Making Money

I do not have a head for business. I buy high and sell low, and the one time I ventured into a public offering, I bought into the worst IPO in the history of IPOs. I put $3000 into Vonage, the computer phone company--a sure thing, all advised me. My three grand is now worth $187. I took Econ 101 while at Georgetown University and even I can tell this is not a good return on my investment.

I have purchased land upon which I could not build, apartments that could not be rented without thousands of dollars of work, and vintage motorcycles that could not pass even the undemanding Virginia state inspection. The signed and limited Salvador Dali editions I own Dali were limited only by the fact that the printing presses broke down after putting out several million prints and papering the landscape with them. When I was better off, I splurged on what was once a very expensive Italian sport scar. It's gorgeous, red with a tan leather interior, boasts 12 cylinders and a top speed of almost 200 mph. It is perhaps the only model in the company's history that has gone down in value in the past 10 years.

Most recently, I closed out an account with a broker who, I came to realize, never had my best interest at heart. When I decided to transfer my funds to another brokerage house, there was a glitch and for three weeks I had no money. That all worked itself out and I got a large number of airline miles by paying my mortgages with my credit card, but then the airline that issued the credit card went out of business. Such is life among the financially inept.

I am awed by the young entrepreneurs who are billionaires by the time they're thirty--awed and somewhat afraid. I do not know where the gene that allows some to take chances--and win--comes from. I'm pretty sure my parents didn't have it. Family lore tells of a maternal great-grandfather who bankrupted his upper bourgeoisie family by buying his mistress a candy store. The young woman--in her 20s, I was told--was a dancer with the Follie Bergere and had about as much business acumen as I do. She ran the confectionery into the ground, then sold it and moved to the Cote d'Azure with a Portuguese playboy. Together, using the candy funds, they opened a charcuterie (the girl came from peasant stock) which did quite well until a shipment of tainted ham gave trichinosis to half the guests staying at the tony Negresco hotel in Nice. The erstwhile dancer and her paramour left town in the middle of the night, one step ahead of killers from the Corsican mafia. So obviously, they couldn't quite get the hang of it either.

Ah well, enough with the family tales.

Here's installment 79 of Wasted Miracles.

Catherine picked him up in front of his apartment building and her first words were, “I know what you’re thinking.”
Colin smiled. “That’s what Orin said yesterday.”
She shook her head, “No. Yesterday, that’s something else. What you’re thinking now, this morning, is whether Josie will remember your... encounter with her. And if she does, how are you going to handle it. That’s what you’re thinking right now. And you’re also wondering how I’m going to handle it, I know you are.” She took a breath, lit a cigarette, continued. “So let me give you some relief, ‘cause I’ve thought of this most of the night.” She swerved to avoid a dump truck, pumped the horn. “Asshole! Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll go in first, stay a few minutes to see how she’s feeling and I’ll tell her you’re here. Then I’m going to leave the two of you alone, get in the car, go to the nearest coffee bar and have a quintuple espresso which I’ll nurse for a half-an-hour or so. That should give you enough time to get through whatever it is you’ve got to get through.” She nodded her head, as if agreeing with herself.
“After that, I’ll come back to the hospital and pick you up and we’ll talk about the weather, about the program, about anything except you and Josie, ‘cause the truth is, I don’t want know. Really, I don’t. If Josie chooses to talk about it in the future, that’s something else, that’s her choice and I’ll listen and deal with it then. Today, I’m feeling grateful that she’s alive, and grateful to you for being the one that got her back. I still feel horrible, terrible, about Joe. That’s gonna take a while to get over, even if I didn’t know him well. But you and Josie, what you did years ago? I don’t want to hear about it. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough. And thank you. But you know--”
She cut him off. “But nothing. I meant it. I don’t want to know. Nice day, isn’t it?”
***
Someone had washed and cut her hair, that was the first thing Colin noticed. It had been sheared at shoulder level and hung straight like a sheet on a drying line.
She was seated on her single bed in the small ARC room she shared with another woman patient. The walls were totally bare and Colin knew there were no locks on the door and that the windows were sealed. There’d been a couple of suicides at the ARC, people who knew their stay there was pointless and decided to take the hard way out. And in the beginning, when the ARC opened it doors, three patients had died of alcohol withdrawal.So now it was policy for a nurse to check on the patients hourly and make sure they didn’t hoard or refuse their medications, or ingest drugs smuggled in by friends and family.
The floor was highly polished linoleum--the patients swept it everyday and a service waxed it once a week--and above each bed was a reading lamp bolted to the wall. She had on new jeans and a tee shirt that read ‘Powerless Over People, Places & Things.’ Colin smiled when he saw it. She smiled back.
“A friend gave it to me when I got my first one-month chip, but I’ve never worn it.”
He nodded, sat on the opposite bed. “How are you feeling?”
She made a face. “Horrible. Shitty. Massive cravings. I kinda hurt all over and I have a headache. Half the time I want to puke, the other half I get the shakes. And since they have me on lithium, my head’s all spacey, my legs feel wobbly. I almost fell down the stairs on the way to breakfast. So, all in all, about normal for what I’m going through...”
Colin searched her face, tried to see recognition in her eyes, was both relieved and saddened to see none. He said, “Yeah. I remember all that. I was here too, seven years ago.”
“With my mother.” It wasn’t a question.
He looked at the girl, nodded.
Josie laughed, a bright sound, clapped her hands together like child. “I knew it! You’re the mystery man! You’re the one!”
She gave him a long, frank stare. “I’ve always wondered who it was. I knew it had to be someone in the program. Had to be, that’s the only people Mom sees anymore. I used to sit in meeting and look at the men and wonder, ‘OK, which one of you is it?’ Now I know.” She laughed again. “This is cool!”
Colin didn’t say anything, let the moment wash over him.
Josie stood, came to sit next to him. “And you pulled me out of that place, so I guess the entire female side of the family owes you. Mom asked you to do it, didn’t she?”
“She asked me to help, nothing more. It really wasn’t that much.”
She stood again, bent down, planted a feather kiss on his lips. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
***

