“I need help.”
“I can’t help you, Nic, we’re done.”
“Dad, please.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe Spencer will be willing to talk to you, but I can’t. I’m through.” He hangs up.
“God,” I say aloud, folding in on myself, my body shaking from crying. “Please help me. What do I do?” My hand trembles all over the place, but I dial Spencer’s cell phone. He picks up right away.
“Spencer?”
“Nic,” he says, actually laughing into the phone. “It’s about goddamn time you called me. You had enough?”
“Yeah. Please, what do I do?”
“Come home, man, we’re waiting for you.”
“Back to L.A.?”
“Sure. Eric still hasn’t rented out your room. Something told us you’d be back before long.”
“I’m so sick.”
He laughs. “Come home, you rotten little snot. I’m fat ’cause there’s been no one to ride bikes with me.”
“I don’t think I can ride any bike, Spencer. I can barely stand up.”
“What are you comin’ off of, meth?”
“And heroin.”
“Lovely. Come on, Nic, it’s time to come home. You don’t have to prove anything anymore. So what do you say?”
“My car’s dead.”
“Get on a plane.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, right now. I’ll pick you up.”
“No, you don’t have to…”
“No shit. But what can I say? I missed you, man. I might’ve even been a little worried. Now, let’s go. You’ve had all the good times you’re gonna have out there. It just gets worse from here.”
“Worse?”
“Yeah, man, you’ve peaked.” He laughs again.
“Spencer,” I say between sobs. “I’m gonna go to the airport right now.”
“Damn right you are.”
“And Spencer…”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah, just get going.”
“Okay.”
“Call me when you know what flight you’re comin’ in on.”
“Yeah.” I put the phone down and then cry some more.
I call a taxi.
I try to stand up, but all the blood rushes to my head and I fall back down again. I decide crawling is the way to go. I find my shirt stuffed under the bed. I put it on and it smells so strong that I gag, but nothing comes out. Somehow I manage to get my suitcase and things together. There are a bunch of clothes and CDs and things still in my burned-out car, but I don’t really care anymore. I just want to go home.
One of my shoes is gone, a black Jack Purcell sneaker. Between walking outta there with one shoe and no shoes, I figure maybe if I wear some dark-colored socks, no one will notice. So I pull my bag over my shoulder, grab my backpack, and hobble my way up the stairs. I have three hundred dollars cash in my wallet. That is all that is left. If I need more, well, I don’t know what to do then. Throughout all this I’m praying. It is like the voice in my head, the running monologue; it has switched over to thoughts of prayer. Please help me—be with me. I just keep repeating it over and over—up the stairs.
Walking out into the living room, I see Lauren. She is just coming back down to her room and she sees me with all my bags and everything. She drops to the floor, curling fetal-like, and now she is crying.
“You’re leaving me, aren’t you?”
“I’m…yeah. I’m going back to L.A. I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.”
“But you promised you’d stay with me.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, goddamn it, you did.”
“Lauren, please. You and I both know that we’ll never stay sober if we stay here together.”
“Fuck you. You think you’re so much better than me. I wish I’d never met you. You’ve ruined my life.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t go.” She springs up off the floor and tries to kiss me and I think I’ll be sick if I touch her, so I pull away.
“I have to,” I say, and I walk outta there, leaving her screaming and crying behind me.
The outside air is so cold, the wind blowing straight off the water. I tuck my arms into my T-shirt and shiver. But still, it is cleansing, that air. The night is clear and I look up at the starless sky and feel the sweat seeping out under my skin. The taxi finally gets there and I get in, collapsing on the clean-smelling nylon seats.
“The Oakland Airport,” I say.
The man asks how I’m feeling and I admit that I’ve been better. Mostly I can’t think at all. I just pray, like I said, over and over. I watch the poison city sweep by as we drive out to the Bay Bridge. The lights blur out. I maybe sleep or something, ’cause the guy has to yell, “Hey, kid” a few times when we get there.
That is sixty dollars gone.
I walk, or more accurately, stagger into the United terminal of the Oakland Airport. The patterned carpet makes me sick and dizzy and I hope so bad I won’t have to throw up again. The fluorescent bulbs shine violently overhead, the flickering nearly unbearable.
I stagger over to the ticket counter and I’m still not wearing any shoes.
“Welcome to United, can I help you?”
The woman is wrinkled, with dyed purple hair, too much lipstick, and a smile that quickly disappears when she sees me step closer.
“I need to go to L.A.,” I say.
“Okay, uh, sir. Let’s see.” Her fingernails click, click on her little keyboard.
“There’s a flight at nine fifteen that has a few seats available. Would you like that?”
“Sure.”
“Round trip?”
“No.”
It costs me two hundred dollars.
She prints out my ticket and then tells me to take my bags over to the security checkpoint. It is only after I hand my suitcase over to one of the two uniformed baggage handlers that I begin to panic. I hadn’t thought to check for Baggies, or needles, or dope, or whatever other paraphernalia might be left in there. The woman puts latex gloves on both hands and begins rooting around in my bag. Her hair is braided back in tight rows against her scalp and she looks at me with open disdain. She searches and searches and I say nothing, still praying maybe.
