...it's the 28th of October...almost 1030 in the morning. i'm thinking sad thoughts, because i've been commissioned to write a poem for a dying man. i'm starting with this journal entry because i don't know where this will take me later, and I want to make sure i've got some things down right now.
commissioned poetry, regardless of pay, is more difficult. because you are attempting to seduce the muse. and the muse of a poet is called insanity. statistics say that nine of ten poets have some form of mental disorder. i've yet to meet the tenth poet. that includes myself. there is something about pressing against one's metaphoric eyeballs to bend reality to a certain skew that afflicts the brain beneath the eyes. so, we court madness. and when you woo madness for too long, you become infected.
i have had breakfast. Syd and I got off to a strained start. i have found nothing exciting until A called to ask me to write a piece for her friend. i am more than capable of this, but i have to get to where the muse is going to give it up. so i'm thinking about Rick Johnson.
Rick was a friend of mine who was killed some years ago. I actually 'inherited' him from an old mentor, Sam Richardson, who was the director at Glenbeigh and has also gone on ahead. I got him at the Rescue Mission. I'll never forget Sam's call. "You got any money?" yeah, i did. "Okay, pick up two packs of Newports and meet me at the Rescue Mission." okay, Sam. no questions. this is how 12 step calls were began, and when you got a call you went unless you were absolutely incapacitated.
Rick was a short, light skinned brother who was as beat up as a human could be. he was turned over to me by way of an introduction from Sam, who told Rick "This is Tim, your new sponsor". i was in the middle of a whole lot of shit back then, but i was about my recovery.
we started on the book, i gave Rick some directions and he promptly began doing everything i told him not to do. he moved in with a woman at Westlake projects, which have been torn down and rebuilt as nice apartments which will, in another twenty years, be projects again. he would go to meetings sporadically. I'd pick him up, take him when i could. he reached out for no one without a vagina. he was using again pretty quickly. I called Sam one time to complain. Sam told me "if you've done what you can, that's all you can do." Rick was the first pigeon i ever fired. i told him 'i'm not going to watch you die'. he went on a binge, got himself into some things, and then, God's grace, he got clean.
he would tell people me firing him got him thinking it was time to stop fucking up. "Tim was the first person who ever made me see what I was doing, who refused to put up with my shit", Rick would say when he lead at meetings. he helped me a lot through my bad relationship/marriage. he and Syd's mother and I would hang out, before the bad times came for she and i. when i was going through the separation from my wife, Rick wouldn't just let me go, one of the few people who didn't turn on me.
I took Syd's mother (before there was a Syd) hostage to columbus, ohio as my mate. we were actually fucking by then. i invited Rick as well, but he declined. i got so wrapped up in my pain in being with Syd's mother that i never reached back when i heard Rick was trying to get in touch with me.
I don't remember who told me about Rick's getting killed. I just know it was like a kick in the gut. He was killed in the parking lot of the fellowship hall, where most of our meetings are held. apparently it was over a woman. i didn't go to his services, as they were in Cleveland, where he was from. i didn't make any peace with it until i came back to youngstown one day and broke down in the fellowship hall parking lot, and i 'felt' Rick tell me that it was okay to let go. several men held me as i finally wept and grieved and let go of my friend. I still miss him today. he could sing his ass off. when i hear the Isley Brothers 'Voyage To Atlantis', I always think of him, and i wish i had just one more week with him.
that's what i'm going to pull from for this poem, to be entitled 'in a moment'. i'll be back when i finish it.
well, i did finish the piece. in fact, i finished two of them, because it's best to give someone a choice, then you rarely have to hear someone fuss about what they've received. i think they're both cool. i will post the unchosen one as soon as one is chosen.
there was a speaker at the meeting today. her lead was okay; not much on the application of the steps in her life, but a lot of pain, beneath her laughter, so it was an education to anyone with common sense. it made me think about this journey i've been on, the journey that's intensified over the past two months. i have left friends behind on this road. i've walked away on the basis of the confusion that having certain people seemed to keep on the perimeter of my life. i've seen so many die. i've seen so many succumb to the addiction. i've seen so few happy endings...
i would never change this for something else, but sometimes i hate the Fellowships. not the steps. i do believe the steps are universal and are applicable to anything. but the Fellowships. those gatherings of people who change in the same way the world changes. one day there won't be an AA or an NA or a CA. one day there will just be memories of the fact that these organizations existed once upon a time, just more faerie tales. one day they will say AA lasted longer than the Oxford group, but gone is gone. and the others will follow like dominoes. and the sick and suffering will return to their hopeless state, despite all the seeming 'advancements' in treatment for addicts and alcoholics. because if you can't own up to your own behavior, take the steps to change your actions and make better decisions so you don't have to go down those same bad road over and over, then there is no reason for a fellowship. there is only chaos incubating, like the old days. and as the world seeks to return to its sick like a dog to vomit, the fellowships always seek out the lowest common denominator, the path of greatest illness to follow like sheep after a narcotic dealing shepherd. and i just don't know how much longer i want to deal with this.
i'm done. i'm grateful, but i'm sleepy and i absolutely AM going to the gym in the morning. good night, toti. good night to you, whomever runs across this. and thank you, Father, for perspective.
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