Recovery (10 page)
Authors: John Berryman
He realized at last where he stood, and it was in the worst place a patient could be.
He did not speak during dinner except, twice, to a scary scrawny frozen-faced woman named Luriel who had come down the day before from Seven looking so wretchedly that Severance had sort of taken her on, at meals. She hadn't answered him yet but he kept at it.
Â
Â
It would be hard to say why Severance took Gene into his confidence about a matter so capital, when Mike M or Charley or Mary-Jane would have been natural. So much happened by accident on the Ward, who ran into who where when in what stage of progress, regression, torpor, despair, or mania. Even the deliberate seeking-people which was mandatory for the Repeaters' Group turned largely on whim, in these early days, before their Programmes (some of their Programmes) had hardened and before they (some of them) finally grew back lax. Severance later read miracles here and there in this matter. The immensely tall lazy intelligent young man, maybe twenty years his junior, who had just come into treatment, was relating from his great height, in the Snack Room, his first confrontation. âThey're just trying to make me mad,' he concluded.
âDid they?' Severance asked.
âCertainly not. What do I care?'
âYou didn't feel angry?'
âOf course not. It's just a game.'
âIt's not a game, Gene, and they weren't just trying to make you mad. They meant it. That's exactly what Daisy said to me in Group her first morning last Spring, when I called her a lousy superior bitch and asked her what there was so superior about her. Vin had been playing psychodrama and she said, “You're all freaks.” Everybody was furious. I hit her and she looked at me across the Group and said, “You're just trying to make me mad.” It was ten days before she caught on.'
âCaught on to what?' Gene asked with interest.
âCaught on that I wasn't kidding. Found out she was a freak.'
âI don't understand. You mean I should have pretended to be angry?'
âNo. You should have been angry.'
âWhat about? I'm very easy-going.'
âThe hell you are. What do you drink for?'
âThat's a question,' Gene said seriously. âThat's a real question. I haven't the faintest idea.'
âDo you get mad at work?'
âSure. But I don't do anything about it.'
âWhy not?'
âWhy bother?'
Severance, peering into the thickets of the newcomer's delusion, saw he might be of some real help. âCome down to my room and chat a little, want to?'
They took their coffees down the corridor. Severance sat, Gene stood at the end of the bed.
âListen,' said Severance. âYou're nowhere.'
âI know that. God almighty, my dear new friend, I know that. Something is going on that I cannot get a clue to. I feel as if I were in fairyland. What in the name of Christ is the
point
of all this business? What does it have to
do with
drinking?
I'm here for
drinking,
not because I happen to be a tranquil type, with everything under control.'
point
of all this business? What does it have to
do with
drinking?
I'm here for
drinking,
not because I happen to be a tranquil type, with everything under control.'
âEverything under control!' Though he knew it was foolish, Severance felt his heat rising. âHospitals, accidents, blackouts, your wife's left you twice, you tried suicide at least once that you told meâ' He drove down the list.
Gene was standing white-faced, holding the bedrail.
âGod,' he said hoarsely.
âIt's true, it's true, isn't it? Your life is a nightmare. You are an
alcoholic,
pal. You are almost as sick as I am, maybe more so. You are
insane,
and you tell me everything's under control.'
alcoholic,
pal. You are almost as sick as I am, maybe more so. You are
insane,
and you tell me everything's under control.'
âI tried one other time too.' Gene put his left hand to his face. His left lid was jumping. âI know I'm mad. I see it must be. Can you help me, Alan?' He was pleading. âCan you give me just one point of connexion. I'm absolutely lost. I don't know what's happening. What
ought
to
happen?'
ought
to
happen?'
Severance felt terrible himself. What could he do? âI can't really help you yet, Gene, God knows I would. You're going to have to get in touch with yourself. It takes time. It takes miracles: two or three or four
miracles.'
miracles.'
âI don't understandâ“get in touch with myself.” I
am
in touch with myself. That's the trouble. I see the whole story and I wish I were dead.'
am
in touch with myself. That's the trouble. I see the whole story and I wish I were dead.'
âYou do not see the whole story. You do not see any part of the story. You are deluded. Look, two minutes ago you said you were absolutely lost, now you say you see the whole story.
Put
the two things together, will you?' He waited. âBut you
can't.
They don't
go
together. They come out of different worlds.'
Put
the two things together, will you?' He waited. âBut you
can't.
They don't
go
together. They come out of different worlds.'
The temperature in the room was 112 degrees. Total darkness at the end of the bed.
