Drunken Angel (9781936740062) (28 page)

I didn't know how to answer that.

“Part of you suspects that it's not true, even though it seems so real. That part of you is the part that wants to live. The Great Spirit is watching over you. You are a sobriety warrior, offering your chest to the bullets like a brave on his pony charging the horseback soldiers, indifferent to death. And the bullets cannot touch you! You are immune! In fact, the soldiers are phantoms.”

“It feels damned real when it's happening.”

“But do you think it's real?

“Part of me does.”

He nearly jumped out of his seat. In other booths, people looked around. “HO!” he cried. “Then do you think that you are crazy?”

“Yeah! I do!”

“Good! Wonderful! Because, Little Brother, you ARE crazy! And so what choice do you have but to enjoy it! Stop fighting how crazy you are! All your suffering comes from trying to pretend that you are sane.”

I knew he was right. I began to laugh from deep down.

“So, tell me, Carl Little Crow. Let's say you're right. It's all delusions. Then what is real?”

“Sobriety is real. And the breath. The rest is mental, conjectural sleight of hand. God is in the breath. The Great Reality is deep within. And the way in is through the breath. You breathe
involuntarily, despite yourself. It breathes you, without your permission. It doesn't need your cooperation. You are helpless not to breathe. If breath is cut off, you will do all you can to find air. Breath is the source of your life. Breath is the gateway to God.”

Intellectually, I grasped what he meant, but viscerally had no real idea what he was talking about. Besides, was too worried about that strange, sinister-looking couple in an adjoining booth eyeballing me hungrily, no doubt thinking of the awful tortures they would subject me to once they had me in their clutches.

I told Carl about them. He turned, saw them, went over and chatted. When he returned he told me that they were not only good friends but also long-timers in recovery.

I looked pleadingly at him. All my defenses down. “Okay, so, you can see. I do need help, man. I think I'm insane. The fear is bad. It's like it fills the air, all around, in everything, a world of fear. I'm crazy. Really crazy.” Tears filled my eyes. To think of me, in San Francisco, alone, confessing my madness to this Carl Little Crow, a self-described “Afro-Native American practitioner of shamanistic healing ways,” whatever the hell that was. Less than a dime in my pocket, a thirty-seven-and-a-half-year-old man with a month sober. How had I gotten here?

But it's better than the park,
the little voice inside reminded me, my Angel.
It's better than hangover, hunger, and hopelessness. Drinking got you here. But now, you have hope
.

“Do you think there's hope for me, Carl?”

His hands shot up, palms out, facing me. “HO! Little Brother! Do you see these hands?”

“Yes.”

“Are they steady?”

“Yes.”

“Look at my eyes.”

“So?”

“Are they clear?”

“Yes.”

“Look into my heart.”

“How? ”

“Close your eyes.”

I did.

“What do you see?”

“Chaos.”

But then something else appeared. A sort of calm, gentle, rhythmic breathing. “Is that me or you?” I said, a bit spooked.

“There's no difference,” he said. “We are all one heart, one mind, one breath, brothers and sisters, members of the same family, the Society of the Last Chance.”

I opened my eyes and felt calmer.

“Little Brother. Come, walk with me.”

We strolled down Haight Street, past all the shops. Carl fit right in with the other weirdos out in the midmorning sun on the sidewalk, strumming guitars or reading tarot or just panhandling. As we walked, Carl glanced down at my shoes. “Slow your feet, Little Brother. Slow down. When we drink we are running from consciousness, from feelings, from the sight of the world. But now, we take it in. We savor it. We walk slow, observing our breath, letting our thoughts think themselves, without trying to interfere or control them. Slow your feet and breathe the perfume of clean-and-sober air.”

As he slowed, so did I, and as we walked he beat a slow tattoo on the medicine drum, as if announcing our clean-and-sober passage to passersby, who smiled, thinking us holy fools, a piece of local color, and the street folk grinned and nodded. Some called out to Carl, knew him. We passed a liquor store, and it was as though we
moved under the murderous gaze of a gigantic panting tiger hungry for our flesh—and yet, nothing happened. We paused before a tree, one of those rotting on Haight Street, with shriveled sooty leaves and an emaciated trunk scarred with slogans, names, dates, crudely etched with pocket knives. Around Carl's feet, small black birds with rainbow glints of bluish light in their coat feathers hopped by his ankles, as he leaned an ear close to the tree trunk and said to me: “Shhhhhh! It's trying to tell us something.”

