Spirits

By Michael Jesse

Chapter 24

"My name is Barry, and I'm an alcoholic."

"Hi, Barry," Jack said along with everyone else. It was his second of the six required AA meetings, and he was feeling a little more comfortable. He knew the routine now. Someone would tell their story, others would comment, and that would be it. Everyone was friendly, but not pushy. Jack would not be forced to talk or to do anything except listen.

"I took my first drink at 13, Barry said, "and immediately I loved it." He went on to tell his ‘drunk-a-log' as everyone seemed to call their rowdy drinking years, and again, Jack felt certain that this was not him. He did not remember the first time he drank. He was not immediately a heavy drinker, though he would admit to himself that he now was.

Barry recounted the terrible things he had done and the people he had since made amends to. That was one of the steps, making amends, but Jack could not think of anyone to whom he should do so. Not even Allison, really. She had been drinking as much as he did back then, and she was the one who got mean after a certain point. If either of them needed to make amends, it was her.

Barry's share was not much different from what Curtis had said, except near the end. "It got to the point," Barry said, "when I was drinking without my consent. I would decide in the morning that I was NOT going to go to the store and buy liquor that day, but my disease always talked me into it. I started imagining it as my identical twin, except he was a quadriplegic. He had no power of his own except his voice, and he would sit there in his wheelchair and tell me to go to the liquor store for him. And I would. And then he would tell me to make him a drink. And I would. And he would tell me to hold the glass to his lips -- because he did not have the power to do that himself -- and I would. Thanks to this program, my higher power and all of you, I have learned that I am the only one who has the power to open that liquor bottle and pour that drink, and lift that drink to my lips. It can't happen if I don't go along with it."

As he had the first time, Jack got his signature after the meeting and fled immediately. Two down and four more to go.

On Saturday, Jack went for a run and then spent the rest of the morning reading "Pride and Prejudice" because Millie had paused on that book while skimming his shelves and told him she adored Jane Austen. In the afternoon, he drove out to the suburbs to join a gym because there were none downtown. Since college, he'd lifted weights, which he found more satisfying than the mind-numbing drudgery of the cardio machines. If he had to run, Jack preferred doing it outside, where at least there was stuff to look at.

That evening, he didn't have his first drink until almost 7 p.m. when he logged into Molly's site. He wasn't ready to make a new post but just wanted to see if there were fresh comments, and there were. But as Jack scrolled through them, he was taken aback when he saw the words "Tell us about Jack."

A wave of panic swept through him. Had someone discovered his identity? Was he being outed as a fraud?

As he read the message, however, he realized the question wasn't about him but about a character in the Mona and Libby stories. "Jack" was Libby's college boyfriend before she realized she was gay. They hadn't seen each other in years, but when Libby and Mona started thinking about having a baby together someday, they reached out to Jack to ask if he'd consider being their sperm donor.

This plot contrivance had just been an excuse to insert himself into one of his naked lesbian fantasies -- but only as a platonic witness. When he'd written the Libby and Mona stories, they only existed on his computer. When he decided to post them on the Internet, he intended to change the male character's name, but could not think of anything that felt right so he'd left it as it was -- a decision he now regretted.

Jack had never been to therapy nor ever discussed his secret writings with anyone on the planet, but he knew this was not normal. He had never quite understood why he didn't simply give his male characters reliable erections so they could have sex with the naked woman themselves. It was a fantasy, after all. Yet instead of doing that, he either left males out of the story altogether -— as he was now doing with Molly -- or he relegated them to friend status.

This had become complicated by the mistake Jack had recently made when he somehow allowed Molly to claim Mona was her sister. Jack did not even remember making that post, but he obviously had, and now he had to manage that connection whenever a reader brought it up.

"I've been reading about your sister and her girlfriend," the question began. "Since you and Libby both like to ditch the clothing, do you go naked together when you visit them, and do you go naked in front of Jack?"

Jack wasn't sure how best to answer the question. His top priority was keeping Molly believable. He decided to give it some thought before responding

He woke up at 2 a.m. needing to pee. He had dozed off on the couch as he sometimes did, and after going to the bathroom, he headed to his bedroom. But then he stopped in his tracks in the hallway when he glanced into the living room and saw his laptop on the coffee table.

Wait. Did he . . . ?

As the modem whined, making its painfully slow connection to the Internet, Jack tossed back the remains of his last drink. When he was finally logged into Molly's site, he saw it. "Damn it, Molly," he muttered, and began to read.

