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Chapter One

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable

I woke up in a bedroom at Howie’s place. It took me a long time to remember how I got there. I remember picking up the phone…that’s about it.

The bed sheets were drenched with my own sweat. I rolled out of bed and headed in search of a bathroom. I had been at the house a million times before, but never in the shape I was in this morning. I was draining my snake when Howie walked by. So sue me, I don’t close the door.

“What are you doing?”

My eyes were squeezed tight and I was entertaining myself with making a melody with my stream.

“Pissing.”

“That’s James’ potty chair,” Howie said.

I opened my eyes. Sure enough, I was pissing in a bear-shaped potty chair next to the big shitter.

“Hunh.”

“Where are your clothes?”

“In the room.”

Howie pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You can’t walk through my house naked. Leigh’s upstairs and I haven’t even told her I let you stay last night.”

I looked for a flusher on the bear. I shrugged and walked past Howie. He followed me back to the bedroom. I flopped back on the bed and rolled over on my stomach.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going back to bed.”

“You can’t do that.”

I sighed. I was delaying my second phone call.

“J, what happened last night?” Howie asked quietly.

“Are you asking about the part where Rochelle had all my clothes out on the lawn or the part where I did enough blow to forget how bad I fucked up?”

I heard a groan from the doorway. My fingers crawled over the nightstand and wrapped around my phone.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m calling my sponsor.”

----------------------------------------------

“Riviera Phillips.”

“Reva, it’s AJ McLean.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Alex, I haven’t heard from you for awhile. What’s going on?”

I sat up. I heard Howie and Leigh having a ‘conversation’ about me out in the kitchen.

“I fucked up.”

“Start at the beginning.”

I gave her the abbreviated, thirty second version instead.

“Where are choo?”

“A friend let me stay the night.”

“Need me to come get choo?”

I picked up my shirt and did the smell test. I rationalized that she had smelled me a lot worse.

“Yeah.”

Riviera Phillips, also known as just plain ‘Reva’ to those who she’s helped before, was a no-nonsense African American woman in her late fifties with a wicked set of dreads, a heavy Cajun accent, and an amount of patience that was going to get her sainthood when she reached Heaven. Her son Devonte had died of a drug overdose at age seventeen; Reva herself was a crack head at the time. Devonte’s death set her on the path to righteousness and ever since she’s devoted her life to take under her wing poor unfortunate fucked up souls such as myself.

I got dressed in the clothes from the night before and headed out to the kitchen. Howie and Leigh both looked at me. James was playing with his breakfast. Howie had the face he wore when he had to have a serious talk. I held up a hand. I was surprised to see it shaking. I was only coming down from the night before; I felt a line of sweat erupt on my upper lip.

“I’m out of here,” I said. I bowed in Leigh’s direction; I don’t think she was amused. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

I turned to James. “Thank you for the potty.”

He smiled. I’m pretty sure he had no fucking clue what I was talking about. “Yup!” he said as if grown men pissed in his potty every day.

“Where are you going?” Howie asked.

“I called my Florida sponsor. She’ll be here in a minute. I will just show myself out.”

Howie followed me outside.

“What’s your next step?”

I plopped down on the step. “Is there a next step for a fuck up like me?”

Howie sat down beside me. “You tell me.”

I stared up at the trees. Sometimes I wished trees could talk. They’d probably be a hell of a lot more interesting than half the people in this world.

“I’ll do what I’ve done every other time Reva’s had to come pick my ass up. I’ll take it one day at a time.”

“Will you call me and let me know what’s going on?”

I looked at him. “You sure the missus will let me?”

Howie gave me a warning look. “AJ…”

I held up a hand. “I’m done. I’m done. Anyhow, my ride’s here.”

Now the thing about being a drugged-out celebrity (and there are few who aren’t) is that you can have more than one sponsor. My West Coast sponsor was like a twenty five year old version of Dr. Drew. As my East Coast sponsor, Reva was a cross between Hulk Hogan and that one chick from Touched by an Angel. I watched Reva pull up in her ancient rusted out Nova. After all these years I had no clue how the damn thing was still running. She left the car running and got out of the car as I walked up.

