Word count 910

                                                  Bill Tope and Doug Hawley

“I went to an AA meeting the other night,” said Tom, taking a sip of his drink.

“A what?” I inquired with little interest. We were nursing bloody Marys the afternoon following another night of debauchery. We were both hung over.

“AA,” he repeated.

“Um?”

“Alcoholics Anonymous,” he explained, lighting a cigarette.

The sickeningly-sweet effluvium of the Winston drifted over and nearly turned my stomach. “Ah,” I said.

“I went with Ross Carter,” said Tom, referencing a heavy-drinking attorney we both knew. “He was ordered by the court to attend AA meetings as a part of the disposition of his DUI, and I tagged along.”

“Ah,” I said again. “Want another drink?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I summoned the bartender, placed the order. It was only fair: Tom had bought me innumerable rounds the night before. “So, what did you learn?” I asked him.

Tom snorted. “Hey, get this,” he went on, “they sit around in folding chairs in a circle and by turns everyone gets up and gives their name and says, ‘I am an alcoholic.’ “Tom laughed boisterously.

“Did you do that?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “Everyone was doing it so I went along,  but I’m no alcoholic like those rummies!”

I only stared at him, amazed by his innocence.

“I’m not!” he said. “Alcoholics can’t stop drinking. They can’t not drink. I can stop any time I want.”

“Really?” I asked. We had never discussed Tom’s drinking before, although the topic had arisen amongst others in the house where we both lived.  Even though Tom was a drinking buddy, he always seemed clueless.

“Of course,” he assured me. “Last Saturday, I didn’t drink all day,” he said. “And that was on a weekend.”

“But, you were sick as a dog,” I said. “You were so sick from the night before when you spent all night at the tavern–this tavern–that you puked on your bed.” Tom had spent almost his entire paycheck on drinks for the regular bar crowd the evening before, rationalizing the expense as payback for the alcohol they’d provided him on prior occasions.

“I’m not alcoholic,” he responded pugnaciously. “Alcoholics are stumble-bums.”

When I didn’t say anything, he peered at me questioningly and asked, in earnest, “Why, do you think that you’re an alcoholic just because you hoist a few glasses?” I could tell he was uncertain.

“Well, how do they define it?” I asked, meaning AA.

Tom handed over a colorful pamphlet. “They passed these out at the meeting,” he told me. “It’s the guidelines for seeing if you’re a drunk.”

I opened the pamphlet, titled “A.A., is it Right for You: a Self-Assessment,” and read aloud:

“Have you ever decided to stop drinking for a week or so, but only lasted for a couple of days?” I looked up at my friend.

Tom was quiet for a moment, and then he grinned and said, “I thought about quitting for a week, but then I thought better of it.” He laughed. “Fahey,” he said, meaning the barkeep, “has to get braces for his kid’s teeth.”

I shook my head and continued onto question number two. “Do you wish people would mind their own business about your drinking–stop telling you what to do?”

“Damn straight,” he thundered, pounding his fist on the surface of the bar. “I’m free, white and twenty-one,” he reminded me.

“Do you really want to take this quiz if you have no interest?  Or, would you prefer that we two alcoholics continue to get wasted/”

When he didn’t respond, I shrugged and proceeded to the next assessment inquiry. “Have you ever switched from one kind of drink to another in the hope that this would keep you from getting drunk?” I asked.

“Is it supposed to be a bad thing to switch drinks?  I just like a variety, you know the spice of drink, or life, or some … . You know what I mean.”

“Have you had to have a drink upon awakening during the past year?” When he didn’t say anything, I prompted him, “Tom?”

“Go to the next question,” he said gruffly, lighting another cigarette and taking another big swallow from his glass.”

“Do you envy people who can drink without getting into trouble?”

Tom drew a deep breath and expelled a cloud of rank smoke. “Sometimes,” he admitted, “I wish things were…different.” And he said no more.

I continued “Have you had problems connected with drinking during the past year?”

I knew the answer to this one: Tom had beaten one of our housemates, Jenks, to a bloody pulp several months before over the weighty issue of pilfered orange juice. Tom didn’t say anything; he didn’t need to.

“Has your drinking caused trouble at home?”

“Isn’t that the same question?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Do you ever try to get ‘extra’ drinks at a party because you do not get enough?”

By this time, Tom had stopped answering questions and run out of cigarettes, so he ordered up a scotch, neat, and turned to talk with another of the barflies at the tavern–on the afternoon of another day after.

I didn’t get a chance to ask him about his wife who had been hospitalized after trying to keep up with his drinking. She said they both had to stop or she would leave him. I think I have a chance with her if I stop drinking.

Appears in Collaborature, Down In The Dirt, and Synchronized Chaos