Day 266 The Day After

Had a second visit from my wonderful friend Andrea, today. It was on the closest Saturday to my birthday, appropriate enough, as Oscar Wilde was born October 16th, and I had asked Andrea (before I knew she intended to visit) to go to an exhibit of Wilde’s letters at UCLA for me for my birthday (the 15th)..

We talked, as we always do about everything under the sun, and we had lunch. While I waited, with other inmates, for our loved ones to obtain food from vending machines and heat them up in microwaves, I overheard two other inmates talking. One lamented, “You know, when it gets to the third hour, and you can’t find anything to say….” I felt blessed that Andrea and I would never have that problem.

I did mention to her that I wondered if and how I could continue the blog after release, and she didn’t seem to think it was a problem, that even without prison, I could depend on continuing to find the nexus of personal and the political. After all, I’ve done it before, with my essays for Genre and Being Alive, and how about the columnists who have made a career out of it, like Anna Quindlen? I was heartened, but I do imagine I might have to decrease the frequency of my entries to once or twice a week, a la Russell Baker.

After our visit, I returned to my bunk savoring our wide-ranging conversation and the prospect of curling up with a good book and Prairie Home Companion on NPR. At 5:00, Hippie roused me from my assorted reveries for Pill Call. I won’t eat with him anymore, but I will accompany him across the grounds and back to get our meds. (Hippie isn’t HIV+, he gets other meds).

Hippie expressed envy at my lunch with Andrea. He said, “I’ve never once gotten a visit in prison.” His parents were off the hook, they lived in New York and I knew he hadn’t seen them for ten years anyway. I sort of suspected why he got no visitors, and this was confirmed when he answered my next question: “How about friends?” “All my friends are junkies,” he replied. He showed me the horrific track marks on his arms. “Every time I get out, I get high. I 'spoon by noon.' I remember, I was so proud, the last time I actually made it two weeks until I hit the needle.” (Note that he didn't say he waited two weeks to get high, just that he didn't get high intravenously for that long.)

I hadn’t the heart to tell him that one was proud of becoming a teacher, or a nurse, or of a child who took his first steps. Staying sober for two weeks even was something to be proud of. Refraining from using the needle (instead of snorting or smoking) for two weeks was a dubious source of pride. (I have similar beef with those who are “proud to be an American” or “white,” or “gay” even; as if these states are the result of hard work instead of genetic or geographic happenstance.)

I’ll telescope the ensuing dialogue to the fundamentals. Why, I asked, did he think he couldn’t stay sober? He professed the well-worn rationale of demonizing the frequency with which he claimed old friends who got sober simply replaced one addiction with another. "Their lives became all about rehab; all about twelve step groups. Most of them end up becoming counselors in rehabs themselves!” he noted indignantly. “Well,” I replied, “You’re right, they become addicted to sobriety.” “Exactly!” he chimed back, enthused that someone finally understood. But I countered: “Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, that might be a little less toxic addiction to say, heroin? That even if it can be called an addiction it leaves a little bit more room for the constituents of happiness; like healthy relationships, a fulfilling career, and an active spiritual life?” (Perhaps I wasn’t quite this succinct, but what the hell, it’s my blog, I can make myself as retro-articulate as I want).

Hippie stared at me with that horsey blank look that means I’m almost getting through, but slow to a canter, please. It reminded me of Dubya’s expression when asked an unscripted question. Since Hippie has made a big show of asking me quite earnestly about how the debates went, I decided to use an argument I thought Kerry should have used when Bush trotted out that old boogeyman of big bad “government-sponsored health programs.” “Listen Hippie, sobriety is like the British or Canadian Health care system, it’s far from perfect, and riddled with problems, but do you ever hear of anyone from England or Canada suggesting a return to the American style system? Likewise, have you ever heard one of your old friends who got sober saying they were so much happier as a junkie? And want to go back?”

I seemed to have gotten through to Hippie, because an hour later he came up to me and said “I hate you. You found a chink in my steel-trap logic.” ‘Yeah,’ I thought ‘One I could drive a truck through,’ but I didn’t say so, I just smiled and nodded.

Although I was happy to "get through" to Hippie, frankly I find it hard to believe I told him anything he did not know. As for him, I think with his last comment he was actually trying to prolong the gratification of a discussion that was not about the quality of the drugs being consumed or the location of the next Grateful Dead concert. It had, for him, the long dormant echo of a “normal” friendship.

But for me, who happily has maintained the capacity for satisfying inter-personal communication, even with a few speed bumps (pun intended) in the past few years, my satisfaction was derived from finding an apt political metaphor for a personal dilemma.

Maybe there’s hope for my post 11/16 blog yet.

MCO 2004