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