Bad Daughter, Part Four, the First Half

Start with part one here.

I used to hate the part of the story where the person gets sober. Even now, I read drinking memoirs and don’t finish them. Sober people scared me, mostly because sobriety is all about growing up and taking responsibility and honestly, I never thought I could do it. Sometimes I have to remind myself I’m one of them. Maybe that’s why it took me forever to write this part.

Santa Monica, CA, July 17th, 1989

It’s a Monday, not that it matters. Wake up at noon, head aching, eyeballs pounding. Little aliens are stomping on your face.

There is nothing new about this.

On the contrary. It is a hellish loop of drinking/regret/drinking/regret. Some may find this worrisome, but not you, because you tend to not worry about the right things. I know it’s downtown L.A., but I think I’ll hitchhike home. People are cool, it’ll be fine.

You do that, you stupid, stupid girl. Like you never saw The Last House on the Left. Can you fucking learn already.

You may be starting to crack.

Think about therapy. Jog. Think about jogging to therapy. Ultimately decide therapy won’t help you and that horror movies will be your therapy. Sleep all day, stay out all night, you are Dracula in jeans and a Hard Rock shirt. Keep moving, never linger too long in one place or people will figure you out. Stay slippery, like an eel. You are profoundly good at it. You would have made a great serial killer.

Tell yourself it’s going to be OK.

It’s all going to be OK.

Whatever that means.

Fuck it. Go to Gladstones, meet up with friends. Order nineteen Sea Breezes and a bucket of clams. The waiter is super cute, maybe he’ll make out with you. Say funny stuff, dance on tables, you’re so fun! Check it out, there’s a tank with soon-to-be-eaten lobsters, tap-tap-tap on it while you make baby noises at them because you feel bad for their taped up claws and excuse me, how can you guys treat them like this?? Get a ride home with Ron, who you sort of know, but first stop at the liquor store at the bottom of Chautauqua and pick up a bottle of champagne and a stick of beef jerky which Ron will have to pay for because you ran out of money.

Walk out to the beach. Inhale, there’s salt in the air. Exhale, gaze out, the water will ripple and dance for you. It’s so beautiful, it hurts.

Think about your life. Feel sad and small.

Remember not much else.

Twelve hours later, wake up at noon. Headache. Aliens.

**

Over the years, people will ask what made you get sober at twenty-two. How did you know it wasn’t just a phase? You’re being really extreme. I bet you could drink. What if you go to France, are you not going to have any wine? I’d be fucking miserable.

It was just over. That’s the answer.

**

Still Santa Monica, CA, Still July 17th, 1989, But Two Minutes Later

Get out of bed, stumble downstairs. Your parents are in the kitchen, whispering, like spies.

Very casually ask them what’s up.

You’re going to rehab, your mother will say.

I’m sorry, did you say REHAB??

Uh, yeah. Rehab.

Stare incredulously. A last-night’s-smeared-black-eyeliner-eyes stare. Panic, followed by denial, take over as the words you’re going to rehab, you’re going to rehab ricochet inside your skull and you blurt out, OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, I’M NOT THAT BAD even though you totally are that bad. Not bad like, Imma go sell my body for crack right now, but bad enough.

Nobody you know ever went to rehab. This obviously means you, yourself, will not be going to rehab, and that you probably just need to drink some orange juice.

Sorry, she will say, all steely voiced. We called St Johns. You’re going.

It’s bad. St Johns is right down the street, which means your dad could easily drop you off on the way to the office, along with the dry cleaning. In a less than an hour you could be sitting in an intake room with an underpaid tech, going over house rules while another checks your deodorant for lickable drugs.

Like it or not, this is your fate: jails, institutions, death. In that order. Remember six months ago, when you got arrested for a DUI? Your parents actually had to wake up at two in the morning to go bail you out. Now this. That’s one down, almost two. It’s the kind of fate that gives fate a bad name. If sixteen-year-old you could see what was happening right now she’d never stop screaming.

Seriously. Fucking learn already.

Say to your parents, I’ll go to meetings. Say it convincingly, not in some bullshit whisper. Implore them with your bloodshot eyes. Resist the urge to tell them you’d like to hurry this whole thing up already because you are missing prime beach hours.

Starting tonight?

Yeah, totally, starting tonight.

Your words are filled with helium. Anchored to nothing, they float away.

This is the fourth of four parts. Start with part one here. I have no idea how many parts there will be.