drugs, tobacco and caffeine? And they’re really not good for you.

If Julie says that thing about looking for the difference instead of the similarities one more time I’m going to scream. I’m not looking for the differences. I don’t have to look. They’re obvious. I’m very different from these people. My situation is completely different.

I mean, Carl! That story he told in the park about how he wound up in prison—what a moron. Even Suzanne seemed repelled by him. God, and this fucking Manson guy, he never talks to anybody. He’s always mooning around. He looks like he’s got glue in his eyes. Jesus, he knows Manson. What am I doing in here? It’s safer out there taking drugs than being in here not taking drugs with these people.

If that guy Sam comes up to me and puts his arm around me and calls me “Buddy” one more time, I’m gonna have to complain. But to who? Julie? She wears so much perfume it makes me sneeze. My nose is still irritated from all the pollen and everything, I have an allergy condition. I can’t be around people who use too much perfume. What a nightmare!

Carol’s okay, though. I think she likes me, which couldn’t hurt because her husband is a big agent or something. I hope she doesn’t get a crush on me. I don’t want to have to go to her husband on business and wind up explaining why I’m fucking his wife. That could be rough. She’s okay, though. Redhead, but not a real redhead. I remember when I came in last week seeing her and thinking, “Not a real redhead.”

It wouldn’t be bad to do a little business in here. It is a part of life. I haven’t been writing lately, but I’m gonna have to start working on something. If I’m gonna be with Suzanne, I’m gonna have to be able to keep up with her financially. I don’t expect her to support me.

Shit, there’s Sam. Don’t come near me, man, don’t even think about coming over here. That’s right, go look out the window. A scalper, for Christ’s sake. What am I supposed to have in common with him? He didn’t even scalp tickets for concerts I would have gone to.

I wish I played an instrument…

DAY TWENTY

Carl told the greatest story in the park today about how he ended up in prison. He had gone to rob a movie theater, and he went to the office and pulled a gun on the secretary, who said that only the manager knew the combination to the safe, and he’d gone out for a while. Carl told her he’d wait. Pretty soon an usher came in to see the secretary, and Carl made him wait with them. Soon after, two kids from the concession stand came looking for the usher, whose mother was waiting outside to drive him home, and they became part of the group. Then the mother came up. Before long there were about fifteen people staring at Carl and his gun in this tiny office. Carl said it got pretty awkward and very hot.

When the manager finally did come, the alarm went off. The police came, but Carl sneaked out and started to drive off. The police shot at him, a bullet went straight through his Afro, and Carl shit in his pants. He had to sit in the back of the police car while they wrote up the report, with his pants full of shit. I said, “You’re kidding,” and Carl said, “Shoot, you have a bullet go through your hair, you’d crap yourself, too, I don’t care who you are.” Carl is a wonder.

I talked to my agent today. He thinks maybe I should do a television series. I would like to do something where I have to work all the time. Keep my mind off my mind, as it were. Get up real early in the morning, act like someone else all day, and fall asleep at night. A perfect job for me.

The fix that doesn’t.

…So I go in to watch The Outer Limits and maybe see some Star Trek before bullshit group therapy—I know we’re supposed to be writing our drug inventory, but they can just hold their breath before I’m gonna write that—and all the guys are sitting watching basketball. I loathe basketball. And they’re all doing that macho yelling shit. I don’t care if it is the play-offs. We always watch The Outer Limits. As far as this place can go, it’s a tradition. I’ve gotta get out of here.

Suzanne is in Carol’s room. Why are they always together? I’m starting to think Suzanne may be a little bit of a snob. What does she think, that she’s too great to talk to me? I mean, all right, sure, maybe I haven’t talked to her, but I’ve seen her talking to a lot of other people on the unit. I don’t think I’m so unavailable and unappealing.

Julie sort of cornered me when she said I was isolating myself from the group. I’m not isolating myself, they’re all ignoring me. I’m not saying it’s deliberate, but it’s not going completely unnoticed, let’s put it that way.

What do I care? I have plenty of friends out of here. But why won’t she just come up and talk to me? I heard her on the phone yesterday talking to her agent. I wish I could make a business call so she could overhear how fabulous I was and how together my life was, and then she’d come up and ask me something about business.

That’s it! That’s what I’ll do. I’ll call… No, I won’t call anybody. I’ll pretend I’m calling my literary agent. Suzanne’s in Carol’s room right next to the phone so she’ll be sure to overhear this. All right, I’m gonna do it. It’s a great idea. So what do I say? I’ll say I’ve got the idea for this drug rehab thing and I’m… Wait, I don’t want to give away the whole plot. I’ll just casually say I have a great idea. Be very vague. Don’t give anything specific away. All right. All right, here I go.

Oh, fucking Christ! Carl is on the phone. This is unbelievable, this is truly, truly unbelievable. Jesus, I hate this place. He’s probably talking to his dumb wife. He’s always fighting with his wife. Why do I have to know all this stuff about his life?

“Hey, man, you gonna be long? I gotta make a business call.”

That sounded real cool. I bet she overheard that.

“Thanks, man.”

I’ll just dial a fake number and I’ll say… What name should I use? Jeff. Jeff… Markoff.

“Jeff Markoff, please. Alex Daniels. I’ll hold… Jeff? Hi, it’s Alex. Sorry I took so long to get back to you.”

That sounded so great. Oh, here she comes, she’s coming out of the room. Okay, okay, casually turn your back to her and throw your voice over your shoulder.

“So, Jeff, about the idea we pitched to Fox. I think I’m ready to do a first draft and… Oh, great, great. The deal went through? Great. Yeah, great. You tried to call here? Yeah, it’s always busy. There’s always, you know, people on the phone. Well, I’ll be waiting for you to send over the contracts. Oh, sure, well, I’ll sign them when I get out of here, then. That’ll be cool. All right, and how’s everything? Great. I’ll talk to you soon then. Bye-bye.”

That’s perfect, that was perfect. She looked at me. I know she’s impressed. Well, maybe I’ll go in and watch some basketball. I feel a little calmer now, I feel like I made a little headway here. Certainly she knows a little more about who I am, and that I’m not just some asshole in a drug unit. I’ve got a job. A deal, I’ve got a deal. I’ve got a job, a deal, and a future.

Is that her laughing? She’s always laughing, always having a good time. Well, soon she’ll be having a good time with me…

DAY TWENTY-ONE

Alex did the most amazing thing today. Carol and I were coming out of her room and he was on the pay phone talking real loud and weird, like a white version of Carl. He was saying something about Fox and first drafts, and as I passed him I could hear a busy signal through the receiver. I barely made it around the corner before I burst out laughing. He must have been trying to impress us. Carol thinks he has a crush on me. He probably does. He’s exactly the type I would attract.

Carol and I have started exercising every afternoon. She tells me how perfect her husband is, how adorable he is and how happy they are. Finally I said, “But Carol, there must be something wrong with him.” She sort of shrugged and said, “He works sixteen hours a day. I only see him late at night, and on Sundays he stays home with me and reads scripts.”

Oh.

…This is an absurd film. Hooked on a Line, what a title. Jesus, that dancer being snorted up into someone’s nose under the opening credits, and these people in half-shadow talking about their cocaine problems—I could write better shit than this. Maybe I will when I get out of here. I’ll write a really good drug movie. I’ll help a lot of people. I’ll become known for helping people.

