Bill Clegg - Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

I’m floating in a state of shock. Every second that passes, every inch the taxi moves forward without sirens and the glare of flashing lights seems like a miracle. Then it occurs to me that they’re all probably just waiting at the apartment. I ask the driver if I can use his cell phone. He passes it back and I call David. I’m in the cab, I tell him, but I don’t know that we’ll make it to the building. He says he’ll meet me in the lobby and to calm down. I agree as the taxi speeds toward the tunnel, back into the city. I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I can picture the spectacle of police cars and unmarked DEA vehicles surrounding One Fifth, lights strobing and tenants’ faces lit with appalled interest. I wonder if Trevor, my favorite doorman, is on the desk tonight and what he’ll think when I get cuffed and carted off.

But there is no spectacle. Just David, with bed hair, bundled in a coat, waiting in the lobby. He looks exhausted and annoyed and says he’s spending the night. In the morning we go to breakfast and he asks which rehab I want him to take me to and despite the grim concern I see on his face I answer, None .

We sit in the front window at Marquet, on stools, and the day outside and everyone in it flashes like a taunt. This is a shiny world, I think, for the Davids and the Noahs, for people whose lives I can only see as unblemished and lucky. A place where I’ve been allowed a visit but cannot stay. A place I’ve already left.

David walks out of the restaurant and doesn’t look back. Whatever his last words are, I don’t remember, but they are quick and clear and sad.

He’s ten. It’s dinnertime. He’s a little more excited than usual because he has a friend over, Kenny, and his uncle Teddy from San Diego is visiting for a few days. He loves Uncle Teddy. He has a pool, asks lots of questions about school, and is one of the only people who can make his father laugh, lighten him up. His mother makes hamburger gravy — a dish that takes ground beef and stretches it out with canned cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix and is poured over biscuits or rice or mashed potatoes. Or maybe she’s made creamed chicken. Same idea as the hamburger gravy but with a bag of frozen vegetables — peas, carrots, pearl onions. These are the dishes she makes — the ones she learned in Youngstown, Ohio, when there was little money, after her father died, the ones she made as a stewardess living in Queens with four roommates. He loves these dishes; will eat them as if there is never enough and have seconds and thirds. His father calls them slop. Tonight he says he can’t believe she wanted to feed shit like this to his brother. When he is home from one of his trips, he usually cooks something else — a piece of fish on the grill, a boiled lobster — which is what he’s doing tonight.

The kitchen is crowded. His mother fusses at the stove. His older sister, Kim, is setting the table, and his younger brother, Sean, and younger sister, Lisa, are watching TV in the next room. His father’s large crystal tumbler is full of Scotch, and his uncle Teddy holds a bottle of beer.

The boys are taunting the lobsters in the sink, making up names for them and running commentary on their crustaceal movements the way sportscasters would a wrestling match. Kenny names the runt Mama-Pet, their nickname for Kim, and the two of them giggle as the bigger lobsters climb all over it. Oh noooooo… Mama-Pet! Kenny turns to Kim, who is doing homework at the dinner table, and says, Run, Mama-Pet! You’re getting crushed. Run! Mama-Pet, run! The two boys can barely speak they are laughing so hard. It goes on and on until Kim storms off with a slammed book and a bloodcurdling I hate you two! They love it and are dizzy with laughter. Uncle Teddy laughs, too, and gently tells them they’re terrible, but it’s clear he is amused.

Dinner is served and his father is quiet. Teddy is younger, but someone outside the family would probably think he was the patriarch, the eldest of the seven brothers and sisters, the leader. Maybe this is why it feels safe to talk at dinner. Maybe the easy laughter in the kitchen and Teddy’s smiling approval gives him just the confidence he needs to open his mouth. And so he does. He tells Teddy about his soccer team. How they travel to nearby towns; how he plays right inside, sometimes center. He tells him about Joe, the heaviest kid in the class, who is also one of the fastest, and how he plays halfback and scores the most goals. His father is quiet through this but gets up a few times to go to the kitchen to refill his drink. Kenny talks about their classmate Dennis, who, he says, doesn’t bathe and lives in a house without running water. Dennis has a deformed eyelid, one that folds over half his left eye even when open, and Kenny explains how this was caused by malnutrition when he was a baby. That his family is so poor they couldn’t afford to feed him.

His mother says something nice about Dennis’s family. Kim tells Kenny to shut up.

The boys keep chattering — about school, Kenny’s sisters, who knows what — and Teddy listens to both of them, patiently, and laughs his quick rat-a-tat-tat laugh, which only eggs them both on.

Lisa plays with her food, and Sean is in the high chair.

From a distance it looks like any other family. From a distance, he looks like any other boy. Laughing with his friend. Talking about soccer. Dressed in cords and turtleneck like all the other boys his age. Even if you looked closely, you couldn’t see how he is a boy who prays at night not to wake up.

He says something, something now long forgotten, and his father finally speaks up and says, Oh, yeah, Willie, is that so? He challenges whatever was said, whether it be about soccer, Dennis, school, the moths flapping madly against the porch lights outside. It doesn’t seem so harsh, but he knows his father is just getting started. Still, he feels emboldened by the hour before in the kitchen — Uncle Teddy, Kenny — he feels in league with them and, so, safe. He talks about something else. It doesn’t matter what. His father then says something that no one else understands, but he does. Looks like you’ve got it all figured out, Willie, he taunts. Looks like you’re really on top of things. As his father speaks, he knows he’s gone too far and not to say another word. Have your act together, do you, Willie? The voice is all Boston, all Scotch. All your problems under control? Any problems you want to talk about? Or should I? How about that? By this point no one will be speaking or understanding what’s going on. But he understands. And he’s praying that his father will stop and that he won’t, not this time, finally start spilling what he knows, what he’ll always have over him. He wonders if he’s told Uncle Teddy, because Teddy’s looking at him oddly now. Is it pity or disgust? He can’t tell. His face grows hot in the tense air and finally Uncle Teddy starts to talk about Chris, his son, and how he’s in a play or on a team or building a tree house.

The dinner winds down, and the awkward patch is ignored and forgotten. His mother asks for help in the kitchen and complains about how her back is acting up again. Could be a slipped disk, she says and sighs. His father rolls his eyes, Kim rushes to scrub dishes at the sink, and he and Kenny carry a few bowls into the kitchen and take off upstairs.

At some point before sleep he heads to the bathroom, and it takes longer than usual. His mother knocks once, Kenny a few times; he runs the water, does the dance, makes the mess and cleans it all up. It’s done, but when he returns to his room, where Kenny is already asleep, it seems far from over.