A Humble Notion Based on a Really, Really Bad Idea

OOh! Here's a cool notion! Need a few bucks for a night on the town? A brief vacation or new X-Box console? Take your car to one of those places where nice folks give loans on your car title. Within weeks, after the money is spent and the loan still owing, said nice folks will send a tow truck to your home, pick up your car and eventually sell it, most likely out of state to a used car dealer. Now you'll have no money and no car, thereby making you largely unemployable and a good prospect for the welfare system. Of course, you'll still have the X-Box 360...

I have a better idea, based on Jonathan Swift's famous Modest Proposal of 1729. Swift, you'll remember, suggested the Irish eat their children during the famine, or sell them as foodstuff to wealthy families. Relax. I am endorsing neither cannibalism nor infanticide. I merely suggest you get a loan on your children.

Here's how it would work. Bucks for Babies and Kids for Kash, sister organizations chartered in all 50 states and Canada, open franchises in urban neighborhoods and launch a saturation television ad campaign promising quick cash for children. A potential loanee, armed with the child's birth certificate, is advanced a sum of cash based on the child's age, gender, educational level and health. In the interest of equal opportunity, neither race nor religion will be a factor, though Asian children--compliant and quick to learn--will unofficially fetch a premium. Female Jewish children will not.

Infants and toddlers whose parents renege on their loans will be put up for adoption, thereby satisfying the demand by African media stars for babies from developed nation. Children aged five to eight will be sent to India, where they will be taught to weave rugs while suspended from the ceiling of their workplace. Children above eight will be taught field hand skills by migrant farmers or hired by New York sweatshops to assemble fashion label shirts, jeans and blouses.

The long-term advantages of such programs are many. We will make friends with rich Africans (think oil); enhance the textile industry in the Third World; and get cheaper name labels, thereby freeing us from shopping at TJ Max. We will solve the education/school crisis by making classes smaller, enabling teacher to do what they were originally hired to do--teach--instead of being glorified babysitters. With any amount of luck, Disney Films will realize that its customer base has shrunk and will decide not to produce High School Musical 18. With fewer teen age drivers, the roads will be safer ands our insurance premiums will go down. The trickle effect of this will be the purchase of more American-made automobiles and GM will re-introduce the Hummer. All Chuck E. Cheese restaurants will close.

The last is reason enough to implement this plan.

Here's installment 78 of Wasted Miracles.

Colin lowered the dumbbells slowly, counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four. It was night and he hadn’t had a drink though he desperately wanted one. Earlier he had eaten a bad meal at a fast food place, come home and drawn the drapes, then methodically attacked the weights, starting with the biggest ones and working his way down. The veins of his arms and chest stood out like bootlaces and he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
He had skipped the meeting he and Orin were supposed to attend together and he could imagine his sponsor’s anger, but right now that didn’t seem to matter much. He closed his eyes, rubbed his face hard, felt stubbles scratch his palms. Outside the traffic had died down to the whisper of a car now and again. He glanced at the clock in the kitchen, saw it was well past ten, which meant the only meetings available would be downtown. A perfect excuse not to go.
He had spent the better part of the evening trying not to think of Josie and Catherine. A futile exercise. He remembered someone once saying that trying to not face up to a lie was more demanding than coming clean, and he knew it was true. He thought of seven years trying to work the steps, one night not, and how the one night had won. Incredible.
When the phone rang he looked at it for a long time before answering. The voice on the other end wasn’t familiar. “Colin Marsh? My name’s Ed Kuminsky. I’m a friend of Joe. You know, the cop?”
Colin muttered, “Yes?” Held his breath.
“I’m a friend of Bill W. Like Joe. The reason I’m calling is, Joe and me were supposed to get together and he never showed. I tried his apartment, tried the station. No one’s seen him.” The man had a high reedy voice, almost breathless. “I thought maybe--he told me you were his sponsor, that’s how I have your number, in case of emergencies I’m supposed to call you--maybe you’d seen him?”
Colin held his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, thought furiously. “Not since yesterday.” That wasn’t a lie.
The man said, “Ah. Well. It’s just, it’s unusual, you know? We always drive to the Thursday meeting together, a step meeting at Fairfax Hospital, and afterwards we have dinner. He picks me up, usually, and this time he didn’t so I waited around because sometimes he’s late, being a cop and all, but now it’s almost a quarter of eleven and I’ve been waiting since eight...” He let the sentence hang.
Colin closed his eyes. He knew the caller indirectly. Joe the Cop had spoken of him. Dumb as a post, in Joe’s own words, but strong sobriety. Someone to hang around with and talk about the Redskins. “No. I haven’t heard from him today.” He added, “But if I see him I’ll give him the message.” And felt self-loathing wash over him.
“He said you and him were doing something together yesterday, so I thought maybe--”
“Sorry, Ed, I can’t help you. Haven’t seen him. But I’ll tell him you called.” Colin hung up, his hands shaking.
That night he slept without dreams, without rest.
In the morning, the news channel reported a new development on the fire and related deaths in Anacostia. One body, that of a white male apparently shot in the head several times, had been identified as that of a Falls Church policeman. The name of the officer was yet to be released.
The commentators, an overweight white man and a young black woman who looked like a pop singer, made much of the report and ventured unsupported opinions, guesses and rumors of police officers on the take. Colin watched until the coverage segued to a feature on a successful graffiti-eradication program in Southeast Washington.
He dressed slowly, put on and took off a tie, brewed a pot of coffee and drank three cups in quick succession.
***

