“All I want to be is normally insane.”
— Marlon Brando
Let me tell you. Pretending to recover from drugs or alcohol is not easy. First you have to develop the taste, savor it, and then dispense with the desire — without necessarily ever having had it. But, I was lucky. It was always around and as a musician and a psychotherapist it was a cinch. Between the booze necessary to be on stage and entertain or liven a party, sometimes naked and outrageous during the 60’s — or, being offered valium by another “shrink” after doing talk therapy with actively hallucinating patients and a supervisor who was a former Nun — no one escaped drugs or alcohol.
So I was well-prepared to recover even though I’d had neither drugs nor alcohol for a very long time. But, as with the Method, my stint in acting school was useful staying alive in prison. I’d known when to step back and when to play along. When I’d asked an “Old-timer” how to stay alive he said:
“Shut the fuck up.”
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“Whaddaya gonna call it?
I looked at Cuba on the walkway. We were on the way to the Gym and it was a sunny day and the weather was actually starting to warm up. It was 30 degrees. PLUS 30 degrees, not minus 30 degrees.
“Call what?” I said looking at him.
“Y’know, bro’ your ‘Memoirs?'”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I said looking at him with a straight face. “Come on, give me a break.”
“Alright, bro’,” he said, “whateva.”
Of course, I was NOT going to touch that. The fact that he’d come by my desk at the Law Library numerous times and that I would go through a ribbon a week at the typewriter, eventually DOES raise some questions. I’d told Emerson so I was good.
But, it was just ‘Memoirs’ and then I left it with that. Other guys in the Library rarely leave ANYTHING with a simple answer.
Naturally, I smiled to myself and allowed myself some kudos for having kept my mouth shut for 3 years and not shot my big mouth off which was the primary reason why I wound up here in the first place. I let the embedded journalist thought trickle down my back and it felt like I was one of the spies who worked for the CIA and got medals that no one could see since they were all kept at Langley — with only a star on a wall denoting an award for some guy who might have spent 20 years in a Chinese prison as John T. Downey had. Although, in his case, they actually let him have the medal.
But, even if I were embedded, it was not among combatants. I was embedded among idiots.
No one was going to give me a medal. More likely a Booby prize for being a shithead and living among people who would give Emily Post a stroke, if she weren’t already dead.
It had been an interesting couple of days in ASAT.
Today, for example, we had another useful Group.
It followed a reading for “Information” by one of our quiet and unassuming black guys. His hair looked like extra-long dreads that one could smoke like a cigar.
Apparently you cannot un-entwine dreads. You can’t wash them or unbraid them.
They’re permanent until you cut them off.
We had another round of Creative Energy. The day before it had been another version of Musical Chairs. Today, it was being run by Lopez, the Puerto Rican shortly to be deported, who called HIS game “Ah, Ah,” as a gesture to a couple of the only words I could use with him which stood for A.A.
The “Ah, Ah,” game consisted of Lopez holding a handkerchief and calling numbers which two different guys on both sides of the Rec room would hear and then jump up and grab the handkerchief out of his hand. This produced several near misses with two guys heading for the same object and paying no attention to whether they were about to collide with anyone headed for the same object. It seemed like something Hemingway would have written about if it were animals in the bush. Which, of course, described these guys perfectly.
I’d caught one of them washing his hands this morning with Cleaner 128 and marveled that though he was Spanish he was not apologetic about essentially using nerve-damaging chemicals to wash himself.
My heart wasn’t in it today.
As I’d started out the week with some very dim views on what was going on. Not just in my life but my life in ASAT.
The day before we had been playing Musical Chairs.
Massey, the showrunner, engaged in drawing people out with her delusional belief that she and Roddy were doing anything more than suffering a massive attack of educated self-mutilation. And Denial.
So, today, I made a false start and immediately crapped out and dropped out of the game.
But, yesterday, with our Game Show host Dierburger, we’d played a more elegant and sophisticated version of Musical Chairs. It was thrilling. This was the State’s method to cure addiction. The different age groups would play against each other, and I watched them start. There were guys in their twenties, then thirties, forties, then…?
George Burns came to mind. When asked why he didn’t date women his own age, he said, “There are none.”
There were no other guys in their 50’s. Or, 60’s. Not to mention 70’s. So, I got up and carried my chair into the center of the group and declared myself the winner.
The winners of each age group played one last game.
The chairs were lined up and the tension built, Most of the group’s focus was on me. My nearest adversary was 30 years younger. The tension was palpable.
This was not what I had in mind as it occurred to me that I would just walk into the center of the group, pull up my chair, look around, sit down, and then leave as the winner of the 70’s segment.