Christ! Who cares about this girl with her family and their floral sofa? That sofa is enough to drive you crazy, watching people sitting on that floral sofa talking about cocaine. I never had these problems with cocaine. I never ran into people with guns. Well, that one time in Vegas there were some guns in the room, but nobody was chasing me with them.

I’ve never met anybody like the people in this movie. These are all older people, except for that really young girl. How am I supposed to relate to any of this? I mean, there’s nobody my age. Maybe these are real people, but they’re horrible real people. At least get interesting real people if you’re gonna use real people.

Take me, for example. I have a better story than this. Not that I have an addiction problem like them, but some of my drug experiences are interesting enough to tell in front of groups. Sometimes I think maybe I should lead kind of a splinter group of Cocaine Anonymous. Make my own cocaine meetings, with really hip people at them. Where the hip people just naturally come, like Suzanne and maybe Carol and her husband.

Suzanne keeps talking to Carol. I should be sitting next to her. We could talk about how much we hate this film, and how much better ours is going to be. I wonder how much money there is in this…

DAY TWENTY-TWO

Sam and Julie got into a big fight tonight and Sam stormed off the unit. Julie said something typically condescending to Sam, whose face got all red and puffed up, like he was blowing up an invisible balloon. The gist of what he said was, “How dare you talk to me like that? Don’t you know who I am?” And Julie said, “Who are you? You’re in a drug clinic. Who could you be?”

Sam charged back to his room and smashed some pictures against the wall. He got his wallet and a sack of Chee-tos and left the hospital. Julie called Sam’s wife Amy and told her to expect him. I wonder if he’ll get loaded.

Carol, Ted, and I watched The Incredible Mr. Limpet on the four-thirty movie. We all agreed that Knotts’s work was superb, and were perplexed at the absence of a sequel. We decided to inquire about the availability of the rights when we get out of here.

Maybe I should have a baby.

What if I got into this? I doubt I would, but I know I’d be a better therapist than Stan. He’s so unpleasant to everyone. I think he has something in particular against me, which isn’t fair. They should get someone unbiased.

They should have a real doctor or something. I would like to be treated by someone in the medical profession rather than by these amateurs whose only qualification is that they took a lot of drugs eight years ago, and now they haven’t taken drugs for eight years. I think they should be more qualified than that.

They keep telling me this is a serious situation. Well, if it’s so fucking serious, there should be doctors here. We should be on medicine. I don’t think I’m getting properly attended to. I don’t know that any of this is that good for me. I keep hearing about all these other drugs I didn’t even know about. It’s like putting thieves in with murderers—they learn how to be murderers. Well, I’m learning how to be a drug addict. What if I wanted to walk right out of here and go find some lodes like that guy Sid took? I’d never even heard of lodes before I got here.

Fuck them! Telling me I’ll never stay sober, I can’t beat the odds. I’ll show them! I’ll do it. I’ll do it without them. I can’t do it without going to meetings? Fuck them. I’d rather go to a doctor than be judged by people who took a lot of dope. I mean, what is that? What is that? I have no intention of sitting in a room with a bunch of alcoholic personality types drinking caffeine and smoking cigarettes. That’s not how I envision my life.

I know Stan has something personal against me. I think he’s keeping Suzanne away from me. I think they’ve said something to her about me. Fucking Stan. And Julie, with that string of pearls. I just want to rip it off her neck and watch them go bouncing down the hallway. She wears enough perfume to knock out a horse. I just don’t see the point of talking to these people, and watching these stupid films with the floral couch and these understanding parents and their whacked-out daughter and the group therapy…

Group therapy with my parents. I would sooner die. I would sooner swallow a handful of lodes and die than sit in a room with my father and mother and talk about my “drug problem.” I just want them to keep paying the bills and stay away from me. Well, not paying the bills, but paying the bills until I can get back on my feet again. I think I’m owed that. They fucked up somewhere along the line and I ended up taking chemicals.

If they actually expect to get Stan and my parents and me in the same room, they’ve got another think coming…

DAY TWENTY-THREE

My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that’s just positive tension. Stan gave us a list of emotions today and told us to circle the ones we’ve felt recently. I lied and circled seven.

Mark refused to come to group today—he stayed in his room and listened to the Doors. He had his Walkman on so loud at breakfast we could hear the music through his nose.

Marvin announced at lunch that he thought he might be an alcoholic. We all sang “God Bless America.”

Amy brought Sam back today. He seemed a little chagrined. I was embarrassed for him, and subsequently tense. Two out of a possible three.

…This is what I get for coming to her rescue. This is my reward. Everyone goes off to a shopping mall and I wind up stuck here alone in this stupid room. I hate Stan, I hate him.

I can’t believe Suzanne went without me. How could she? I defended her. He was attacking her and I stuck up for her, and I wound up getting nailed to the wall. That’s my thanks. Fucking Stan. Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn’t he know who I’ll be? I’ve got to get out of here.

I’ll just leave, right? What are they gonna do? Call the police? I’m not breaking the law. I’ll just leave. I’m not… What am I doing here anyway? I hate it here. I hate these nurses with their little name tags, and they won’t give you any aspirin. They’ll give you Tylenol. I’ve got a flaming headache. I’ve got a flaming headache and all I get is two little Tylenol. Well, that’s not enough.

I’m just gonna check out of here and then she’ll feel bad. She’ll be sorry she didn’t talk to me, even after I took her side. Stan was attacking her for being too nice or something—what is his point? I don’t understand his point. He should have a problem like being too nice. It’s like he thinks he’s God, but God never took drugs.

How dare he come after me? He thinks I’m “nervous,” does he? Well, I’m not nervous! I’m tense. I’m not nervous. “Nervous” is a ditsy kind of a… I’m… Sometimes I’m tense. I think to live in this world, everybody’s tense. I’m not the only tense person. Stan is tense, with his jaw clenched so tight it twitches.

Fuck it, I don’t care. I don’t care about any of them. I don’t care about how Wanda’s father doesn’t like her. I don’t care about Carl and his scrawny legs. I don’t care about Sam and his homemade tattoos. And Mark. Mark! Manson’s buddy. These are my peers?

And this fancy fuckin’ jargon. It’s like being in est. Well, I didn’t want to do est and I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to sit around and swap war stories about drugs and alcohol. I’m sick of it. It’s bullshit.

And Suzanne! At least Carol came in and said, “Come to the mall with us.” But Suzanne, who I defended and got slapped down for my trouble, did she come in? No. I might have gone if she’d asked me.

I’m sick of this place. I don’t like the blanket on my bed, I don’t like the noise of the toilet, I don’t like the homo pubic hair in the Jacuzzi, I don’t like Ping-Pong. I don’t like the food at all. I can’t stand the cute little desserts, those squares of pink and white cake, and I loathe Jell-O. And I don’t want to watch The Outer Limits anymore. I’ve seen all the episodes. I have them on tape at home. I can watch The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits anytime I want. I don’t have to sit and do it in a drug clinic, and I don’t have to have them ramming themselves up my nose about how nervous I am. I’m not nervous, I’m pissed. It’s a waste of time to sit in this place. I’ll just sneak past the nurses’ station and…

Fuck it! Then Suzanne will think I’m a wimp and I can’t take it. Well, I can. I can take anything they can dish out. I’ll stay. But I’m not gonna like it. I have my own opinions, I have my own tastes, and they can’t take that away from me. They’re not gonna turn me out like something on a conveyor belt.

