The Kid That Became A Guy Part X: Lemonade Out Of Lemons, The Kid Becomes A Guy

richq11 (72)in #story • 8 years ago

Well, there I was, 42 years old, dead broke, stuck in the Drunk Tank; or as I like to call it now...Rehab! The first week or 10 days, I forget which, they had me on the hospital side full of IV's pumping sedatives in me so I wouldn't shake apart. I don't remember much about that, I was pretty much out of it most of the time. After I got out they transferred me over to the rehabilitation side, a dormitory with around 150-200 stinking homeless drunks. Most of them stayed the mandatory 3 days and left. I needed to get something going for myself, so I stayed. Now you have to realize that LARC didn't attract the same caliber of clientele as Betty Ford or Sedona Villa. But my plan was still about the same. However, if I was going to get any help, it was going to have to come from the outside.

They told me that I was going to have to attend AA meetings. I didn't know anything about AA except that it was like some weird religion or something...like the Amish or something, a grim bunch of guys dressed in black. Who knows. I knew one thing, I needed a shower, so I asked an orderly if I could get my shampoo out of my bag. He said, no shampoo. It has alcohol and I might drink it. I thought he was shitting me, but that was the rule...NO drinking shampoo. Fuck! I had to take a shower in a nasty community shower that the drunk's pissed and shitted in. Believe me, I didn't feel too clean afterwards. That night, I went to my first AA meeting.

It was pretty much like I expected. A bunch of pretty grim guys- they weren't all dressed in black or anything, but pretty grim. The second night was the opposite. The group that came in were pretty cool, they even had some pretty hot chicks...maybe there was something to this after all. Now, I had no intention of quitting drinking, I just wanted to learn how to do it right. The orderlies told me I had to get a sponsor to complete the program, so I devised a plan. I would look at wristwatches, for a guy with an expensive watch. I didn't want Timex sobriety, I wanted Rolex sobriety. So I began to monitor watches. I got a few phone numbers of prospective sponsors.

About the third or fourth meeting I met a guy named Jim. He was from the Boston area and had a really nice watch. I got his number. One night I was sitting around with a couple of other guys shooting the shit and one of the orderlies came over. He asked me if I had a sponsor yet. I told him I had some numbers and he grabbed me and pulled me over to the phones. "Call one" he said. These orderlies are pretty big and they don't take a lot of shit...so I called Jim. Jim said the magic words, "Your life never has to be the way it was before." I don't know if you believe in God or not, but let me tell you- He touched me at that moment. I could feel the weight of the world taken off my shoulders...I could literally feel it. I laid in that stinking dormitory on my cot with the blanket pulled up over my head and cried...for the first time in my life. The kid had become a guy...I was born Jan 6 1988.

Jim was right. My life has never been the same. He got me a scholarship to a fancy three quarter way house. I found a job doing drywall repairs. The guy I worked for was an asshole who fired me after I fell off my stilts and broke my arm. I had met a chick named Dawn at a dance and we kinda hooked up. She was an architect and had her own company. I got another job selling advertising for a Vietnam vet newspaper. By May I was living with Dawn, pulling down about a grand a week. But none of that really made a difference anymore. Jim told me I had to start living like everybody else. I registered to vote. I got my first driver's license...I was 43! The guy at the motor vehicle dept couldn't believe it. I bought a car- legally. When I held the door open for people, they looked at me.

Things were pretty good. Dawn had a nice house in a good neighborhood. We had a pretty good life together. We went to Disneyland and did normal stuff. Then things started getting weird. I started noticing things I didn't like...like Dawn was crazy. Her whole family was nuts. Her maternal grandmother had committed suicide. So, on the anniversary of her suicide, Dawn's father and brother would attempt to kill themselves. She had two boys. Adam was 15 and a really good kid. He did well in school and was well adjusted. She was critical of him and rode him all the time. Nothing he did was ever good enough. The youngest, Jay, was 6 and this kid was fucked up! He still pissed and shit his pants. I told Dawn it was time to housebreak him...he was in school already. "He's not a dog," she would say, "he's had a rough life."

"How?" I would ask her. "This kid has had everything handed to him. He's never even been spanked. I've had a rough life- not him."

Things kept going on like this for a few months. She was a fucking liberal. Everytime she got pissed, she called me a killer because I was in Vietnam. The broad was really fucking nuts and really getting on my nerves. She told me her ex-husband had hit her. I was beginning to see why! It was getting time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

There was a girl at work, one of the secretaries. She called me up one day and asked me to lunch. I thought she was some teenager they had hired after school and in the Summer or something. She was 21 and just broke up with her husband. She had a couple of boys. We went to lunch and I asked her what she wanted with an old guy like me. She said: "I'm going to marry you." She and her friend Cheryl started showing up at the house trying to make trouble for Dawn and me, which y this time wasn't very difficult. So, I gave in and moved in with her.

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