No, you’re not, I tell her. When we’re on the street we don’t take care of ourselves. You’re not on the street.
What would you call it? she says.
You’re in recovery. You’re waiting on a halfway house. Where are you on the waiting list?
One person ahead of me. Maybe I’ll get in tomorrow or the next day. What do you think?
I offer her the Big Book.
Expectations are premeditated resentments, I say, quoting from it. Focus on the good things happening now. Today you’re not drinking.
Yeah, I know, she says, a note of annoyance in her voice. She picks up the Big Book but doesn’t open it. It’ll help while you wait. C’mon.
I’m tired of waiting. I just want someone to tell me what to do. I get bored waiting.
A pitying look crosses Walter’s face. He reaches over and pats her hands.
Hang in there, right? she says. A day at a time?
Sometimes it’s a minute at a time, I tell her. C’mon.
I pick up her bag of clothes and walk her to the women’s dorm and point to a closet inside the bathroom where we keep towels, soap, and shampoo. I point to a shower.
Wash up and bring your dirty clothes out and we’ll wash them, I say.
I remember the last time I was in detox. Rosemary was doing a head count. I had come in the night before and was on a mat. She stood above me with a clipboard and put a check mark by my bed number. Do you want a program? she asked. I did, I told her. OK, she said, and went to the next person. I got referred to a five-day detox.
The morning of my fourth day, a counselor drove me to a forty-five-day inpatient program in Redwood City. When I finished, I got into Oliver House, a halfway house south of Market. Stacey ran AA meetings there once a week. She asked me if I had a sponsor. I didn’t. I’ll be your sponsor, she said. I didn’t even ask her. Didn’t have to. She just took me on.
Six months later, Larry accepted me into The Bridge. My lease required me to volunteer at Fresh Start ten hours a week until I found a job. I mopped floors and served coffee for about a month when one of the intake workers quit and I got offered his job. PA one, Rosemary called me. Program assistant, level one. I was seven months sober before she began calling me Katie.
The woman walks out of the female dorm. She’s put on a clean pair of jeans and a pink sweatshirt. Her wet, tangled hair drops to her shoulders, and I realize I forgot to give her a comb. Walter whistles. I give him a look and she smiles. I wave her over and she follows me to the laundry room. I point to a washing machine and she dumps her dirty clothes in it. I add soap, close the lid, turn the dial to warm, and press start. We wait until we hear the sound of water running. She turns to me, follows me out, and rejoins Walter. He looks up at her and grins.
Later in the shift, she and Walter wipe down the tables in the waiting room. He says something and she laughs. Her hair is tied back into a ponytail and she’s put on eyeliner. She sees me and smiles and Walter flashes me a grin—and for a moment I have this thought of a brother and sister.
You want some coffee? the woman asks me.
Sure, thanks. Rosemary has you working.
I didn’t ask. I just want to keep busy. Tell me what to do.
Work your program.
I had things to do at General. I don’t know what else to do here but wait.
Work your steps.
I sound like a textbook. Stacey had a way of talking that would have made it sound fresh. Work your steps rolled out of her mouth like, Good morning, natural and cheerful. I feel weak and worthless, because nothing I say is going to sound as good as it would coming from Stacey. I’m scared, scared to think of her so lost, scared at how fragile we both are, and scared that I can’t call her.
I watch our interloper go back to detox and pour coffee into a foam cup. Walter follows her, gives her a packet of sugar and a plastic stir stick. She takes the stick, flicks coffee in his face, laughs at his surprised look, and brings me the cup.
The phone rings and Rosemary takes it. When she gets off, she comes over to my desk. That was the social worker, she says. He can’t help Walter. No program will take him. He’ll have to leave tomorrow morning. It’s almost time to go home. Let the overnight shift tell him. I don’t want to take that on, do you?
I shake my head no. I don’t think he’ll be upset. He definitely won’t be surprised. But he’ll give that sad look that all us drunks give when for a moment we recognize how bad we’ve fucked up, and then he’ll shake it off and do what we all do and drink again. I don’t need that look right now.
The woman and Walter wipe more tables. When they finish she pours two cups of coffee and they sit down. Walter covers his face like she’ll zing him again and they both laugh. She’s coming out of her shell with him. That’s scary too, that it’s Walter she’s leaning on.
She leafs through my copy of the Big Book, closes it, lights a smoke, and exhales massively into Walter’s face. He waves a hand and pretends he’s choking, and she opens the Big Book again, closes it, and pushes it toward him, and they start laughing for no reason, the book an island between them.
Tonight, I dream about getting drunk on Ocean Beach. I’m panhandling at a stoplight on the Great Highway. No sign, I just walk from car to car when the light’s red and ask the drivers if they can help me out. Most people roll up their windows and stare straight ahead. I’m so cold, I say to the drivers, I’m so cold. I hold onto their door handles and they take off and I tumble to the pavement. An ambulance stops and two paramedics get out and ask if I’m all right. Blood runs down my left side. They clean me up and give me a blanket and tell me to be careful. Have you been drinking? They ask. No, I tell them. The truth now, one of them says in Stacey’s voice. I hold the blanket, shaking. You’re in no position to talk, I say. I wake up to the sound of my voice shouting at her, curled in a corner of my bed shouting.
When I come into work this afternoon, I check the clipboard and do a head count. I don’t see the woman.
Where’s the lady waiting for the halfway house? I ask Rosemary.
Gone.
She get in?
No, she says.
What then?
She left.
Left?
With Walter.
