86'd Read Online Free Page B

was pretty crazy in there,” I said. “Are all the meetings around here like this one?”
    “Whatever, man. It’s cool with me,” he says back. “I’m just here to get my card signed.”
    “So,” I ask, “what do you do when it gets like that? How do you handle it?”
    The question amuses him. “Timing is the key,” he snickers. “I do the same thing every day. I come out here and smoke right after they read chapter five at the beginning. Then the speaker starts. I wait about half an hour and when I hear people clapping I know he’s done. I go back in. Then, after they sign the court cards and pass them out, I’m gone.”
    “You don’t stay to hear what’s going on?”
    “Yo, sixteen more meetings and I’m done. Free. My AA sentence is completed.”
    “Okay. But what if someone like me shows up and doesn’t like what’s going on in the meeting?”
    The guy scratched the top of his cap with the shiny end of his Bic lighter. “The key is, do you have a court card?”
    “No. I’m just here.”
    “Whoa! Don’t waste your time, bro. If I were you I’d go to the movies. Higher Power this and Higher Power that. It’s a group therapy circle jerk with Jesus in the middle.”
    “C’mon, really?”
    “No shit, dude. I’ve been to a hundred meetings. It’salways the same. Nothing changes. Go to therapy or whatever but don’t waste your time here. I promise you.”
     
    I tried one more meeting the next day. It wasn’t any better. I decided the guy was right. I took his advice. Every morning after that at eleven o’clock I’d tell David Koffman I was going to a meeting. I didn’t say that the meeting was being held at one of the local movie theaters or a bookstore or at a Starbucks.

four
    I t took three full carloads in my Pontiac to get my books and my computer and TV and boxed-up belongings from Uncle Bill’s house on Twenty-seventh Place in Venice to Dav-Ko’s new home on Selma Avenue in Hollywood. But I’d gone the entire day without a pill or a drink. Not easy because as it turned out eighty-year-old Uncle-fuckin’-Bill had a curveball to throw my way.
    I was passing the living room hauling a heavy box of books out to my car on my shoulder when Uncle Bill clicked the sound down on his TV remote and stopped me by using a cop-like hand signal. He motioned for me to set my box down. “Step in here for half a second, will ya, busta?” he hissed. I set the box down.
    Uncle Bill is a fat, wrinkled old shit with an arthritic back. Uncle Bill has elected to spend his golden years in a filthy, battered recliner watching cop show reruns. And judging from his odor, apparently the use of soap and water is an alien idea to Uncle Bill.
    So I waited and watched while he finished chewing his last bite of Pop-Tart and wiped his mouth with a rancid, overused paper towel from his shirt pocket. Then Bill looked at me and grinned. “You’re aware that I’m withholding your security deposit until further notice,” he said flatly.
    “No Bill,” says I. “I had no idea you were doing that.”
    “You’re a smoker, busta. That bedroom’ll need fumigation and a double coat of repaint. And me and Pauline gotta check for damage and excessive use.”
    “Excessive use, Bill? Is that a technical legal landlord term?”
    “I’m talking about wear and tear, busta. Repairs. That kinda thing.”
    “So when will I get my deposit back?”
    “How should I know?”
    “How about tomorrow?”
    “You can call me…first of next week,” the old prick snorted. “I’ll have Pauline cut you a check—less damages and wear and tear.”
    “Look Bill,” I said. “I’ve been here eighteen months. I paid a five-hundred-dollar deposit. In cash. I want my money back. Go check the room out for yourself. Right now. There are no damages.”
    Bill tore open the wrapper on a fresh Pop-Tart. Flakes of the hard sugar coating from the last two he’d eaten were still clinging to the front of his zip-up sweatshirt. “By law I