Tony and Justin join AA to explore personal irony (Tony does not say much in this one)

We twelve-step at the Y on Tuesday evenings. Were giving back, we just dive in and heal. Gully (tony) is ecstatic with the perennial reincarnation of his helplessness, its metamorphosis, daily, into his faux what-ever-the-fuck. I want to make a joke about how fast we are stepping, how fast we are to admit we have a problem and with all honesty, moving forward to seek that god damned help and agree that yes, we are powerless, and yes, we need something, mainly them. It was my idea really, but it was too abstract for any of us, you know, not being serious about it and all.

He smokes at the meetings but something about it, something about the way he smokes, well its looked at like he is drinking right there in the meeting, like enjoying it as much as he does is bad. I mime smoking. Raise my hand, drag, exhale slow, lips pursed for the noise of it, how it sounded when it was real. I tick at the butt compulsively with a thumb nail shooting scales of ash off, it’s what I liked best about smoking when I really did. It’s not overdone, I play it calm, I do not exaggerate. My smoker movements are conservative, they trace an economy of effort inside a groove in the body of my mind, it’s remembered now though it is just a ghost of the meaning it once was.

Tony does not say hello. “My name is Tony and I am still an alcoholic.” he emphasizes “still” plaintively, almost sadly. There is personal discovery in his voice and if there is a note of triumph it is the tang of the triumph of the sickness, it is not pinned upon any willfull act on his part, like a paper tail on a real donky by children blindfolded and blind to what will soon me a kick in the dick by the same donky they are giving another tail, a paper one, wait for it, any second now, thump!

The class holds a little back from us. At night I think about them, each of them, holding back from us. They are letting the vague doubt of our commitment simmer on their flesh like a flung but dilute acid. I ask my sponsor to spell alcoholic. I tell him it’s like saying he’s a Christian never having read the bible when he spells it incorrectly after doubting that he could and being right about that he couldn’t. I ask him what the fuck is a Christian when it comes up that he is one. I say it just like that, what the fuck is a Christian? I never walk away, I make them end it, all of it, but they can’t, I am committed.