“Where’s da bags?”

I pointed to my clothes. “This is all I got this time.”

She whistled. “The Mrs. wasn’t playing around my friend.”

I gave her a crooked smile. “Tell me about it.”

“Where’s da car?”

I looked back at Howie. He was watching from the doorstep.

“Howie, where’d I leave my car man?”

“In an alleyway off of Cedar. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t on bricks by now. I offered to have it towed, but you just started beating the crap out of it last night and told me to leave it.”

I gave him a salute. “Thanks.”

I slid into the car. Reva got in and yanked the parking brake down. The car started rolling.

“Why the parking brake?” I asked. She gave me a smile.

“Unless I want to chase dis' car downhill, I put the parking brake on.”

“You need a new car.”

“God and I have travelled many a miles in this old jalopy. When it’s the car’s time God will let me know. The parking brake is far from the only problem.”

I sank back into the lumpy seat as Reva wove through town. We left the swank subdivisions where the rich and famous called home and ended up in a seedy part of Tampa that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t let my dogs even take a shit on the sidewalk. Once we hit Cedar she yanked on the parking brake. She got out but I didn’t move. I was crashing fast and getting that jumpy feeling of needing another high.

“Let’s go, Alex,” she said.

I got out reluctantly and slammed the door. She didn’t say anything; I doubt it was the first time one of us had slammed that door. I myself had previously done it two times.

We walked up to my Chevelle. Sure enough the tires were gone and it looked like the monkeys from the movie Jumanji had bullied their way into the car from the roof and windshield.

“Now here’s a car going to the Lord’s junkyard in the sky,” Reva declared. She yanked open the door; it gave way easily.

I stood to the side; there wasn’t anything I needed to get out of there. She looked in at the mess.

“Crack is the devil’s lollipop,” she called out. “Whatchoo thinking, Alex?”

I sighed. “I figured if I was meeting you today….I might as well go out with a bang.”

Reva came up out of the car shaking her head. Her large hoop earrings jangled.

“Choo know as well as I do that your problem doesn’t have an end. It’s a…”

“Circle,” I finished. “I know. It’s what you choose to do in the circle that makes the difference.”

Reva smiled. “Good. You remember Miss Reva’s words. Only took two other times. I take choo home.”

I followed her back to the car. Another jab at the parking brake and we wove through the more ‘colorful’ district of Tampa. Kids spilled out onto sidewalks and music blared from windows that hadn’t been boarded up. Reva pulled up to the nicest house on the block. Where the other homes had been vandalized, her house stood strong. Even the dealers knew not to mess with Reva. She didn’t mean any harm to anyone.

The aroma of her house hit me hard as we walked into her tiny cramped entryway. It always smelled like gumbo. Not only did addicts come to Reva’s house to get clean, but they also came to gain ten pounds eating Miss Reva’s famous gumbo.

We walked into the kitchen and Reva held up her hand. I knew what was coming next.

“Spread ‘em, Alex.”

I sighed. “It’s not necessary. I’m clean.”

“Choo know as well as I do that I wasn’t born yesterday. Spread ‘em or I spread ‘em for ya. Choo ain’t got nothing I t’ain’t seen before.”

With a sigh I faced the wall and did the standard criminal stance: head down; legs apart. She patted me down expertly. She got the half empty pack of cigarettes in my back pocket. That wasn’t so bad, but then she got the miniscule amount of marijuana out of my sock. She clicked her tongue.

“Choo’s a bad liar,” she chastised. She grabbed both items.

“Sit down and I’ll be back in a second.”

I slumped down at her scarred kitchen table. Those who came before me had etched their initials into the table out of frustration or maybe just as a memento so she’d always remember them. Of course, Reva never forgot.

