it was the elusive serenity they talked about in the rooms and basements of AA meetings. Did he have what she was looking for? The secret to peace of mind?
“Maggie.”
“Hi, Maggie.” He seemed so gentle. He directed her to the coffee urn and poured her a foam cup of the worst coffee she’d ever tasted in her life. He chatted about the program. She didn’t really remember much of what he said because she still felt like she was under water, foggy. Then he guided her to a metal folding chair. Bobby took a seat at a table at the front of the room, next to an older man. The older man, who said his name was Gus, started the meeting off, and Bobby was the speaker.
“Hi, my name’s Bobby,” he began softly, “and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Bobby,” came a chorus of a voices.
Maggie listened as he spoke.
“Most of you know me from the rooms. I’ve been coming here about ten years, sober for eight straight. I’m a cop, a detective. I used to think it was my job that made me drink. Now I realize I drank because. Just because. Because I’m an alcoholic.
“I started drinking when I was maybe eleven, copying my older brother and his friends. But they were typical teens looking to be cool, to rebel a little. I wasn’t. I couldn’t stop drinking once I started. I had my first blackout at fourteen. Smoked a lot of pot. I was a mess through high school. By the time I was twenty, I knew something was seriously wrong. I became a cop, met a lot of alcoholic cops. Man, if you’re looking for validation for your drinking, law enforcement is one profession you’ll find it. Everyone needs a drink to settle down after a tough night, a tough call, a tough tour. You see the worst, the dregs. You see wife beaters and child abusers and rape victims. I needed a drink to shut my brain off at night.
“So why did I get sober? I hit bottom. I got lucky. I didn’t think I was lucky then, but I was. Everybody has their bottom—DUI, jail, divorce, whatever. Mine was waking up with a prostitute and having no memory, none, of what happened the night before. I felt such a sense of shame that I went to my first meeting that day, and then that night, and then the next day. I screwed up a couple of times early in the program, but then I got it. It’s one day at a time. I get that now. That and the promises of AA. If you get sober, life gets better. I went back to school, made detective…. I have so much more now than I ever did before. I’m not going to mess up. Thanks for listening, and now we’ll go around the room and share.”
There were about forty people in the room. They applauded. Maggie felt mesmerized, and she wasn’t sure why. His voice was soothing. He looked so confident, so calm. She wanted that.
She listened to others share, thankful they ran out of time before they got to her. After the meeting, Bobby approached her.
“Um, do you want to get a cup of coffee? I usually go to a coffee shop a few blocks from here. It’s open until four in the morning.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
They walked together to the Blue Moon Diner. They didn’t say much, but the way they walked, they fell into a rhythm with each other, finding a stride. The diner had a bell that jingled over the door when they opened it. The tables had little jukeboxes on them, and they sat in a back booth. He put quarters in their jukebox and played some Elvis.
She stared at him across the table. She was pretty sure she looked like someone who’d just white-knuckled it for three days, but she was grateful Bobby hadn’t seemed to notice.
Their waitress came over, and Bobby ordered their coffee. When it came, Maggie wrapped her hands around her mug, hoping the heat would calm her.
“Much better coffee than at the meeting,” he said as he leaned into the table and smiled at her.
“You can say that again.” She sipped the coffee. “And you remembered—two sugars and lots of milk.”
“I’m a detective. I’m paid to notice details like that.” He winked at her. “How come I’ve never seen you before?”
She looked down at her coffee. “I’m…kind of quiet. I blend in.”
“You don’t blend in anywhere. I spotted you the moment you walked in.”
“Well, I go to meetings all over. I haven’t really picked a home group.”
“I almost always go to the one at St. Michael’s. And I pick up a lunchtime meeting in Manhattan sometimes.”
“A cop, huh?”
He nodded. “Does that turn you off? A lot of women just don’t want to date a cop, or even be friends with a cop. Too stressful.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a bartender.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Isn’t that kind of hard with your sobriety?”
“Not really.” She wasn’t about to admit her “sobriety” had lasted all of three days.
“Well, I guess you must be able to twelve-step a lot of people.”
She looked at him blankly.
“You know, refer a lot of people to the program. Talk about the steps.”
“Um, yeah. Mostly I listen to people’s problems. Bartenders are paid to listen as much as pour drinks. So…do you like being a detective?”
She had a bartender’s psychology, a way of asking a question and then shutting up. Most people, she had come to discover, weren’t really looking for a bartender’s advice any more than they expected a shrink to tell them what to do. They just wanted to talk out whatever it was that was bothering them.
Sitting in the diner across from Bobby, his life story spilled out in more detail, and he told her about being a detective, about what drove him. “My best friend was shot when I was twenty-two. We were together at a bar down in lower Manhattan. He walked one way, I walked the other and went home. He ended up dead. Luck of the draw, I guess. His wallet was missing. Maybe it was a mugging gone bad. They never caught the person who did it, and I have this feeling like he’s following me all the time. Until a case is solved, that’s what ghosts do, you know. They follow you.”
“You believe in ghosts?”
He cleared his throat. “Not like seeing spirits and stuff, but I feel like the soul isn’t at rest until the case is solved. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I think so.” She thought of her Buddhas and lighting incense and speaking to her mother. She thought of how her father was a ghost even if he was flesh and blood.
They talked—Bobby doing most of the talking—until after midnight. She found being around him comforting.
“I don’t want to say good night,” he said as he helped her from the booth. Their waitress had been sighing each time she passed their table, and they knew they’d overstayed their welcome. Maggie watched him put down a twenty-dollar tip, and as a bartender, she appreciated someone who