Gateways

Want to know how most kids get into drugs? No, it's not the dark character lurking around your playground, nor is it the stupefying collection of pills in your medicine cabinet. And though it's probable that your kids stole a beer or two from the fridge when you weren't looking, the real culprit is nicotine, as in tobacco, as in cigarettes, as in snuff.

Nicotine is an amazing drug, a depressant and a stimulant operating at the same time, with a half-life of roughly two hours. (The half-life of a drug--any drug, legal or not--is the time it takes for a substance to lose half of its pharmacological or physiologic presence in the bloodstream.) For a smoker, this means that he or she will begin to "detox" within minutes from the nicotine just absorbed by smoking and will very soon want another cigarette. This is what eventually leads to a two-pack-a-day habit. By comparison, the THC found in marijuana, has a half-life of is 4.3 days on average.

Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs known to man, and some former smokers and heroin addicts will tell you it was harder to ditch tobacco than to stop heroin. And of course, though tolerance for smoking is eroding, cigarettes are tacitly endorsed by society. Additionally, cigarettes are readily available, and the punishment for purchasing them if you are underage is non-existent. This in itself is an interesting psychological phenomenon: a kid illegally purchasing and smoking cigarettes will not get reprimanded. Instead, he'll get the message that his actions were benign, tolerated and perhaps even vaguely amusing. This will reinforce the immature belief that the purchase and use of other drugs--marijuana and cocaine, for example, will not be punished either.

Since the Civil War, tobacco products have been subject to federal, state and occasionally local sin taxes, and such taxes have proven themselves over the years as being excellent deterrents to purchasing cigarettes. When your habit begins to cost several dollars a day, you start thinking about all the nice things you could buy with the money spent to poison your lungs. The sin tax applied by the feds on each pack of cigarettes has just risen from 39 cents to $1.01 and authorities hope this will save an estimated 900,000 lives and stop 2 million kids from lighting up. States taxes vary--$2.025 a pack in Washington states and 17 cents in Missouri. Care to guess which state has the most smokers?

We will not make cigarettes illegal, but we can limit their use by taxation. The same is true of alcohol. What if all drugs were legalized and taxed? Think of the windfall...

Here's installment 77 of Wasted Miracles.

He thought she looked haggard, her eyes were old and her lips made one thin line. She was wearing jeans and a short leather jacket and her hair was disarrayed. Marsha smiled, said, “You two have got a lot to talk about,” and left the room.
Catherine lit a cigarette, sank into a large armchair that Colin knew was Orin’s favorite piece of indoor furniture. “Thank you.”
Colin shook his head. “Not necessary.”
There was a long moment empty of words during which they avoided each others’ gaze
“I’m sorry about Joe. I can’t tell you how much.” She drew deeply on the cigarette, exhaled. “I wish I’d known him better.”
Colin saw she was near tears, couldn’t move.
“And I know about... you. Marsha told me. I guess I can understand it, but I’m not sure. I can’t tell what was in your mind.” She exhaled again. “But I wish you’d called me.”
“I didn’t really think that was a wise idea, and you had other things to worry about. Anyway, I wanted to be by myself. I figured if I was going to relapse, I’d be my own best company.”
She nodded. “Yeah. That, I can understand. I don’t imagine I’d want to take a drink with AA friends around.”
The conversation wavered, stopped. Finally, Colin asked, “Josie?”
Catherine sighed. “Hooked. Angry. Cries a lot. Wants a fix. Doesn’t want a fix. Can’t figure out why it happened to her. Right now she’s really pissed off at God, but that’ll pass. She’ll be OK. Marsha and I put her in the ARC yesterday. Funny, isn’t it, how things turn out? She’s where you and I were when we rehabed. Orin knows some people there, he pulled strings. She looking at 28 days at a minimum, maybe more.” Catherine looked up, met Colin’s eyes.
“She’s not too clear on what happened. Doesn’t remember most of it, though she says she’s been having nightmares about gunshots, like people are shooting at her. I told her you’d gotten her out but she doesn’t know who you are. I didn’t tell her about Joe. I figured that was news she could live without.” She paused, canted her head. “She wants to see you, to thank you, I guess.”
“How’s Lars handling it?”
She smiled without humor. “It’s be hard to tell he’s her father. He’s relieved, of course, but not for the right reasons. Mostly he wanted to know if the police had been involved; I told him no, that it was all your doing. That made him happy. Or relatively happy... It was the best of two bad choices, you or the police. He doesn’t like you much, you know that, but now he’s indebted. He doesn’t like that much either.”
She found an ashtray, ground the cigarette out. “Jesus, he’s such a freak of nature. I don’t think there’s ever been a man born with less parental feelings. He’s kind of hinted that when Josie gets out of the ARC, he wants her out of the house too.” She fumbled in her purse for another cigarette, for a lighter. “I’m seriously thinking of filing for divorce, Colin. I can’t take him anymore, and me and Josie would better off living by ourselves. I could take care of her more than I have been.”
Colin suddenly felt the conversation was taking a dangerous curve, getting away from him. He pictured Catherine, Josie and himself in a small apartment, saw himself fleetingly as if in a mirror. “You don’t have a job, Catherine. Making ends meet, it’s tough.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care. That house, it’s a mausoleum. I never liked it, ever. I’d get money out of him, I know I could. And I’m not that dumb, you know. I can work. Do something at the mall; real estate. I could take courses and get trained. Pretty much anything would be better than staying there with him. This last thing with Josie... You know, he hasn’t even gone to see her yet.”
Colin remembered that when he and Catherine had first found each other, when they’d lain naked and embarrassed on his futon, he’d wondered if there might be anything long-lasting, perhaps even permanent. The notion had scared him. He said, “I’ll do anything I can to help.”
She nodded but a frown remained on her face. “So. Visiting hours at the ARC are over for today. I’ll pick you up at your place tomorrow. Ten in the morning. You be sober, hear me? One person in my life falling out is all I can handle at a time.”
***