“Carl, what are you doing?”

“Listening, Little Brother.”

“To what?”

“To the tree.”

“Oh, yeah? And what's Mister Tree saying?”

“It says to tell you, Little Brother: ‘Don't drink!' ”

CARL WOULD COME TO MY ROOM WHEN Bernadette was gone and sit on the floor cross-legged, listening to whatever I had to say. When he left, there'd be a ten-dollar bill on the table. He came by once with sage and “cleansed” the room of “bad spirits”—lit the sage and waved the thick smudge stick over each corner of the room with solemn incantations as I stood by with arms crossed and a condescending smile.

He had me sit out with him on the little back porch watching clouds pass as my brain screamed with boredom and dread, racing at light speed, wondering whether he was insane, or I, or both of us, and what on earth did it mean in the big scheme of things that I was seated on rusty metal folding chairs with a bizarro named Little Crow who had me occupied with watching clouds float over San Francisco?

All this wasn't in the existential game book of my strategy for life. He came by once with a half-gallon of Peach Melba ice cream, asked if I had two large spoons, which I produced. Carl jumped up
and down like a kid at a birthday party as I pried off the lid and dug out my first spoonful. “Yessssssss!” he crooned gleefully. “Thank you, Great Spirit! Little Brother and I having a clean-and-sober ice cream party on Wednesday afternoon, and there's nothing else we have to do right now! AYE!-AYE! HO!-HO! HEE!-HEE! HEE!-HEE!”

We ate ourselves into a sugar coma, conversation fading to a battery-dying tape-recorder drawl, and when he said goodbye, I collapsed into bed and slept until the next day. That was how I got in yet another twenty-four hours clean and sober.

He liked to walk around San Francisco with me, hitting 12-step meetings where he shared with the fiery cant of an Elmer Gantry crossed with a Dakota war chief. We'd go to visit specific trees in Golden Gate Park that he claimed friendship with, and he stood unashamedly talking aloud to them as though visiting regal monarchs. The granddaddy of them all was an immense and nameless bark monument which he called, simply, “Grandfather,” and from the moment we saw it at a distance his feet slowed and he began to beat his medicine drum in slow parade step, me trailing behind, mortified, pretending not to know him and watching as tourists and parkgoers, especially children, paused to observe him with smiles ranging from admiring to ridiculing. Then, at a certain remove, he stopped, laid down his drum, and raising hands, palms out, shouted at the tree: “HO! Grandfather! How are you today?” And listened respectfully as I stood there, looking around, not hearing anything.

“HO, Grandfather!” Carl Little Crow called again. “Here is little Brother, my friend. He is a warrior initiate in matters of the spirit. He is learning. We are walking together on the path as we cast off the great shadow of alcoholism from our hearts. Come, Little Brother! Say hello to Grandfather!”

He waved me forward as a group of Japanese tourists with cameras hung around their necks gathered and began to snap shots. I made a shrugging approach to the tree, tinged with skepticism and insolence.

“Little Brother,” whispered Little Crow. “Give Grandfather a loving hug! Go ahead! He's so excited to meet you! He likes hugs!”

“Look, uh, Carl,” I said. “You know, I'm really glad you're helping me, but, uh, you know, is this really necessary?”

“Yessssssss, Little Brother! Go on! He's waiting!”

Horrified, I stepped up to the tree, glanced over my shoulder as the tourists hoisted their cameras and Carl beat a slow tom-tom on the drum. Got my arms around the trunk as best I could and hugged Grandfather.

And the damndest thing happened. I felt as though something warm and alive from the tree passed into me. The bark felt flesh-like, kindly, and I smelled its wood odor and leaves with the warm sun on my hair as a breeze stroked my cheek, and it felt good, nurturing. Something inside me longed for a grandfather, which I'd never really had, and I forgot all about the tourists, who lost interest, dispersed. I remained with eyes closed, cheek pressed to the tree as Little Crow beat the drum softly in my thoughts, like the pulse of the world, and when I let go the bark turned hard, the breeze fell, a cloud passed before the sun, and my hand grew cold. I stood in shadow, experienced a pang of separation, as though I had let go of the hand of my real grandfather, who in actuality had died when I was very young, and the other before I was ever born.

