Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

I’ve gotta go where somebody can take care of me. All right, just call. I can go back and they’ll take care of me and then I’ll be okay. Calm down, you’ll be okay… I’m so scared… Just call…

“Uh, yeah, is Julie Marsden there? Uh, hi, Lucille. It’s Alex. No, no, I’m all right. Could, um, could I talk to Julie? Oh. Well, do you have her number? It’s important. Yeah, it’s… Okay, thanks.”

Four-seven-six-two-nine-four-five. Four-seven-six-two-nine-four-five. Four-seven-six-two-nine-four-five. Okay. Okay…

“Hello, is this Julie? This is Alex. No, I’m okay… No, I’m… I’m in a hotel. I… God, could you? Could you come and get… Yeah, I hate to be a… Okay. Yeah, it’s the Ramada Inn in Burbank. Room 823. Okay, I’m here. Yeah. No, I’m here.”

Okay, just sit, just hold your knees tight. Okay, rock… Oh, God, oh my God… Okay, okay, she’s coming. Somebody’s coming. It’ll be okay… Just hold yourself, hold yourself… It’s gonna be okay… Somebody’s coming…

DAY TWENTY-SIX

Alex is back. The story is that he checked into a hotel in the valley with a pound of cocaine. He had done quite a bit of it when he thought he heard someone breaking into his room and he freaked out and spilled all the rest in a bathtub full of water. Something like that. Bart told me, and he tends to exaggerate a little. Anyway, then he got in the elevator to go get more coke (!?!) and there were these people who laughed at him and said something to him about Florida, so Alex freaked out and went back to his room and called Julie.

Of course, this being the top story of the day in rehab world, everyone is scrambling for details. Wanda was in the nurses’ station when Julie brought Alex in. She said he looked frightening, nose bleeding and everything, gripping Julie’s arm with his head down like someone on trial getting past the press. We all pumped Wanda for more, since she’s the only one of us who saw him, but that’s all she had.

This just in!

Carl overheard Julie telling Stan that when she got to Alex’s room it was about 11 A.M. Alex let her in and embraced her like a long-lost relative. He was sweating and crying, totally panicked. “I’m so glad you’re here, thank you for coming,” he kept repeating. While he was talking, a huge rock of cocaine fell out of his nose and landed on the carpet. Without missing a beat Alex bent down, licked his finger, picked up the coke rock, and put it in his mouth. He then offered Julie a Long Island iced tea and asked her if she had to tell his parents about this.

If World War III broke out now we’d still talk about Alex.

…Christ, I feel dead…

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

They brought in three people to speak at the hospital tonight at our own AA meeting. The first guy told us he was known as the Blackout King. He used to come out of blackouts speeding down the freeway and not know if he was chasing someone or being chased. He once came to in the middle of a huge fight and didn’t know whose side he was on. He said that in the end he could only get high by tying himself off and calling the paramedics and telling them there was an overdose at his address. Then he would hang up and wait until he heard the ambulance siren, and then he’d shoot up, knowing they would save his life. So almost dying became the biggest high of all.

The second guy told this long tale of cocaine dealing and prison. At one point he was talking about being at this party in San Francisco. There was this girl there and he said, “I wanted to go out with her and she didn’t have the time of day for me. Then she went off to New York and became this big star, and today that girl is in this room. Now we’re in the same club.”

I got this cold feeling inside, because I suddenly realized he was talking about me . He was bragging that I once thought I was too good for him, but now I’m not so bloody fucking too good for him. They say around here that some are sicker than others. Well, I decided that somebody was sicker than somebody in this situation, and I didn’t care if I had to be sicker than him, just as long as I wasn’t in his category. I never heard the third speaker, because I walked out of the meeting.

On the way back to my room, I stopped to see how Alex was. He was in bed and Lucille was taking his blood pressure. He looked like those pictures of kidnap victims that they send to the families with the ransom notes. He was pretending to be asleep, so I didn’t say anything.

…I’m so humiliated. What am I gonna say to everybody? What must they think? God, I’m exhausted . At least they didn’t make me see my parents. That I’m not quite ready for…

I feel awful, awful . I’m just glad I didn’t get arrested or anything. I hope everyone doesn’t stare at me like I’m some kind of animal. Maybe I went a little out of control. I did, I went out of control. I’m somebody who went out of control, which means I’m somebody who could go out of control again. I don’t know, maybe I haven’t been completely realistic with myself.

I still think I should write this script, though. I still think that’s a good idea. What if at the end the guy finally sees he’s an addict? He leaves the clinic and goes out and does a bunch of drugs to write this script about himself, and in the process he realizes he’s an addict. I don’t want it to be a corny ending where the guy gets really gung ho and starts going to meetings and applauding the people who make the coffee. I mean, he doesn’t become one of those Q-Tip heads who come up to you at airports and say, “I have a gift for you.” This is a cool guy anybody can identify with. An Everyman. With a drug problem, though. I bet my agent could get me an actual meeting with Barry Diller for an idea like this. It’s current, I haven’t seen it done before…

Maybe I should take it easy for a while, and not write it right away. I feel like such a moron. I’m so ashamed. Here I am way out in the middle of my life and I feel like this. It’s like I’ve got wind blowing through my chest or something…

Maybe if I talk to some of these people they can help with some of these feelings. I don’t have to like them, I just have to learn how to not do drugs from them. Not Stan, certainly, but I could probably do all right working with Julie…

What the fuck? I’ll try it their way for a while. I haven’t got too much to lose, I guess. I’m still not gonna use that Jacuzzi, though…

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT

I can’t quite believe I’m actually going home in two days. I’m not completely leaving, though. They said I could continue coming during the day for all of next week. I’ll be an out-patient. Bart is going to do that, too. So now I’ll get the best of both worlds. It’s hard to imagine a day without Carl talking too much in it. I wonder if he’d do my answering machine message for me.

Today was Mark’s twentieth birthday. His favorite gift was the Big Mac that Stan brought him.

…Okay, okay, I’m an alcoholic. I can’t get loaded anymore. If I do, I could die. Or worse. I remember Stan saying once—I loathe that sucker—but he said the worst thing is not dying, it’s living like that. That would be bad, to spend my whole life in Ramada Inns with pockmarked dealers. Certainly the cocaine never enhanced his looks for me. It doesn’t ever really do a lot, but that first hit… Well, I shouldn’t get off on a rant about dope.

I think what I can do now is throw myself into my work, my writing. And I’ll go to these meetings—at least then my parents will stay off my back—but I’m never ever going to an AA dance. It seems so tragic to stand around with a lot of people who don’t—no, not even don’t— can’t take dope anymore and do the twist or something, like twitching at the end of some pathetic line in the river without any fish. Oooh, that’s a good analogy. I think this script is going to go well.