So Legalize It, Already

Illegal drugs are paralyzing the US and Mexico. The former is already swamped with users, dealers, traffickers, addicts and their families whose demands on society cost billions annually. The latter, Mexico, is fast becoming a narconation that has lost the power to govern itself.

In the US, the social services, hospitals, jails and prisons, federal, state and local police authorities are overwhelmed by the direct and ripple effects caused by the flood of illegal substances--heroin, cocaine, marijuana, crack, meth. In Mexico, the drug cartels' war for supremacy have forced the country to mobilize its military in a futile effort to stem the tide of violence and resulted in thousands of murder. The illegal arms trade in both countries is a booming, multi-million dollar business that encourages home break-ins and the the looting of armories and gun stores.

Interdiction does not work. It's believed that for every pound of substance seized by the law, another nine pounds is brought in. Prison sentences for those caught and prosecuted do nothing but fill the prisons to overflowing, turning out thousands of hardened criminals. The fact is, no matter what is done in either country, the flow of drugs across the border will continue. Like water, it will seek its own way and find its own level.

The reason for this is simple. There will always be a demand, because drug addicts will stop at nothing to get their supply. Addiction is an unrelenting force. Ask anyone involved with an addict and the tales will amaze a listener. Husbands and fathers sell their wives and daughters for crack. Women sell themselves for heroine or cocaine. A boozer will drink away the rent and sink to using Listerine or vanilla extracts. If his esophagus and stomach have already been destroyed by alcohol, he will ingest alcohol through enemas. No amount of fear, education, 12-step programs, jail or rehabilitation will ever persuade a drug user to stop unless that individual is ready to do so. This is why addicts are willing to gamble their lives away by using dirty needles or buying poisoned drugs. It's why the fabled war on drugs has been a failure of epic proportions that has left a landscape littered with corpses and misery. This is why we have reached a crisis point, and why the only feasible solution at present is to legalize drugs.

Legalization will not solve all the problems, but it will diminish many of them and free up billions of dollars that can be used to develop a workable distribution and tax system. It will radically lower the number of inmates serving time for non-violent drug-related crimes. It will end the cycle of violence intimately associated with the trade. It will lower the incidence of AIDS, diminish prostitution in large and small cities, and put out of business the hordes of criminals who deal in human misery.

Is it an ideal solution? No, of course not. We don't live in an ideal world. But less than a century ago, Prohibition was launched to rid the country of alcohol. It failed miserably and created a greater demand than had existed before, and that's food for thought. You cannot deny what is wanted, and that includes drugs. But you can legislate and control its use.

We've lost the war; lets work out a peace that will benefit the people and not the criminals.

Here's installment 76 of Wasted Miracles.

