Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the author.
The Oregonian, December 30, 2010:
Jim Harrison says he writes more books
because he “stopped drinking half-gallons of vodka.”
Reader, my 40-year-old half-brother is in active withdrawal, sitting in some hospital bed shaking, as I speak to you. This is not the first time he’s been here. He’s been on a weeklong bender, relapsing after a few months sober. This has been a pattern in my life: Alex is sober, then he isn’t. He lives along a sine wave, with sober peaks and drunken lows. We are currently at a low.
My parents took a call from his girlfriend, and drove to pick him up in the middle of the night — they knew what to do because they’d done this before, both for Alex and themselves. They’re both recovering alcoholics who understand what it’s like to be an addict, dragged from the bottom of the bottle to a hospital in the middle of the night; and for the last 20 years, they’ve made many trips to detox facilities with their drunk son in the backseat.
Four years ago, this same ordeal took place, around the time I was applying to college.
Most colleges require some form of a personal essay with an application, and for my own, I wrote about what was happening at that moment in my life — a very similar essay to the one you’re reading now. I lamented the currents of addiction that run through my blood and celebrated my father, a poet, for turning the recurring nightmares into poetry. Here are the first two sentences of the essay; I largely consider them to be the first good sentences I’ve ever written:
When my older brother, Alex, lost his job, house and car and was sent to rehab after his second DUI, I wasn’t told. Instead, my father wrote a poem about it and taped it to our refrigerator.
The poem is tragic. It’s beautiful. My father spins a narrative, taking Alex, shaking, to detox. The next day, “At dawn,” my dad writes, “I’m in the backyard. / Wanting a sign, I get two sparrows, trilling at the foot of the gnarled box elder.” These sparrows fluttered before him, landing just beyond the box elder tree we had previously assumed was dead. It bore no leaves. It was hollowing and losing color. But, one summer night, that tree was struck by lightning: “a great flash of wire-crossed plasma,” my dad called it, and the tree grew again. Since that night, that shocked box elder — gnarled, wounded but flourishing nonetheless — became Alex’s tree.
Last year, the box elder fell. Any sparrows that were on it flew away — searching for a home and sustenance elsewhere.
But whether the tree stood anymore was not important. I had sucked the marrow from that lesson: Writing is coping, and the writer’s condition is not one he asks for but one that is given to him. So four years later, when I find myself in the same position, writing the same essay, I am compelled to write because of it. Thankfully, I’m not drinking because of it.
***
Last weekend, while I was watching “Trailer Park Boys,” my mother called and told me Alex was drinking again. This time, trying to drink himself to death.
If you’ve ever seen “Trailer Park Boys,” you will understand when I tell you that it is categorically the worst piece of media to be consuming while someone calls you to tell you your brother is drunk again. It’s a mockumentary series that follows the exploits of three constantly-drunk, pot-smoking, recidivist losers. It mocks substance abuse issues in every single episode they air. For example, the title of the episode I was watching is “Jim Lahey is a Fuckin’ Drunk, and He Always Will Be.”
This is no dig at “Trailer Park Boys,” though. I consider it one of the finest pieces of comedy writing of all time. It is brilliant and multilayered while appearing egregiously masculine, abrasive and simple minded. It is high art, in my eyes, even if it might not look like it.
My mother hung up, and at that moment, in some coincidental wire-crossed plasma between art and my real life, “Trailer Park Boys” made me laugh and cry simultaneously. It grabbed me by the chin, looked me in the eye and told me — through a cacophony of swear words, weed and booze — that it was going to be okay.
Let me explain.
In the episode I was watching, Ricky — one of the three main characters — stands in his father’s trailer, frying bacon. The trailer is coated in black ash, the roof is blasted off and the windows are shattered. Two episodes prior, Ricky left potatoes frying on the stove while he drove him and his girlfriend behind a muffler shop to have sex. When they come back, the trailer is ablaze.
Ricky’s father, Ray, loses his mind at first. He’s a wreck, rolling around in his wheelchair, swilling gin, wishing he never had a child. But two episodes later, as Ricky stands in what remains of the kitchen, frying bacon, Ray seems to have changed. He has a Bible in his lap, next to a half gallon of liquor.
There’s a cut to Ray interviewing with the fake producers of the mockumentary. “Oh, well, you know, things aren’t too bad, all things considered. Sure, it could be better, but God takes care of the little sparrows in the sky. He’s gonna take care of the guy in the wheelchair,” he says.
He rolls into what’s left of the kitchen.
“Bacon frying and the sparrows chirping, Rick,” he says. “It’s all about the bacon and the sparrows, buddy.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ricky responds.
“I’m not worried. My trailer’s burned down. The sparrows aren’t worried. Nobody’s worried,” Ray says. He is drunk — had spent the night before gambling and is now thumping his Bible. He is nothing like my father. But, for a moment, he looks just like him.
And Ricky — like he knows he’s Alex; like he knows he is the older brother I never really saw or knew; like he knows that while he stands in the ruin of his father’s life he is going to say 11 words that crack me up and ruin me — quips back:
“Sparrows are stupid, Dad. They don’t give a fuck about anything.”
***
I suppose I have two questions for you:
First: Have you ever been drunk enough to vomit?
Second: Have you ever been distraught enough to write?
They’re similar feelings. The urge to write sits in my stomach like oatmeal, coming up whenever it wants to, usually. Sometimes it comes out easily, and sometimes I need to pump my stomach, but it will emerge. It might be inconsiderate to say I feel the urge to write the way an alcoholic feels the urge to drink, but if I said I am drawn to write the way a sparrow is drawn to birdseed, would you know what I mean?
Writers will write, the same way my dad and Ricky’s dad both will continue to wax about the sparrows, the same way the sparrows themselves will continue to flutter, soar and inevitably dive.
This writer has asked to remain anonymous for safety and protection of privacy. They can be contacted at statement@michigandaily.com.