God, I want out of here…

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

Alex walked out of group today. Stan had been on my back about my “wonderful girl act.” He said I didn’t just want people to like me, but that I wanted to make an impact on their lives they’d never quite recover from. It wasn’t a startling revelation. I’ve been in therapy since I was nineteen, so Stan is not likely to be giving me stunning insights into my being that I’ve never considered before, but he was trying. He said something about how I probably hoped people would mistake my nervousness for vivacity. I was about to make some glib comeback when Alex suddenly leapt to my defense.

Stan slapped him down by saying, “Oh, and I guess you’re hoping people will confuse your nervousness with aloof cool.” Stan can really be a bastard. An addict made good—now he’s a marathon runner. The junkie of the seventies is the athlete of the eighties. Anyway, Alex bolted to his room and refused to come out for our excursion to the mall. Carol tried to persuade him, but Stan told us to leave him alone. I feel bad for him.

Shopping was hilarious. We went as a group of ten and crawled all over the mall like a giant junkie spider. We bought popcorn, cotton candy, cola, and chocolate. Stan said I eat just like a heroin addict (but I break just like a little girl). It was hard to keep the group together. Sam wanted sunglasses, Wanda needed styling gel, and Carl ate three hot dogs. I’m so glad I overdosed now. If I hadn’t, I never would have been in a rehab and shopped with junkies.

I wish Alex had come shopping instead of hiding in his room. I’ve never really talked to him, and he’s been here for over a week. He just seems so tense. He doesn’t seem to get that this is a serious thing. I do think I’m lucky in a way. I had a frightening thing happen: I had my stomach pumped. It was a fairly graphic illustration that my way wasn’t working. If I had to have my stomach pumped the last time I took drugs, why should I think the next time I could take a normal amount? And just what is a “normal amount” of Percodan? Alex probably still thinks he can take normal amounts of cocaine. There but for the grace of overdose go I.

“No, we don’t need to talk about what happened yesterday! I’ve talked about as much as I’m gonna talk in this place. Yeah, I know my parents are coming in. Oh, you would? You’d like the four of us to sit down? You’d like that? Good, the three of you sit down and talk, ’cause I’ve fuckin’ had it. I’ve had it! I’ve sat in rooms with my parents and I’ve sat in rooms with you, and I didn’t like either one and I don’t think I’d like both. I’m fucking out of here! I’m gone, so you can kiss my ass good-bye. I don’t need this clinic, and I certainly don’t need some asshole ex-junkie like you.

“Oh, really? I don’t get it? I get it, mister. From the day I came in here I got it. I got that you were an asshole and this place sucks. I don’t need this place to not do drugs. No, I don’t. What happened to me was purely accidental, and you can tell me from here to tomorrow all this shit about me being an addict—you, with your shooting up. Carl told me you even murdered somebody once to get drugs, and you’re gonna tell me? I grew up in this nice part of town and you, Mister Murderer Junkie, are gonna tell me how to stop doing drugs? I have nothing in common with you. Sayonara, you asshole, I’m outta here.”

Ha! I told that fuckin’ asshole, that murdering junkie son-of-a-bitch. I told him, I fuckin’ told him. Christ, I’m so sick of the sterilized smell of this place.

“Hold the elevator!”

I bet they think I’m just gonna walk out of here and do drugs. Well, they’ve got another think coming. I’m not the cliché everyone else in here is. I’m different. I know they told me everybody here thinks they’re different, but what about the poor son-of-a-bitch like me who really is different? Why do I have to pay for everyone who came through the door and thought they were different and weren’t?

Aaaahhh! I’m out. Aaaaaaahhhhh! What a relief to be outside and not in a fucking group going to the park to listen to Carl go on and on about that stupid wife of his. I don’t want to know about anyone else’s personal life. I don’t even want a personal life of my own. I’m so sick of personal lives.

Whew! I’m never gonna end up in one of those places again. It’s like I got out of jail. I could sing with relief. So, I guess I’ll go home. Maybe I’ll read. I’ll have an old-fashioned Norman Rockwell kind of Sunday. I think I can really appreciate this kind of normalcy I’m gonna go for now after that prison camp experience in the clinic. That’s behind me now. At least I got a little of that anger off my chest. How was that for dealing with my emotions, Stan?

Okay, how do I get home? How do I get home? I’ve got a little cash, I’ll take a cab. First I’ll stop in the Blum’s and have a little cake and celebrate. I’ll eat a little something, maybe have a couple of beers and go home…

Nah, I’m not gonna have any beers. Fuck it. Sure, and what if that asshead comes looking for me and finds me with some beers. “I told you so, Alex.” Well, fuck you, you know? Suck this, you know what I’m saying? I’m no alcoholic. I’ll have some cake, maybe a little chocolate ice cream and French fries, and I’ll get home. And no red meat. I don’t want to fuck up my arteries…

Aaahhh! My own apartment. Goddamn, it’s good to be back. My car is back in the garage… I wonder how they got it back. Who cares, it’s here. Let’s see, did I get any messages? Two? Only two messages in ten days? Okay, who called? Jesus Christ! Joan. My mother must have told her. “I’m so glad you went into a clinic.” God, that I-knew-it-all-along voice. Gloat, why don’t you? Who else called? Shit. My mom. So they know I left the clinic. Great, now I’m not safe in my own house. This is a nightmare.

Wait, what’s this? A lude. No. No. If I take this, they’ll say it proves their point. Well, I’m not one of their traditional druggies. Here’s the lude, I’m throwing it in the toilet, it’s gone. Good-bye lude, hello no drugs.

I guess I’d better go out in case my parents show up. I’ll go for a drive. I’ll just go out and drive around and enjoy life like I’ve never enjoyed it before. I’m straight, and I threw away a lude. That proves I’m the master over this. I’m not what they thought I was. Hey, here’s that Valium. Down the toilet with this, too. I’ll show them. I’ll throw all my drugs away. There goes the Valium, and there goes that little piece of hash. All right. All right. No real drug addict could throw away their drugs. They’d laugh out of the other side of their clinic if they could see me now. All right! No junkie I.

So it’s drive time. Maybe I’ll go to a movie by myself. That’s kind of a mature thing to do. I’ve seen people do that. It looks desperate, but it’s probably not desperate at all. I don’t want to see any of my friends yet. I don’t want to talk about this. I’m gonna have to reevaluate a couple of things. I think I’m really getting a sense of what my life is about now. I’m feeling real strong after throwing away all those drugs. I’ll show them…

Wait. Wait just one minute… My secret stash. My secret just-in-case-gram-hidden-in-the-holed-out-dictionary stash. I’ll just throw… No. No, I won’t throw away my coke. I’ll leave it there and never do it. That’ll show them. Yep, there it is. If I was really a junkie I wouldn’t be staring at it right now, I’d be snorting it.

Well, I’m not. I can just imagine them laughing and saying, “Yeah, yeah, what a drug addict.” Well, I’m not. I threw away all my Valium and my hash and that lude, and now I’m just looking at this cocaine. I’m not doing it. So there.

All right, all right, let’s go for that drive. Should I take the gram with me, as kind of a willpower test? Nah, I’ll just leave it right here, as a symbol of the new me.