Chapter 20

Later that day, Orin said, “Well, Colin, you make a great alcoholic but a piss-poor human.”
Marsha was pouring tea. She looked up. “Hush, Orin. He feels bad enough. You don’t have to make it worse.”
Orin threw her a menacing look. “You stay out of this, Marsha, it’s between me and him. Just ‘cause you married an alcoholic doesn’t mean you know everything about ‘em. Colin’s smart enough to know that even on your best day, you don’t fry bacon naked.” Orin lit his pipe, spit a piece of tobacco out. Marsha’s eyebrows knit. She opened her mouth, thought better of it, shook her head, walked out of the kitchen.
“Now she’s mad at me too.” Orin puffed furiously, his tomato-red face enveloped in a blue cloud of smoke. Colin sat on a chair and stared out the kitchen window. It was raining, mist covered the tree tops in Orin’s back yard. The last two days’ events seemed very far away but by concentrating he could still feel the tingle of the nightstick in his hand.
“You listening to me, Colin? Or am I just flappin’ my gums.”
Colin turned to face his sponsor. “Sorry, Orin.”
Orin rocked back and forth in his wheelchair. “I used to boast to the other old farts about you. I’d tell ‘em that after sponsoring god knows how many losers, people that went out after a week, or a month or a year, I’d finally been asked by somebody who looked like he had his shit together. And you did, in your own fashion. So maybe that’s why I’m taking all this kinda personally. I shouldn’t, I know that.” He paused, spat out more tobacco. “Now I’m gonna have to tell these guys you went out, and they’ll all give me a bunch of program crap tryin’ to make me feel better, and I just hate that, people tryin’ to make me feel better...” His voice drifted off.
Colin watched a crow being chased by a blue jay. The smaller bird harassed the bigger one’s tail feathers. The jay’s wings beat furiously as it dove and swooped but the crow seemed unconcerned, unwilling to evade the attack. It struck Colin that there was an analogy to be drawn somewhere in there but he didn’t pursue it. What he wanted was a drink.
He wasn’t surprised by the urge, by the fact that it had resurfaced full blown after seven years of abstinence. He had expected that. What did amaze him was his own reactions. Even as he sat in Orin’s house, as Orin’s voice droned rising and falling in the background, Colin felt a liberating sense of normalcy come with the unwanted desire, a sentiment of things being as they should be. He had expected a war of emotions, but there was nothing more demanding than a minute unease he could attribute to an overdose of sugar and spirits. The dull headache, the heaviness he felt in his shoulders and legs, the vague sourness that flashed in his gut, all were old friends.
Orin said, “I know what you’re thinking.”
Colin nodded. “I’m sure you do.”
Orin closed his eyes. “I was in and out for years before I got tired of it. For you, though, it’s new. You’ve never had a relapse. There’s a big part of your mind that’s saying that you can do this until all this crap is laid to rest, and then you’ll be able to stop. And there’s a little part--the sane part--that’s saying it’s bullshit. That little part, deep down, it knows how good you are at foolin’ yourself.” He touched a match to his pipe. “Truth is, a man like you, in great health, exercises all the time, you’ll be able to last awhile. You’ll be able to pace yourself better than some other asshole whose idea of exercise is pumping the old lady once a month. You’ve got a lot of willpower and it’ll kick in, and that’ll be self-defeating too ‘cause you’ll think maybe you don’t have a problem, maybe you never had a problem. But that little voice is gonna stay there, Colin, you’ll never quite kill it off.” He paused, turned his chair around, added, “But shit, Colin, you’re welcome to try, you know. I ain’t gonna stop you, wouldn’t even if I could. Ain’t my job.”
Colin found his jacket, draped it across his shoulders. He looked out the window again and saw Orin wheeling his chair on the ramp that led to the backyard. The quarter-acre lot was criss-crossed with concrete walks so Orin could get around and check on his tomatoes, his fishpond, his three apple trees that never seemed to bear fruit larger than cherries. Bolted to the back of his sponsor’s chair was a bright yellow golf umbrella.
The clock on the kitchen wall said it was just past noon. From the living room the television set put out bouncy, muted music, Colin guessed it might be a game show. He wanted to leave the house quickly, quietly, but the front door was across the living room and Marsha was there, while the kitchen door led directly to the backyard and to Orin. He had selected the kitchen as the safer exit when Marsha called, “Colin? Catherine’s here.”
***

Appearance & Attitude

A few decades ago, I was convinced being a writer was largely a matter of appearance and attitude. Tweed jackets, briar pipes, alcohol, a vaguely supercilious manner that, it was obvious, barely dissimulated my great pain and anguish. I worked on an aged Royal manual typewriter bought at a pawnshop, was convinced of my genius and talent, and, best of all, owned a complete set of Harvard Classics. Back then (I've since sold them) the books, trimmed with gold leaf and bound in leather, were my proudest possessions.

The Harvard Classics, 51 volumes in all, were known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf. Eliot was the President of Harvard University when the collection was first published in 1909, and he believed a well-bred gentleman could achieve a respectable education by reading this compendium of every major literary figure, philosophy, religion, folklore, and historical subject through the twentieth century. A few years later, Eliot created a separate 20-volume selection entitled the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. I owned that as well.

What's interesting about Eliot's 51-volumes of disparate selections is that many of them, exactly a century later, have sunken into whatever Stygian obscurity ill-fated writing goes to when it dies. Who nowadays has read Volume 18, Modern English Drama, featuring Sheridan's School for Scandal, and All For Love by Dryden? Personally, I never got through Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists by George Berkeley. Nor did I read the second volume of Elizabethan Drama, which includes The Shoemaker's Holiday (Thomas Dekker), Philaster (Beaumont and Fletcher), The Alchemist (Ben Jonson), or A New Way to Pay Old Debts (Philip Massinger).

In all fairness, there were of course important works in both collections, books every one should read, or at least skim--Aristotle to Dickens, Maupassant to Herodotus. Thousands of non-Harvard students read the Classics in their entirety and were the better for it. In time, Eliot's idea spawned other collections. After the Classics came Great Books of the Western World in 1952, and since then a host of other tomes have promised instant erudition for the common man.

I remember trying my luck with the 20 volumes of fiction, where I found--among other works--such deathless titles as Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera, A Happy Boy by Bjornstjerne Bjornson and Skipper Worse by Alexander Kielland.

I mention all this because it's my belief that the majority of writing, like any other endeavor, is merely the product of its time. Some may survive, most does not.