And then she is done.
“Thank you, sir, have a nice day.”
“Yeah.”
She puts my suitcase on that conveyer belt thing and I watch it disappear. When I get to the metal detectors, the passengers are all taking off their belts and shoes, putting them through to be x-rayed. At least I am saved that trouble.
I go and call Spencer and he agrees to come get me around ten. I buy a piece of sweet potato pie from Your Black Muslim Bakery, but can’t really get it down. Mostly I just try not to be noticed by anyone. The wait is long.
On the plane I sleep, thank God, and when I wake up there is drool all over my shirt. That’s how I greet Spencer. Actually, as soon as I see him, I start crying and can’t look at him.
“Come on, asshole,” he says, but sweetly. He puts his arm around me and even carries my bag. He’s grown a goatee since the last time I saw him, but otherwise looks just the same. He wears a black leather jacket over a black pullover sweater. We get into his BMW and drive off through the Los Angeles night. It is warm. L.A. is always so goddamn warm.
We don’t talk much. He drives me home and tells me to sleep and asks if I want any food.
I shake my head. “Can I see you tomorrow?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “Maybe we can go to a meeting at noon.”
“A meeting?”
“Yeah, brother.”
“Fuck.”
“There’s no other way.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.” And so I go upstairs into my old apartment, using my same old key. And there it is, exactly as I left it.
PART TWO
DAY 32
I detox on the floor of the apartment. Spence
r doesn’t think I need to go to the hospital. According to him, well, I should rely on my Higher Power to get me through this. I am so weak and shaking—throwing up—not able to sleep. I try renting some movies, but I can’t focus on the screen. All I can do is shiver in bed, staring at the ceiling and struggling not to pull my skin off.
These are the worst withdrawals I’ve ever had. I’m alone. I have no medication, nothing to ease the suffering. The only things I have are the twelve steps and Spencer.
I know I have to stay close to him.
I have to do whatever he says.
That’s the only chance I have.
If Spencer tells me God can get me through my detox, then I will trust him. I feel so desperate right now. I am ashamed and terrified of everything I’ve just gone through. Spencer is the one person I can trust. I’ve tried doing it without him, without the twelve steps—it has never worked.
It’s still very hard for me to believe in God, but I’m just too beaten up to fight it anymore. That’s always been my problem with the twelve-step program. There’s all this God talk, or Higher Power talk. I could never get past the third step, “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.” It just seemed like some religious cult or something. But I just can’t afford to question it anymore. I have to go to meetings. I have to work the steps with Spencer. I’ve been told in all the different rehabs I’ve gone to that the only way to stay sober is to be an active member of a twelve-step program. I have to believe that is true.
While I’m still detoxing I actually go with Spencer to a couple of twelve-step meetings, but I can’t really focus enough yet to hear anything. It is like someone came in with a vacuum cleaner and sucked out my brain—removing any trace of joy or excitement, leaving me with nothing but this overpowering hopelessness. The world turns bleak, dull, and oppressive. I have grown so weak and pale. I look in the mirror at my sunken-in eyes and coarse skin—scaly, gray, almost reptilian. My legs are bruised and sinewy. I lie staring at the ceiling. I lie there like that until around two in the afternoon when my phone rings and I see Spencer’s number come up.
“Hey…”
“What’s up, brother?” His voice is irritatingly joyful.
“Dude, I’m dying.”
“Uh-huh. You know, it’s a beautiful day out.”
“Is it?” All the shades are drawn on the windows and my apartment is bare and dark.
“Yeah, it is. So, you wanna go on a bike ride?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, man, I’m way outta shape, we gotta start riding again.”
“I can barely move.”
He laughs. “Come on, man, we’ll go slow.”
“Look, I don’t know, uh…”
“Nic, I’m already on my way.”
“What?”
“That’s right. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Uh…okay.”
“See you downstairs.”
I hang up, pulling myself out of bed and feeling all dizzy, or like I’m gonna faint or something. I curse and go over to my dresser. The bottom drawer is filled with old bike clothes. I’d left them here, sure I would never need them again. Those nights I’d slept in my car outside the Presidio, I’d watched the groups of cyclists climbing up the forest road. It was hard to believe that I had once been like that, pulling away on a sprint, spending five or six hours at a time on the bike. I looked at those riders and I told myself that I was better off sitting in the car, loaded outta my mind. But the thing was I had experienced some of the good life that the twelve steps had to offer. I remembered riding my bike with Spencer through the Marina as the sun rose over the Hollywood hills. I remembered him telling me how much he loved his life, and in those moments, I felt the same way. I just hadn’t been willing to fight through the difficult moments with the faith that it would get better—that maybe, one day, I could have what Spencer had—a beautiful life.
That seems a long way off, but what is there left to do but try?