âListen. Even in my condition, I could take any one of your statements and tell you the entire score in about five
minutes. But you would not understand, much less, accept,
one word
of it.' He tried to think. He thought. It was possible. âI might just be able to give you an opening. Listen closely. If you can see where you are, or rather are not, on just one point, it might help a lotâif you could hang onto it.'
minutes. But you would not understand, much less, accept,
one word
of it.' He tried to think. He thought. It was possible. âI might just be able to give you an opening. Listen closely. If you can see where you are, or rather are not, on just one point, it might help a lotâif you could hang onto it.'
âThat's what I've got to have. Just one point.'
âOkay. Here it is. What do you do at five o'clock?'
âI get stoned.'
âI knew it.
Why
do you get stoned?'
Why
do you get stoned?'
âGod knows.'
âNo doubt. He knows everything. But the point is that
you
know too.'
you
know too.'
âI do not know. I swear to you.'
âI know that. But you also do know. Look here, do you remember that you said to me a minute ago, when I asked you why you did not
do
anything about your rage at your bosses, “Why bother?” Do you remember that?'
do
anything about your rage at your bosses, “Why bother?” Do you remember that?'
âYes, I do.'
âOkay.
Crap.'
Severance's voice was as hard as he could make it, which was not as hard as either titanium or zirconium but hard.
Crap.'
Severance's voice was as hard as he could make it, which was not as hard as either titanium or zirconium but hard.
Gene flushed. âWhat do you mean?'
âI mean that you are
lying
when you say you do not do anything about your anger. You get bombed. It is called medicating the feelings, pal. Every inappropriate drinker in the United States does it, and in France, Chile and Norway. Cause and effect. Visible to a child. Not visible to you. Don't you see how weird, how
unacceptable,
your little put-off, “Why bother,” is, in the light of the fact of your daily self-destruction and progressive ruin?'
lying
when you say you do not do anything about your anger. You get bombed. It is called medicating the feelings, pal. Every inappropriate drinker in the United States does it, and in France, Chile and Norway. Cause and effect. Visible to a child. Not visible to you. Don't you see how weird, how
unacceptable,
your little put-off, “Why bother,” is, in the light of the fact of your daily self-destruction and progressive ruin?'
âI don't see the connexion. I admitted they made me mad.'
Severance gave up. âI know. It was just a try, Gene.'
They looked at each other, Gene entirely reconstituted âregrouped, the term wasâintellectually puzzled, disappointed,
skeptical, condescending, quite okay now. Severance felt something like despair, though he knew that in a few weeks this would (probably) all be mere history. Anyway, he had tried. Having been there so often and so long himself, he felt very close to Geneâthough very distant too, undeluded in that particular cornerâand he was inspired to put his own insoluble sweat before the younger man. Besides. Help was about as plausible here as a Biafra airlift from General Foods, or rather from Appalachiaâedibles from the starving to the even more starvingâbut you never knew.
skeptical, condescending, quite okay now. Severance felt something like despair, though he knew that in a few weeks this would (probably) all be mere history. Anyway, he had tried. Having been there so often and so long himself, he felt very close to Geneâthough very distant too, undeluded in that particular cornerâand he was inspired to put his own insoluble sweat before the younger man. Besides. Help was about as plausible here as a Biafra airlift from General Foods, or rather from Appalachiaâedibles from the starving to the even more starvingâbut you never knew.
âYou don't even know you're in trouble. I know I'm in trouble, and it's worse than yours. When I admit it they're going to throw me out of hospital. I don't buy the first half of the First Step. I just realized this afternoon. I've had it.'
âHow do you mean? You don't accept it?' Gene did not sound greatly concerned.
âHow can I? It's not a fact. “Powerless over alcohol” âhorseshit. I drank and drank and drank and drank and drank, and stopped and stopped and stopped and stopped and stopped. Six or seven slips in two months. Dry two whole months after that. What the hell.'
âBut here you are.'
âPure accident. I'll tell you what happened. It will be nice not to be confronted about it, for a change.' He actually did smile, with bitterness. âI started drinking on the plane to Buffalo to give a lecture, first part of week before last. I forget why, God damn it. Trips are hell on me; I got through ten days in Mexico without anything, but I had my family with me and even so I sweated in airports; if I ever get through a trip alone, that will be the dayâI may have to give up travelling, though I have a bloody tour agreed on, damn it, this December. Anyway, I slipped off and on in Buffalo and some other city upstate New York, got through a TV interview etc., tapered off and arrived very much in order back here, something past ten o'clock
Thursday night. Called Ruth from the airport not to meet me, she was just going to bed in any case. Well, suppose she'd met me, that would have been the end of it, no? back on the programme. Okay. I got a taxi. The taxi happened to take the long way, around through Bristol Squareâ
happened,
mind youâand by pure chance I happened to look upâI was hunched down in the back brooding without pleasure on my imminent confessionâ
happened
to see across the Square, we were stopped at a red light, my favourite bar.
Bad luck.
