Chapter 4

        On a windy afternoon when Donny was 28 months old, I was sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet. Beyond the window, scraps of paper skittered over the grass in the courtyard, and the young maples beside the sidewalk swayed like dancers. I was shaking the contents of my purse onto a newspaper. Out fluttered the usual paraphernalia and some change--two dimes, two nickels, three pennies. I threw everything back into my purse, including the change, and hurried to our bedroom, pulled open Gene's top dresser drawer, and shuffled through a clutter of belts and papers. In the corner under a telephone message from his office were six cents. I picked them up. I now had just thirty-nine cents and no liquor. I had to find more money.

        I searched through coat and pants pockets, drawers--even lay on the floor and looked under the bed. No money.

        As I started toward the kitchen to take another look in the silverware drawer, I remembered the two silver dollars packed in a white box in the bottom drawer of Gene's desk. And I remembered the day Gene had put them there. "I got them from the bank," he had said.

        "What for?" I asked.

        "For the kids. They commemorate their birth years. They're for their eighteenth birthdays."

        "I like that."

        Gene had grinned with pleasure. "It'll be something special from their dad."

        How could I spend the silver dollars? But the silverware drawer was empty, and I found myself hurrying into the bedroom and to Gene's desk. I pulled open the drawer and lifted out the box. Just looking, I thought, as I took off the lid, removed the dollars, and laid them in my palm. As if by reflex, I closed my hand around them and kicked the drawer shut.

        I dropped the dollars in my purse. What else could I do? I would replace them and Gene would never know the difference. One silver dollar looked just like another silver dollar.

        Donny and Debbie and I drove in our Volkswagen to the liquor store. Donny's eyes lighted with excitement as we walked into Creekway Liquor Market, a long, narrow store with three rows of bottle-filled shelves. He loved the bottles, especially the bright liqueurs and wines. "I want some booze," he said, reaching for a bottle of shimmery green creme de menthe.

        "Don't touch the bottles. They're no-no's." I pulled his hand from the creme de menthe. "And don't say 'booze,'" I whispered, feeling shame; "booze" was an unnatural word for a two-year-old, the kind of word the child of a drinking mother might overhear and repeat.

        "I want that booze!" he yelled.

        "Shh, shh," I said and at the same time noticed an elderly man watching us from the end of the aisle. He looked like Papa Hansen, my grandfather.

        I smiled at the man. "He thinks booze is pop."

        "Ohh," said the man.

        "I want that booze! I want that booze. I want that booze!" Donny screeched.

        "Shh, shh," I said, and then to the man, "He drinks quite a bit of pop."

        "Booze, booze, booze!"

        The man drew the lines on his forehead into crossroads of disapproval. He thinks I'm an unfit mother, I thought. If only he could see my clean apartment, the wholesome meals I fix, the five motherless puppies that I've nursed to health--and my husband, an ensign in the United States Navy.

        I turned to Donny and snapped, "Quiet down!"

        Donny sank to the floor, threw himself on his back, and pounded the floor with his heels. I stepped over him and rushed to the rear of the store, where I picked up two six-packs of beer. After paying for the beer with the silver dollars, I left with Debbie in one arm, the beer in the other, and Donny trailing behind, whimpering. I felt like a bag of rotten pears.

        When Gene came home from work, he found me in the kitchen washing lettuce. He stood behind me, kissed the back of my neck, and wrapped his arms around me. "How was your day?" he said.

        "Terrible. I'm exhausted."

        "What happened?"

        "Donny acted like a brat. He had a tantrum at the store and everyone stared at him. I felt like an idiot."

        "What store were you at?"

        "The commissary." The lie, as did many lies these days, came out easily.

        In sympathy Gene turned me around and kissed me. He said he would keep Donny out of the kitchen while I fixed dinner.

Much later, I was lying on the couch, drinking the last can of beer from the six-packs and feeling as light as whipped cream. A good gust of air, I thought, could lift me off the couch and on up to the ceiling. But with my luck--I laughed--I'd bounce against the plaster and wake Gene. And he'd run out and pull me from the ceiling and yell, "Find another way to entertain yourself!" Which reminded me....

        There was an unfinished discussion between Gene and me. Last night I had told him that I planned to become an advertising executive. He had said I was nuts. But tonight I would catch his attention and spark his enthusiasm. I would explain that, even though I did not have a college degree or writing experience, I had the brains and talent to climb sky-high in advertising.

        I'll tell him, I thought, as I stood up, padded across the carpet, onto the black tile, and along the hallway, aiming my feet carefully so that I wouldn't topple into a wall. I'll catch his attention, I thought as I swayed into the bedroom. I flipped on the light switch, swung toward the bed, and climbed in.

