AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nora laughed. “You don’t have to answer him.”
Mel smiled. “Hi, everybody.”
“Is this your first meeting?” asked a petite white woman with streaked gray hair.
Mel nodded, and to his surprise, he received a smile and a simple, loving hug in return.
Mel felt his fright and apprehension begin to melt. Paul appeared at the microphone and called the meeting to order. Everyone grabbed a coffee refill and took a seat. Mel made sure that his was in the last row near the door, in case he wanted to leave before the session was over.
Paul turned on the microphone. “Welcome to Ready for Recovery, the Seventy-second Street branch meeting of Narcotics Anonymous. Who wants to read the twelve steps tonight?”
Nora volunteered and Paul turned the microphone over to her. Mel listened intently as she recited them from memory. When Nora reached step number eight, Mel felt a weight fall from his shoulders. “We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
Forget steps one through seven, he thought. Here was the solution! To save his own life, all he had to do was find the courage to go to everyone he had hurt, scammed, or deceived, and confess.
Nora sat down to a round of applause, and Paul stood up once more. “We have a speaker coming to share with us tonight, but before that, has anyone here been clean for ninety days?” Several hands went up. Everyone applauded. “Six months?” More hands. More applause. “How about a year?” Nora stood up alone, and Mel found himself standing up with every
one else to give her a standing ovation.
“Do we have any new members?” Paul asked.
Mel scrunched down in his chair as a skinny white woman with pale skin and short blond hair stood up.
“Tell us your first name,” Paul said gently.
She took a deep breath and her words rushed out. “Hello, everybody. My name is Lisa Johnson, and I am a prostitute and a crack addict.”
“Glad you made it, Lisa,” chanted the group. Lisa sat down.
Paul addressed her. “Welcome, Lisa. We only use first names here. We hope that Ready for Recovery will become your home group. However, you will receive a pamphlet at the end of this meeting that lists every center in the city along with their meeting days and times.”
Paul’s eyes swept over the group. “I am happy to say that yesterday was my third anniversary.” The group cheered, but Paul silenced them with a raised hand. “Thank you, but every day is a struggle, and it always will be. Now I’ll turn the discussion over to Mr. Archer Downs, who brings the message of recovery to us tonight.”
Archer Downs was a six-foot string bean of a man. His bushy black hair was streaked with gray, as were his sideburns and mustache. His complexion was ruddy, which was unfortunate since his suit, which draped his gangly frame, was somewhere between red and cranberry. His voice seemed to come from a stout man. It boomed. There was no need for a microphone. He held his arms limply at his sides. He was a plain man who came with a plain message that he dived into without preamble. “I had a wife. I had four beautiful children and a thriving law practice. We owned a home in Montclair, New Jersey. We had a nice life until my dad drowned in a boating accident and I got on the pipe. I smoked crack once, twice, three times. After that, I couldn’t find my way back to sobriety for five years. In those five years, I smoked away the house, our clothes, the children’s toys, and their college funds. I embezzled money from the law firm and went to jail. By the time I got out, my wife had divorced me and moved away.”
Archer told his story in a matter-of-fact manner, his voice devoid of emotion or self-pity. Mel understood that the man had somehow managed to make peace with the horror he had inflicted on his family. But how?
“I was on suicide watch in jail when a chaplain came to see me. He told me something which I found hard to believe.” Archer paused and lowered his eyes. “The chaplain told me that God didn’t want me to die. He wanted to embrace me. I laughed at that. I figured the chaplain wouldn’t be spending time on me if he could see my crying wife, scared mother, and ragged children.”
There was a muffled sob from somewhere in the room. Mel didn’t know if it came from a man or a woman.
“The chaplain came by every day for a week. One day, I wasn’t in the mood to hear what he’d come to say. I figured the best way to get rid of him for good would be to tell him every bad thing I had done to feed my habit.”
Mel wondered what the chaplain would have said to a man who fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand, causing the death of his infant daughter.
“At the end of my recital,” Archer continued, “the chaplain told me that God’s love is mighty and strong enough to embrace every man. Even a man like me who forced his own retarded sister to sell her body one night so that he could get high. I got out of jail six years ago, and I’ve been sober ever since. That is my message to you. No matter what you’ve done, God’s love is a mighty one and is strong enough to handle it. Thank you for listening.”
After hearing that message, Mel decided to become a permanent member of the group. God had allowed him to survive the drug dealer’s bullets because He wanted Mel to live. It was a sign from above that his debt was paid in full. He was looking forward to a drug-free existence. He left feeling empowered. It had been a long time since he had felt that way.
He decided to apologize to Big Boy first, so that he could start visiting Debra again without worrying about another fight, which would upset his sister. He called Debra’s house the following evening.
“Hey, I’m glad I caught you.”
“I ain’t got nowhere else to go right now.”
Mel cleared his throat. “Is Big Boy there?”
“Yeah.” Her tone was cautious. “Why you wanna know?”
