The Lunch Bunch

Dread fills you as you enter the room. It is harshly clinical with its pristine linoleum flooring and stark white walls. Three tables are placed in the center along with a chaotic assortment of chairs. There are two men and a woman sitting at the tables. You recognize them.

The man closest to you is there practically every day of the week though no one acknowledges him with much more than pity. You vaguely know his story though you neglected to ever catch his name (a theme in your life both in and out of this room). He is balding and blond, most likely your father's general age, and disabled. He wears shorts and tank tops regardless of the weather and has noticeably tanned skin. As you have gathered, he was hit by a trimet bus, or maybe the MAX, and is now a lumbering example of a lobotomy gone wrong. Every day he reads the preamble. Every day he announces that it is March 13th, 2004. You wonder briefly if that day has any meaning for him.

The other man, you are pretty sure, has been in his first thirty days of sobriety since you were born. When he speaks, he tells vivid tales of his recent relapses into the world of booze and speed and the arms of men half his age. Pedophile.

The woman is lanky and short-haired and reminds you of an accidental lover you had in college. She is awkward and carries a day planner in which she obsessively plots out every moment of her life. She hates free time. You determine that there is nothing interesting about her whatsoever.

You glance at your partner-in-crime with his long blond hair and vampiric features. For several months now, you have refused to call him anything but Lestat. He rolls his eyes at you and motions for the empty table furthest away from the door. You sit down, place your cup of coffee on the table and proceed to take off your scarf and damp jacket.

Lestat goes to the restroom.

Emma hands you a piece of paper.

“Mind reading the promises?” She asks.

“That’s fine,” you shrug.

A few more people enter the room and you refuse to make polite conversation or eye contact with any of them.

Lestat returns and greets familiar faces with disgustingly sentimental embraces.

An older woman with short silver hair, near-sighted enough to need a cane and thick, unfashionable glasses enters the room.

"Are the lot of you here for Alcoholics Anonymous?" She asks no one in particular.

The lanky lesbian secretary, Emma is her name, nods.

"Well," the blind woman says curtly, "we have this room reserved, so you're meeting upstairs."

Emma sighs and begins gathering laminated sheets of paper into a clear plastic box.

"Haven't you heard? I thought you people were more organized."

After a moment of berating the lack of organization, the blind woman begins excitedly speaking about her own meeting, informing us and the people now piling into the room, that everyone should attend. Apparently, it's going to be a self-help seminar teaching its victims how to "put their pasts into their pasts."

She continues talking as everyone inches away uncomfortably, hoping to casually reach the limits of her sight and make a break for it. Little does she know that everyone who attends twelve-step meetings are inherently comfortable living in their pasts and intolerably happy in their knowledge of their mistakes and failures. AA is a safe place to discuss, consider and drown in your character flaws.

You head up the rickety old stairs of the church, Lestat following behind, and take a seat in the "fireside" room. It is an open space overlooking the main room of the church. There is a small fireplace and tacky upholstery on the furniture. Cherubs with harps. Green and pink floral patterns.

You try for a moment to remember the last time you were in a church and realize that you only enter such places for funerals. Maybe a wedding or two. There seem to be a disproportionate amount of funerals in your life recently.

Lestat eyes the art on the walls. He laughs.

Poorly painted flowers in a blotchy vase.

“Maybe I should start painting church art,” you whisper. “Doesn’t seem to take much effort.”

Soon, there are enough people to start the meeting. Emma reads the beginning bit and you lean back, silently waiting for the hour to end.

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

 

The pedophile leads the meeting. Joey? Johnny? Even after hearing his name you cannot remember it. He speaks incoherently about his life (predictably) and then opens the meeting up. Today’s topic is humility. Something none of these people, or yourself, knows how to accomplish.

You are not a humble person.

You are proud, fiery, aggressive.

There is silence. The pedophile eyes the group, lingering looks on the pretty new faces. He doesn’t even see you. No one in this group notices you. You don’t have the necessary equipment or butch appearance.

He points at a weary looking woman in a dirty white sweater.

“Cole, you start.” He says.

“Hi, I’m Cole. I’m an alcoholic.”

She talks of humility, of the fourth step, of giving herself to God. You’ve heard all of her words before she speaks.

Months ago, when you’d never met these people, their words were new, wise, enlightening. Now you have realized that there is nothing new, only revised ways to say the same old things over and over and forever.

You don’t intend to wallow in a faded addiction for the rest of your life.

After Cole speaks, a barrage of others voice their recent complaints in life, how they try to be humble, on and on.

You glance around the room while others speak. There is the man who had liposuction on his chin and wore a neck brace for three weeks. There is the man who only talks about having hepatitis c. There is the man who reminds you of your lover.

You know every face in the group. Vaguely know their stories.

After the next speaker, Emma calls the meeting to a break and passes around a small basket. When it gets to you, you pull a wad of bills out of your back pocket and drop a one into the basket. You hand it to the large man sitting next to you. He smiles at you. You return his smile and stand.

You head downstairs, through the original room to the restroom. The blind woman stops you.

“Tell the rest of your group to come down the back stairs to get to the bathroom.”

You nod and walk away.

You turn on the light in the restroom and walk immediately to the mirror. You stare at yourself.

Smudged black makeup and dark circles line your blue eyes. Gold eye shadow attempts in vain to brighten their tired gaze. Your hair is insufferably curly and pulled lazily into low, loose pigtails.

I will straighten in when I escape this place, you think.

A pendant hangs around your neck on a thick black cord. Your brother bought it for you at a renaissance faire. It is a pentacle and a stag. He informed you gleefully that the stag had a masculine energy and was an elusive character too quick to act, too quick to hide. How appropriate.

Despite your curves and wild hair, you determine that there is nothing particularly striking about you. Your clothes are dirty, dark-colored, artsy. Your general demeanor is hostile, unapproachable and your looks unremarkable. You’ve been told endlessly that you are beautiful by strangers, friends, lovers. One man even made a scene to inform you of your loveliness. Charming but you fail to see it.

You use the restroom without further unhelpful criticism, wash your hands with foamy soap and return to the meeting.

Lestat is speaking when you get upstairs. You briefly meet eyes with the gay version of your lover before sitting down awkwardly. Lestat is predictably speaking about his ex, a topic that he’d spent the hour of coffee and driving before the meeting telling you everything about.

You still savor your past relationships, but tend to be too private to kiss and tell… most of the time.

A man walks through the room, a thick cloud of nag champa following behind. You were never known to be the most punctual but you know when it’s too late to show up. He appears to be of the category of gay men that you and Lestat have deemed art fags. His dank scent wafts through the already stuffy room and you begin to sneeze.

Hi, my name is ________ and I’m an alcoholic.

Hi _________.

Hi, my name is ________ and I’m an alcoholic.

Hi _________.

 

Eventually the meeting is over, and you are told to read the promises.

“Hi, my name is Kait,” You say. “I’m an addict.”

“Hi Kait.” The group says.

“Okay, the promises.” You sigh and glance down at the piece of paper next to you. You pick it up and begin to read. “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.” You pause, take a deep breath, and read the rest. “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises?”

You pause.

“We think not.” The group says.

“They,” you begin again, “are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.”

When you are done, everyone thanks you, and stands and forms a circle. You follow suit and join hands with the man next to you and Lestat.

“God,” Emma begins.

Everyone joins in, including you.

“Grant us the serenity. To accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Keep coming back, it works if you work it.