todd of tacoma

“I’m not a legality type of pursuing guy, but…”
—Jaylen Brown

1. Vociferous nodding can lead to migraine.
2. False humility is better than no humility.
3. I’d rather be humble than right. Is that okay?
4. Mitch Hedberg looks like Tina Fey sometimes.
5. The Safeway I shop at has no baskets. You have to use a cart if you want to carry anything even moderately substantial or various through the store. The guy who draws lines on my receipts says the baskets were being stolen, that’s why they got rid of them.
6. The guy who draws lines on my receipts doesn’t appear to be looking for anything when he draws lines on receipts. But if you don’t have your receipt handy as you pass by him he says, can I take a look there? You have to show him your receipt. You cannot leave until you have a line on it.
7. Gloating silently when someone caves in is the second leading cause of dry and chapped lips. Right behind tricking dinner guests into playing board games.
8. We’re apparently in the Golden Age of board games.
9. A lot of people will tell you that several things can be true at once. They’re just jealous.
10. Today, there are more timid Christians than meek ones.
11. It says nowhere in the Bible that the timid will inherit Christian Nationalism. Yet, it would fall neatly into Proverbs B-roll.
12. When you say “I was about to say” and then follow it up with what you were about to say, it’s too late.
13. When you say “I was about to say” and then follow it up with nothing, you are violating a basic principle of mutual understanding.
14. Let’s hear a story:

Corey Zander was just waking up and he was done for the day. For ten years, every April, all April long, no exceptions, no relief, he woke up done for the day.

The air was full of pollen in April. But there were still traces of winter. There were colds and flus going around in April. But everyone was out of sick time. So they were going to work. There were dogs left outside all day that barked at the sunshine and wind. There were people on their porches laughing after work or in between jobs. There were taxes. There were conferences. There was April Fools’ Day and Easter. Lots of birthdays, too, from all the parents who’d fucked in July.

His best friend Autumn had a birthday in April. She was the type of person who could and would celebrate her birthday for an entire month. She would pick themes. ’90s, Eurovision, Stranger Things. You’d have to come in costume if you wanted to even have a coffee with her. Except for Corey. He had a doctor’s note, she’d say. He’s too depressed to change clothes.

Of course, Autumn died in costume. Labyrinth-themed. In an instant. Hit by a drunk driver who was sober that day. He soberly t-boned her at 56th Street and Tacoma Mall Boulevard.

Autumn wasn’t drunk yet, either, poor thing.

Related and/or unrelated, Corey now has to celebrate his sober birthday in April. He woke up one spring day done drinking.

Just done.

Whatever it took.

As a rule, Corey never talked in meetings. AA meetings. Never talked. When he received his first birthday coin he said thank you. Just that. After a little awkward applause someone asked how he did it, you know, for the newcomer. He said, one day at a time.

That was a lie, but he didn’t explain or expound. It was a day in April, after all. So he was done for the day, one day at a time.

I call in sick to work when I have time and take cold medicine and sleep all day, he wanted to say. Sorry, newcomer. I’m white-knuckling just like you. I going to sleep all April long! That’s what he wanted to say. One-twelfth of my sobriety is spent passed out in April. In May, I do something different, but I can’t for the life of me remember what.

Talk to me then, Corey thought.

Even better, don’t, Corey thought.

I have nothing to offer you, Corey thought.

Corey texted in sick to work.

There was a birthday meeting tonight and he had made up his mind he was speaking then, something more than thank you. He was going to tell the truth about one day at a time. About how terrible and not worth it it was to be sober a day at a time, while there were no other options. Like that thing people say about democracy. It’s the worst form of government, until you look at all the others. Some things are just that way, the worst and only option of all the shitty options.

So suck it up, newcomer, he was going to say. Welcome to the worst way to live. You drink you die, you say. But not drinking is also death.

This is good, he thought.

He rummaged through some drawers for a paper and pen, finding nothing.

He had to fess up. Had to admit something, although he wasn’t sure exactly what. But that’s how you’re supposed to talk in these. Nothing prepared. You discover yourself and change yourself as you overhear yourself, like in a Shakespeare monologue. While newcomers talk about shopping carts and clipping their toenails because they don’t know yet–know what?–they don’t know that alcohol ruined them beyond repair and they’re about to feel what beyond repair feels like–it’s not just a cliche! While newcomers talk about new life, the old timers—the sages, with coins with heft to them—they talk about The Book, out of The Book, as if they’ve written one of their own.

A book about The Book.

They have a direct line to the truth.

God’s truth.

You can’t spend all your life tight-lipped about it.

He found a pencil finally, but no paper, so he finished a box of cereal and parted the cereal box at its glued seam.

He felt like he was doing something wrong, going against AA advisement to speak from the heart. To not think about and put down what to say in advance. But God hadn’t gifted him a tongue. He was more Moses than Aaron. He couldn’t speak from the heart. He had to discover himself in writing, at the bottom of a cereal box.

You’re an older timer now, he said. Act like it.

He ripped his box apart neatly at the folds until he had one eight-by-twelve sheet of cardboard.

After this he was tired.

And he went back to bed.

15. A guy where I work told me if you’re diligent it only takes a couple days to work a razor blade into your lip with your tongue. It’ll pass through metal detectors, he said. I got really good at cutting people, he also said.
16. Commuters who leave early for work also obey the speed limit.
17. Someone once said to me that you can watch the rain splash down or the puddle splash up. I kind of felt like there were other ways to look at the situation.
18. Page eighty-six of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book asks: “Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?”
19. You have to ask these questions every day, about your day. Every day, about your day. Some questions are missing. What are they?

Corey set an alarm for one hour prior to the meeting, looked at his clock, then set the alarm two hours before the meeting. He still had one of those old digital alarm clocks, the same make he had in high school. Face at a ninety-five degree angle from its nightstand. Big green segmented numbers.

