Whatever the case, eight of us were now sitting in a circle. The first doctor, a dweeby-looking bald man in his early forties, said, “My name is Steve, and I’m an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a sex addict. I have forty-two days sober.”
The other six doctors said, “Hi, Steve!” And they said it with such relish that if I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn they’d just met Steve for the first time.
Steve said, “I have only one resentment today, and it’s toward Jordan.”
That woke me up! “Toward me?” I exclaimed. “I haven’t said two words to you, pal. How could you possibly resent me?”
My favorite dentist said, “You’re not allowed to defend yourself, Jordan. That’s not the purpose of this meeting.”
“Well, excuse me,” I muttered. “And just what is the purpose of this crazy meeting, because for the life of me I can’t figure it out.”
They all shook their heads in unison, as if I were dense or something. “The purpose of this meeting,” explained the Nazi dentist, “is that harboring resentments can interfere with your recovery. So each night we get together and air any resentments that may’ve built up during the day.”
I looked at the group, and every last one of them had turned the corners of his mouth down and was nodding sagely.
I shook my head in disgust. “Well, do I at least get to hear why good old Steve resents me?”
They all nodded, and Steve said, “I resent you over your relationship with Doug Talbot. All of us have been here for months—some of us for close to a year—and none of us has ever gotten to speak to him. Yet he drove you home in his Mercedes.”
I started laughing in Steve’s face. “And that’s why you resent me? Because he drove me home in his fucking Mercedes?”
He nodded and dropped his head in defeat. A few seconds later the next person in the circle introduced himself, in the same retarded way, and then he said, “I resent you, too, Jordan, for flying here in a private jet. I don’t even have money for food and you’re flying around in private planes.”
I looked around the room and everyone was nodding in agreement. I said, “Any other reasons you resent me?”
“Yes,” he said, “I also resent you for your relationship with Doug Talbot.” More nodding.
Then the next doctor introduced himself as an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a food addict, and he said, “I have only one resentment, and it is also toward Jordan.”
“Well, gee willikers,” I muttered, “that’s a fucking surprise! Would you care to humor me as to why?”
He compressed his lips. “For the same reasons they do, and also because you don’t have to follow the rules around here because of your relationship with Doug Talbot.”
I looked around the room and everyone was nodding in agreement.
One by one, all seven of my fellow patients shared their resentments toward me. When it was my turn to speak, I said, “Hi, my name is Jordan, and I’m alcoholic, a Quaalude addict, and a cocaine addict. I’m also addicted to Xanax and Valium and morphine and Klonopin and GHB and marijuana and Percocet and mescaline and just about everything else, including high-priced hookers, medium-priced hookers, and an occasional streetwalker, but only when I feel like punishing myself. Sometimes I take an afternoon massage at one of those Korean joints, and I have a young Korean girl jerk me off with baby oil. I always offer her a couple hundred extra if she’ll stick her tongue up my ass, but it’s sort of hit or miss, because of the language barrier. Anyway, I never wear a condom, just on general principles. I’ve been sober for five whole days now, and I’m walking around with a constant erection. I miss my wife terribly, and if you reallywant to resent me I’ll show you a picture of her.” I shrugged. “Either way, I resent every last one of you for being total fucking pussies and trying to take your life’s frustrations out on me. If you really want to focus on your own recoveries, stop looking outward and start looking inward, because you’re all complete fucking embarrassments to humanity. And, by the way, you are right about one thing—I amfriends with Doug Talbot, so I wish you all good luck when you try ratting me out to the staff tomorrow.” With that, I broke from the circle and said, “Excuse me; I gotta make a few phone calls.”
My favorite dentist said, “We still need to discuss your work detail. Each person in the unit has to clean an area. We have you down for the bathrooms this week.”
“I don’t think so,” I sputtered. “Starting tomorrow there’s gonna be maid service in this joint. You can talk to her about it.” I walked into the bedroom, slammed the door, and dialed Alan Lipsky to tell him about the very insanity of the Talbot Martians. We laughed for a good fifteen minutes and then started talking about old times.
Before I hung up, I asked if he’d heard anything from the Duchess. He said he hadn’t, and I hung up the phone sadder for that fact. It had been almost a week now, and things were looking grim with her. I flicked on the TV and tried shutting my eyes, but, as usual, sleep didn’t come easily. Finally, sometime around midnight, I did fall asleep—with another day of sobriety under my belt and a raging hard-on inside my underwear.
The next morning, eight o’clock sharp, I called Old Brookville. The phone was picked up on the first ring.
“Hello?” said the Duchess softly.
“Nae? Is that you?”
Sympathetically: “Yes, it’s me.”
“How are you?”
“I’m okay. Hanging in there, I guess.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I…I called to say hi to the kids. Are they there?”
“What’s wrong?” she said sadly. “You don’t wanna talk to me?”
“No, of courseI want to talk to you! There’s nothing in the world I want more than to talk to you. I just didn’t think you wanted to talk to me.”
Kindly: “No, that’s not true. I do want to talk to you. For better or worse, you’re still my husband. I guess this is the worsepart, right?”
I felt tears coming to my eyes, but I fought them down. “I don’t know what to say, Nae. I…I’m so sorry for what happened…. I…I—”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t apologize. I understand what happened, and I forgive you. That’s the easy part, forgiveness. Forgetting’s a different story.” She paused. “But I do forgive you. And I want to go on. I want to try to make this marriage work. I still love you, in spite of everything.”
“I love you too,” I said, through tears. “More than you know, Nae. I…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how it happened. I…I hadn’t slept in months and”—I took a deep breath—“I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s all a blur.”
“It’s my fault as much as yours,” she said kindly. “I watched you killing yourself and just stood there and did nothing. I thought I was helping you, but I was really doing the opposite. I didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault, Nae, it’s mine. It’s just that it happened so slowly, over so many years, that I didn’t see it coming. Before I knew it I was out of control. I’ve always considered myself a strong person, but the drugs were stronger.”
“The kids miss you. I miss you too. I’ve wanted to speak to you for days now, but Dennis Maynard told me I should wait until you were fully detoxed.”
That rat fuck! I’ll get that bastard!I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. The last thing I needed was to lose my temper with the Duchess on the phone. I needed to prove to her that I was still a rational man, that the drugs hadn’t permanently altered me. “You know,” I said calmly, “it’s a good thing you got those second two doctors to come to the hospital”—I refused to use the words psych unit—“because I despised Dennis Maynard more than you can imagine. I almost didn’t go to rehab because of him. There was something about him that just rubbed me the wrong way. I think he had a thing for you.” I waited for her to call me crazy.