Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

Romancing the stoned.

…I can’t believe Suzanne Vale is here. I never knew she was an addict. She looks a little puffy, but she’s definitely cute.

This is so Not Hip. I don’t mean everything has to be hip. This is probably good for some people, but… Look at these people. I have nothing in common with any of them, except Suzanne. She’s been here a couple of weeks now. She seems like she’s really into this, but she’s an actress. Actresses can seem like they fit in anywhere. I’m mainly gonna talk just to her. It would be great if we fell in love. That would show them, if I came back from the drug clinic with Suzanne Vale as my girlfriend.

Jesus, that black guy! If he doesn’t shut up I’m gonna put a pillow over his face at night. How can they let people like him in with people like me? There should be different clinics—one for the assholes and one for the people who just have drug problems but aren’t assholes. Not that I have a drug problem, but I’m gonna be here for a month so I’d better do what they want me to do. I’ll just tell them I think I’m a drug addict, ’cause it’s the only way I’ll ever get out of here. Hey, if it’s good enough for Suzanne Vale, it’s good enough for me.

She’s got a great sense of humor, which you need in a place like this. I’m really stunned that people like her are addicts. When you hear that somebody famous overdosed, it always sounds like fun when they do it. It’s just part of the big myth. It’s like it happened in the movies when it happens to someone who makes movies. Like, maybe I had an overdose, but it wasn’t the same kind she had. I’d like to think it was, though. I’d like to think I had an epic overdose. I wouldn’t have minded ODing if I was Suzanne Vale.

Maybe I’ll go sit in the park with her. But she’s always talking to that black guy, or listening to him. God, I just want to run out of the room when he starts… That voice of his is like he swallowed weird helium, the kind that makes your voice deep and hollow. He just goes on and on and on. “Let me say this about that.” “Let me say this about that.” Jesus!

How can she go to those AA meetings? I can understand poor people going. They have nowhere to go and nothing to do, but… I don’t know how anybody can stand each other here. I won’t go to an AA meeting unless they let me sit next to Suzanne. I haven’t really talked to her yet. I don’t want to wreck it. I want to seem cool, I want this to build naturally. It’s not like I’m gonna play hard to get, I don’t want to play a lot of games with this, but celebrities don’t like it when you run up and get in their face and come on to them. It’s a turn-off.

I think she’d like me, though. She seems very friendly, and she wants everyone to like her, which could get to be a drag. If we got together, she’d have to stop all that, because it would be too hard on me. Not that I’m the jealous type, but it would be annoying. I’d have to tell her I would rather be the priority.

Maybe I was a little deluded about my drug intake. Okay, I accept it. I took too many drugs. But certainly they don’t expect me to give up alcohol. I’ll give up cocaine. That’s not so difficult. I’ve given up cocaine before. I’ve done it a lot. I’ll just do it again, I don’t care. But what happens if I go to a party and they’re toasting somebody with champagne? What if my brother gets married? Do they expect me to toast my brother with Perrier? No way! I mean, he’s only fourteen, but still, they can’t expect me to give up everything.

That woman who keeps tilting her head, Julie, said I was stuck looking at the differences between me and everybody else here, and that I should look for the similarities. Look at her, she’s overeating. I don’t want to do that . God, when will this be over? Do they expect me to give up wine? It’s absurd. This group is absurd. That fat asshole Sid told me if there were no drugs, I would have been an alcoholic. That’s absurd , and anyway, there are drugs. Shit, I’m next.

“Me? Yeah, I’m Alex. I don’t really know what to say. Uh… I’m in here… Why am I in here? I’m in here because… Well, I took a lot of drugs one night in Brentwood and I had a problem… I had a bad reaction to some drugs. I was allergic… I never… I took some heroin and I had never taken heroin…”

God, Suzanne’s gonna think I’m such a putz . She comes right out and says she’s an addict. Maybe I should just say it. Maybe there’s something manly in that.

“…So I think, yes, you could say I have a drug problem. And alcohol. I drink alcohol, too, but I have to get more information to be really convinced that alcohol is a problem for me.”

That sounded good. That sounded real good.

“I’m aware I can tend to overdo drugs. Have overdone drugs. And I certainly would like to learn as much as I can about how to curb that appetite. I’m glad to be here—well, I’m not glad to be here, but I’m here, and I’m gonna take advantage of the situation.”

That sounded so cool. She was looking right at me. I think she likes me. I think she sees that I’m open, that I’m a man and yet I’m sensitive and aware of my own feelings. She has to respect the process I’m going through. I seemed a little scattered at first, maybe, but overall I was succinct and I seemed to have a grasp of… Let’s face it, there’s something romantic about a fucked-up guy. Not that I’m fucked up, but I’m in a fucked-up place.

I think it would be great publicity for this clinic if it got out that Suzanne Vale met this great television writer here. It would be good for her reputation to be known as somebody who’s going out with a writer. It would give her more credibility.

She’s so funny, and she has great eyes. Who is this asshole therapist Stan busting her for using her humor as a weapon? An “affably hostile weapon.” We’re here for drugs, not to have our personalities dismantled. They better not try it with me, or I’m gonna punch that guy out. They’re just jealous because they have to be in this clinic all the time, and she’ll probably leave and make a TV movie about it. Maybe I’ll write it. Oooh, this whole thing could really pay off.

I wonder if they let you fuck in the clinic…

DAY EIGHTEEN

Sid graduated today. There was a little ceremony to see him off and launch him back into the now, like a little detoxed boat. It was actually sort of moving, with all the junkies sitting in a circle of chairs in the television room. A coin was passed around, and everybody held the coin and said something encouraging and wise (or at least tried to) for Sid to carry with him. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I sang “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” Carol cried.

I rarely cry. I save my feelings up inside me like I have something more specific in mind for them. I’m waiting for the exact perfect situation and then Boom! I’ll explode in a light show of feeling and emotion—a piñata stuffed with tender nuances and pent-up passions. Until then, though, no sobbing for Sid.

I’ll miss him holding my feet, though. I don’t miss whole people usually. I mainly miss the things they do:

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to cry, and what it could possibly be that would set me off. The image of Heathcliff looking over the moors, holding Cathy’s newly dead body? The memory of my father forgetting my twelfth birthday? The sweetness of Sid holding my feet, recalled one day in traffic?

The new guy Alex may be good-looking, but he also seems like kind of an asshole.