The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison

Author:Leslie Jamison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

I sat down. “I came up to watch it with you.”

He tapped his fingers on the fabric. “You must get bored all day,” he said. “I wish I could—”

“I’ll find something, baby boy. Don’t worry. I’m looking.”

“And you’re doing alright with…with all the rest of it?”

“I’m still sober,” I said. “Have been since I got here.”

“That’s good,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”

We were silent for a few minutes, sitting. “There are tons of groups for this kind of thing,” he said. “You could check one out. It might help.”

“I’m not sure,” I paused. “I don’t think—”

“I could go with you.” He was looking at his fingers, staring. He wouldn’t look at me.

“You mean that?”

“I do,” he said. “I would.”

One weekend I overheard him talking on his cell phone. I was in the downstairs bathroom. Not spying or anything, just peeing. “It’s better this way,” he said. “At least I can see that she’s okay.”

It didn’t make me sad to know he thought of me as an obligation. I knew that much already. It made me sad I didn’t know his friends, even their names, the ones who heard his confessions.

We found an open meeting listed in a ballet studio above a comedy club. The sidewalk was brightly lit and full of smokers, funny men and addicts, and the upstairs was an empty room multiplied by mirrors. There were long exercise bars along the walls and a folding table set with lemonade and cookies, spread with pamphlets called 44 Questions, Is A.A. for You? Questions and Answers on Sponsorship. There was a poster tacked up that said: LIVING WITH CHOICES. Everyone was nice. Too nice, felt like. A woman gave me her telephone number and said, “I’m not asleep when other people are. Call whenever you want.” We chatted about the weather, the strange warmth of fall, the difference between here and Nevada. I was proud and sad to hear Abe saying, “I’m here for my mother.”

The meeting started with the whole group speaking together: God, grant me the serenity, etc. I’d heard it before, but I didn’t know the words well enough to follow along. I looked at Abe. His lips were moving, but there wasn’t any sound coming out.

An elderly woman walked to the front of the room and leaned her cane against the podium. “I’m Sarah,” she said. “I’ve been sober for fifty years, six months, and three days.”

Everybody clapped. People hooted, whistled. She was home.

“You might wonder what I’m doing here after fifty years. Fifty years, I said. And six months. And three days. Because it never gets any easier, is why. That’s the bad news: I’m still coming. But the good news is: I’m still coming.”

The applause started up again.

“Save your clapping,” she said. “I’m old. My story’s long.”

It started when her husband ran off and left her with a baby girl. She’d always liked to drink, been a bit of a party girl when she was young, ended up with a party boy who did things like skip town the first chance he got.

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