Ten minutes later she came back into the kitchen. I watched her open the refrigerator and take out a large round Tupperware container. Minutes later the smell of warmed up microwave gumbo filled the kitchen.

“Time for a test. What’s step one?” she asked. She turned and looked at me, a wooden spoon held deftly in her hand.

“Step one,” I said. “Admit to fucking up.”

She gave me a look. “Alex, it’s always fucking with choo. Fucking this, fucking that. Choo know I hate that word. It’s generic. It means so much. Tell me again. What’s step one?”

I traced one of the deeper initials in the table.

“I admit I am powerless over my addiction and that my life has become unmanageable,” I said. It was ingrained in my head as much as The Pledge of Allegiance was. Stars and stripes and bitches and blow for all. God bless America.

The microwave beeped. Reva got the container out and ladled up a bowl. She set it in front of me with some rough bread and a spoon. I took a bite and closed my eyes. I used to think that some people probably became addicts just so they could get Reva’s gumbo.

The sound of a chair scraping against worn linoleum snapped me out of gumbo bliss. Her bangle bracelets clanged against the table as she folded her hands under her chin.

“And what is your addiction, Alex?” she asked. I took another bite and yanked at the bread. It felt good to get a little violent, even if it was only a damn piece of bread.

“What isn’t?” I asked dryly.

“That t’ain’t going to help choo along,” she said wisely. I blew on my next mouthful before taking a bite.

“Let’s see…there’s the drugs, of course. I’ve been dabbling with marijuana and cocaine again. Then there’s the sex. I can’t get enough of sex. The more the better.”

“Those are surface addictions,” Reva said calmly. “We’ve been there before, haven’t we?”

I smirked. “A time or two.”

“What’s your wife think of all this? Choo been married a year. I remember that fancy dancy wedding. Choo see me dance to Brick House?”

I laughed. “You killed it.”

I took another bite.

“I didn’t ask the last part so you wouldn’t answer the first. What about Mrs. Alex?”

I let my spoon drop down into the bowl.

“Mrs. Alex is a different person than the one I married,” I said.

“Is she a user?”

I shook my head. “Social drinker and partier….well, was.”

“Was?”

I looked across the table. I would have killed for my sunglasses but it was another thing not allowed in Reva’s house. As she always reminded me, ‘eyes are the windows to the soul.’

“I’m going to be a dad, Reva.”

“Then your sex addiction came in handy?”

I cracked a sardonic smile. “Not quite.”

She was peeling back the layers of my problem. I was seeing Step One a little more clearly, even though I didn’t like it. I opened up about the miscarriages and the test tubes and the lack of intimacy. Reva was a patient listener. I knew she was waiting for me to get to the answer before she would help me towards the solution. If there was a solution.

Holy fuck, let there be a solution.

I took a deep breath.

“Rochelle’s made me feel like I don’t have control of my life. I took back control by cheating on her and using again, which are my two addictions. Which, in hindsight, just made my life uncontrollable in a different way.”

Reva nodded. “Good, I think we got it.”

Oh goody, I thought. Only eleven more steps to go.

She got up out of her chair and went to the cupboard where I knew she kept her coffee mugs. It was at this point where she always made herself a cup of tea. I used to believe she got her answer from the tea dregs after draining the cup. Now I just knew that she drank tea like a male dog humps the shit out of a bitch in heat…hard and fast.

“Choo know, Alex. This time I think it’s going to be harder for choo,” Reva said as she warmed up her water.

“Why?” I asked. I yanked at the bread again. She turned to me with a sad smile.

“Because before it’s always been all about choo, whether it involved your Johnny No Name or your AJ or whoever everyone else thought choo should be. But this time…” she trailed off and got out a tea bag. “This time it’s about two, choo and the Mrs. And choo know it takes two to cha-cha-cha.”

“I think you mean tango,” I said.

She shook her head.

“No Alex. With choo I bet it’s more a ‘cha-cha-cha.’”

She was probably right.