One of the numbers changed. A 5 added a segment and was 6.

He thought about his task ahead, to tell the truth. He set the alarm again, a half hour before the meeting. A half hour later, he wrote his first sentence.

Thank you wow.

It was sort of two sentences, he noticed, and he wondered if he should punctuate it, and then he went back to sleep. For a half hour.

Then:

I guess I’m an old timer now. That’s a lot of years.

Pause for breath.

He wrote that. He was meticulous.

He fell asleep and woke up again.

You don’t hear me say much at these meetings. If you knew me outside you wouldn’t hear me say much either. It’s not because I’m deep.

Does that sound stupid, he thought, and fell asleep again. He would do this until his alarm went off. Wake up every half hour and press a sentence into his piece of cereal box with his ever-dulling pencil.

It came out something like this:

It’s tax season and I work too much this time of year, thinking about paying dues. What do I owe? They say as far as you walked into the woods, it takes that long just to get out. That’s true, with interest, and it gets worse. There’s a tax on every second you feel good.

Hey, I didn’t make the rules.

Pause for breath.

I save up all my sick time and vacation for this time of year, and I don’t know why my boss hasn’t fired me. How valuable is someone who’s out of office when it’s most important. One year it’ll bite me.

Back into the woods.

I don’t think I ever left the woods.

You don’t have to drink to be a drunk. If you don’t know that by now. Well, you should know that. Like knowing there’s three branches of government. Basic fact of life.

My best friend died a year before I got sober. I’m one of those drunks. I white-knuckled it for a few years after that one terrible year. Yeah, I’m one of those drunks, too.

Then I started going to meetings and:

I need a different coin. Thank you for this one, but I can’t accept it. I’ve been taking robitussin and sleeping all day. I do this every spring. And sometimes the other seasons. I can’t take the good coin. I need the first one, the beginning.

Pause for breath.

20. Have we been breathing? Did we put on our own oxygen mask before helping anyone else with theirs? Do we know what to do if an oxygen mask doesn’t drop?
21. You can ignore some of these questions if you’re not flying.

That’s not how this works, an old lady with big, red hair said. That’s what he woke up to, once he was finished writing. You know how dream words echo when you open your eyes.

That’s not how this works, the dream lady said.

She frequented his dreams. She came from real life. As real as meetings are.

That’s not how this works!

She was trying to help. It was Corey’s first birthday meeting. The red-haired old lady was seated next to a man Corey imagined was Autumn’s killer, the drunk driver everyone had forgiven for his sobriety. He talked about an accident all the time.

It was unfair, Corey thought. He had never met Autumn’s killer. Had no idea what he looked like. So why did he have to see him?

Why still?

The sun was shining harshly on the dust in the air around Corey’s clock. Little lightning bolts and neon signs floating and buzzing. The numbers changed. An eight sucked in its gut to make a nine. The numbers kept doing that, changing and becoming in little cycles of ten and six and twelve. He wanted them to keep doing that. Get to May.

Why May?

He had no idea.

That’s not how this works! the lady had said.

Corey had just said thank you for his first coin. He had one month and he had just said thank you and was going to sit back down when a man said:

You have to say something!

Thank you, Corey repeated.

You have to say something to get a coin, the man said.

That’s not how this works! the lady said.

In the silence that followed, Corey saw a room full of killers.

What about for the newcomer, Autumn’s killer said. That’s the most important person here.

You don’t have to say anything to get a coin. All are welcome here, the lady said, eckspecially the quiet ones.

Did you drive here? Corey said.

Me? the man said. I don’t drive.

Is this crosstalk? another man said.

No, someone else said.

Have you ever killed someone? Corey said.

That’s inappropriate! the meeting’s chair and the chip person said.

You look like someone I might know is all, Corey said.

You know a lot of killers? the man said.

Just one, Corey said.

22. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
23. I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there.
24. It works if you work it.
25. I have a friend at work who’s dying. Dying pretty sharply, in fact, and lately he’s annoying everyone. Death reminds you sometimes that it can take anything away, at any time, even your dignity right before you die.

Corey put his cereal box speech in his passenger seat. He would review it in the parking lot.

It was sunny and the wind wasn’t strong. He saw five children dancing on a street corner, but he wasn’t sure if there were actually children there or if he was seeing things because it was April. He saw them laugh with their eyes closed and their heads thrust back and saw them push each other on the shoulder. One pretended to throw a football at a car. One balked at running into the street in front of the car. One did a trust fall against one she shouldn’t have trusted. There was silence from them and then a burst of laughter as she landed on her ass hard on the sidewalk.

Cars honked at them.

Drivers yelled at them.

They imitated the drivers.

Corey ran his fingers over the pencil markings he’d made in his cereal box side, the worm ruts he’d impressed upon its surface. He felt the words sick and drink and don’t know and was surprised he could trace them and know what they were.

Maybe because they were obvious.

People were showing up for the meeting now. Stretching outside their car doors and ambling to the steps and congregating. The greeter was stationed at the door. Welcome. Smokers were lighting up. Welcome. Please stand back from the door a little. Oh, sorry. Welcome. The woman with the red hair was there. Welcome. And all the men who’d killed Autumn. Welcome. And a whole throng of newcomers. Welcome.

Corey began to sweat. It smelled like cold medicine.

When someone dies you worry for ten years wondering: did I make it the best ever?

Among other questions.

What Corey said in the meeting was this:

Thank you.

How did you do it, the chip person said, for the newcomer?

It was a new chip person.

One day at a time, Corey said.

And he received an eleven-year coin.

What he wanted to say was this:

You should hold your best friend’s hand and honk at the sky.