Jacob Lawrence, The Party (1935)
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The Fourth Step
I feel the way the chessman must,
when the opponent says of it,
"This piece cannot be moved."
-- Kierkegaard, Either/Or
I.
- Sobs...
- Wine...
- Naked.
- Spills from the driver's seat in slow-motion...
- Blood.
- I did it, I did it, I did it...
- Slips in the shower...
- Birthday presents.
- Takes you by both hands...
- Delay isn't so much a disappointment as a form of persecution.
- "I'd sit on the rocks with a half-pint of Hot Damn, praying to God..."
- She came home to find her girlfriend unconscious on the couch...
- Flies.
- Always that one foot out the door...
- Bottles.
- You're ridiculous, man.
- Blood on bathroom tiles.
- After they were expelled from the sober house they lived in her car...
- How at home she looked, in the dock in her red jumpsuit...
II.
- How the mouse felt...
- Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.
- Parking lot...
- I don't like her sleeping on the floor...
- Smashes you in the face...
- Safety, you think to yourself...
- "I love you so much," she says...
- Later...
- Broken china...
- Stirring, on the couch.
- She pawned two rings and a bracelet...
- As she failed her field sobriety test...
- The hidden bottle.
- Mama...
- Raccoon eyes.
- Fear and stress...
- "They planned it..."
- Tension.
- Inability to protect those you love.
III.
- City of wine.
- "I will make you this deal."
- There is no data, there is only lore.
- Catch-22.
- Strength, compassion, humility...
- AA, founded decades before scientific study of the disease began...
- AA's foundational notion...
- "Thank you," she says...
- "I feel like Jello..."
- "I'm trying so hard. I'm trying so hard."
- Expressions on the faces of the healthy people on the street.
- Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.
- Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.
- Her daughter's recovery is the one thing she most fears.
- "My family and I have been inconvenienced over the years..."
- Omega dog.
- At the theater she's gone a long time...
- At the beginning I hired her to do some jobs for me.
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This writing is fiction. Please don't confuse it with reality.