Last September, a young man by the name of David Foster Wallace committed suicide at his home in California. Wallace, 46 at the time of his death, was the Great White Hope of modern American Lit. His work found its way into the New Yorker, Harpers, Atlantic and a host of other publications. Reporting on his death, the New York Times said, "the world of contemporary American fiction [has] lost its most intellectually ambitious writer."

When it first came out in 1996, I remember picking up what would become his best known work, Infinite Jest, with both hands--literally. It is a very heavy volume, 1,079 pages, footnote-filled, complex and, to me, eminently unreadable. Proust by way of Joyce with here and there some Kerouac and ee cummings; a touch of Howl and a whiff of Hunter Thompson.

Recently, The New Yorker published a vastly over-long article on Wallace's career, followed by one of his short stories, Wiggle Room. The piece opens with a 400-line-long paragraph. For the second time, I gave up trying to read Wallace's prose.

So I wondered, who decided this guy was great? I canvased my friends. Some had heard of Wallace, most had not. One had gotten to page 27 of Infinite Jest and dropped the book back into the library bin. Not one person I spoke with had actually read the work in its entirety.

So it stands to reason that one of two things is true, and both possibilities are frightening: either the New York publishing world is putting one over on us, or all my friends are dolts.

Here's installment 75 of Wasted Miracles.

Orin looked away. “Keep it. Maybe next time, it’ll remind you not to do something completely stupid.”
He turned, faced Colin again. “You know, they don’t make a book for sponsors, an instruction manual. I guess a sponsor is expected to wing it. Do the Big Book, and the Promises and all that other AA stuff, I guess that’s supposed to help keep you out of trouble. But the truth is, Colin, some people see a turd in the middle of the road and they’ll dodge traffic just so they can step in it. Which is what you do. You haven’t realized yet that it’s a selfish program. You’re supposed to help others, but you’re supposed to help yourself first. ‘Cause if you don’t do that, you’re gonna have a hell of a time being anyone’s white knight.” He looked sad, the first time Colin had seen such an expression on his face.
Orin’s voice turned uncharacteristically kind. “Well, shit. Come on, Colin. Get yourself cleaned up. Take a shower. Shave. Put on some fresh clothing. My night’s shot all to hell anyway and if I go home now, I’m sure not gonna get any sleep. We’ll go have a breakfast. There’s an early bird meeting at the Serenity Club and you’re goin’ there, tell everyone what you did last night. That should be kind of amusing.”
As an afterthought, he turned to Mamadou. “Thank you for helping out, Mr. Dioh.”
Mamadou bowed slightly at the waist, looked at Colin. “I’m sorry about your friend, more so than I can tell you. But he was a policeman, and he died getting rid of bad people, which is something policemen learn to live with.” He paused, squeezed Colin’s shoulder. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

Thorazine Nation

So where's the outrage? Where are the people marching in the streets, thoroughly pissed off and refusing to take it anymore? When did we become such a paralyzed nation that the President of the country cannot stop a company--now on the dole and receiving billions from the federal trough to keep it afloat--that has bankrupted tens of thousands from giving retaining bonuses to keep in its employ the very people who drove the company to its knees? When did the inmates take over the asylum?

My friend Paul says we no longer know what to do. The system has become so depersonalized that we cannot find a culprit. Also, we're too lazy... Most of us will take to the couch and not to the streets, unless there's a Starbucks nearby. There's truth to this. Personally, I no longer have an notion of how to influence the powers that be. Voting has little or no effect, and in any event, it's too slow--events are moving faster than we are.

My friend Christine--who knows how to thump bread to see if its cooked and told me about baby carrots (more later)--thinks it important that the company in question keep a base of employees who know what's going on so as to make things right. This morning's Washington Post agrees with her, as does the company's CEO in an oped piece. I'm just not sure. And, I suppose, since I'm hardly in the position of influencing such events, all I can do is sit back and watch the show. But I do miss the times a few decades back when outrage ran high enough to move people from their TVs and into the streets.

All right, now for the important news. Did you know baby carrots are not baby carrots at all but adult vegetables that have been lathed down to baby size? The agro-industry put one over on us! Now that's upsetting!

Here's installment 74 of Wasted Miracles.