I was willing to
postpone
a bit the unwelcome announcement of my new slipâfirst in two monthsâmaybe she'd go to sleep and it could wait till morningâso I said, “Drop me over at The Masters.” I admit that, then, from that point on, I was doomed. I blacked out around midnight and woke up next day in the bed of an Arabic poetess, sent her out for a bottle, and was holed up blind until Sunday afternoon when I formed a detailed suicide-plan for Monday morning when shops opened, we went downtown and drank in a bar until suddenly for no reason whatever I abandoned my plan and told her to drive me home. Chain of accidents, Gene. Suppose Ruth had collected me,
or
the flaming cab had gone the usual route, Lake Circle,
or
I hadn't glanced out and seen
the one
of only two bars in the city that menaces me, nothingâ
nothing
âwould have happened. I would have been safe!' His tone was triumphant. Q.E.D. Irrefutable.
Thursday night. Called Ruth from the airport not to meet me, she was just going to bed in any case. Well, suppose she'd met me, that would have been the end of it, no? back on the programme. Okay. I got a taxi. The taxi happened to take the long way, around through Bristol Squareâ
happened,
mind youâand by pure chance I happened to look upâI was hunched down in the back brooding without pleasure on my imminent confessionâ
happened
to see across the Square, we were stopped at a red light, my favourite bar.
Bad luck.
I was willing to
postpone
a bit the unwelcome announcement of my new slipâfirst in two monthsâmaybe she'd go to sleep and it could wait till morningâso I said, “Drop me over at The Masters.” I admit that, then, from that point on, I was doomed. I blacked out around midnight and woke up next day in the bed of an Arabic poetess, sent her out for a bottle, and was holed up blind until Sunday afternoon when I formed a detailed suicide-plan for Monday morning when shops opened, we went downtown and drank in a bar until suddenly for no reason whatever I abandoned my plan and told her to drive me home. Chain of accidents, Gene. Suppose Ruth had collected me,
or
the flaming cab had gone the usual route, Lake Circle,
or
I hadn't glanced out and seen
the one
of only two bars in the city that menaces me, nothingâ
nothing
âwould have happened. I would have been safe!' His tone was triumphant. Q.E.D. Irrefutable.
âUntil next time.'
This small phrase, pronounced sternly by his deluded new friend, produced a cataclysm in Severance. He felt his brain might burst out of its cradle. He felt:
It's true
. His very heavy momentum either reversed itself in a split-second or came to a dead stop and then tore off in the opposite direction. All doubts departed. He could stay in treatment without a qualm. This sense of irresistible conviction, as real as an abscessed tooth, was not new to Severance. He had experienced it in science, in life, and in literature.
But it was very very rare in his long history. Only two instances flashed as he stared at his instructor. After an awful night-flight from London with his first wife (layover five hours for repairs in the makeshift airport at Reykjavik, Deirdre just out of hospital with a slipped disk trying to rest on the narrow red imitation-leather hard bench-cushions), she had turned to him in their hotel room as the bellboy closed the door and said, âYou know I'm going to leave you.' These were the worst words ever spoken to him, and although the idea was in fact absolutely new he felt no doubt whatever from the instant he heard it, it even seemed to him that she was as usual right and he
had
known it, forever, or at least during the second half of their marriage, the six years of his uncontrollable drinking. Horror and assent. No protest, no attempt. Just so, at the climax of one of Cervantes' most convulsive tales, he saw again âRindióse Camilla, Camilla se rindió.' It was intolerable and unavoidable, the product of the siege to her laid by her husband's best friend:âCamilla gave in; she gave in. Severance succumbed to this truth in the same way, with agonized satisfaction. He could never, comfortably, never comfortably, drink again. âIt must be by his death,' Brutus'
First
words, after the long wait and underground wondering where
he
stands on the tyrant (his best friend, maybe his father, governor of his will). No half-measures: Rejection. Christ's horrible gesture against the damned on the end-wall of the Sistine Chapel.
It's true
. His very heavy momentum either reversed itself in a split-second or came to a dead stop and then tore off in the opposite direction. All doubts departed. He could stay in treatment without a qualm. This sense of irresistible conviction, as real as an abscessed tooth, was not new to Severance. He had experienced it in science, in life, and in literature.
