Wet Reckless by Cassandra Dallett

Author:Cassandra Dallett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manic D Press, Inc.

Drunk School 2011

I did graduate nursing school

with a cast on my arm, a fat lip, and a black eye.

I never got my nursing license but I made the grade,

passed the state exams but the DUI kept me from getting licensed.

I needed to prove I had taken care of things I hadn’t.

The night before graduation

I saw my young boyfriend with a young girl.

He wasn’t my boyfriend anymore

I had left him for his friend (who had gone back to his wife)

I was back sleeping with the young one again,

coming from a bar I saw him

went fucking crazy pushed him, kicked him,

threw his boom box in the street.

I ran up the hill to his apartment

He came in as I was hurling the coffee table against the wall,

threw me down the stairs. My wrist bone snapped neatly in two.

It was a hot, achy hangover and self inflicted heartbreak.

Fast forward, sixteen years —

I’m a mom, I have a job, own a home, pay taxes,

haven’t been arrested in all those years.

I go to renew my California Driver’s License

and they tell me there is a hold from the state of Vermont.

I spend the next year trying to clear it up —

spend fifteen-minute breaks on

phone calls and faxes to an office in Vermont.

It’s only open one hour a week eastern time

and holds a woman mean as a viper.

(I assure her I did not kill her family member

or anyone else while driving under the influence.)

She says my name C-a-s-s-a-n-d-r-a real shitty

like maybe I’m slow.

After months of back and forth

I find out it’s just one piece of paper they want —

just a standard printout from the DMV — to get into a DUI class.

I am classified as a Wet Reckless (story of my life)

which is the envy of the intake room.

I only have to go to six weeks of classes,

most have six months or a year,

and we are a mixed bag of bitter nuts

in this depressing East Oakland classroom.

I run into old schoolmates

and spend the next six (which turns to eight) weeks

watching films about tragic accidents and

recovering alcoholics. There are many class clowns.

The teacher is a heavy-set black woman with a long wavy braid

and a crazy sense of humor. Her teaching style is one of telling

stories

none of which have a damn thing to do with why we are here.

In fact the punishment of attending is

the only actual rehabilitative aspect to this thing.

People tell their stories but it’s no AA meeting

everyone here came in a car driven on a suspended license

and everyone here is going to have a drink when they leave.

There are toothless dope fiends, young girls with bad weaves,

a cowboy in full hat, buckle, and boots.

We are Latino, Asian, Black, and White.

We ask stupid questions and laugh.

A white boy sits next to me scribbling things the teacher says

in his notebook, he thinks she’s so funny.

She reminds me of an ex-boyfriend’s sister

and I’m thinking I don’t know where he’s from

but this is your standard jailhouse, welfare to work,

work furlough, drug program classroom.

I’ve seen plenty: plastic chairs, stained carpet, fluorescent lights,

and a fat lady with all the control at the front of the room.

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