        Gene was sleeping on his back, and giving stentorious snores. I crawled across the bed, straddled his stomach, and shook his shoulders. "Ahh, ahh," he moaned as his head bounced up and down. Sometimes it was difficult to wake Gene. Finally he opened his eyes. "What is it?" he mumbled.

        I bent down until my eyes were inches from his and barked out, "My plan to be an advertising executive is not nuts. I'm smart and I can do it. Your sour attitude's not going to stop me. Someday I'll have a large office and three secretaries."

        "Get off my stomach and go away," Gene muttered.

        "I won't leave until I'm finished. You'll listen until you tell me I can make it."

        "Go away," he shouted.

        "No." I grabbed his shoulders and tightened my legs against his sides. "You'll never get rid of me."

        "Leave!" With a great thrust, Gene rolled to his side, throwing me onto the mattress. He pulled his pillow from under his head and clamped it on top of his head.

        "All right," I said, sliding off the bed. I lifted my head high and said with dignity, "I was about to go anyhow."

        I went back to the couch, finished the can of beer, and stretched out on my back. Gene is obnoxious, I thought. He deserves losing the silver dollars. If he ever asked where they had gone, I would say, "There's been a terrible robbery. I'm missing a few things myself."

        I got a pencil and listed the items taken in the robbery: 2 silver dollars, 2 cashmere sweaters, 1 silver pitcher, 9 books . . .

The impact of the robbery hit and I cried. I crumpled the list and threw it on the floor. I didn't understand myself. In order to drink, I lied, stole--what next? Was I becoming an alcoholic, like Dad and Mom and Aunt Red?

        I remembered an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in my parents' living room. It had been my father's group; Mom had not attended A.A. meetings. The talk and laughter had come to Chris, Ellen, and me in the kitchen; Ellen, who was four, nine years my junior, had asked, "Will Daddy stay sober?"

        "I think so," I said.

        "He will," said Chris. "I know he will."

        After attending A.A. for five months, Dad started drinking again. And one morning while he was at the kitchen table, his shoulders bent with the round-the-clock drinking of the previous two weeks, I asked, "Why don't you go back to the meetings?"

         He lifted his head and smiled, for he was a gentle drunk. "In the Depression for 25 cents, Henry and I could buy--"

        "The meetings, Dad. You should go back."

        "Fix me a little one, Mewy, just a short one."

        "Please give them another chance."

        "Just a short one." He measured an inch with his finger and thumb, and I gave up and filled his glass about an inch.

My thoughts came back to the present. With a rush of honesty, I knew that I was as committed to alcohol as Dad. But I did not want to be like him. I stood and dropped my beer can on the carpet and crushed it. That can was my last. I would quit drinking. Tomorrow I would call Alcoholics Anonymous.

        In the morning I had second thoughts: I was only twenty-four, years too young to be an alcoholic. And even if I were an alcoholic, I couldn't call a stranger for help. But I forced myself to pick up the phone directory and find Alcoholics Anonymous. My heart pounded and my hands perspired when I saw the number. I dialed. Clay, a man with a voice that scratched like a worn record, answered the phone. He invited me to a meeting that evening and said that a woman from the group would be phoning me. I hung up, drained.

        It was Mary who phoned. She breathlessly offered to pick me up at 7:45, then said, "I'm sorry I can't talk longer, but I've got an appointment with my son's English teacher."

        That evening, shortly before Mary was due, I was sitting on the couch nervously swinging my foot back and forth. Because I wanted to go into A.A. with a clean conscience, I was telling Gene about the silver dollars. "I didn't mean to take them," I said, "but I needed the money for some beer. I didn't really know what I was doing until after I did it. I'll go to the bank and get two more. I'm really sorry. I want to go to A.A. and get a new start."

        Gene pulled me up from the couch and into his arms. "You've got my full support, gal."

        "Then you don't mind about the dollars?"

        "I mind, but the important thing is that you're going to A.A."

        I laid my head in the hollow of his shoulder and felt the strength of' his love for me. I almost loved him.

        "I'm proud of you," he said. "It's a big step."

        All at once I felt the immensity of the step and I craved a drink. I'm only twenty-four and I 'm not old enough to be an alcoholic, I thought. "Don't be too proud," I said. "I'm just trying this out. I don't know what the meeting will be like."

        "Of course, darling." He lifted my chin and kissed me, obviously not noting my trepidation.

        "Mary should be here now," I said. I smoothed down my hair and went to the closet for my coat. As I took it from a hanger the doorbell rang. "See you later," I called and pulled open the door.

