Back from Oblivion

It seemed to me two obvious mistakes you could have made, but I think avoided, were, A, telling the tale without any sense or acknowledgment of the physical, emotional, and social high of the druggie life, at least on the upper recreational end, and, B, letting any reader leave the story with a picture of you as some kind of world-class player. Where was the line in recounting the raucous hilarity that went on for many years? It seems to me there were at least another couple of short chapters of the goofball, mostly harmless party animal stuff.

Glad you asked. I think people see someone crippled by addiction and wonder why anyone would make that choice. And the answer is, It didn’t start out that way. It was fun as hell for a very long time. Others in the vicinity—no names need be mentioned here, Brian—can testify to that. Why do trained rats push the bar over and over unless, once upon a time, something splendid came down the tube? But a few of those ‘Geez, we were a riot, weren’t we?’ stories goes a long way. A friend of mine who read an early version of the book with more of those happy warrior tales said to me, ‘Hey, you know, we all did crazy stuff back in the day.’ True that.

And in terms of my resumé as a dealer and a wannabe crook, I had a strong impression that I was a Man about My Business back in the day. Not Pablo Escobar, but not nothing. But nearly everyone I talked to laughed in my face when I went there in my reporting. I had felony pretensions, but misdemeanor execution. One of the cops who booked me after a run took a look at me and said, “Lemme guess. Lurking with intent to mope, right?”

The book is presented as a “reported” memoir in which you seek out others for corroboration or more complete explanation of what went on with you. In the end, as a reporter looking at what they gave you, do you find their recollections all that more accurate than your own?

I tried not to print anything that was demonstrably untrue, and that included other people’s takes on events, regardless how dear their memory. My reporting was in the nature of a conversation—a rolling, organic effort at triangulation. And things I heard from one person and doubted were then repeated by someone else. Some of those “reveals” form the heart of the book. That does not mean the book contains all manner of objective truth—only that it was as close as I could make it.

Some fairly proper—i.e., straight—business-minded people gave you chance after chance after chance. You were never anyone’s idea of the average junkie. There was too much there. What do you say if I suggest it was talent, charm, or some combination of the two that actually saved you?

A pal told me that writing saved my life, that I could not stand being out of the game, but it seemed both true and almost too trite to say. I don’t think charm was one of my life preservers, though, because the pathology of addiction took me to a place where charming did not land in my neighborhood very often. And if charisma or skills were a fair metric on survival, what of some of my more charming friends who did not make it? My dad thinks I’m alive because nuns prayed for me, which is his way of saying I got lucky, I think.

You’re Irish. Your mother, you once told me, was “career Irish.” You’ve heard Freud’s line that the “Irish are the only race who cannot be helped by psychoanalysis.” Too many contradictions. Too adroit with an argument. Impervious to rational thought processes. Do you disagree? Have you ever disagreed?

I hesitate to say it lest my credentials as a shanty Irishman get revoked, but I am a highly therapized individual. True enough, most of it bounced off or was manipulated to my own ends, but I eventually found a therapist who had my number. In sobriety, she helped me learn to become the man I pretended to be. I know that sounds really foofy, but it is what it is. That said, the need for people to endlessly roam around their past, deconstructing their relationship with their mother, mystifies me. I believe in cognitive approaches to changing and improving ourselves—sometimes assisted by able nutcrackers—but the answer to all that family origins stuff is that everyone did the best they could. Case closed.

If the book doesn’t break new ground in the junkie lit genre—it may, I don’t know—I find myself recommending it on the basis of verve and vernacular alone. The adrenalized, cinematic, journo-street patois is very entertaining, especially to writers. Anyone of our generation will hear the chimes of Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and, to some extent, Richard Price. It often reads as though something released. Did you make a conscious decision on the style? Did you find it liberating?

I am soooo totally blushing right now. We all believe we are hacks and are pretending elsewise, no? This book is just my idea of a book—a first-time author’s, no less—so when I turned it in and people started treating it like it really was a book, part of me was stunned. That said, I read it for an excerpt not long ago and, in sum, I am proud of the book, if not always the story it tells. Parts of the book are written—built to last—and there are undoubtedly parts that are just typing to get from one place to another.

I wrote the book at a cabin in the Adirondacks on a tight schedule, and I worked whether the muse was present or not. The tone you are talking about is something I recognize, but cannot conjure at will. When it appeared in a sustained way, it came out in big, long ribbons. I’d put the iPod on shuffle late at night, start typing, and have some kind of nicotine-caffeine fever dream where I was not completely present. (Ever the addict, eh?) When I looked up, there was light coming through the pines and some small magic on the page.

The anticipated meeting with your twin daughters’ mother in Arizona feels a bit anticlimactic. Do you think you held back from fully dissecting that encounter? Because she is the girls’ mother?

One of the nicest things that ever happened to me—the twins—happened with Anna. I am both grateful to her and fond of her. She would say that I did not cut her any slack, that I took out an axe and hacked as I wished, but I probably could have gone deeper and rendered it in more brutal terms, but that didn’t feel right. I’m Irish, tribal in my loyalties, and this is the girls’ mom after all. The sad part for me is that Anna, who I talk to occasionally, has done amazing things since the book was finished. She has dealt with some significant medical issues while working hard helping folks who have mental health and chemical dependency issues. That makes for a better story that I’m hoping will be part of a paperback, if there is such a thing. The other thing that probably made it seem anticlimactic is that while Anna and I both have our share of delusions, we are pathologically disposed to disclose. Anna is not a liar, and I’d like to think I share the trait. We should probably hate each other, but we don’t.

If the disease of addiction is in large part an issue of unchecked, unregulated compulsion, do you think you’ve shifted compulsive energy to something else? Work?

Well, lemme see, it’s going on midnight and this Q & A is not due for four days, but here I sit. Today, I got up at 6 a.m. and finished off a 3,000-word story for the business section right after writing a big heave about a documentary on Hunter Thompson. Then there was a podcast, an appearance on NY1, and lots of work on the videos for the website of the book. I won’t belabor the tick-tock, but this weekend I have more of same—so, yeah, I have some issues, deep abiding ones. Some people can look in the mirror and validate their existence while I seem to worry that if I don’t have a story, I might not exist. Part of it is genetic—I may come from drunks, but they were earners—but my need to always produce suggests a significant pathology. Somewhere along the way, for reasons I am at a loss to explain, I got the feeling that if I slow down, flying monkeys might drop out of the ceiling and kill me. It’s an adaptive professional characteristic in this file-and-faceplant era of journalism where productivity is a means of survival, but not a very charming personal one.

I have always wondered why I like going to movies so much, and awhile ago I realized somewhat shamefully that it is the only time when I sit still and quiet. Something about silence intimidates me. Memoirs to the contrary, I’m not real big on self reflection and I read before bed until I slip to the edge of a coma.

In the past month, I took a fishing trip to the bayous of Louisiana and a weekend trip to the music festival called Bonnaroo, and, as my wife, Jill, pointed out, I managed to turn both of those fun things into work, writing and blogging about the experiences. I did take a bike ride with Maddie, my eleven-year-old, yesterday and did not check my BlackBerry once. I did bring it with me, though.