But it was very very rare in his long history. Only two instances flashed as he stared at his instructor. After an awful night-flight from London with his first wife (layover five hours for repairs in the makeshift airport at Reykjavik, Deirdre just out of hospital with a slipped disk trying to rest on the narrow red imitation-leather hard bench-cushions), she had turned to him in their hotel room as the bellboy closed the door and said, âYou know I'm going to leave you.' These were the worst words ever spoken to him, and although the idea was in fact absolutely new he felt no doubt whatever from the instant he heard it, it even seemed to him that she was as usual right and he
had
known it, forever, or at least during the second half of their marriage, the six years of his uncontrollable drinking. Horror and assent. No protest, no attempt. Just so, at the climax of one of Cervantes' most convulsive tales, he saw again âRindióse Camilla, Camilla se rindió.' It was intolerable and unavoidable, the product of the siege to her laid by her husband's best friend:âCamilla gave in; she gave in. Severance succumbed to this truth in the same way, with agonized satisfaction. He could never, comfortably, never comfortably, drink again. âIt must be by his death,' Brutus'
First
words, after the long wait and underground wondering where
he
stands on the tyrant (his best friend, maybe his father, governor of his will). No half-measures: Rejection. Christ's horrible gesture against the damned on the end-wall of the Sistine Chapel.
âYe-e-es,' he said very slowly. âI see that. I am obliged to you, for pointing out to me that the earth is not flat. If I live twenty years, as I may do now, I will never be able to render you thanks.'
âMaybe you were just trying to get yourself off the hook,' Gene suggested.
They talked on, like thieves making common cause against their own (stolen) propertyâraids planningâ
and certain things were not quite the same for Severance after this particular dyad.
and certain things were not quite the same for Severance after this particular dyad.
When Gene took himself off, Alan opened his journal and closed it again, too tired to write. He lay down and passed into a weary but not unhappy half-hallucinatory state. His body flat out, his scrotal state neither contunding nor quite still, he wandered through old adventures. He was in mid-town Manhattan one evening twenty years ago, unusually drunk, convinced that he was an FBI man with Communist agents after him. He fell into a taxi and told the driver to take him to the Bronx âby the most indirect route.' As they zigged and zagged north he kept a terrified watch out the rear window. Finally the driver stopped at a light and asked for the street address. âNever mind,' said Alan urgently, âTake me to Greenwich Village. Bedford Street. Hurry.' The fare was formidable and luckily he had it. He gave the driver an extra five âfor saving my life.' He saw a marquee and went in and upstairs and along a corridor until he heard gaiety behind a door, held his finger on the bell. Two men opened it. âI'm an FBI man and the Communists are after me. Can I come in and hide?' The man on the right gave him a grin. Severance loved him. âWell, I don't believe you're an FBI agent, but come in and join the party.' He did, and had a ball. Then he was lunging through the hot streets of Calcutta in the middle of the monsoon night, unable to remember his address and dying of thirst. Embassy party, maybe; got separated. Hours passed, nowhere to sit down. Dawn was already full on when a pimp picked him up and wafted him to a brothel. The madam brought Danish beer and two girls, one short and fat, one thin. He liked the iced dark beer better than the Hindus and liked the thin girl better than the fat girl. He
drank.
The madam brought him a pack of Craven A he must have demanded. The girls took off their saris and knickers, lay down on the carpet, watching him,
and handled each other. Presently the fat one got from somewhere a long dildo, attached it to her brush, and inserted it with great lunges of her great tail in the almost hairless cunt of the delicate slim girl. She fucked her. The girl underneath waved her arms and legs. Alan, who had always felt rather turned on by phantasies of lesbians, was not much interested by this
fucking,
but despite his exhaustion and his skipping vision he grew excited by the thin girl. He would have liked to be on her himself. She simulated orgasm, grimacing, heaving. The madam came back and it was clear that he could have one of the girls. Unfortunately he was unable to speakânot much Hindi he had anyway, and no Bengaliâand somehow he found himself alone with the dildo-wielder, screwing her. This sobered him so quickly that he remembered his address (Harrington Mansions, just off Theatre Road, third floor). Getting there, he slept until just barely time to leave for his 5 p.m. lecture at the Royal Asiatic Society.
drank.
The madam brought him a pack of Craven A he must have demanded. The girls took off their saris and knickers, lay down on the carpet, watching him,
and handled each other. Presently the fat one got from somewhere a long dildo, attached it to her brush, and inserted it with great lunges of her great tail in the almost hairless cunt of the delicate slim girl. She fucked her. The girl underneath waved her arms and legs. Alan, who had always felt rather turned on by phantasies of lesbians, was not much interested by this
fucking,
but despite his exhaustion and his skipping vision he grew excited by the thin girl. He would have liked to be on her himself. She simulated orgasm, grimacing, heaving. The madam came back and it was clear that he could have one of the girls. Unfortunately he was unable to speakânot much Hindi he had anyway, and no Bengaliâand somehow he found himself alone with the dildo-wielder, screwing her. This sobered him so quickly that he remembered his address (Harrington Mansions, just off Theatre Road, third floor). Getting there, he slept until just barely time to leave for his 5 p.m. lecture at the Royal Asiatic Society.
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