The ride to North Cottage is long and scenic, especially when you snake the back roads. Tom wasn’t one for highways or conversation, which suited me fine. Small talk about the weather only ages me. But if you want my thoughts on God, addiction, or chronic depression? I’m your man.
Halfway there, he passed me a bottle of water without a word, eyes never leaving the road. We slid past a sagging barn and dying sunflowers—barns sagged like spent lungs, sunflower stalks bowed to August heat.
“Used to be a beauty,” he muttered.
I nodded, unsure if he meant the barn or something else. Over the hour-and-a-half trip, Tom said exactly two things: “It’s time to go” and “We’re here.” My kind of guy.
Tom, a recent retiree, volunteered as both driver and kitchen help at SMOC—the detox I was currently a guest of. He had a wiry frame, wind-chapped knuckles, and a face like a forgotten newspaper—creased and unreadable. He hummed tunelessly through cracked lips as we turned off a county road. I studied his face in the rear-view mirror—half-shadowed by his Red Sox cap—for clues: Was he dodging alimony, bookies, ghosts? I wasn’t buying the good Samaritan bit. Nobody does this shit for free unless they’re running from something.
I’d tried eating twice before we left, but nerves wouldn’t approve, and I hoped the rumble in my stomach would subside by interview time. Hunger and nausea wrestled; neither won. Agita kicked in, making it impossible not to stare at that raspberry-shaped thing on Tom’s nose. Then the rain cleared and sunlight made it glow. Its scarlet patchiness sickened me, yet somehow sharpened my appetite.
Although unplanned, I welcomed the month-and-a-half stay at SMOC. Detoxes were short-lived, doable respites: hot meals, fresh linen, and plenty of meds to ease withdrawal pain. A junkie’s version of Club Med. Price of admission? A nightly AA drubbing and the best donuts in three counties—I measured meetings by the glaze.
Most nights the evangelical vibe was high. For ninety minutes straight, seven or eight people shared stories of losing it all and finding redemption through the program. The idea was you’d relate to someone’s story and it might inspire change in you. These stories never lit anything in me, but I enjoyed watching first-timers gobble it up. One kid, barely twenty, nodded like he was hearing gospel for the first time—eyes wide, blinking too much, a soft involuntary laugh when a woman admitted pawning her kid’s Game Boy for dope. Somewhere between awe and horror. Suckers.
By minute forty-five it was a bid for Biggest Loser, Brightest Halo.
Insiders called these spectacles “commitments,” but they were nothing more than overzealous recruitment attempts. Attendance was mandatory. I, as a repeat offender, was unmoved. Still, I sat like a good attendee and pretended to listen. My eyes stayed on the maple crullers.
My thoughts mirrored the twisting road. I spent the ride concocting redemption scenarios to get back in the good graces of the many I’d screwed over. Maybe I’d show up at my mother’s door with a detailed payment plan—interest calculated, timeline neat. Best shirt, slow speech, steady eye contact. Tell her about meetings, counselors, how I was different now. Even as I rehearsed, I knew she’d see right through it. Fresh spins on old classics. Not even convincing to me anymore. I’d been here so often I should’ve paid rent.
Dejected and numb, I closed my eyes. Rehashing multi-plots is arduous work, and try as I might, my plans wouldn’t take. Early sobriety does this—lucidity crowds out the sly machinery. My usual conniving gears kept skipping teeth. Fuck. Was conscience rebooting? I wished I were home.
Of course, there was always Joanne. I could spew a few AA quotes, toss some Big Book anecdotes, promise I’d be a good boy—counseling, more meetings this time. Sounded decent, but there was one problem: she was done. I’d tapped that well one too many times. Walk back into our place tonight? Ten minutes, tops, before I caved.
I couldn’t kid myself anymore. If I returned home, I wouldn’t last ten minutes. One of the reasons I even considered a halfway house interview was that I’d bottomed out so low this time I knew my next time out would be my last.
At intake I was one hundred and fifty pounds on a six-foot frame. My skin tone: grayish white. The outline of my enlarged liver was visible from both front and back. My disease had progressed that far.
“Disease” was a slick word—made me victim instead of asshole. Poor me, not my fault, pass the dope. Nice work, AA.
