Hello, I'm Ted, and I'm an alcoholic.
Ted was so nervous at having been selected as the evening's speaker at his regular AA meeting that he'd gone out and had a drink.
Or two, he couldn't be sure.
He'd left the group he'd been with for months after showing up drunk like this repeatedly. Oh sure, there'd been heartfelt talks, interventions, angry confrontations, but nothing worked. And he could tolerate the pitied looks, the embarrassment for only so long.
This new group was even more tolerant.
They were all like that at first. Indulgent of an occasional slip off the wagon, ready to hoist him back on and ride with him through the next bump.
But they always caught on after a while.
Then, Ted had to find another group.
That didn't matter. What did is that Ted's employer was convinced that he was in recovery. All they required was that Ted bring them a slip of paper each week signed by his sponsor.
And no one at the office seemed to care or even notice that, about every two or three months, his sponsor's name changed.
Those drinks--did he really have three?--had really loosened him up. There was no way he was going to be able to deliver the talk tonight. Best to just go home and feign illness.
Luckily, it was still early, and there were few people to see him stumble from the church basement into the twilit parking lot.
Just as he got to his car, though, a beefy hand fell on his shoulder.
"Leaving, Teddy?" asked his sponsor, Sam, an insurance salesman and a big, solid wall of a man.
Ted turned unsteadily.
Sam was scowling at him, his eyes narrowed to slits.
"Ted," he hissed through his teeth, grabbing him by his damp, wrinkled lapels.
Ted's body went limp, his eyes focusing on the chunky Million Dollar Round Table ring Sam wore on his right pinkie. He imagined its diamond-faceted sparkles furrowing his cheek under the weight of Sam's fist.
Good thing I had four drinks--or was it five?
He closed his eyes.
But nothing came. No crunching blow, no explosion of light.
"What's the matter?" Ted asked, sprawled against the side of the car.
"You, you dumb bastard! You'd kill yourself if people let you. I don't know what to do with you anymore.
"Why won't you let me help?"
"I don't know," whispered Ted simply, honestly.
"Do you want to die, Ted? Is that what you want? Just say the word, and I'll let you," he yelled, shaking Ted's limp body against the car. "Because, it's killing me to watch you."
Sam threw Ted back against the car, its sheet metal buckling under his impact.
"I'm sorry, Sam," Ted said, feeling color rise to his numbed cheeks. "I didn't mean to have those drinks, I..."
"Aww, stuff it," the insurance salesman said, chopping a hand through the air. "I've heard all that shit a thousand times--said most of it myself. Don't think you're gonna come up with something new tonight.
"Why don't you help yourself get well?"
"I can't," came Ted's barely audible reply.
Sam let go a heavy sigh, as if he were going to do something that he already regretted.
Digging within his jacket, he pulled out a tattered business card, handed it to Ted.
Ted's blurry eyes had a hard time focusing on the card.
"What's this?"
"It's a dangerous place. But it might be the only thing left to help you. Go there tomorrow and ask the shopkeeper for the ... the last bottle you'll ever need," Sam whispered, looking at his feet.
"What?" Ted asked. "You want me to buy liquor?"
"Damn it, for once just do something that I ask!" shouted Sam, jerking his face into view. "You have no idea how hard this is ... to send you there.
"I'll go in and leave a note," Sam said, clearing his throat after a short silence. "Tell 'em you're sick. I'll call a cab to pick you up at that gas station down the street."
"Thanks, Sam," Ted stammered.
"I don't want your thanks. You've forced me into a helluva decision here tonight. Just remember that what you've got there is a last chance. A shortcut."
Sam turned and shuffled toward the building's entrance.
Ted stood shakily, smoothed his suit.
"Oh, and Ted?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't come back, at least not until you're better. And if you take my advice, you'll either be better ... or dead."
Sam drew the door open and disappeared into the yellow light of the church.
Ted watched his large shadow until it turned a corner.
The shop was in a nondescript part of town, the kind of area that progress had passed quickly and not looked back. Not necessarily seedy, just forgotten.
A neon sign, small and nearly inconspicuous, lay propped in the grey-streaked window of the shop whose address was on the tattered card he held.
"Liquor," it flashed, matching the single word and address on the card he held.
"Liquor," Ted thought as his brain seemed to pulse in harmony with the flashing sign.
The door opened easily--not surprising Ted that a liquor store would be open this early in the morning--and a little bell jingled above him as he stepped inside.
The store had a musty, ancient atmosphere; the smell of dust, old wood and stale beer. The sunlight, yellowed by its journey through the grimy window, fell into the store in a fat shaft of dancing dust. The floor's faded, speckled beige linoleum, worn through here and there, testified to the great number of feet that had stumbled and lurched across it over the years.
But that was all that was grey and drab. The rest of the store was a carnival of colors.
Every wall, every nook and cranny were stacked with bottles of alcohol. Endless shelves held bottles of any shape imaginable, from the elegantly tapered necks of imported red wines to the short, squat bottles of amber amaretto; from the crystalline row of vodkas to bottles that held thick, green and sea-blue liquids.
Ted found himself gaping.
He'd been in liquor stores before, but never anything like this.
This was the New York Central Library of liquor stores.
The haggard, jaundiced sunlight fell onto these bottles and was rejuvenated, sparkling and reflecting from them as if they were precious jewels.
A man came through a rickety, splintered door marked "Employees Only" carrying a heavy cardboard box printed in a language Ted didn't recognize.
He did, however, recognize the pink paper tax seals applied over the caps of the bottles, the sound the bottles made clinking amiably against one another.
And though his head still pounded and his gut ached, Ted felt a familiar fire smolder within his blood.
Ted could see the cold ashes of the same fire that had once burned brightly in this man, too. The shopkeeper was neatly dressed in a blue chambray work shirt and a pair of khakis. He was clean cut and of an indeterminate age.
"Morning," the shopkeeper grunted, setting the box down heavily with a disturbing clatter from its contents. He wiped a dusty hand on his pants and offered it to Ted.
Ted shook it. "Good morning."
"What can I do for you?"
Ted pulled the card from his pocket and handed it across to the man.
"Well, I'm not sure. You see ... well, I'm an ... I mean I was referred here by...."
"You're an alcoholic," the man said simply, and Ted snapped his head up.
The man's blue eyes bore into him, studied him.
"Well, ... uhh, yes ... and my sponsor told me to come here and see you," stammered Ted, feeling like a teenager on a beer run.
"Did he, now?" asked the shopkeeper, walking behind the cluttered counter and taking a seat.
)
An alcoholic who has reached the end of his rope is given a last chance. His frustrated sponsor refers him to a strange liquor store where he gets the last bottle he'll ever need. But, as the shopkeeper warns, sometimes it's best to take the long way. Shortcuts have an infuriating way of taking you quickly away from where you are, but often to another place you don't want to be. And often the cure has the potential to be worse than the disease.