Colin sat up. His stomach heaved and he made a concerted effort not to show it.
“I don’t think you got anything else to puke. It’s all in my van.”
Colin shut out the light with both hands across his eyes. “Sorry, Orin.” His voice sounded very small.
“Yep, so am I.” Orin’s tone was conversational but hid a deep threat. “It’s gonna take weeks for that van to smell normal.”
Orin leaned closer and Colin could smell a trace a salami, sour milk, cheap pipe tobacco. He held his breath. Orin took a turn around the living room, paused, lit his pipe. “Aren’t you the least bit interested in knowing how you got home? I would be.”
Colin’s face was even with Orin’s lap. He didn’t look up.
“Generally,” Orin continued, “I’ve found that it’s a good idea, if you decide to get plowed at a bar, to have some money. You had four dollars and change, mostly pennies. Your tab came to $67.55, without tip. You told the bartender to call me. Do you remember any of this, Colin? No? Well you told him to call me and even gave him my phone number. You know it by heart, I guess, and I should be touched but I’m not.” Orin drew on his pipe, relit it.
“So he called me, the bartender did. Marsha’s staying with your friend Josie’s mother for the night. It wasn’t sage to leave that girl alone yet, so they took her to the ARC earlier today. The upshot of it is, I had to drive here and you know how much I love driving, don’t you. It’s a lot of fun when you don’t have legs.” Orin paused for emphasis, shook his head in disgust.
“So I drove, double-parked, almost got a ticket. Went into the bar, paid your tab--you owe me a hundred bucks. You were in the john. Nice sight, man really looks his best when he’s passed out in a toilet stall with his dick hanging in the bowl. The bartender got you into the van. Then you puked, but hey, no problem! I just drove with the windows open.”
Colin said, “Jesus, Orin. I’m so sorry...”
“Just shut the fuck up, OK? So when I got here, there was this little problem, getting you out of the van. I tried to call Joe but there’s no answer. Came up here, used the key you gave me, called your other friend, Mr. Dioh. His number was on your kitchen counter. Mr. Dioh was kind enough to meet me. He carried your sorry ass from the van. That was nice of him, don’t you think?”
Mamadou came into view. Colin avoided his eyes, said, “Joe?”
Mamadou shook his head.
Colin looked at Orin. “Joe’s dead.”
It took a few seconds for Orin to understand. He said, “What? What?” Then he said, “That’s why you got drunk?” When Colin shrugged, Orin looked momentarily bewildered. “I thought you knew better. Really. I did.”
“It’s my fault.”
“You killed him?”
Colin looked at Mamadou for help. The black man turned away.
“Did you?” Orin was insistent.
“No. But it’s my fault anyway. I dragged him into it, I shouldn’t have. He didn’t know what he was getting into. I didn’t either.”
Mamadou broke in. “Colin is mistaken.”
Mamadou’s description of the night before was brief and to the point. As he went on, Orin’s body seemed to deflate, got smaller in the chair. He listened silently, blowing out clouds of smoke. At the end he threw Colin a disbelieving look, wheeled his chair to the balcony window, gazed outside. “You’ll never cease to amaze me, Colin. I guess that’s why I’ve been your sponsor all these years. It’s been... interesting.”
He drew a deep breath, shoved the still lit pipe into the pocket on the arm of the wheelchair. Smoke seeped out but Orin paid no attention. “So there’re four dead. Three nasties and one good guy. No police, right Mr. Dioh.”
“We were gone before they got there.”
“And it’s a shit neighborhood, cops aren’t gonna pay a lot of attention to a bunch of dealers offing each other. You kinda counted on that, didn’t you?”
Mamadou nodded. “I did.”
Orin looked at them both, then focused on Colin. “Marsha says the girl’s gonna be all right. Physically, anyway. Gonna need a serious detoxing, supervised. Whoever had her pumped some new form of nastiness into her. They’re doing tests. She seems to know what’s going on, at least some of it. Her mother’s a mess, though. Her father came by too. Jesus, what a shithead. Came in, looked at her, shook his head, left. Didn’t say a word.”
Orin reflected on that a bit, wheeled his chair back a couple of feet so it faced Mamadou.
“So you guys committed the perfect crime, it looks like. Congratulations.”
Colin rubbed his eyes with a thumb and index. “Except for Joe.”
Orin nodded. “Right. Except for Joe.”
“I’ve got his stuff. His badge, his ID. He left it here.”

18 Years & Counting--Part I

Huzzah for me! Yesterday, March 10th, was my 18th sober anniversary. On this date in 1991, I walked into a 28-day rehab in Northern Virginia. I had my last drink--a hefty slug of warm Popov vodka--in the parking lot, stashed the half-empty bottle into a nearby trashcan and, drunk and apprehensive, swung open the metal double-doors and changed my life. It was 7:45 in the morning.

I detoxed for three days. Detoxing from alcohol is dangerous; it can kill you outright, so generally it is done under observation. I remember none of it, save for a patchy image of falling down the stairs and being caught by a very large Black man who looked like Mike Tyson. I don't remember his name but he probably saved my life.

Seventy-two hours later, the in-house doctor looked me over and told me my liver was hardened, a bad sign, he said, but livers do recover if given time. I could not write. When I tried to, I was overtaken by a sense of dread so deep my hands and fingers refused to work. I had a patchwork of veins--gin blossoms, they're called in the vernacular--on my cheeks and beginning to invade my nose. I had lost the ability to smell anything save the most noxious odors; I shook; my eyes swam.

They kept me thirty days in all, and when I came out I really did not want to drink, except now and then. So I mowed my lawn in early April when the ground was still frozen, and then I asked my neighbor if I could mow her lawn, and she let me do so with a strange look on her face.

I went to meetings daily, and followed an aftercare program to steel me against relapse. I received a one-month chip, the medals given to people in recovery for time spent sober.

I was back at work, a strange place to be when sober. For the last year or so, I had needed a drink in the morning before work, followed by two Xanaxes to keep me on an even keel. Now I chugged coffee and diet Coke.

When at lunch with colleagues, I proudly refrained from drinking, but if anyone noticed, they didn't comment. I was aware before that most people I lunched with could drink a half-glass of wine and leave the other half. I would drink five glasses, draining each and every one.

My then-wife did not like that I vanished at night to go to meetings. She resented my attempts at taking control back. One time, she told me she liked me better when I was a drunk. Within a year we separated.

I began writing again. It wasn't very good or interesting.

Here's installment 73 of Wasted Miracles.