ONE DAY, I AWOKE CLUTCHING AT MY THROAT. A wolf burrowed bared teeth into my Adam's apple, big paws pinning down my chest, trying to sink long incisors into my jugular. I thrashed, hands at my windpipe, shouting for help.

“What's wrong?” Bernadette leaned over my face, kissing me. “Dearie! You're having a nightmare.”

“I'm awake!” I gasped. “I just can't seem to swallow!”

Sat up with a start, peered around the room, windpipe lax, esophagus paralyzed. “Can't swallow,” I gasped, pointing at my throat with a look of anguish.

Bernadette grinned uneasily. “Huh? Of course you can.” “No,” I muttered, “help me!”

“Honey, just relax. Try to breathe!”

What in God's name was she talking about? How do you relax when choking to death? Ran to the bathroom, slammed the door shut, fell to my knees, laid my cheek on the toilet seat lid, and prayed there, helpless as a child.

“Please, God. I'm choking. Help me.” And with that, heaved a great sigh and gulped down spittle, air. My lungs began to work.

It happened again in a movie theater. Bernadette had given me enough scratch to go see three films at the Strand Theatre. I bought a big sack of dollar burgers from Carl's Jr., smuggled them in, settled down, and began happily watching the second film,
Death Wish
. In the climactic scene where Charles Bronson is cornered by police, my ability to swallow went kaput, just like that. Hand at throat, heart pounding, I looked around in wild-eyed terror for someone to help among the hoboes, derelicts, addicts, mentally ill, homeless, prostitutes, criminals, and young hipster film buffs, but no one looked as if they could care less or would even know how to assist. I stood up, hands at throat, tried to change posture, but the dark flashing images, the loud cheap speakers, remote and alienating, just increased my panic. I wanted to scream “Help! I've forgotten how to swallow! I'm dying!” but couldn't speak.

I left the theater and hurried down Market Street, rushing past hustlers flashing stolen jewelry, evil-looking street buccaneers with gold teeth and derisive eyes, and it came to me that these were an advanced guard of infiltrating satanic henchmen out to get me. I shifted into evasion mode, weaving and bobbing through a kaleidoscope of threats from which there was no rest, reversing course, then pivoting to the opposite direction, attempting to elude and surprise my pursuers with illogical and spontaneous zigs and zags, like some cosmic broken-field kickoff return performed in a field of flaming asteroids. Then, head ducked, I marched up Market Street to Church, a friendly little street unlikely to host killers. But still my pursuers were closing fast, and, panic-stricken, I couldn't decide whether to duck into Aardvark Bookstore or pretend to go for a leisurely bite in Azteca Taqueria.

Hunger won out. Burrito it was. Ducked in there, ordered a
Chicken Super Burrito. And the moment I did so recognized my fatal error. At the counter, the big-bellied man in bean-stained apron fixed me with his pockmarked face and listless gaze. What was he looking at? I noted an open office door and a video monitor of some kind. Quickly scanned the ceiling: security camera. They had me on tape! Wouldn't even need to send operatives now: knew exactly what I looked like, my every mannerism, where to find me, even—would calculate that it must be someplace approximate to here.

GET OUT NOW!
screamed my panicking brain. But if I did, I'd tip my hand, force them prematurely to attempt my abduction and slaughter. The counter worker's lips moved, forming words. Terror froze me. What was he saying? I leaned close.

“Refried or whole beans?” he asked.

An obvious trick. The wrong answer would surely seal my fate. Refried or whole? How to answer? It was agonizing. I realized: there wasn't any right answer. Either way, I was doomed. The trap lay in stalling while trying to decide.
GET OUT
, screamed my brain, and with a pounding heart and exploding head I turned and bolted out, ran down the sidewalk. Glancing back, I tripped and went sprawling headfirst across the pavement, where I lay, wind knocked out, gasping for breath. “Where are you, Carl Little Crow?” I cried out, tears welling in my eyes. I felt so abandoned and ashamed. “Help me, please!”