        In my mind, Mary had been a floozy in a bright pink dress with a limp cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. Not that I expected that a woman who rushed off to see her son's English teacher was a floozy, but still, Mary came out that way in my mind. But here was a plain woman in her late forties, wearing a drab raincoat and sensible pumps.

        "Muriel?" she asked. I nodded. "It's good to meet you. We're running late." I trailed her quick-stepping pumps to her car.

As we pulled away from the curb, she explained that we were heading for a church near downtown North Chicago. "I've been going to meetings there for seven years," she said.

        "Oh," I said, feeling nervous and tongue-tied.

        Mary sensed my feelings. "Apprehensive?"

        "Yes. I keep thinking I might not be old enough to be an alcoholic. I'm only twenty-four."

        "It's not a matter of age. It's a matter of reaching one's bottom."

        "You mean the end of your rope""

        "Exactly. I didn't reach mine until I was committed to Elgin [an insane asylum]."

        Though Mary had an over-hurried manner, thus was probably high-strung, she was so ordinary in looks and speech that it was impossible to imagine her in an asylum. Shocked, I blurted out, "Why, what happened?"

"I had D.T.'s.( The doctor said I had to quit drinking or I'd lose my mind--I would become a walking vegetable." She glanced at me, her eyes solemn. "You don't have to go my route. You can be smarter."

        In Mary's high-strung manner, I saw myself. I could be heading her way, I thought, and I determined to quit drinking.

Soon Mary swung her car around a corner and pulled up to a curb beside a white brick church. "We're here," she said, and I followed her inside, down a flight of stairs, and into a large room.

        To the left side of the room, next to a concrete-block wall, about twenty-five men and women were seated at three tables pushed end to end. Most drank coffee from thick, white mugs. Most smoked, and the smoke fogged the air. I was the youngest person there.

        I stopped at the coffeepot with Mary for a mug of coffee, then took a seat between her and a barrel-chested man. He touched my arm and said, "New? I haven't seen you here before."

        "This is my first meeting," I whispered, for the chairman, a man of about fifty, had just rapped a gavel against the table and was now standing.

        We all rose and recited "The Serenity Prayer": " 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.' " (1)

        Except for the chairman, we all sat. "I'm Clay and I'm an alcoholic," he said. So he's Clay, I thought and once again noted his scratchy voice. Clay lighted a cigarette, welcomed us to the High Street Group, and explained that the sole purpose of A.A. was to help its members achieve sobriety. The only requirement for membership was a desire to stop drinking. "Most of us stay sober with the help of a Higher Power," he said. He paused and then asked, "Does anyone have something he'd like to bring up for discussion?"

        The barrel-chested man said, "There's a new person here. I think we should talk about the importance of staying away from the first drink."

        Please don't point me out--please don't do anything special for me, I thought.

        To my relief I wasn't identified. No one objected to the topic and Clay began the discussion. "A few months after I came to A.A., I decided I could handle a drink. I couldn't. I ended up on a four-week binge."

        After Clay told us about the binge, he called on the man to his right, the man next to him, and so on. When I realized his method, I counted. He would get to me five turns from now. The prospect of speaking terrified me. My hands perspired. What should I say? 

        Should I tell them about my first drink at Mr. and Mrs. Staceys' when I was fourteen? While baby-sitting their two boys, I found the liquor cabinet in the dining room. Thinking it would be daring to have a drink, I poured a bourbon and ginger ale. It was delicious. From then on, each time I babysat, I took out a bottle of liquor, poured a few ounces into a glass, and replaced the missing liquor with water. To keep Mr. and Mrs. Staceys' bottles from becoming over-diluted, I drank from a different bottle each time. The Staceys never questioned me.

        Or should I tell the group about the alcoholics in my family: Dad, Mom, Aunt Red, my uncle, my grandmother, and seven second cousins.

        Soon it was my turn. Clay gave me a kind look and said, "Are you the young lady who phoned this morning?" I nodded. "I'm glad you came. Would you like to make a comment?"

        "Yes--I would." I blushed, my voice trembled and the cigarette I held shook so violently that I dropped it in an ashtray. I knew that everyone was watching me falter. I managed to add, "I'm glad to be here," then fixed my eyes on the tabletop.

Worried because I had trembled in front of twenty-five people, I didn't hear the comments that followed. What would they be thinking of me? I pulled a cigarette from my pack and dragged on it until it was a butt. I lighted another, smoked, watched the smoke spiral to the ceiling. In my self-concern, I heard nothing until a woman with white, upswept hair and perfect makeup spoke. She was the last person to comment. Her elegance captured my attention. "I've been sober now for three years," she said. "One drink would lead to my death. When I came to A.A., my liver was beginning to go. It was cirrhosis. I looked as if I were pregnant. For me it was a choice of sobriety or death. I chose to live."

