October 17th
Dear Miss Megan,
I will not drink today.
I never had to write about myself before. Don’t know if this is how most people do these journals but I’m just gonna write to you like it’s a letter. Or like we talk to each other in our sessions.
I like our sessions, even if I don't like the V.A. The things we talk about stick in my mind. I’m working on my “all-or-nothing thinking” and my “overgeneralization” and trying not to “disqualify the positive.”
Drinking helped me with those problems. I worry about them coming back.
I worry that I’ll find out I can’t get sober. That I'll never be strong enough. But that’s “all-or-nothing thinking" - a thought drawn in black and white - isn’t that what you said? The real world has shades of grey and millions of colors too.
I’m trying to think more colorful.
Because I know this ain’t a life. I’m invisible. If I disappeared tomorrow nobody would notice.
Except maybe you, Miss Megan. And I’m grateful.
So I’m gonna do what you say I should.
October 18th
Dear Miss Megan,
I will not drink today.
It’s morning and I’m in my tent. Don’t smell too good but I didn’t drink last night. It’s been more than 24 hours now. My first full day without alcohol in a long time. A real long time.
Lately, I’ve been keeping my tent on a low hill north of Sunset Blvd. Last night I was looking down on the freeway below me when I started counting the billboards with beer on them. I saw six bottles. Big, wet, green bottles full of bubbles. A genuine six-pack made up of three separate billboards, all of them as big as a building. Like you could swim in all that beer.
Never bothered me before, but right now, I don’t want to see it.
October 19th
Dear Miss Megan,
I will not drink today.
Been two days without beer or anything else and I feel strange. Kinda empty but full of nervous energy. There’s too much going on in my head. Too many thoughts. My hands don’t know what to do. Writing to you helps a little.
I couldn’t sleep last night so I sat up and watched the boys down on the overpass. They got a couple RVs down there for about four or five guys. I used to drink with them. Felt like going down to say hi but I didn’t. “Sober people, sober places.” Just like you said.
It was hard not to go. Didn’t even know if they had beer but I felt the pull. On nights like last night, when that urge is pushing on me, it’s hard to think of reasons not to drink. So what if I’m hungover tomorrow? What have I got to lose? I got nothing.
But that’s “black and white thinking” again, isn’t it?
“Nothing.”
October 21st
Dear Miss Megan,
I will not drink today.
I didn’t drink yesterday. I really wanted to, but I didn’t. I know you would tell me that I should be proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. You would say that all progress is incremental. It doesn't feel like progress but I know you'd say it is.
Anyway, I gotta tell you about last night...
I was up late again, in my tent. Couldn’t sleep. Then I heard shouting and screaming over the traffic. So I stuck my head out and looked down on the overpass at the boys in their RVs.
They was circled up and beating on a guy in a Hawaiian shirt. Fists flying. Fighting like dogs. I was too far away to hear just what they were saying but it was a clear night, all lit up by the street lamp, so I could see everything.
The Hawaiian shirt guy was acting wild. Like an animal. He didn’t look like he was sleeping rough, looked more like someone’s dad or something. Cargo shorts and a ball cap with a goatee.
But he was outta his mind, Miss Megan. Even with all them beating him, he’d grab one of the boys and dig at them, tearing with his fingernails and biting.
I seen people lose their cool with street folk. They’ve said stuff to me they wouldn’t say to a dog. Sometimes people on the streets get attacked, beat up while they was sleeping. Stuff like that happens, but I never saw one like this. Kamikaze-style.
Eventually, the boys knocked him to his knees, circled up, and wailed on him. Five on one. Blood poured from his forehead, out his ears. One of the boys had a skateboard. They lifted it over their head, then brought it down, axle first. SMACK. And he went down. Like a wet sack hitting concrete.
The boys caught their breath and checked themselves. They was tore the hell up, Miss Megan. Blood running down their faces and forearms. Saw there was a fist-sized chunk of skin missing from one of them.
Then they helped their tore-up friends inside the RVs, cursing and spitting at the bloody man on the ground before locking themselves inside.
It's a lawless country for the invisible.
Anyway, I ain’t drinking.
October 22nd
Dear Miss Megan,
You won’t believe this shit.
I woke up and they were gone. The boys. Hawaiian shirt. All of them. And they just left their RVs and their generator and their grill behind. The side door to one of the campers was wide open, too. Not the door to the cab, the one that went into the living area. It was bent and dented. Hanging from one hinge and turning back and forth in the Santa Ana breeze, making all this racket, like WHACK! WHACK!
I walked down to the overpass calling, “Hello?” But I couldn’t hear a thing over that damn door slamming and the morning traffic below. WHACK! WHACK! So I caught the door mid-swing and called inside again. "Anybody home?" No answer. So I stepped inside and closed the door to keep the racket down. Turned round, and I don’t even know how to tell you what I saw.
The sleeping bags were torn. Filling pulled out. Little white fluffs of cotton covered everything. Curtains and blinds were ripped off the windows. Fixtures tore up. Cabinets open. Blood on everything mentioned. Little puddles on the countertop, big dark stains on the carpet. And a couple tore off fingers lying on the thin, brown carpet.
It caught me up, Miss Megan. I couldn’t move. Not until I heard the sirens.
I ran outside, expecting to see LAPD on the overpass waiting for me, but the sirens were coming from the freeway below. Then I noticed there were horns honking, too. People shouting. So I looked down, and it was like watching a movie.
Traffic was snarled, stretching back who knows how far. Lanes all stopped up. Cop cars were working their way down the shoulder into the mess but they couldn’t get through. And all this commotion and noise was centered around a girl stumbling across the 101 on foot.
She looked like a college student in her hoodie and shorts. Real young but she was hobbling. One leg forward, one leg back, dragging a broke shin like it was nothing. White bone sticking out a tan leg. Blood trailing behind her.
The blood and the bone... I seen that before. I seen all kinds of gnarly shit. But I never seen a face like hers before. Her eyes were black and dead. Like a shark. Unfocused. She didn’t even notice the honking and sirens around her. She just jerked forward on her broken leg. Mouth open. Drooling.
Before the police got to her a Camry pulled out of line, trying to swerve around. The girl walked right in front of it. Went under the wheels and came up the other side. Road rash covered her face and shoulders. Nose bloody. One of her arms was pulled from the shoulder socket, dangling like a fishing lure.
She didn't say a word. Just picked herself up and kept stumbling.