Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

Went up! Moved on. Back soon. Loveya Jill.

Puerto Rico? I thought she was hi the GaMpagos.

"… and so I got my wife and kids back and graduated

from college," the Irishman said. "I never saw college in my future-hell, I never saw & future in my future. I was workin', goin' to meetin's, doin' good. But a month ago, after I was six years sober, my son got in trouble with the law and I got involved pullin' strings for him. I cut down on meetin's. Stopped callin' my sponsor. One night I found myself in a bar and sat down for a drink or twenty." Everybody laughed. "I was off and runnin'. My sponsor got me in here. One thing I learned: if you're in recovery from alcohol and drugs, it's a good idea to stay sober." More laughter. "Anyway, my insurance runs out today and I call the insurance girl in Tucson and tell her I need to stay. She goes no. I go, 'So what do I do?' She goes, 'Just between you and me, go out and start drinkin', and we'll call it relapse and authorize you to go back in.' " Big laughter. "So for any of you sittin' out there thinkin' it's not possible, I'm here to tell you it is possible. If I can do it, you can do it. This program is the only place that never told me I had to go seek 'outside help.' What helped me is this: don't sit here thinkin', 'I'm better than him' or Tm worse than him,' see if you can see how 'I'm like him.' Like they say in the fellowship: 'Identify, don't compare.' "

Malik nudged me in the ribs. I nodded.

"… and so, if no one today told ya they loved ya, tough shit, don't drink." Big laughter. "Before I leave, I gotta make one more amends." He scanned the room, and his eyes found mine. "When I first got here, I knocked into a young doctor. On purpose. Sorry, Doc." I nodded back. "Thanks."

"Amazing," I said to Malik as we left.

"Yeah. At a meeting, you usually hear something that hits home."

"Malik?" It was Frankie. "Return-to-Work Group," Malik nodded.

"Wait a second," I said. "What do I do about Schlomo?"

"Get Zoe and Lily to meet, and to take action with you."

"I tried. They won't."

"Try again, 'cause now they will."

"Why? Nothing's changed."

"You have. You're different."

"I can't see it."

"That's how you're different. The self can't see its little deaths. You only see changes through the eyes of others-how

they act with you, what they see in you." He smiled. I smiled back. "Click." I knew he was thinking, Like you and me now.

"Like you and me now?" I asked.

"See? Congratulations, Basch: you're finally catching up to where you are." We laughed. "Just make sure," he said, "when you meet with Zoe and Lily, that you're not sitting there covering up your spirit with any bullshit concepts in your head."

THE THUNDERHEADS OVER the mountains meant the end of spring. It was the next day, and Zoe again was late for her appointment. As I sat looking out the window at the storm clouds, it was as if I had opened a file cabinet in my mind. I kept seeing the whole year's worth of my meetings with Zoe in vivid detail. Every moment was there, intact. But for that first night when I'd admitted her to Misery with Malik and had felt the "click," my work with her had been a mostly frustrating attempt to locate her and respond to her, and her to me. She didn't know that she had saved me, by showing up at my house that night. At every moment, in each meeting, I had pretty well hidden myself from her.

She arrived with only fifteen minutes left to go, threw herself down in the chair and took off her Yankees cap, fluffing her short light brown hair. We chatted about the change in the weather, about our concern for the well-being of the missing Thorny. I felt a sense of sorrow for her, for what she had been put through this year in the name of psychiatric treatment. And I thought of Cherokee, how he too, lost and looking in good faith for some help, had found me, the wrong person at the wrong time, and it had killed him. If he had wandered into Malik's office, maybe he'd still be alive.

My sorrow deepened. I found myself seeing Zoe in a new way-seeing not just the words but something else, all around and in between, like on a farm on a summer's day you can almost see the breeze, ruffling the wheat. When a technique or a theory would come to mind, I'd hear Malik's voice crying, "Bullshit!" and I'd let go of the idea and keep on listening. Concepts seemed stupid now, given the facts of her suffering-even though she was speaking cheerfully. As I listened, a strange thing happened: I felt her pain so deeply that even though she was not showing it, tears came to my eyes. I

was doing more crying in the last three days than in the last thirty years.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"How do you mean?"

"No, no," she said, shaking her head, moving her hand back and forth between us as if clearing away cobwebs. "What's with you?"

"I'm feeling a lot of sadness for how you've been treated this year."

"By Schlomo?"

"And by me. I…" I looked away. But then, remembering how Dee had avoided my eyes, I looked back at her. I saw her quizzical look and held it with my sorrow. Saw it soften to concern. My lip trembled, my throat felt clogged. Wetness was on my cheeks. "I'm sorry, Zoe."

"Here." She handed me the Kleenex box. "What a switch, eh, DocT'

"Thanks."

"You're like really hurting, aren't you?"

"Uh-huh. It's terrible to see what you've gone through this year. I've tried my best to help you. I hope you know that?"

"Yeah, I do. Oh shit" Tears overflowed her eyes too, and streamed down her cheeks. "Pass me back the Kleenex, will you?"

We cried, tears of sorrow and understanding and, yes, love. For the first time I saw mat whatever helps people in psychotherapy has nothing to do with psychology, and everything to do with this, being human with, moving with another person as parts of a whole. Understand, and you love; love, and you understand. Love, understanding, and sorrow are different words for the same thing. "Healing," Malik had said, "is as little a matter of mind as is love."

"Thanks," Zoe said. "I've never felt this before in my life. It's scary, I mean because it's so real."

"Thank you."

"Okay. I'll meet with that other woman. If she like agrees, we'll do whatever we have to together, to get that little sonofabitch."

She left, and I called Lily Putnam. She agreed to see me again. I found her that night in the barn, "mucking out" The smell of horseshit was a kind of comfort, reminding me

of lifting hay bales into carts under a full moon on a summer night in Columbia when I was in love with a farmer's daughter.

"Can we talk?" I asked.

"Got to finish this."

"Mind if I help?"

She stared at me, wiping a lock of light brown hair from her eyes. 'There are some boots over there. They were his. Do you mind?"

"We'll see." I put on Cherokee's boots, and the rubbery contact they made with the barn floorboards and slippery horseshit felt familiar. We chatted as we mucked, about her children, her parents, about her life and mine, my parents- parent, rather, leading me to telling her of my father's death. "It's strange-I keep wondering where he is. I saw him in his coffin, but it's as if he's still here somehow."

"Lucky you. Cherokee made sure we'd have a closed-coffin affair. But I know what you mean. I still can't believe that Cher's not up in his office above us right now. Have you dreamed about your father?"

"No. You? I mean of Cherokee?"

"Some. He's always young and wonderful." She stopped mucking. "All right. Bring her out here tomorrow at noon. What's her name?" I was astonished. I hadn't mentioned a word about Zoe. Lily repeated, "What's her name?"

"Zoe."

"See you and Zoe tomorrow about noon."

"But why? What happened?"

"You pitched in and helped."