Hmmm, well, that wasn't too bad, Jack thought as he closed the laptop and headed to his bedroom. Pretty good, actually, and she did a nice job avoiding the use of his name. "But I really wish you wouldn't do that, Molly," he said out loud.

At 8 a.m., Jack's clock radio clicked on to the local PBS station, and he awoke feeling refreshed. The sun was streaming through his bedroom window, and he felt like taking a run. Half an hour later, he was outside jogging in a generally eastward direction. He knew he was going that direction on purpose.

It was a nice day, and he felt strong and healthy, so the run was no problem, and he did eventually cross Dorman Street. He remembered the address was 947, so he headed north a few blocks towards the intersection with 10th Street. There were shopfronts at the corner, but behind them was a little courtyard in front of a half-block of narrow brick rowhouses, probably built in the 1940s.

He had no intention of knocking on the door but just wanted to get a sense of what kind of place it was. These were definitely modest little homes, probably rentals, but they seemed well-tended. The 947 address even had a little flower box of petunias. At least it was not some skid row crackhouse.

Jack didn't want to get any closer and turned around, but when he did so, he nearly collided with an old man who had been walking up the sidewalk behind him. Instantly, Jack knew who it was. The man was a couple of inches shorter than him and gray-haired, but they had the same eyes and the same jawline. The man stopped and stared at him with equal astonishment.

"Are you John Goddard?" Jack heard himself ask.

"Yes," the old man whispered.

"Well, so am I."

Jack was angry, but the old man surprised him. Tears filled his eyes, and he grabbed Jack by the arm and said, "Son, you've come. I always knew you'd come." He led Jack into the little home. "You have to have a drink with your old man, son," he said as he took a bottle of scotch out of the kitchen cabinet, and Jack could tell from the bottle that it was the expensive stuff; the kind you never mix with anything except ice or a dab of water. It was not even 10 a.m., and although Jack was not without experience at morning drinking, that was normally just a few hair-of-the-dog sips from last night's remains. He felt he should protest, but accepted the glass and drank from it as his father made a toast to them, a father and son reunited at last. The old man kept refilling their glasses, and on the third round, he said, "And here's to your mother, god rest her soul."

Finally, Jack spoke. "How did you even know she was dead?"

"I seen her obituary in the newspaper. That was a sad day. I didn't even know she was sick until I saw it there in the paper that she was gone. A very sad day. I didn't go to the funeral, but I saw them put her in the ground."

In a flash, Jack was back in time, again witnessing that inexplicably sunny day at the gravesite. He had noticed a man about his mother's age standing in front of someone else's tombstone 20 or 30 yards away. Their eyes had even met once because the man kept glancing over, and the teenager still called Johnny, glared back at him angrily — as he did to everyone for a long time — for daring to be alive when his mother was dead.

"I seen you a few other times before that, son, when you was growing up. You two moved around a lot, but she was always in the phone book, so I usually knew where you two was and sometimes I would drive by. A few times I seen you out in the yard, hitting a ball or whatever, but I didn't want to slow down because I didn't want your mother to see me. Let's have another drink to your mother. She was a good woman taken from this life too soon."

Jack set down his empty glass. "Why didn't you ever . . . come to the door?"

"Your mother didn't want me to. Told me to stay away."

"She told me she said for you to stay away until you quit drinking."

"It wasn't anything specific like that, son. She just didn't want me in her life no more."

"I have to go," Jack said, getting up and heading for the door.

"Thanks for coming, son," his father said, choking on the words. "Come see me whenever you want. I ain't got no place else to go, so I'm nearly always right here."

Outside, Jack sucked in the fresh air and started to run, but the booze in him did not like that much activity, and he walked the rest of the way home. He brushed his teeth and took a shower, wanting to wipe it all off of him. Wrapped in his robe, he fell on his leather couch and closed his eyes.

It took a while for Jack to figure out that the knocking sound in his dream was also happening at his apartment door. He found his way to it and opened it to see Millie in a tiny yellow dress.

"Hey," she said. "I thought we were going to meet there, but I couldn't find you, and — are you okay? You look kind of like . . . Jack, have you been drinking already?"

One of the life skills at which Jack normally excelled was never giving anyone a reason to ask that particular question. This time, he figured he had a pretty good excuse.

"I just met my father," he said.