I take off my clothes and I smell terrible. I put on some bike shorts and a jersey. I feel naked and exposed—embarrassed by my white, strung-out body. All the definition has been eaten away from my muscles and I try to avoid the mirror that is leaning against the wall. My Raleigh is there in the corner, a fifteen-hundred-dollar road bike that I’d saved up for and bought with my own money. It was the first thing ever that I had really done that with.
I put some air in the tires, sweating and out of breath from the exertion. This is definitely not a good idea. But I put on some socks and my cycling shoes and fill up a plastic water bottle. Spencer calls from outside and I go down to meet him. He’s driven his wife’s Blazer over, but he’s already all dressed in his cycling gear.
“Lookin’ good,” he says.
“Yeah, yeah.”
The sun is out and the sky is still and blue and perfect.
“It’s so warm out here.”
“Yep,” he says.
I click into my pedals and spin my legs a few times, cruising up the block. Everything aches and is tight and I feel sick. I figure I’ll just tell him I can’t do it, but then he is pedaling up next to me and smiling, so I hang on a little longer. It is very foreign—steering, the feel of sitting on the bike, turning my legs, standing out of the saddle. It is foreign, but at the same time not.
“God,” I say quietly. “Please, if you’re there, could you help me. Please. I know you allowed me to come back to L.A. and get sober. Now help me to ride this bike.” We pedal faster and then the wind is cooling my sweating body and Spencer says, “How does it feel?”
And I start to cry. I close my eyes and the tears run down and I sit up tall and let the handlebars go and just drift like that, down California Street, toward the calm, pulsing ocean.
“I forgot about this,” I say.
“No you didn’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be back.”
“Is it too late? Will I ever be where I was?”
“You’ll be far beyond that.”
“But—”
“Look. Let’s make a list.”
“What?”
“A list.”
We turn left along the Santa Monica cliffs, the palm trees stretching up, bent forward from the onshore winds. The street is cracked and I stand to avoid the impact of a manhole cover. I am breathing pretty hard.
“Just think about it for now,” says Spencer. “But I have a guarantee for you. We’re gonna make a list of all the things you want out of life, okay? Not anything too dramatic, but just the stuff you think you need in order to be happy. Put it on paper—write it down. In one year from today, one year, if you follow this program to the best of your ability, you will have everything you wanted and more. Your life will be inexplicably transformed. Just think of it as an experiment. Give it a year and see what happens.”
“But,” I say, “I had a year.”
“Give it a year where you actually commit to this thing—where you, like they say, grab hold of spiritual principles with all the fervor with which a drowning man seizes a life preserver. You’ve got nothing else, man.”
“I know. I know I don’t.”
“So what have you got to lose?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Nothing.”
We make it down to the bike path and I look out at all the joggers and bladers and cyclists participating in their lives. Men and women walk dogs or hold each other’s hands. A group of boys play hand drums in the coarse sand.
“So what do you want?”
“Uh…I don’t know.”
“Come on, come on.”
“All right, well, I’d like to be healthy again. I’d like to be able to ride like I used to.”
“How ’bout a car?”
“Yeah, I’d like a car again.”
“And a career?”
“Sure, I’d like to be a self-supporting writer.”
“What else?”
/>
“A relationship. A meaningful relationship.”
“All right.”
“I’d like friends and, uh, to have my family forgive me.”
“Write it down, man. I’m telling you, either you’ll get exactly what you want, or you’ll find that you’ve been given infinitely more.”
“No way.”
“Either you’re gonna trust me or you’re not, man, it’s your choice.”
“I trust you.”
“Well then…”
We ride on in silence, around the Marina. I watch the boats rocking in the harbor and I pray—I just keep praying.
Spencer is in front of me most of the time, but I try my best to keep up. We circle back around. He talks to me about the last movie he produced. There are problems with the director and cast, but the editing is coming together. He asks if I’ll come out with him to the sound guy’s studio tomorrow. I agree. He talks about closing his corporate video company—moving his business back home. He wants to me to help him pack the office up in a week or so. I agree to that, too. When we get back to my house, we change and he drives me to get some groceries.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Hey, man, helping you is how I stay alive. Never forget that.”
I hug him and go upstairs. I write a list of all the things we talked about. I put it on paper, thinking there’s no way I can get these things—there’s just no way.
DAY 59
Spencer’s lent me a bunch of money and now he wants me to help him move out of his office—which is annoying. Still, I can’t tell him no. I’ve written up a resumé and started passing it out around local coffee shops and things, but no one is real responsive. I’m probably terrible at making the damn things. Sounding professional has never been my strong point. Plus the big chunks of missing time are hard to explain. Other than my road bike, I have this old beater that used to be my mom’s. I ride that around, though I’m still weak as hell. It’s hard to look anyone in the eye. I feel, well, like I’m completely transparent or something—like everyone can see exactly what’s going on with me.
Spencer picks me up around one. It’s almost May and it’s hot outside. Just walking from my apartment to his car has my T-shirt sticking to my back. My long hair is all matted and everything.