A drug addict, am I? I’ll show them…

DAY TWENTY-FIVE

Alex left today. He and Stan had a fight and he marched out. I was in my room with my mother, and suddenly, from down the hall and behind his closed door, we heard him yelling, “Fuck you!” and so forth. I guess it’s not a tremendous shock. He was never totally here to begin with. It’s as though he came to leave. But what a departure. It was almost operatic in its melodrama.

It’s always frightening when someone bolts back into the blue. I guess he hasn’t been scared enough. Just because everyone else thinks he’s hit bottom doesn’t necessarily mean he has.

Mom brought me some peanut butter cookies and a biography of Judy Garland. She told me she thought my problem was that I was too impatient, my fuse was too short, that I was only interested in instant gratification. I said, “Instant gratification takes too long.”

The glib martyr.

…What a stupid film. Doctor’s Orders. What could I have been thinking? There’s a lesson here—just ’cause a movie is playing near your house doesn’t mean it’s not a piece of shit. Jesus, I could act better than that. I could certainly write a better script. I should write a script. I’m gonna start writing my script.

I wish I could do speed, though. I always wrote better on speed, the ideas would just come. I wrote my first pilot in two days on Dexedrine. I bet I could take that again. I don’t see how they could say I’m a drug addict if it’s for work…

So, my script. My script about my experiences in the rehab and my insights into that whole world. Maybe it could be the story of somebody who is accidentally put into a clinic, like Cuckoo’s Nest. The guy is just having an allergic reaction to some drugs, but they put him in a clinic with all these addicts and one’s a celebrity, and they fall in love and get married. Maybe I could take a couple of Didrex and write it. I think that would be okay, if I only take speed to write. I think that’s fair, because I’ve always had a lot of trouble writing without a drug. I don’t even think speed is technically a drug. You can get it from doctors, and if doctors prescribe it, it’s a medication. And I need a medication to write.

God, it’s so good to be back in regular life and just be driving onto my street in Laurel Canyon. It’s a nice night, I had a mature evening. I went to the movies in my car. I’m in my life. Everything is going my way. It’s all uphill from here.

Oh, fuck. My fucking parents! I can’t even have a normal night at the movies by myself. Almost thirty years old. I should be able to come out of a clinic and go back into my life unattended. I think I’m quite capable of doing that. I shouldn’t have to come home from a movie and find my parents’ car in my driveway. I can never grow up if they keep treating me like a baby. Well, if they think I’m a baby, I’ll act like a baby. They can have it their way. If they think I’m such a junkie, I’ll be a fucking junkie. I’ll go out and get loaded. Fine. If they want to worry, I’ll give them something to good and well worry about. Fuck ’em. I’m going to Brentwood. I’ll fucking go back to Brentwood…

I would never have done this if they hadn’t come over. I would never have done this if they hadn’t driven their Cadillac up to my house, where I’m trying to relax and enjoy the rest of my youth, the twenty more minutes I have left. I go to the movies, I’m handling it beautifully until… Well, fuck them. I’m in Brentwood and it’s their fault. They pushed me to this. If they would just let me grow up, maybe I would. Forget it, I’m gonna do what I want to do now, or what they think I want to do. I’ll just do what they think I want to do now. I hope that guy’s here. He’s always here. They think I’m such a loser junkie, I’ll be a—

“Hi, man. No, I’m fine. No, I know you had to call my parents. Yeah, yeah, it’s cool. I was in a hospital, they detoxed me. I’m fine. I left today, I’m a little upset. They just… You know parents, they don’t get off your back. They can’t just blend into another relationship where they leave you alone. I can’t even go back to my house now. They’re there, probably going through my stuff.

“Do you have parents? They bug you? Yeah. You’re lucky you don’t have my parents. If you had my parents, they’d be here now. So, what kind of blow are we talking about? You know, I haven’t done any in a while, I’ve been clean and… Fuck it, you know? Everybody thinks I’m a junkie. Hey, I’ll bet you have this same problem. Yeah? Yeah, they think you have a problem ’cause you do drugs. Not everybody who does drugs has problems. There are a lot of people giving those of us who just do drugs socially a bad name, but I think…

“Aaah, it doesn’t matter what I think. Let’s get some blow. I stopped at my cash machine, I’ve got five hundred dollars here, and I’ve got this Rolex. Not that I need more than a couple of grams but, you know, I was thinking… I got this great idea. I can trust you, right? I’ve got this great idea for a movie. It’s about a rehab. A guy who’s… Maybe I could cut you in on a piece of the action as kind of a technical advisor if I… Well, anyway, I want to research this idea. I’m just talking off the top of my head now, but what I was thinking is I’ll just go and write this thing. I’d just like to knock it off and get it done, and I want to research the part and maybe see what it really feels like to get strung out on cocaine.

“I don’t know, maybe half an ounce? I’m good for the money, you know that. I’ve been coming here for years, right? I mean, we’re fuckin’ mates in this thing. Or maybe you could take my watch. It’s worth a couple of thou, you could easily get eight or nine hundred for it. My parents gave it to me. Obviously you can take the inscription off. I don’t know how they do that, but I think they just melt it off or something. What do you think? Great.

“Maybe you can act in the thing. Can you act at all? You look like you could. I mean, in all the time I’ve known you, I’ve always thought you had an interesting face. You could play the dealer, maybe. The guy who sells him the cocaine. Well, I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud again. You know, the creative process…

“I need some blow. Let’s do some now, let’s just do a hit so I can test the stuff. Yeah, I know half an ounce sounds like a lot but I’m not gonna do it all at once. I’ve got to write a script, and when you write a script that means you have to rewrite it…

“(sniff) Ooooh! (sniff) Oh, man! Now they’re playing my song. Oooh, you know what I like! Oh, man. Whew. Wow, it’s been a while, you know? And I have had a stressful couple of weeks. You can’t imagine. I mean, you guys give me a little smack, you know, to take the edges off, and I end up in this fucking clinic with Suzanne Vale. Can you imagine? Yeah, I think she had quite a drug problem, which is amazing for someone that cute. And she’s little, too, which is probably why it caught up with her so fast. Yeah, there were a lot of interesting people there. Actually there were not a lot of interesting people, she was the only interesting one, but it was an interesting experience. I think it would make a great TV movie about how this writer guy… Give me another hit.

“(sniff) Aahhh. Oooh. (sniff) Oh, I’ll tell you, this reminds me of so many nights… God, I’m getting such déjà vu, I feel like… I was gonna say I feel like I’ve done this before. I mean, obviously I’ve done this before, but it just reminds me of something so great, you know?

“Fuck her? No, you don’t fuck in the rehab, but I’m gonna be seeing her again. She’ll probably star in this thing. So, can I have the blow? Oh, right. Here’s the cash, and here’s my watch. I really appreciate this. I’m sorry I was so nuts when I came in. Can I have one more… Here, let me give you a hit. I’m feeling very generous tonight.

“(sniff) Ooh, this is good. This is better than what you usually get, isn’t it? (sniff) Oh, ooohhh! Maybe I could have a beer to take with me for the drive? I’m gonna drive out to the desert, unwind there, and just get away from everybody and write this thing. Thanks, man. Okay, great.”

This beer is really good. A little beer, a little drive, I’m feeling fine. Glad to be away from that guy, though. He gives me the creeps. Where’s my knife? There we go, there we go.

