Now everyone began clapping, so I clapped too—except this time I was clapping with sincerity. After all, in spite of being a cynical bastard, there was no denying that AA was an amazing thing, a lifesaver to millions of people.
There was a long rectangular table at the back of the room with a few pots of coffee on it and some cookies and cakes. As I headed over, I heard an unfamiliar voice yelling: “Jordan! Jordan Belfort!”
I turned around and— Holy Christ!—it was Doug Talbot. He was walking toward me, wearing an enormous smile on his pasty face. He was tall, about six-one, although he didn’t look to be in particularly good shape. He wore an expensive-looking blue sport jacket and gray tweed slacks. He was waving me toward him.
At that very instant, I could feel a hundred five sets of eyes pretending not to look at me—no, it was actually a hundred fifteen sets of eyes, because the staff was pretending too.
He extended his hand. “So we finally meet,” he said, nodding his head knowingly. “It’s a pleasure. Welcome to Talbot Marsh. I feel like you and I are kindred spirits. Brad told me all about you. I can’t wait to hear the stories. I got a few of my own—nothing as good as yours, I’m sure.”
I smiled and shook my new friend’s hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you too,” I replied, fighting back the urge to use an ironic tone.
He put his arm on my shoulder. “Come on,” he said warmly, “let’s go to my office for a while. I’ll drop you off later this afternoon. You’re being moved up the hill to one of the condos. I’ll drive you there.”
And just like that, I knew this rehab was in serious trouble. I had the owner—the unreachable, the one and only Doug Talbot—as my new best buddy, and every patient and staff member knew it as well. The Wolf was ready to bare his fangs—even in rehab.
Doug Talbot turned out to be a decent-enough guy, and we spent a good hour exchanging war stories. In fact, as I was soon to find out, virtually all recovering drug addicts share a morbid desire to play a game of “Can You Top the Insanity of My Addiction.” Obviously, it didn’t take long for Doug to realize that he was seriously outmatched, and by the time I’d gotten to the part where I’d cut open my furniture with a butcher knife he’d heard enough.
So he changed the subject and began explaining how he was in the midst of taking his company public. Then he handed me some documents, to illustrate what a terrific deal he was getting. I studied them dutifully, although I found it difficult to focus. Apparently something had clicked off in my brain insofar as Wall Street was concerned too, and I failed to get that usual rush as I looked through his papers.
Then we climbed into his black Mercedes and he drove me to my condo, which was just down the road from the rehab. It wasn’t actually part of Talbot Marsh, but Doug had a deal worked out with the management company that ran the complex, and about a third of the fifty semiattached units were occupied by Talbot’s patients. Another profit center, I figured.
As I was getting out of his Mercedes, Doug said, “If there’s anything I can do for you, or if any of the staff or the patients aren’t treating you right, just let me know and I’ll take care of it.”
I thanked him, figuring there was a ninety-nine percent chance I would be speaking to him about that very issue before the four weeks were out. Then I headed into the lion’s den.
There were six separate apartments in each town house, and my particular unit was on the second floor. I walked up a short flight of stairs and found the front door to my unit wide open. My two roommates were inside, sitting at a circular dining-room table made of some very cheap-looking bleached wood. They were writing furiously in spiral notebooks.
“Hi, I’m Jordan,” I said. “Nice to meet you guys.”
Before they even introduced themselves, one of them, a tall, blond man in his early forties, said, “What did Doug Talbot want?”
Then the other one, who was actually very good-looking, added, “Yeah, how do you know Doug Talbot?”
I smiled at them and said, “Yeah, well, it’s nice to meet you guys too.” Then I walked past them without saying another word, went into the bedroom, and closed the door. There were three beds inside, one of which was unmade. I threw my suitcase next to it and sat down on the mattress. On the other side of the room was a cheap TV on a cheap wooden stand. I flicked it on and turned on the news.
A minute later my roommates were on me. The blond one said, “Watching TV during the day is frowned upon.”
“It’s feeding your disease,” said the good-looking one. “It’s not considered right thinking.”
Right thinking? Holy Christ!If they only knew how demented my mind was! “Well, I appreciate your concern over my disease,” I snapped, “but I haven’t watched TV in almost a week, so if you don’t mind, why don’t you just keep out of my fucking hair and worry about your own disease? If I want to engage in wrong thinking, then that’s what I’m gonna do.”
“What kind of doctor are you, anyway?” asked the blond one accusingly.
“I’m not a doctor, and what’s the story with that phone over there?” I motioned to a tan Trimline phone sitting on a wooden desk. Above it was a small rectangular window in desperate need of a cleaning. “Are we allowed to use it or would that be considered wrong thinking too?”
“No, you can use it,” said the good-looking one, “but it’s for collect calls only.”
I nodded. “What kind of doctor are you?”
“I used to be an ophthalmologist, but I lost my license.”
“And how about you?” I asked the blond one, who was definitely a member of the Hitler youth. “Did you lose your license too?”
He nodded. “I’m a dentist, and I deserved to lose my license.” His tone was entirely robotic. “I’m suffering from a terrible disease and I need to be cured. Thanks to the staff at Talbot Marsh I’ve made great strides in my recovery. Once they tell me I’m cured, I’ll try to get my license back.”
I shook my head as if I’d just heard something that defied logic, then I picked up the phone and started dialing Old Brookville.
The dentist said, “Talking for more than five minutes is frowned upon. It’s not good for your recovery.”
The eye doctor added, “The staff will sanction you for it.”
“Oh, really?” I said. “How the fuck are they gonna find out?”
They both raised their eyebrows and shrugged innocently.
I smiled a dead smile at them. “Well, excuse me, because I got a couple a phone calls to make. I should be off in about an hour.”
The blond one nodded, looking at his watch. Then the two of them headed back into the dining room and plunged back into their recoveries.
A moment later, Gwynne answered the phone. We exchanged warm greetings, then she whispered, “I sent you down a thousand dollars in yersocks. Did ya get it yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Maybe it’ll come tomorrow. More importantly, Gwynne, I don’t want to put you on the spot anymore with Nadine. I know she’s home and that she won’t come to the phone, and that’s okay. Don’t even tell her I called. Just answer the phone each morning and put the kids on for me. I’ll call around eight, okay?”
“Okay,” said Gwynne. “I hope you and Mrs. Belfort patch things up. It’s been very quiet ’round here. And very sad.”
“I hope so too, Gwynne. I really hope so.” We spoke for a few more minutes before I said good-bye.
Later that evening, just before nine, I received my first personal dose of Talbot Marsh insanity. There was a meeting in the living room for all the town house’s residents, where we were supposed to share any resentments that had built up during the day. It was called a ten-step meeting, because it had something to do with the tenth step of Alcoholics Anonymous. But when I picked up the AA book and read the tenth step—which was to continue to take a personal inventory and when you were wrong, to promptly admit it—I couldn’t imagine how this meeting applied to it.