George Pelecanos: Drama City

“… I was watchin’ her from the corner. Well, really from behind a tree. She was goin’ off to summer school. She about to go into first grade, over at Nalle Elementary, in Marshall Heights? She had this purple T-shirt on, got shorts go with it. And a pink backpack, had little cartoon kids on it. She looked happy. I mean she was skippin’ off to school.”

“My baby girl went to Nalle too,” offered a woman on the other side of the room.

Shirley nodded at the woman in commiseration. Rachel could see that Shirley’s eyes had watered up.

“I was just watchin’ her,” said Shirley. “I didn’t want to bother her or scare her or nothin’ like that. Lord knows I scared her plenty back when. I’m not ready to come full into her world just yet.” Shirley wiped at one of her eyes. “You know, it hurts me to think of how I neglected her all those years. When she’d be cryin’ for milk or food, or just to be held or loved, and me in some room with the blinds drawn in the middle of the day. Sittin’ around with a bunch of fiends, suckin’ on that glass dick.”

“Uh-huh,” said a man, like he knew.

“All those years I cannot get back,” said Shirley. “But my eyes are lookin’ forward now. We gonna have us a relationship, me and my girl, the kind I never did have with my own mother. I ain’t bitter or nothin’ like that. You can’t change the past nohow, so you best put it behind you. I’m lookin’ ahead…”

Rachel dozed for a second. Maybe for minutes, she couldn’t be sure. Her head snapped back up and she opened her eyes.

“… so thank you for letting me share,” said Shirley.

“Thank you for sharing.”

A lean, hard-looking man in a dirty red T-shirt pushed the dirty Redskins cap he was wearing back on his head and raised his hand. The group leader nodded his chin in the man’s direction.

“My name’s Sarge…”

“Hey, Sarge.”

“… and I’m a straight-up addict. Now, I been comin’ to these meetings for a long time, listenin’ to you all talkin’ ’bout support. How we all in this together, how we ain’t never gonna make it individually ’less we stand together, lean on each other while we walk through that dark tunnel to the other side. All that talk, that’s real good. But when it’s just talk, it’s just bullshit.”

Sarge shifted his position, the chair creaking against the mumbles in the room.

“I ain’t never been one for hugs and shit like that. I don’t have many friends. The boys I ran with when I was young, they either incarcerated or deader than a motherfucker now. My family? My mother and my brothers? To them, I might as well be dead too. That’s all right by me. I’m a lone wolf, you want the truth. That’s how I like it, most times.

“But other times, even I need someone to talk to. And y’all always talkin’ about, ‘When you get weak, when you about to do that thing, you can call us any time.’ Y’all passed out a list with phone numbers on it for just that purpose. Didn’t y’all?”

“That’s right,” said a quiet voice.

“Remember that barbecue the group had last weekend?” said Sarge. “Over there by Fort Dupont? I was there. Not that y’all could recall it. No one talked to me much. But I was there. I got tired of standing around with a soda in one hand, my other hand jigglin’ the change in my pockets while y’all was talkin’ to each other and laughin’ and havin’ fun. So I left out the place and went home.

“I got this little efficiency off Bladensburg Road, down by the Shrimp Boat? Got a concrete patio out back; anyone in my unit can use it. Someone went and set up a grill back there, like a hibachi or somethin’, a cheap old thing you pick up at the CVS. So I decided I was gonna have a little cookout my own self. Went down to the corner market and got some charcoal and a package of hot dogs and some buns. I lit the coals up and started to cook a rack of dogs on the grill. Had the box playin’ this old tape I got, a Frankie Beverly mix? And it just reminded me of some shit, summer and cookin’ out and all that bullshit, you know how that go. I got to cravin’ a Heineken and a blunt. Nothin’ better than that in the evenin’, in the summertime. You got Maze on the box and you pokin’ at some food on the grill? Goes hand in hand with a cold beer, right?”

“Damn sure does,” said a man.

“One thing you got to understand about me,” said Sarge. “I love to get high. I’d step over a hundred naked females if I thought there was a chance to get my head up on the other side of them. That’s how in love with that shit I am. But much as I love to get high, I didn’t want to, you see what I’m sayin’? And I didn’t know what to do to stop myself.

“So what I did was, I thought of y’all. How y’all always be sayin’, ‘Make that phone call when you get the urge.’ And I got that list out, the one with the numbers on it. And I made some calls.”

Sarge cleared his throat. “I called a few of the male names on the list. I didn’t want to talk to no females. I ain’t no faggy or nothin’ like that, understand. But I was lookin’ for help, not no relationship. I just use females when I get with ’em, anyway.”

“Hmph,” said a man.

“And you wanna know somethin’?” said Sarge. “I got nary a call back. Not one. I got that answerin’ service thing for every number I called, and I left my number on it too. But I just wanted y’all to know: Not one of you called me back.”

No one said anything for a moment. And then Shirley said, “You just called the wrong numbers, is all.”

“I called the numbers on the sheet,” said Sarge.

“You didn’t call mines,” said Shirley. “I would have returned your call. And it wouldn’t of mattered to me whether you did or did not like women.”

“I ain’t say I didn’t like women.”

“Well, you got no use for them, then. Look, I ain’t lookin’ for no relationship with a man, neither. But I would have called you back, despite the way you feel, because you needed help. And even though you seem to be, I don’t know, antisocial or somethin’, that wouldn’t have stopped me from calling you. ’Cause I don’t judge nobody, hear? I ain’t got no right to. None of us do.”

“Tell it,” said a woman from the back of the room.

“’Cause if you judge,” said Shirley, “you don’t matter. And if you matter, you don’t judge.”

Sarge adjusted his cap so that it fit tightly on his head. “Awright, then. I can accept that. I ain’t mean to bring no negativity up in here. Just, you know.” Sarge looked down at his shoes and spoke softly. “Thank you for lettin’ me share.”

“Thank you for sharing.”

“If there’s no one else,” said the group leader, “why don’t you all come forward and form a circle.”

A handful of people, who felt uncomfortable for their own reasons at this overtly spiritual and distinctly Christian portion of the meeting, left the room. Most stood and came forward, forming a wide circle, putting their hands on one another’s shoulders and bowing their heads. Rachel Lopez stood beside Sarge, the angry man in the Redskins cap, touching his muscled shoulder, feeling his calloused hand on the back of her neck. She closed her eyes.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

After the Serenity Prayer, the group recited the Lord’s Prayer and said “Amen.”

“Narcotics Anonymous,” said the leader.

“It works if you work it!”

Outside the church, Rachel shook a cigarette from a pack of Marlboro Lights. She lit it from a matchbook she had gotten in a hotel bar the night before. She stood there on the sidewalk smoking, watching as the group dispersed, many in twos and threes to cars whose drivers had picked them up to ensure they had attended the meeting. Others walked to a Metrobus shelter and had seats on a bench. A few walked down East Capitol toward their dwellings or jobs.