“(sniff) Ahh. (sniff) Aaahh.”

What the hell, one more.

“(sniff) Mmmmhh! (sniff) Ahh! (sniff) (sniff)”

I’m glad no one can see me. They’d think I was quite the pig. Okay, the idea’s forming in my mind. There’s this guy who doesn’t normally take that much drugs, and he’s spending the evening with some friends from school or something and he gets in this really good mood and they tell him to try some Ecstasy and he does and he gets in this great mood and they talk him into trying heroin and he ends up in a rehab where he does not belong. But when he gets there he meets all these incredible people, like Carl—he’d make a good character for a movie. He was a bad one for real life, but a lot of those people I hated in the clinic were great movie characters. Oooh, this is the thing to write with. Hell, a lot of people write with drugs. I heard Lewis Carroll wrote all of Through the Looking Glass on mushrooms, and Edgar Allan Poe was a laudanum freak. Freud, Sherlock Holmes… It’s so good to be out of the hospital, out of the movies, just out. I’m out.

“(sniff) (sniff)”

My ear squeaked. I wonder if… There’s that drip in the back of my throat. Great… I’m feeling real edgy, though, I don’t think it’s the blow, this is good blow, but I don’t want to drive anymore. I feel cooped up in this car. I should… I know. Why go to the desert? Fuck it. I’ll check into the Ramada Inn. They probably have some writing paper and a pen, and I’ll start to outline this idea. Ramada Inn. I pass this place a lot, and I’ve always wondered… Let me just do a couple of hits to get me to the room.

“(sniff) (sniff) (sniff) (sniff) Ooooww!”

Shit, I’ve gotta chop this when I get upstairs, it’s really chunky.

“(sniff)”

Okay, I think I’m cool. All right. Go in…

“Yeah, uh, hi. I’d like a room for two or three nights. No, I… No luggage, just this… Some groceries. Yeah, I eat special foods.”

None of your fuckin’ business, man.

“Is there a pool here? Oh, great. Great.”

That’ll be nice, I’ll get some color. This is perfect, this is perfect. I’ll do some writing, I’ll do some swimming, I’ll lose some weight… I’m sweating. God, it’s hot in this lobby.

“No, I don’t need the bellboy. Just… What floor? Eight? Great.”

Jesus, they do look at you weird if you don’t have luggage. But I do have luggage. I have my beautiful blushing white bride here. Oooh, my hand is shaking, I wonder what that… I must be starved. I’m not hungry, but… I’ll order something from room service when I get upstairs. Christ, where’s the fucking elevator? Jesus…

“No, I’m fine. Here, let me sign for this. Let’s see, six Long Island iced teas, two Smirnoffs, hamburger, French fries, and cake. Yeah, great. Thanks. No, don’t come back. I’ll put the tray in the hall. No, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m just… I have a little flu. Thanks.”

Who did that guy think he was, prying into my life? Get him off of me. Yeccch, look at that burger, it’s alive. And that soggy bun, those greasy fries. This is an American hotel, you’d think they’d at least be able to…

I’m getting very jumpy. Very, very jumpy. This food made me very tense. I should write. I should chop a couple of lines and then really get down to work. Why can’t there be a dimmer in this room? I feel like I’m in the dentist’s office. Let me have some of this drink… That’s what I needed. Obviously I needed to have a little drink. And now a nice fat line, and then down to work.

“(sniff) Ouch! (sniff) Owww!”

Fucking fuck! There’s cut in this, I know it! I’ll put some under my tongue. I wish someone was here to blow it into the back of my throat, but then I’d have to talk to them. Okay, where’s that paper? Okay, here we go.

I wonder if they have… They do, they have cable. Let’s just see what’s on MTV. It’s that blond bimbo so it must be pretty late. What time… Oh, right, I gave him my watch…

So, what’s my idea? What’s my idea? Let me just do one more line…

“(sniff) Oowwww! (sniff) Ooohh!”

I wonder if they have a pharmacy open. I could use some Vaseline for my right nostril… All right, all right. So, a guy has an allergic reaction to drugs, but they think he overdosed so they put him in a clinic. Such a great concept. I mean, it’s practically written. Whew, we’re rolling now.

“(sniff) (sniff)”

Oooh, my heart is racing… One of those vodkas. Okay, we’re totally rolling now. The guy feels haunted by his parents, like in Frances, his parents are… Why would they put him in the clinic against his… They’re crazy. They’re drug addicts. No, they’re not drug addicts, but they don’t want to take care of him anymore. He’s old, though… Have another hit.

“(sniff) (sniff) Aaah.”

I wish I had some cigarettes. I don’t smoke, though. So, the parents put him in because they’re drug addicts. No, because… An inheritance. An inheritance is always good. But they’re his parents, wouldn’t they leave him his inheritance? No, because he was his grandfather’s favorite grandson and he was left all the money, but the parents get to execute his estate if he’s somehow proven to be disabled. Perfect! That’s totally perfect! So, he’s an heir to a fortune. The muse is upon me.

“(sniff) (sniff)”

Oooh, I think I’m gonna be sick. That hamburger. Get it out of here, put it in the hallway… That’s better. Okay, he’s in the clinic and he meets this actress—maybe he’s a musician or a songwriter—and she falls in love with him and he helps nurse her back to health. Then they escape the clinic together, and there’s this whole chase sequence where people like Stan—lots of people like Stan—come after them and try and keep her loaded. Why? Why would they try and keep her loaded?

“(sniff) (sniff)”

So that she’ll do commercials about the clinic, and write articles about drug addiction and make them famous. I think I’m on to something… I gotta take off my clothes. Clothes are sticking to me… I… Really, I think this is great. How can they say drugs are bad?…

What if they don’t like it? I feel so frightened all of a sudden. What if it’s not a good idea? What if Suzanne won’t be in it? Oooh, I don’t feel good. Take a drink… Ice is melting… I wonder why they call this Long Island iced tea. Maybe I should call this movie Long Island Iced Tea.

“(sniff) (sniff)”

What’s on MTV? I hate this song, I hate this song. Look at this band. Fucking look at this band. I’m not good-looking, am I? I never was good-looking. No wonder my parents don’t like me. Maybe they do like me. Where are my parents? They’re probably at my house rifling my drawers looking for the cocaine. Well, I’m not a drug addict. I’ve checked into a hotel and I’m working. What time is it? I don’t want to know. I’ll just call…

“Operator. What time is it? Thanks.”

Fuck, it’s 4:30. Maybe I should sleep. If I slept a little bit I could get up tomorrow afternoon and get back to work, really flesh this whole thing out. Maybe even call Barry Diller. Oh, man. All right, I’m lying down. I’m not wearing anything. I’m feeling good. I’ve got a great script idea, my first one in a while… Try to sleep. Just empty your mind. Fucking AM radio in there. Shut up! Shut my brain down. Just relax and go to sleep, wake up fresh.

Oooh, my heart’s going so fast. I can’t even keep my eyes closed. I better drink something. Shit, only one vodka left. God, I’m really sweating. I smell so bad. I shouldn’t have done so much cocaine so fast. Maybe I should just stop, not do any for a while. I’ll just do a couple more lines and then not do any for a while.

“(sniff) Ooowww!”

