Ninety Days Read Free

whole universe of panics. What a miracle this guy is, I think, and as I do he tells me I need to raise my hand during the meeting and let the whole room know that I just got out of rehab and that this is my first day back in town.
    There are over fifty people in the room. There were only four other patients in rehab, so the group meetings were never this large or remotely this intimidating. I shake my head no and Jack leans in and says, You don’t have a choice. We had a deal: As long as you follow my suggestions, I’m your sponsor. If you don’t, I’m not. And so, a few minutes later, when the guy running the meeting asks if there is anyone in the room under ninety days, I raise my hand and do what I’m told.
    The meeting ends and many people, mostly men and gay at that, linger in the courtyard afterwards. Within a minute, a group of guys—young, skinny, with exquisite hair and many, I notice, wearing white belts—come over to say hi. They welcome me and ask if I would like to join them for dinner. Thanks, I say graciously, but I’m having dinner with my sponsor. But when the last word is out of my mouth I hear Jack behind me saying, No you’re not. I turn to look at him and see the stern face of a parent ditching his kid at sleep-away camp. Before I can say another word he gives me a hug and tells me to leave him a message on his voice mail when I get home. As I watch him go I consider sneaking back to Charles Street, but too many people are introducing themselves, handing me their phone numbers scrawled on little scraps of paper, for me to be able to disappear unnoticed.
    So I go to dinner. The group consists of fifteen guys at least. All gay. Most young. Some cute. Most not. All loud. As we walk toward Chelsea I try to lag behind so it doesn’t appear that I’m with them, but each time I do someone drops back to chat with me. How much time do you have? is the usual question and I answer, Fifty-nine days. I’m embarrassed to tell them my story so I just allude to a rough patch. They seem to get it and don’t press.
    Eventually we end up at the New Venus diner in Chelsea, where the waiters shove a bunch of tables together to form one long one at the front of the restaurant. In the scuffle of who-sits-where, I wind up toward the end, near the door. As I take my seat, I see a tall, pale guy with red hair and a white Izod shirt sit down directly across from me. He looks Scottish, but too exotic to be Scottish. Maybe Scandinavian, I think, but then wonder if there are red-haired Scandinavians. He’s very fit, very pale, loaded with freckles, and his clothes seem to glow they are so clean. Hi, he says. I’m Asa.
    Asa is a few years younger than I am, in graduate school for urban planning, and has been sober three years from a heroin addiction that wiped out his savings and forced him to drop out of school. When I ask him about the red hair he tells me it’s a mystery, no one in his family has it, just as no one in his family is an alcoholic or addict. He was raised in what he describes as an eccentric Presbyterian household in Baltimore, but unless there is a meeting being held in one, he no longer goes to church. He seems too well educated and serious for this gaggle of former club kids, but he couldn’t appear more comfortable in their company. I tell him my story and he listens and nods and asks the occasional question. I worry that he thinks I’m making up the parts about the agency, Noah, the life I once had, and the two months in hotel rooms that ended it. But at the same time I don’t want him to think that I’m trying to impress or shock him. I want to tell him I wasn’t always this pathetic, this broken, that it took a long time to get here and no one saw it happening. No one, that is, except Noah. When I hear myself say I used to go to London a lot, I realize I am trying to impress him and shut up.
    Dinner ends and we talk on the corner of 22nd Street and Eighth Avenue as one by one the sweet, noisy