His uncle, Moth knew, was always interested in the underlying why because that would help him decide the overarching what.
“No. I don’t know. Nothing. But this morning there it was as soon as I opened my eyes. It was like waking up and finding some ghost seated on the edge of the bed watching me.”
“That’s scary,” his uncle said. “But not exactly an unfamiliar ghost.” Uncle Ed paused, a psychiatrist’s delay, measuring words like a fine carpenter calculates lengths. “You think waiting until six tonight makes sense? What about an earlier meeting?”
“I have classes almost all day. I should be able-”
“That’s if you go to the classes.”
Moth stayed quiet. This was obvious.
“That’s if,” his uncle continued, “you don’t walk out of your apartment, take a sharp left, and run directly to that big discount liquor store on LeJeune Road. You know, the one with the big blinking goddamn red neon sign that every drunk in Dade County knows about. And it’s got free parking.” These last words were tinged with contempt and sarcasm.
Again, Moth said nothing. He wondered: Was that what I was going to do? There might have been a yes lurking somewhere within him that he hadn’t quite heard yet but that was getting ready to shout at him. His uncle knew all the inner conversations before they even happened.
“You think you can turn right, start pedaling that bike nice and fast, and head toward school? You think you can get through each class-what do you have this morning?”
“Advanced seminar on current applications of Jeffersonian principles. It’s what the great man said and did two hundred and fifty years ago that still means something today. That’s followed by a required two-hour statistics lecture after lunch.”
His uncle paused again, and Moth imagined him grinning. “Well, Jefferson is always pretty damn interesting. Slaves and sex. Wildly clever inventions and incredible architecture. But that advanced statistics class, well, boring. How did you ever end up in that? What has that got to do with a doctorate in American History? It would drive anyone to drink.”
This was a frequently shared joke, and Moth managed a small laugh. “Word,” he said, the historian in him enjoying the irony of employing teenage-speak already in disuse and discarded.
“So, how about a compromise?” his uncle said. “We’ll meet at Redeemer One at six, like you said. But you go to the lunch meeting over at the campus center. That’s at noon. You call me as you walk in. You don’t even have to get up and say a damn thing unless you feel like it-you just have to be there. And you call me when you walk out. Then you call me again when you walk into the statistics class. And when you walk out. And each time figure on holding that phone up so I can hear that professor, droning on in the background. That’s what I want to hear. Nice, safe, boring lecture stuff. Not glasses clinking.”
Moth knew his uncle was a veteran alcoholic, well versed in the myriad excuses, explanations, and evasions of everything except another drink. His personal tally of days sober was now well into the thousands. Maybe nearly seven thousand, a number that Moth believed he would find truly impossible to attain. He was more than a sponsor. He was Virgil to Moth’s drunken Dante. Moth knew his uncle Ed had saved his life and had done so more than once.
“Okay,” Moth said. “So, we meet at six?”
“Yeah. Save me a comfy seat, because I might be delayed a couple of minutes. I got an emergency appointment request for late this afternoon.”
“Someone like me?” Moth asked.
“Moth, boy. There ain’t nobody like you,” his uncle replied, slipping into a fake Southern drawl. “Nah. More likely some sad-eyed suburban housewife depressive whose meds are running low and is panicking big-time because her regular therapist is on vacation. All I am is a glorified, overeducated prescription pad waiting to be signed. See you tonight. And call. All those times. You know I’ll be waiting.”
“I’ll call. Thanks, Uncle Ed.”
“No big deal.”
But of course, it was.
Moth made the specified phone calls, each time safely bantering about nothing important for a few moments with his uncle. Moth had not thought he would say anything at the noontime meeting, but near the end of the session, at the urging of the young theology professor who ran the gathering, he had risen and shared his fears over his morning desires. Almost all the heads had nodded in recognition.
When he exited from the meeting, he took his Trek 20-speed mountain bike to the university’s playing fields. The high-tech rubberized quarter-mile track that encircled a football practice field was empty and despite a warning sign that told students to keep off unless under supervision, he lifted the bike over a turnstile gate, and after a quick look right and left to make sure he was alone, started riding in circles.
He picked up his pace quickly, energized by the clicking of the gears beneath him, the torque as he leaned dangerously into each turn, the steady accumulation of speed mixed with the high cloudless azure sky of a typical Miami winter’s afternoon. As he pumped his legs and felt muscles tightening with energy, he could sense the crave being pushed aside and buried within him. Four laps rapidly became twenty. Sweat started to burn his eyes. He could hear his breath coming harder with the exertion. He felt like a boxer whose roundhouse right has staggered his opponent. Keep throwing punches, he told himself. Victory was within sight.
When he finished the twenty-eighth lap, he pulled the bike to a sudden stop, tires squealing against the red synthetic track surface. Chances were good a campus security officer would swing by any second-he’d already pushed that envelope.
What would he do, yell at me? Moth thought. Give me a citation for trying to stay sober?
Moth lifted the bike back over the gate. Then he leisurely retraced his route to the wrought-iron stand adjacent to the science building where he could lock up the Trek and head to statistics. He passed a security guard in a small white SUV and gave a cheery wave to the driver, who didn’t wave back. Moth knew he would probably start to stink as the sweat dried after he entered the air-conditioned classroom, but he didn’t care.
Miraculously, he thought, it was turning into a small, but optimistic day.
A hundred now seemed not only attainable, but probable.
Moth waited outside a bit, right until a minute shy of six, before going inside Redeemer One and heading to the meeting lounge. There were already twenty or so men and women seated in a loose circle, all of whom greeted Moth with a nod or a small wave. A thin haze of cigarette smoke hung in the room-an acceptable addiction for drunks, Moth thought. He looked at the others. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, professor. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. And then himself: graduate student. There was a dark oaken table at the back of the room with a coffee urn and ceramic mugs. There was also a small shiny metal tub filled with ice and a selection of diet soft drinks and bottled water.
Moth found a spot and set his tattered student backpack down beside him. The regulars would easily have guessed that he was saving a space for his uncle-who had, after all, been the person who introduced Moth to Redeemer One and its high-class collection of addicts.
It was not until perhaps fifteen minutes into the meeting that Moth began to fidget nervously when there was no sign of his uncle. Something felt misshapen, a note out of tune. While Uncle Ed would sometimes be a few minutes late, if he said he was coming, he always showed up. Moth kept turning his head away from the speaker toward the door, expecting his uncle to make an apologetic entrance at any moment.