What am I doing? This is fucking stupid. I’ve got to be able to sleep. No more cocaine. Please, God, let me go to sleep or I’ll never be able to write. I’ll never be able to do anything. I’m exhausted. My eyes burn. I’ll just lie here until it wears off a little bit, and then I’ll be able to get some shut-eye. Christ, it’s getting light out…

What is that noise? What is that? It can’t be the air conditioner, it’s boiling in here. Fuck it, I’ll just do another line. I might as well stay up all night. Hell, I used to do it when I was young. “Hey, man, let’s pull an all-nighter.” It can’t kill you. What am I getting so worked up about?

I should make myself eat something, absorb some of the alcohol. I wonder if that hamburger is still out in the hall… Here it is. All right, all right, just close your tastebuds and eat the hamburger. I should take a little blow to numb me to the taste.

“(sniff) (sniff) Aaah, oh yeah.”

All right, so it’s morning. I’ll watch the sunrise. Like John Denver or something. Ooow, it’s too bright. Never mind. I’ll turn the air conditioning up…

All right, all right. I shouldn’t beat myself up about this. So I did some blow. Anybody could… I think it’s good research for the script. Certainly there should be a character who does a lot of blow at some point. Maybe the dealer…

Okay, so I’m up. So what do I do? I’ll take a bath. I’ll take a bath and then I’ll do a little more writing in a couple of hours. Maybe I’ll watch an old movie and get some ideas from that. Look at this wallpaper. It’s yellow. Who could think people could relax in yellow rooms? They’re probably like this all over the country…

I wonder if Suzanne realizes… She must miss me. Well, we’ll see each other again. Wait till I submit this script. She’ll come in and read for it and say, “Have I met you somewhere?” Yeah, I’ll surprise her. I’ll surprise everybody.

I shouldn’t have done so much blow. Why did I get this much? There’s so much left… The script. ’Cause I’m writing a script. I can’t write in a yellow room. Look at this bedspread… just lie down, put your head down and breathe. That’s right. Breathe, breathe. Everything’s all right. You have friends, you had a girlfriend—she was a bitch but you had a relationship—you have a life, you’re good-looking, you have a pretty good body… Breathe out, that’s it… You have parents, you’re a writer…

Aah, I feel a little bit better. Maybe I should get into an activity. I’ll chop the rest of the cocaine. I don’t want to do any more of these rocks. That’s probably why I don’t feel well… Maybe just one more hit…

“(sniff) (sniff)”

It’s so light in here, it’s too fucking light. There’s no window in the bathroom. I’ll chop it in there. But I can’t sit in a dark bathroom. I’ll seem insane. Well, who’s gonna see me? I’ll take a bath in the dark. I’ll chop a couple of lines for right after my bath. I’ll have a relaxing hot bath…

There, there, there. My bath is running, I’ve got it going. All right, this is good. This is good. I’ve got a good idea for a script, I’m young, my life is in front of me. Let’s go. All right, we’re chopping it up now, here we go. All right, yeah. Jesus, it’s a lot of blow…

“What? Who is it? No, I don’t want it! I don’t want the bed changed! Don’t! Don’t come in here! Get out of my room!”

I spilled the cocaine! I spilled the cocaine in the tub! I spilled all the blow in the bath!

“Get out!!! Get out! I’m gonna sue this hotel! My watch! I gave away my two-thousand-dollar watch for… Get out! Get the fuck out of my room!!!”

What am I doing?! Get it out of the water! Oh my God, oh my God, the blow’s in the water! ! What do I do?… I’m hysterical. Calm down and shut up. Get a lamp! Dry out the rest that’s in the bag. I’ve got to save it! Three thousand dollars or whatever it cost… Okay. God, turn off the water. What have I done? Okay, okay, be cool. Oh my God, oh my God. The maid! This isn’t happening, this is not true. This could not happen to me… Put the wet coke on the towel, I can dry it under a light. Oh, oh, oh, I’m having a heart attack. Oh my God, I’m seeing stars. I’m dead… Put your head down…

“Uhhhh, uhhhhh…”

Oh my God, I’ve gotta call a doctor… What do I do? They’ll call the police, the maid’ll call the police ’cause I yelled so much… I don’t know what to do. I’ve gotta be a man…

I have that gram at home. If I had another couple of hits I could decide what to do… I can’t focus on this, it’s too unreal… They’ll call the police… My parents wouldn’t still be there. I’ll go get that gram… This is a nightmare… Maybe I can get my money back because the cocaine spilled. It wasn’t my fault. I wish they insured drugs… All right, all right, I’m leaving. I’m gonna be calm… Get your shirt on, here we go…

Okay, cool, no maids. Okay, here’s the elevator. Fuck, there’s people on it. Okay, keep your head down and breathe. They’re laughing at me. Oh my God. How did this happen to me?

“What do you mean, ‘How’s the weather in Miami?’ I don’t know anything about Miami.”

How could they talk to me? Look at them, all perfect and dressed and going to jobs. I’ll never have a life. I’m an animal. I’m an animal. I have a drug problem. Maybe I… Oh, no. Oh, no. I can’t get off the elevator. They’re like the New Christy Minstrels and I’m this devil from outer space. I’m nothing… Oh, Jesus, Jesus, I’ve got to go back to my room and think. I’m in trouble. This is big trouble now… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have any kind of a grasp… What am I doing? It’s like I’m killing myself…

I’ve gotta call someone. My nose is bleeding. I’ve gotta get someone… What am I doing here? What have I been doing? I got half an ounce of cocaine and checked into a hotel. What am I thinking?… My arm is numb… I have no taste in my mouth… I’m sick, I’m sick… I can’t call Stan. I can’t let him know… Know what?…

So maybe I can’t… I can’t do drugs. I did too many drugs, I hurt my face with drugs… I’ll call Julie, she was always nice. She was too nice, but she was nice. Maybe I could talk her into not telling anyone about this. I’m so embarrassed… What do I say? Help me, I’m a… Oh, Jesus, it’s hard. I don’t feel well, though. I’ve gotta… I’ll just disguise my voice and say I’m a friend of… No, no, I’ll just… Oh, fuck, I’ll just tell them to come and get me. This’ll be what it’s like if I don’t. I’ll be in rooms like this all my life, with drugs that go down the drain and yellow walls and hamburgers that move…

I’ve gotta go where somebody can take care of me. All right, just call. I can go back and they’ll take care of me and then I’ll be okay. Calm down, you’ll be okay… I’m so scared… Just call…

“Uh, yeah, is Julie Marsden there? Uh, hi, Lucille. It’s Alex. No, no, I’m all right. Could, um, could I talk to Julie? Oh. Well, do you have her number? It’s important. Yeah, it’s… Okay, thanks.”

Four-seven-six-two-nine-four-five. Four-seven-six-two-nine-four-five. Four-seven-six-two-nine-four-five. Okay. Okay…

“Hello, is this Julie? This is Alex. No, I’m okay… No, I’m… I’m in a hotel. I… God, could you? Could you come and get… Yeah, I hate to be a… Okay. Yeah, it’s the Ramada Inn in Burbank. Room 823. Okay, I’m here. Yeah. No, I’m here.”

