softboiled eggs were cold and hard. He made it, all right.
III
CONTRACT ONE
Change your life .
8
Â
Â
W HEN AMONG nine or ten other patients Severance pushed through the heavy doors into a bright cold afternoon, he felt excited, relieved. Deep breath, cigarette hack. So the world still existed! Both Wednesday night and last night the lectures had been across in the main hospital building, but the dark short mob-scurry gave no sense of freedom, only two minutesâ realization of the universal oppressive ward-fug, absorption in all the facetings of treatment, para-military constriction hardly less than Howarden. Out! The sun was by no means burning down and the grass was greying but the air was rich with leaf-smoke in this rundown neighbourhood. Fall was his season, had always been. So you still wish to get famouser, one of the eleven or how many Franckens of Antwerp, every one of them a noted painter enough in his age, mostly now inextricable? Deloresâ long legs were pretty ahead, smoothly. The other women were slacksed except the nurse. Towers above the trees across the river reminded him he was University Professor Severance not the craven drunk Alan S who had been told by an orderly that his room smelled like a farmyard (âyou, you ⦠you, you utter/You wait!â) He fell in step with Mike M, hunching a littleâouter coat next timeâagainst ruffles of wind. Mike was a
heavy-set black-haired attractive man of thirty-four or -five, with his head lowered. Mike had problems: whether his stunning new wife would leave him like the first and go back to airline hostessing (eight months later, to everyoneâs dismay, she certainly would), whether to kick his business partner out on his ear after six years of tyrannical but faithful service, whether his AA group, called the Whitney Chapter (who ever heard of such a thing?), would take him back.
âWhy not, for Godâs sake?â
They were far ahead of the others lounging along. A hippie napped under an overpass, or maybe stoned. He was glad not to be stoned, as he had been at this hour and every hour last Sunday (indecent?!), with immediate Monday morning suicide in mind moreover.
âTheyâre a peculiar outfit. Nobody has slips. They own a fine club building out on Whitney and when youâre electedâyou have to be elected, you canât just join, and believe me they look you over for weeks beforehand and you have to have two sponsorsâthey give you a key and say, âIf you ever feel like having a drink, put the key in the mail.â â
âWell, there are groups all over town. So what? AA isnât supposed to be selective: the desire to quit drinking, thatâs all, isnât it?â
âNot with them. And I admit they have a very bad haughty reputation with other groups around the city. But partly itâs envy, Alan. Many of them not only have a great deal of money theyâre very generous with, but have been dry twenty thirty thirty-five years. It was the second group established here. You donât get that kind of security in most groups. Christ, guys turn up stoned, actually for meeting. A friend of mine whoâd been through Hollins told me about a counsellor of his who once drank steadily for seven years, never missed a meeting. Heâd stash a pint in his glove-compartment, drive to meeting, sweat it out,
and when he got back in the car, open up and bottoms up. Arrive home bombed. His wife used to say to him, âWhat is this AA?â Funnyâbut what support would you get from a group like that?â
âI see that. Also the authority. Frankly I hate authority including what I have to exercise, but unfortunately I respond to it. It wasnât AA kept me dry two months this summer, it was fear of Dr Rome. Christ, I could have gone on reporting slips to my AA till Armageddon, some of the men even defended me when Ted and Mike Lewes gave me
III
CONTRACT ONE
Change your life .
8
Â
Â
W HEN AMONG nine or ten other patients Severance pushed through the heavy doors into a bright cold afternoon, he felt excited, relieved. Deep breath, cigarette hack. So the world still existed! Both Wednesday night and last night the lectures had been across in the main hospital building, but the dark short mob-scurry gave no sense of freedom, only two minutesâ realization of the universal oppressive ward-fug, absorption in all the facetings of treatment, para-military constriction hardly less than Howarden. Out! The sun was by no means burning down and the grass was greying but the air was rich with leaf-smoke in this rundown neighbourhood. Fall was his season, had always been. So you still wish to get famouser, one of the eleven or how many Franckens of Antwerp, every one of them a noted painter enough in his age, mostly now inextricable? Deloresâ long legs were pretty ahead, smoothly. The other women were slacksed except the nurse. Towers above the trees across the river reminded him he was University Professor Severance not the craven drunk Alan S who had been told by an orderly that his room smelled like a farmyard (âyou, you ⦠you, you utter/You wait!â) He fell in step with Mike M, hunching a littleâouter coat next timeâagainst ruffles of wind. Mike was a
heavy-set black-haired attractive man of thirty-four or -five, with his head lowered. Mike had problems: whether his stunning new wife would leave him like the first and go back to airline hostessing (eight months later, to everyoneâs dismay, she certainly would), whether to kick his business partner out on his ear after six years of tyrannical but faithful service, whether his AA group, called the Whitney Chapter (who ever heard of such a thing?), would take him back.
âWhy not, for Godâs sake?â
They were far ahead of the others lounging along. A hippie napped under an overpass, or maybe stoned. He was glad not to be stoned, as he had been at this hour and every hour last Sunday (indecent?!), with immediate Monday morning suicide in mind moreover.
âTheyâre a peculiar outfit. Nobody has slips. They own a fine club building out on Whitney and when youâre electedâyou have to be elected, you canât just join, and believe me they look you over for weeks beforehand and you have to have two sponsorsâthey give you a key and say, âIf you ever feel like having a drink, put the key in the mail.â â
âWell, there are groups all over town. So what? AA isnât supposed to be selective: the desire to quit drinking, thatâs all, isnât it?â
âNot with them. And I admit they have a very bad haughty reputation with other groups around the city. But partly itâs envy, Alan. Many of them not only have a great deal of money theyâre very generous with, but have been dry twenty thirty thirty-five years. It was the second group established here. You donât get that kind of security in most groups. Christ, guys turn up stoned, actually for meeting. A friend of mine whoâd been through Hollins told me about a counsellor of his who once drank steadily for seven years, never missed a meeting. Heâd stash a pint in his glove-compartment, drive to meeting, sweat it out,
and when he got back in the car, open up and bottoms up. Arrive home bombed. His wife used to say to him, âWhat is this AA?â Funnyâbut what support would you get from a group like that?â
âI see that. Also the authority. Frankly I hate authority including what I have to exercise, but unfortunately I respond to it. It wasnât AA kept me dry two months this summer, it was fear of Dr Rome. Christ, I could have gone on reporting slips to my AA till Armageddon, some of the men even defended me when Ted and Mike Lewes gave me
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