        She chose to live, I thought, touched, yet at the same time relieved that I was not pressed into making the choice. For I wasn't tottering on the brink of cirrhosis, and my stomach was as flat as the tabletop. Right then I knew I was too healthy and young for A.A.

        Thank heavens, I thought as the group stood and recited the Lord's Prayer. The prayer ended the meeting.

Before Mary and I left, she suggested I buy a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous. "It's the A.A. bible," she said. To please Mary, I bought one. When she had parked beside the curb in front of my apartment, she wrote out her phone number and said, "Call me anytime. I'll give you a call in the morning."

___________________________________________________

 

In the apartment I sank onto the couch and Gene handed me a cup of coffee. "Every single muscle in my body aches," I said.

        "From what?"

        "From being nervous at the meeting, I guess."

        "But you did like it?"

        If I declared that I was quitting A.A., we would argue. I was too emotionally spent for that. Temporizing, I said, "It was okay. It's hard to know the first time just what it's like."

        "Were there many women?"

        "About five."

        "Were there--?"

        "I'm too tired to talk anymore about it tonight. I think I'll go to bed."

        "I'll be in later."

        "Homework?"

        "I've got a finance exam coming up."

        I remembered that I had no money to buy beer the next day. "May I have a few dollars for eggs and milk?"

Gene handed me ten dollars, kissed me, and said, "Good night, darling. I'm proud of you."

With his pride dragging at my heels, I walked to bed.

        The next day at noon, Mary phoned. By that time there were two six-packs of beer in the refrigerator and a fifth of bourbon in the cabinet under the sink. "How are you feeling?" she said.

        "Fine."

        "Your body's withdrawing from alcohol and you might get a little jittery. You might crave a drink."

        "I feel fine."

        "Well, if it happens, have something sweet--honey or orange juice."

        "I will."

        "Pamper yourself. You're going through a hard time. And read Alcoholics Anonymous."

        "Yes, I will." I paused. "Mary?"

        "Yes."

        "I don't know how to say this, but I'm not going back to the meetings. I'm not old enough to be an alcoholic. I don't drink as much as the people in A.A. I can control myself."

        "It's not a question of age or amount, but of tolerance. Can we tolerate the kind of morals and values that go along with drinking? Can we stand ourselves?"

        "I've got no problems with my conscience." I was so set on drinking the beer in the refrigerator and the bourbon under the sink that I excused my lies, my theft.

        Mary urged me to reconsider, but I wouldn't. She invited me to call if I changed my mind.

After Mary hung up, I lifted Alcoholics Anonymous from the coffee table. I was curious as to its contents, yet afraid that it would make me feel guilty about my plan to drink. I leafed through quickly. One page caught my eye and I read:

        We are convinced, to a man, that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better....  Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic. (2)

 I slammed the book shut, stalked into my bedroom. I pushed it under the bed, next to the wall where my dust mop would seldom touch it.

        That evening while Gene, Donny and I raced trucks across the living room carpet, I decided the best way to approach my break with A.A. was to simply start drinking, as if that were normal. And it was. How else could I get rid of the jitters I'd had for a couple of days? I walked to the refrigerator and took out a beer. I brought it to the couch. Gene glanced up, opened his mouth in surprise, then said, "A beer?"

        "Yes, a beer," I said. "I learned in A.A. that I can handle it if I watch myself."

Gene's voice snapped with annoyance. "Your sobriety's got the all-time record for shortness--less than two days."

        I lifted the can and took a long, rebellious swallow. "What are you, a calendar?"

        "And what exactly are you?"

        His accusing remark infuriated me. "For one thing, I'm not an alcoholic. Those people drink far more than I'm ever going to. Your problem is you expect me to be a saint."

        "Look, you went to that meeting because you wanted to. Nobody forced you. I was just hoping--"

        Hot as fire, I shouted, "Hope about yourself and keep your hope off me!" I hated Gene and his hope.

        "You're irrational!" he yelled.

        "I can't stand you."

        "I can't stand your drinking."

        "Then get another wife--a Baptist. She'll sign a nondrinking pledge for you."

        Donny's eyes widened in fright. "Mommy, Daddy, don't yell."

        I picked up Donny, hugged him, and said to Gene, "Look what you've done."

        "You're crazy." Gene jumped up, snatched his finance text from the coffee table, and stormed down the hall to the bedroom, slamming the door after him.

Delirium tremems: a violent, delirious state caused by excessive intake of alcohol.

1 Adapted by the A.A.'s from Reinhold Niebuhr's poem, "Prayer for Serenity."

2 Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Alcoholics Anonymous (Cornwall, N.Y.": The Cornwall Press, Inc., 1955), pp. 30-31. Reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.