The Harder They Fall Read Online Free Page B

songwriter)
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    P AUL W ILLIAMS AND I MET in the hotel restaurant at the DoubleTree Hotel in Westwood, California, on a bright, robust Sunday afternoon, two hours before we were to attend a memorial service for our mutual friend Buddy Arnold. Buddy called himself “the world’s oldest Jewish junkie.” He had more than twenty-two years of sobriety and cofounded, along with his wife, Carole Fields, the Musicians’ Assistance Program (MAP), which has helped more than 1,500 addicted musicians find their way to rehab.
    Paul showed up in a natty outfit consisting of a tailored black suit, black dress shirt, and snazzy black-and-lavender patterned tie. I was feeling underdressed in my customary jeans, black polo shirt, and dark blue blazer. We checked each other out and decided that each was dressed appropriately, although Paul removed his tie before entering the memorial service.
    After an initial exchange of hugs and small talk, we got down to business. I soon was marveling at Paul’s uncanny ability to quickly reach that intimate place where sharing becomes extraordinarily personal. As he started telling me his story, his face took on an assured look of one who has traveled this road before. Paul loves talking about sobriety and how it changed his life. Because we have this in common and have been friends for more than thirty years, there is a tremendous ease in our exchanges. Paul speaks with authority andimpressive insight these days, having explored at depth his own road to recovery. He still has the wonder and excitement of a newcomer, though.
    A couple of times during the telling of his story, we were locked eye-to-eye, our heads only a foot or so apart. I noticed he began to tear up, which caused the same response in me, and we instinctively locked hands, as if to assure each other that each of us understands.
    As has happened many times over the years, we ended our conversation with words of how much we love each other, and how we appreciate having each other in our lives. I’m one lucky dude to have a friend like Paul.

    I was raised in a household where alcohol was a reward for a good day’s work. My consciousness was that alcohol was a payoff. Dad came home to a drink, his wife, and his kids. As I look back on it, it was really in that order. He walked in the house, got the drink, and he probably had one in the bar on the way home. My father spoke about the fact that he never missed a day’s work because of drink, so he must have had some misgivings—the old “methinks he doth protest too much.”
    Alcohol was a reward for being a grown-up. He went to work, he did the job, and came home and drank. I picture my father with his friends around him, and how they talked about the same things again and again and again. And argued about the same things again and again too. They lived their lives in a revolving door of mini-dramas.
    My dad would come home and say, “There are three things we’re not going to talk about tonight, guys: politics, religion, or the goddamn job. Because when we talk about them, we fight.” So that would be the decision. And then they would have a couple of drinks and the conversation always led to three things: politics, religion, and the goddamn job. And he and his friends fought. And then he got angry, and then he’d cry, and all the emotions came out. My dad was a pretty emotional man when he drank. Hewould get me up in the middle of the night and sit me on his lap to sing for him. And he would cry when I sang: “Listen to my son, listen to
my son
.”
    My mother says that I was four or five when she was in a department store and all of a sudden I was gone. She turned around and couldn’t find me. She found me on a counter with a fistful of money, singing. Music was a part of me. It was in my DNA to make music, evidently. So this was from infancy to thirteen. But after my dad died, it felt like all that went away. I was thirteen when my father was killed in an alcohol-related car