Lost in thought, I gazed out at the pines lining the road. A squirrel shot across the driveway and disappeared into the brush. Somewhere a wind chime rang from a sagging porch.
I pictured myself in a small rental, something modest—porch swing, decent lawn mower. I could stay clean. Get a job hauling junk or fixing gutters. Learn the neighbors’ names. Find a woman with a past like mine and a laugh that didn’t sound forced.
But the sweetness of the air was just that—sweet—and not meant for someone like me. All lofty ambitions, nothing more than pink-cloud illusions of the newly sober.
The Cottage is one in name only. I suppose “The Mansion” may sound daunting to sober applicants in exit interviews, so they chose “The Cottage.” Cottages conjure picket fences, tight shuttered windows, pine-slat walls. This place had none of that.
Unseen from the road, the massive structure peers through the pines as we ascend the driveway. Seven acres, long windows, hedges trimmed with military precision—royalty, not society’s dregs.
Yup, this was a mansion all right—Wayne Manor after a New England makeover—and if it were limestone instead of clapboard it would rival it. I heard it was part of a revered women’s college back in the day, but who gives a fuck? If accepted, I’d have six months to figure a way out of the jackpot I created—and what better place than the burbs?
I hadn’t noticed its range during my interview a few weeks ago. Staff usher potential applicants through a side entrance to a third-floor loft for a one-hour grilling—birthplace to alternate sexuality.
I knew some of the staff were gay, and it didn’t matter to me. But as the interview progressed, it became clear one or more housemates could be, too. I involuntarily clenched my asshole.
Earlier that week, my counselor Pat and I sat across from each other in his cluttered office, brochures fanned like a dealer’s hand. We’d been going over halfway house options, his voice steady and low like a man reading script.
Then came the curveball.
“How do you feel about homosexuals?” he asked, eyes locked on mine.
My body stiffened. No lead-in, no segue. Just the grenade. I felt my face flush but kept my posture loose. My mind ran like a dial-up search engine, scrambling for tone and answer.
Pat didn’t blink. Didn’t fidget. He leaned into the silence like it was a test.
I cleared my throat, softened my eyes, warmed the smile. “I’ve got no problem with them,” I said—smooth as syrup.
He nodded, tapped his pen once, went back to paperwork like it was a checkbox.
My heart didn’t settle until I hit the hallway. Even then it pounded with the suspicion the real interview had just started.
It was loaded. Any hesitation or wrong inflection might land me in some city dump instead of cottage paradise. Pat was a pro at faces, so I almost panicked and blurted, “I’ve got many homosexual friends,” or “my cousin’s gay.” Instead, I stuck the landing. Perfect 10. Truth is, I had no idea how I actually felt.
In Boston back then, nobody talked about it. You learned early that being called “queer” or worse was a mark you didn’t want. So you developed radar and dodged anything that set it off. Survival, not malice. Rules were hard and fast: no loafers, high-waisted chinos, or anything remotely pink. Even salmon or coral put you on the pile.
Sure, we knew Liberace, Freddie Mercury, Elton John were gay—but entertainers got a pass. And of course, the mysterious uncle—a confirmed bachelor never seen with a woman. His secret to success? Hetero camouflage: jeans, drab shirts, Chuck Taylors, measured repartee.
I wasn’t back in Framingham an hour when I learned the Cottage had accepted my application. I’d be moving into the ITP program in one week—Intensive Treatment Program.
This thirty-two-bed facility’s aim is to reprogram clients that just can’t stay clean. Repeat offenders. Dope fiends. Poly-substance abusers. Chronic alcoholics with little hope. The special cases. Make it through this program and you graduate to the main house.
Mom always said I was special.
This is where I’d like to tell you I experienced some spiritual revelation—a shift in consciousness. The kind that inspires one to challenge demons, slay Grendel with a hero’s sword.
I can assure you that wasn’t the case.
No, I just bottomed out. There were no more cons to run, pockets to drain, or bridges to burn. And all the lush greenery of tranquil suburbia couldn’t distract me from the fact that I owed money.
Big money to people you shouldn’t.
Tom cleared his throat. “You ready?”
“Ready as I get,” I said, hand on the door handle, the Mansion-Not-Cottage filling the windshield. Six months to rewrite an ending or dig a deeper hole—it looked roomy enough for either.