The “music” – banging on a shelf – began and I circled with the 4 other guys. One by one, as I sat down when the banging stopped, fell by the wayside. They were doing their best to win and I was doing my best to lose. This was the culmination of a lifetime of education, sensitivity training, psychoanalysis, and professional work. A game of Musical chairs with drug addicts. Truly, the accomplishment that I had envisioned when I decided to have a family as my real estate investments grew. So, instead of teaching my young children how to play Musical Chairs, here I was playing musical chairs by myself in my seventies and had to INVEST myself in winning, or pretending to play well, in order to show that I was Recovering using Creative Energy.
What the fuck?
Around and around I went, as guys dropped at each stop of the erratic banging on a metal shelf with 30 drug dealers and drug addicts and alcoholics watching, in addition to Roddy judging me, arguably an alcoholic herself.
I decided that it had to be Camus who most likely would be the one who thought this was funny. Either him or Sid Caesar. I couldn’t be certain which.
Mel Brooks would have appreciated the humor in this.
“Torquemada this, Torquemada that.”
No question, Larry David would have used this in an episode of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm” or a stand-up routine — after being arrested for grand larceny while returning a gift that he’d had to steal to replace one he’d inadvertently destroyed.
We went around and around and when the music stopped it was me and Mr. Kane, also known as Africa, or Ibrahim. I landed on the lone seat and he stood there smiling, his dreads flopping from the excitement.
The group cheered wildly and I stood up, bowed, and dragged my chair back to the periphery of the group. A great accomplishment. Watching Roddy laugh and clap, of course, showed that my accomplishment had succeeded.
“Congratulations. You’re the winner,” she said.
I looked at her and smiled.
Are you fucking kidding me? I thought.
I bowed gracefully, and said, “Thank You,” and sat down.
Success arrives in unexpected ways. Like lobotomies.
Following Musical Chairs came the Massey show. She showed up a few times a week, apparently looking to prove that she’d made the right decision in her life. All of the guys knew what she and Roddy were looking for and they produced it. They knew that using words like “Recovery,” “Relapse,” “Stayin’ clean” along with a few other catch-phrases were the key to getting through and out of the program. After six months of bullshit they could get back to selling dope, supporting their families, baby-mommas, or girlfriends, with maybe something for their scattered kids, and maybe “get twisted” themselves.
Since drug sales and drug use was likely to only get them 1 to 3 or 2 to 4, or 2 flat or a flat 3, it was a nuisance but was the cost of doing business.
“Why do you think Roddy drinks,” laughed Sal. I looked at him.
“She drinks because she has to deal with these assholes all day long.”
He was talking to me during the break after Musical Chairs was over and Massey had walked in to “work with” the group. Everyone tightened up since she was the Anjelica Huston look-alike with the Adams Family values. She was like Hitler with a dress on and after having had a colonoscopy without propofol.
Massey continued to talk about the embezzlement of her businesses to let the group know that she was sharing.
“So, let’s talk about Relapse,” she said, pointing to the board which had R-E-L-A-S-P-E written on it. A list of words were under that, such as “Euphuric,” and “Craving,” and “Compultion.” Apparently, the salient point was that “Relaspe” was “Trigered” by “Craving” and then you were on your way to “Compultion,” meaning that you were on your way to Hell. Apparently, no one could spell anything. English language or grammar was not a requirement or even taught.
“Well, we gotta take chaage a’ ar’ lives, an’ we gotta tell ah’selves what’s really happenin,” said Brisco.
Morales piped up and said that he had relatives that did cocaine and smoked weed for 20 years and “dey still good. Neva been arrested. Dey good,” said Morales.
Seeing an opening, I said,”but what about their health? Don’t you think that doing drugs for more than 20 years is bound to take a toll?”
“Yeah,” said Massey, happy for the observation that drugs were NOT GOOD for you. It was my victory for the day. In front of Massey. Speaking AND getting approval. Otherwise, what the fuck did any of them care even if those people self-immolated?
I decided to go for the brass ring,
I commented further on Brisco’s running monologue. He’d gotten a ticket, was on cube, and had to go back to the Ghetto so he was now trying to do a one man show. He was pulling all of the stops and saying every word he could think of to ring the bells in Massey’s mind. So, interjecting along the way, I said, “You know, Recovery and Relapse is like Recovery and Relax. You have to Relax and ease into a new way of living to change the old ways.”
Trauma was sitting next to me and said, “Deep.”
I looked at him. Was he playing me after the bullshit line that I’d just spouted out?
“Are you making fun of what I said?”
He looked at me. “NOOO, I mean that.”
If he WERE serious that was even worse.
“Yeah,” said Brisco, “I like that.”
This session went on for about half an hour before we had to “Circle-up” and watch a movie. It appeared to be a promotional video by some drug treatment facility that was run privately and had gotten Bill Moyers to be the interviewer because, apparently, his son had been an addict that had gone there. It had fairly high production values but not one of the guys watching it would ever be able to afford the place. Including me, if I’d needed it.