Chapter 19

The assistant sous-saucier had been harboring a low-level fever for three days. It wasn’t enough to go on sick call--not that he ever would, the saucier was a slave driver--but it clouded his judgment. He had added too much white pepper to the blanquette de veau au persil, failed to sample the remoulade de canard and been unable to detect an overabundance of ginger in the coquilles St. Jacques à la Vietnamienne. These subtle failures had annoyed his immediate supervisor, but not to the point of reporting the oversights to the chef administratif.
Jean-Marie Berger, the sous-saucier, felt his stomach rumble ominously. He swallowed once, twice, closed his eyes, breathed deeply through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. That calmed him somewhat. He went about his business efficiently, checking on the work of the three sub-assistants for whom he was responsible, saw nothing amiss. He ducked out for two quick puffs of his cigarette, blew the smoke out through the overhead vent. The no-smoking rule was rigidly enforced in the galley; the chef administratif was a born-again teetotaler and reformed pack-a-day smoker with little patience or compassion for the unfortunate many who could not control their addictions.
Jean-Marie focused away from his stomach and concentrated instead on how he would feel two hours’ hence when his shift was over and he would be able to have a quiet smoke in the designated area before going to bed. He thought about his girlfriend in Brest, whom he would be seeing in two weeks, and how she would like the trinkets he had bought her at the ship’s gift store.
He glanced at his watch. Time to make the sauce marienere à l’ail des îles. He rubbed his hands together. Creating sauces always seemed to make him feel better. He went to his locker, removed the packet of spices he had purchased three days earlier at a small fishermen’s restaurant far from the tourist trade. The cook there had served a dish that had been spectacularly piquant, and Jean Marie Berger, ever on the lookout for undiscovered ingredients, had managed to secure a small amount of the mixed herbs that had made the cook’s food so distinctive. He shook a teaspoon of the melange from the plastic bag to the palm of his hand, smelled it, smiled. The diners would be pleased, the spices truly reflected a tropical personality.
In a large metal bowl he spooned the ingredients of the sauce mariniere without measuring, doing it by heart and feel. He added virgin olive oil, a cup of tarragon vinegar, sherry, garlic paste. His stomach rumbled again and he held his breath, willing it into submission. He dumped the island spices in, mixed slowly and evenly with a large wooden spoon. He wondered if he had picked up some sort of intestinal flue. He’d been feeling poorly for 72 hours, it had started on his return from the fishermen’s restaurant, undoubtedly would go away once it had run its course.
When the sauce’s consistency was to his satisfaction, he called one of his assistants, handed the man the bowl and told him to brush the mixture lightly onto the chicken breasts prior to broiling them. The man nodded and walked away.
A wave of sickening heat rose from the pit of Jean Marie Berger’s stomach, rushed past his chest, up his neck, lodged in his mouth. The intensity of it took his breath away. He staggered, held with both hands onto the edge of the large butcher block. His legs suddenly felt boneless and he crumpled quietly to the ground. His eyes seemed to swell in their sockets, his tongue felt like parchment paper. He took a deep breath and forced himself to stand, looked around. No one had seen him fall. Good.
A second wave of nausea swept through him and this time he was ready for it. With all the dignity he could muster, he walked slowly to the small toilet reserved for the kitchen employees. The light in there was very bright and hurt his eyes. He tried to focus on the sign admonishing kitchen workers to wash their hands but the words swam. He fell to his knees and vomited, tried to aim for the toilet bowl, missed. The chef administratif found him there two hours later. Jean Marie Berger’s hands were clammy and his breathing slight and rapid. He did not respond to the chef administratif’s questions. When two men from the medical dispensary took him away on a stretcher, they had to strap him down. His legs and torso were trembling spasmodically. One of the men, a young Ugandan from Kampala, had seen such a thing before. He commented that it looked a lot like a case of food poisoning he had encountered once in Mali, where the cook in a no-star restaurant had sought to brighten the taste of his creations with powdered mangrove root. Within 72 hours, fifteen people had suffered severe food poisoning, and four had been hospitalized. The man thought of telling this to the ship’s physician but did not. He had never cared for the physician who that very morning had made disparaging remarks about he state of former British colonies. The man was old, dour, and, the young Ugandan knew, did not well take to suggestions from lesser medical personnel.
***
He opened one eye, then another, closed them both. There were people talking in the background, the conversation rose and fell, seemed to stop, start, stop again like a faltering engine. He could identify two voices and tried to concentrate but what the talkers were saying was a mystery. His head hurt. The pounding came from inside and radiated out like a malevolent heat source.
“He’s coming to. Colin? Colin!”
He felt his head being lifted and scalding liquid hit his lips. He tried to turn aside.
“Colin! Drink this. Now. Don’t be more of a bother than you already are.”
He opened his mouth and the liquid seared his tongue. He swallowed and immediately felt sick.
“Way to go, hotshot.”
He recognized the voice and it filled him with dread. “Orin.”
“Right.”
From the corner of an eye, Colin saw the spokes in the wheels of Orin’s chair. The spokes whirled and made him dizzy so he closed his eyes again. He heard the wheels’ shushing sound get closer to the couch.
“Bang up job, Colin. Couldn’t have done it better myself. I always said if you’re gonna go out, do it in style.” The chair moved again. “Certainly hope a couple of those drinks you had, you had for me, considering I had to pay the fucking tab. Which, I might add, really pisses me off.”