AA Chicks

July 7, 2004

I always thought that the Atkins Diet was for the birds, but it looks like I was wrong. The birds don't like bologna.

While sitting in San Loco, my phone rang.

"Hey man, what's up?" the voice on the other end said when I answered.

I'd give him a name, except that he's one of my many friends in Alcoholics Anonymous. And…well…he's anonymous.

"Nothing," I said.

"Where are you?"

"In the East Village."

"Really? So am I," he said. "Where are you exactly?"

"At San Loco."

"What are  you doin' there?"

"Having a taco, of course..”

"Are you done?"

"Just about," I said. "What are you up to?"

"Just killing time before I have to go to a meeting. You wanna get a coffee or something?"

"Sure."

We met at a coffee shop halfway between where we each were and found a place to sit and have iced coffee. When five o'clock rolled around, he asked me if I wanted to tag along to the A.A. meeting with him.

"You wanna come?" he asked. "You can check out the A.A. chicks."

This guy has been "clean and serene" for over nine years, and I've never gone with him to a meeting before. I was curious, so I said okay. The things wasm that I'd just had an eye appointment a day earlier, and the eye doctor had done a fluoro angiogram. That means that he injected fluorescent dye into my arm to take pictures of the blood vessels in my retina. It left me with a big, bruised track mark. So when we got to the church and walked downstairs to the basement meeting room, I did my best to hide it. Every time I saw someone checking out the bruise, I wanted to explain, "No, no, it's not what you think." But what difference did it make?

The chairs were arranged in a semicircle around a table with a microphone, but the acoustics were so bad that I couldn't hear anything the guy at the mic was saying. So instead, I did what I was invited there to do: I checked out the A.A. chicks.

As I scoped the room, I realized that it was a veritable who's who of famous models and musicians. My friend leaned in and asked if I recognized one former supermodel in particular. I did, and shook my head discreetly.

"She can't stay clean," he said. “She's in and out all the time. Check out the track marks on her legs."

They looked the same as the one on my arm. Only she had dozens of them. Again, I just nodded discreetly. We didn't stay for the second half of the meeting. We left during the break. When everyone jumped up to go outside and smoke, we walked out with them and kept on going.

"Hey man," I said as we walked down the street, "You know I've always been proud of you for staying clean, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I just got a whole lot prouder of you. I had no idea what a drag those meetings were."

“These summer meetings are always kind of slow.  And that one in particular is full of whiners. But shit, if you really wanna hear some whiners you gotta come with me to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting sometime."

"Yeah, no thanks."