Once the video was over I grabbed Brisco and talked to him.
“You actually believe that shit you were saying?”
“Not really,” he said, “I was just playin’ both sides.”
He knew the game. He just wanted to finish the program, keep his release date and get out.
Roddy took over and wanted comments about Relapse from all of us. Massey had gone out the door, having unloaded more of her personal life which interested no one, and while we thought it was the end of ASAT for the day, we had to continue with remarks about “What we got” from the video, other than a headache.
I decided to go for broke and try to win an Oscar. We’d been talking about why guys did what they did and that, according to Roddy, we had to watch the “Triggers” for relapse.
The whole Relapse thing was making me nauseous. Roddy was making me nauseous. These drug addicts and dealers were making me nauseous. So, I decided to try to end it.
“You know,” I said, after raising my hand, where every other rude and insensitive asshole just butt into discussions, “there’s a question that every actor who’s studied Method acting asks.”
There was quiet now. They were listening.
“He learns during his training. Y’know Brando was a Method actor. He studied with Stella Adler Theatre Studio in Manhattan. And, he did ‘On the Waterfront,’ ‘Last Tango in Paris,’ and ‘The Godfather,’ just to name a few. He was the best there was. And, I had the good fortune to be with that school for a short time and was invited to be on their Board of Directors.”
Of course, I didn’t tell them that I’d only attended two classes and thought that Pearl, the teacher, was an asshole. Or, even worse, that I was invited to be on the Board because they thought I had friends with money who would lavishly donate. But, that was another story.
More silence.
“The question that all Method actors learned to ask themselves was, ‘What’s my motivation?'”
Roddy and everyone else in the group was now staring at me. They were silent and transfixed.
“So, you have to ask yourself the question. It doesn’t matter what the course teaches you, it doesn’t matter what Ms. Roddy says, and it doesn’t matter what the C.O. tells you. YOU have to ask yourself, ‘What’s my motivation?’ You have to decide whether you’re taking this program because the court made you do it. Whether you are doing it to complete your program requirements. Or, whether there is something here for you.”
Now I had them.
All of them. Roddy, the drug dealers and the addicts. I was Werner Ehrhardt and had sprinkled fairy dust over everyone and they were paralyzed without drugs or alcohol.
“Only you — only you can answer the question of what YOUR motivation is for being here. Because only if YOU want to get out of here and stop doing drugs or selling them and it will help you in your life, going forward, will this work. You have to decide that and figure out which one of those things is YOUR real motivation.”
One guy whispered to his neighbor, “He should teach this course.”
“So, you’re saying that you need to know why you’re really here?” said one guy.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m saying that you have to stop bullshitting yourself and at least be honest with YOURSELF about why you’re really here.”
Roddy piped in with, “That’s really important that you decide why you’re here. If you wanna just go back to sellin’ drugs, that’s okay, I mean it’s not okay, but telling yourself now that that’s what you’re gonna do, that’s okay.”
She went on and then said to me, “so what did you get outta this video?”
Now, I was on the spot. I thought I’d given a good performance but now she latched onto the fact that I could wrap up her afternoon for her so I continued.”
“Well,” I said, drawing upon some emotional wrinkles in my cerebellum, “the concept of relapse was important to me. And, of telling the truth to yourself. I remember seeing the body of my favorite aunt being brought out on a stretcher when I was 12 years old by the coroner and I remember that my father died in a pool of blood from drinking. And, I remember that in order to get him into a hospital treatment program I’d had to have a lot of drinks with him to get him to go.”
The room was quiet again.
“I also remember that even though I only had a couple of drinks with dinner at night, there were times…”
“There were times when it went beyond that couple of drinks with dinner,” said Roddy, jubilantly.
“People would come over. Someone would say, ‘Let’s open another bottle of wine…” I said.
Of course all of this was horseshit. My aunt and father had died from accidents after drinking. But, the friends coming over was pure fantasy. The Scots as well as the Swedes were too cheap.
Most of them kept drinking to a minimum. Not that I hadn’t ever had drinks with friends. But, when that happened it was social or like a bizarre rock event as I performed the Stones or The Who.
There were quiet drinks at Barolo in SoHo, drinks with dinner at a restaurant, and many music-filled performances in Europe before any of these people, including Roddy, were born. Not to mention, a lot of fucking. Much more fun than drinking or drugs.
But those times were indescribable and none of them could ever comprehend my experiences – the music performances in Florence or Mykonos or Copenhagen or Amsterdam with beautiful screaming girls and dancing crowds.
Why would I give a shit about drugs?
But here I was now paying for it. Forty years later.
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