Okay, just sit, just hold your knees tight. Okay, rock… Oh, God, oh my God… Okay, okay, she’s coming. Somebody’s coming. It’ll be okay… Just hold yourself, hold yourself… It’s gonna be okay… Somebody’s coming…

DAY TWENTY-SIX

Alex is back. The story is that he checked into a hotel in the valley with a pound of cocaine. He had done quite a bit of it when he thought he heard someone breaking into his room and he freaked out and spilled all the rest in a bathtub full of water. Something like that. Bart told me, and he tends to exaggerate a little. Anyway, then he got in the elevator to go get more coke (!?!) and there were these people who laughed at him and said something to him about Florida, so Alex freaked out and went back to his room and called Julie.

Of course, this being the top story of the day in rehab world, everyone is scrambling for details. Wanda was in the nurses’ station when Julie brought Alex in. She said he looked frightening, nose bleeding and everything, gripping Julie’s arm with his head down like someone on trial getting past the press. We all pumped Wanda for more, since she’s the only one of us who saw him, but that’s all she had.

This just in!

Carl overheard Julie telling Stan that when she got to Alex’s room it was about 11 A.M. Alex let her in and embraced her like a long-lost relative. He was sweating and crying, totally panicked. “I’m so glad you’re here, thank you for coming,” he kept repeating. While he was talking, a huge rock of cocaine fell out of his nose and landed on the carpet. Without missing a beat Alex bent down, licked his finger, picked up the coke rock, and put it in his mouth. He then offered Julie a Long Island iced tea and asked her if she had to tell his parents about this.

If World War III broke out now we’d still talk about Alex.

…Christ, I feel dead…

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

They brought in three people to speak at the hospital tonight at our own AA meeting. The first guy told us he was known as the Blackout King. He used to come out of blackouts speeding down the freeway and not know if he was chasing someone or being chased. He once came to in the middle of a huge fight and didn’t know whose side he was on. He said that in the end he could only get high by tying himself off and calling the paramedics and telling them there was an overdose at his address. Then he would hang up and wait until he heard the ambulance siren, and then he’d shoot up, knowing they would save his life. So almost dying became the biggest high of all.

The second guy told this long tale of cocaine dealing and prison. At one point he was talking about being at this party in San Francisco. There was this girl there and he said, “I wanted to go out with her and she didn’t have the time of day for me. Then she went off to New York and became this big star, and today that girl is in this room. Now we’re in the same club.”

I got this cold feeling inside, because I suddenly realized he was talking about me. He was bragging that I once thought I was too good for him, but now I’m not so bloody fucking too good for him. They say around here that some are sicker than others. Well, I decided that somebody was sicker than somebody in this situation, and I didn’t care if I had to be sicker than him, just as long as I wasn’t in his category. I never heard the third speaker, because I walked out of the meeting.

On the way back to my room, I stopped to see how Alex was. He was in bed and Lucille was taking his blood pressure. He looked like those pictures of kidnap victims that they send to the families with the ransom notes. He was pretending to be asleep, so I didn’t say anything.

…I’m so humiliated. What am I gonna say to everybody? What must they think? God, I’m exhausted. At least they didn’t make me see my parents. That I’m not quite ready for…

I feel awful, awful. I’m just glad I didn’t get arrested or anything. I hope everyone doesn’t stare at me like I’m some kind of animal. Maybe I went a little out of control. I did, I went out of control. I’m somebody who went out of control, which means I’m somebody who could go out of control again. I don’t know, maybe I haven’t been completely realistic with myself.

I still think I should write this script, though. I still think that’s a good idea. What if at the end the guy finally sees he’s an addict? He leaves the clinic and goes out and does a bunch of drugs to write this script about himself, and in the process he realizes he’s an addict. I don’t want it to be a corny ending where the guy gets really gung ho and starts going to meetings and applauding the people who make the coffee. I mean, he doesn’t become one of those Q-Tip heads who come up to you at airports and say, “I have a gift for you.” This is a cool guy anybody can identify with. An Everyman. With a drug problem, though. I bet my agent could get me an actual meeting with Barry Diller for an idea like this. It’s current, I haven’t seen it done before…

Maybe I should take it easy for a while, and not write it right away. I feel like such a moron. I’m so ashamed. Here I am way out in the middle of my life and I feel like this. It’s like I’ve got wind blowing through my chest or something…

Maybe if I talk to some of these people they can help with some of these feelings. I don’t have to like them, I just have to learn how to not do drugs from them. Not Stan, certainly, but I could probably do all right working with Julie…

What the fuck? I’ll try it their way for a while. I haven’t got too much to lose, I guess. I’m still not gonna use that Jacuzzi, though…

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT

I can’t quite believe I’m actually going home in two days. I’m not completely leaving, though. They said I could continue coming during the day for all of next week. I’ll be an out-patient. Bart is going to do that, too. So now I’ll get the best of both worlds. It’s hard to imagine a day without Carl talking too much in it. I wonder if he’d do my answering machine message for me.

Today was Mark’s twentieth birthday. His favorite gift was the Big Mac that Stan brought him.

…Okay, okay, I’m an alcoholic. I can’t get loaded anymore. If I do, I could die. Or worse. I remember Stan saying once—I loathe that sucker—but he said the worst thing is not dying, it’s living like that. That would be bad, to spend my whole life in Ramada Inns with pockmarked dealers. Certainly the cocaine never enhanced his looks for me. It doesn’t ever really do a lot, but that first hit… Well, I shouldn’t get off on a rant about dope.

I think what I can do now is throw myself into my work, my writing. And I’ll go to these meetings—at least then my parents will stay off my back—but I’m never ever going to an AA dance. It seems so tragic to stand around with a lot of people who don’t—no, not even don’t—can’t take dope anymore and do the twist or something, like twitching at the end of some pathetic line in the river without any fish. Oooh, that’s a good analogy. I think this script is going to go well.

Julie said I can rejoin the group, so I’ll start gathering data. And I heard Suzanne’s leaving tomorrow. I’ve gotta talk to her, or else it’s like I made all this shit up. I don’t want to have to think I’m deluding myself that we have any kind of connection. She’s the one person here I really feel a connection with.

I have to admit, though, that maybe my attitude was bad. I guess now these people have to be my friends or something. This is like a joke. If there is a God, he’s like Shecky Greene, throwing me in a Ramada Inn with a bag of cocaine and then putting me back here again. Well, at least it’s a very dramatic story, and I’ve got some good characters to work with here. And this is my version of a breakthrough, so I don’t want the clouds to open and God to drop me a note. I don’t want to be religious. Something in between what Julie is and what I usually am is probably the way to go.

I mean, I would like to have some friends, but I want to have the cool people in AA as my friends. No smiling jerks, no zealous, crazed Republicans. I don’t want to be a Republican. It’s so uncool to be what some of these people are, and I hope they don’t expect… Okay, I won’t take dope again, but I’m not gonna become a Jesus freak. That’s it. You have to draw the line somewhere. I won’t do drugs, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna replace them with hearts and flowers. Forget it.

I’ve got to talk to Suzanne before she leaves. There’s a park outing in the morning, and I’m gonna go up to her and… It’s no big deal. I shouldn’t make a big deal or I’ll get all pressured and freaked out. But if I don’t talk to her I’ll beat myself up for the rest of the time I’m here. I can’t miss any more opportunities. And she’d talk to me. It’s like the changing of the guard of the new drugless generation. She’s going out and I’m staying in.

I’m sure there’s a lot of things we have in common. We could talk about not liking Stan. We could talk about Carl. We can’t talk to Carl because he never shuts up, but we could talk about Carl. I don’t know, and Sid. I could ask her if she misses Sid. Hey, we know a lot of the same people…

DAY TWENTY-NINE

At lunch Wanda said to me, “God, I really envy you being in all those movies. You really have it all.” I liked the concept of being envied by someone in a drug clinic while actually in a drug clinic.

Sometimes I don’t think I was made with reality in mind. And now I can look forward to an eternal, open-ended reality. A reality that dreams me without waking. Unrelieved reality. Some might call it a challenge, others a sentence. Whatever you call it, though, we here in the rehab—the newly clean and sober—belong to it as completely as slaves. Reality’s puppies.

Nomads, yes-men, kings.

…All right, all right, it’s park time. That horrible nurse is taking us to the park, the one with the shrill cartoon voice who clicks her keys on my door. On the other hand, maybe this is a good character: the Annoying Nurse. She could be a good antagonist for my protagonist.

How do I look? Shit, this sweater still smells. Well, I can’t worry about it. This is my last chance. I’m gonna talk to Suzanne and today’s the day. Here we go. God, this is so pathetic, with everyone waiting by the nurses’ station to go…

There she is! Oh, God, and she’s got her suitcase by her door. It’s like the end of camp. Drug camp. We should be making drug lanyards. Okay, here we go. Who can I latch on to so I seem like a part of it? I’m so out of it. If I’d done this before, this would be more natural and… Wait, there’s Carol.

“Hi, Carol. No, I feel better. I… I fucked up. Yeah. I’ve been on Inderal for a couple of days. They say my heartbeat is very accelerated. Anxiety? No, maybe it’s from the cocaine leaving my system.”

That sounded stupid.

“It’s probably from anxiety.”

Okay! Now!

“Hi. Hi, Suzanne.”

God, I should have said more. What else can I… Don’t look down at your feet. You don’t smell, you don’t smell. You look fine.

“Yeah, we haven’t really officially met. Yeah. I heard you’re going home today. You nervous at all? Yeah. Yeah, I was nervous when I went home. That’s true, I didn’t really go home like you’re going home. So, do you think you’ll come back and visit people?”

That’s dumb. I sound so desperate. Just be cool.

“You have any work lined up? Do you think it hurt your career to be a drug addict? Yeah, I guess it would. I guess it would. So, the park. Going to the park.”

Fuck, I can’t think of anything to say. What do you say? Tell her she looks good. I can’t. What will she think I’m trying to do, date her?

“So, you’re coming back to your group meetings next week. That’s smart, that’s very smart. Maybe I should do that. I mean, after I leave. You think I should? I’d like to know what you think I should do, because…”

I’m sounding like such a putz. Like Jim Nabors or something. Jesus! Just keep forging ahead.

“…I mean, you being the senior here at drug college and me for all intents and purposes a freshman…”

That sounded good. Okay, get on that roll.

“…Um, you know, I feel like you’re graduating, and I’m sort of new blood, you know, I don’t know all the rules. Is there anything you’d suggest? I mean, obviously, other than not doing drugs? Uh-huh, yeah. Let me ask you, what do you think of Stan? Really? I don’t know, I find him… Can I be frank about this? I think he’s very unpleasant. There was that one day we almost did have a conversation… Yeah, and I felt he was out of line. I mean, not that there are any lines in the clinic. I don’t mean that like a coke pun…”

Aauugh, she’s gonna think I’m a real moron.

“…You know, it doesn’t seem like there are any rules here other than not taking drugs, but I do think courtesy and decency could… I mean, as bad as I ever got on dope, I think I was always very cordial to everybody. Certainly, my dealers liked me. I mean, that sounds like a joke, but it’s true. My dealers did like me. So, um…”

Say something. Don’t let the air go dead. If you don’t keep talking she’ll walk away. She’s an actress, they like to talk and…

“What are you going to do about your career? You know, I wanted to talk to you about that. I mean, I know this sounds like I’m a moron in a drug clinic, right? But I don’t know if you know that I’m a writer and, um, I’ve just been chasing around this idea about maybe writing something about this and maybe you could take a look at it. Yeah, a script, and maybe you’d want to be in it. I mean, I don’t want to bother you…”

Don’t say stuff like that. Learn how to sell yourself.

“You would? You’d read it? That would be great. Well, I haven’t written it yet. I mean, you know, I like to get a lot of it in my mind first, and then when I think I’ve got the whole thing I put it down on paper. It just comes out. At least, I hope so. I haven’t tried to write without drugs yet. A journal? Really? You keep a journal? Was it your idea or… ? Uh-huh. And we don’t have to turn it in or anything at the end? That’s a good idea. So, do you write about… ? You write about people? You mean like Sid and Carl and everyone? Yeah, that sounds good.”

Look at her, she’s bored out of her mind. I’m gonna fucking kill myself.

“The swings? Sure. I mean, aren’t we too large? Won’t our legs go down in the sand and… ?”

Go! She asked you to go to the swings with her. Go!

“You want me to push you? I would be honored to push you in the swing. Should we ask that little boy to get off or… ? Do you see his mother anywhere? Oh, there’s one free, those little girls are leaving. Okay, I’ll push you. That’ll be great. It’ll be how I see you off. I’ll sort of push you off.”

Another bad pun. She’ll never read your script. Just stay with it, though, don’t keep apologizing. She must hate me now. I sound like someone who wears Vitalis.

“Okay, here we go. Here we go.”

I’ll never forget this in my whole life. I’m making anecdotal history. I’m pushing Suzanne Vale on a swing. People will think we’re in love. Maybe we can be in love.

“Is that high enough?”

Don’t make any puns on the word high. Just let it go. Be quiet. Listen to the wind, the trees…

“This is nice, isn’t it?”

Shhhh! Don’t talk. Just enjoy the moment. Be totally in the moment. I hope no one else comes over. I want to burn this image into my brain. I’m pushing Suzanne Vale on a swing in the park next to the drug clinic…

DAY THIRTY

I spent the morning in the park with Alex. He’s not a bad guy, really—but he’s not a great guy, really, either. He did push me in the swing for a very long time, though. There are two things that I know for certain guys are good for: pushing swings and killing insects.

It’s such a bizarre scene in my mind: the guy junkie pushing the girl junkie in this little kiddie swing with all these little kids squealing and running around, with their mothers sitting on the benches watching. All those little children and two huge ones.

Alex told me he’s writing a script about the clinic. Being here is probably the most colorful thing that ever happened to him. He should call it Rehab! “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into your coke vial.”

I can’t wait to drive! Maybe I’ll go to the movies tonight. I heard Doctor’s Orders was pretty good. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed writing this journal. Maybe I should start keeping one at home. It would have to be good, though, in case they publish it after my death.

Sid and I are going to an AA dance in the valley on Thursday. Maybe I’m going overboard, but what the hell…

I must be brainwashed, because it feels so clean when I think.

Notes on Rehab Movie

Suzanne left today. I feel really good about the connection we made in the park. It took a long time, but I think it was worth waiting for. I’m glad she didn’t get to know me before, when I was such a creep. She’s great. If she lost just five pounds, I’d marry her.

I think her suggestion that I keep a journal for my script was a good one. I wish I could see her journal. She’s no writer or anything, but she is Suzanne Vale. I wonder if she’ll publish it.

I wonder if there’s anything in it about me…