86'd: A Novel - By Dan Fante Page 0,74

to be a waste of time.

My counselor was a guy named Armondo, a former Mexican gang guy who’d done a dime at Pelican Bay and a nickel bit in “Q.” He’d found God in recovery going to prison Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Mondo was huge. He had a shaved head and his body was knife-scarred and covered with prison tats. Sitting behind his desk, the guy’s white, starched dress shirt and tie made me think of a chimp in a TV commercial trying to portray a human. I disliked the fat prick at first sight. His recovery philosophy could easily be summed up in a three sentences: I’m the MAN and you are shit. I hold all the cards and you are shit. I’ve been through it all and you cannot con me because you are full of shit. This attitude served only to cement my resistance.

I was in his office for our second scheduled session. My first mandatory one-on-one meeting had been aborted after a six-hour group session in which all new residents, me included, went through the first three AA steps. Mondo and I were supposed to hook up then but I’d gone back to my dorm room claiming sick. I was desperate to get out. The place was a hell.

The meeting with Mondo purportedly had to do with my past. My history. My written fourth step: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

“First off,” Mondo said, “before we get down to it, what would you say is your main objective at Charles Street? What do you hope to gain from completing our program?”

“Release,” I answered. “My hope is to return, in tact, to living my dreams.”

“Bullshit, Dante,” he barked. “Let’s end the babysnot right up front.”

The office we sat in was small and un-air-conditioned and it has always been my observation that fat humans perspire a lot. And big Armondo was the emperor of flop sweat. His bald dome and face were covered with it, yet the sun was barely up.

He looked up from his photocopied form and glared. “Okay, let’s try again,” he said. “We’re gonna do this every day at five forty-five a.m., so if I were you, bro, I’d juss get used to the process.”

“I’m court-sentenced, man. I’d like to tell you what you want to hear but I’m fresh out of fake it ’til you make it.”

“Thaz good, my man,” whispered Mondo, “because either I get full cooperation and participation or you get an X on this intake form and off and you go back to County. So, we got us a door number one or door number two scenario here. Pick one. Truth is, it’s all the same to me. I cash my paycheck every Saturday.”

It only took a second for me to respond. “Go ahead,” I said, staring at the floor, “I’m down. I’ve got zero interest in returning to jail. So let’s do it. Ask your goddamn questions.”

Mondo wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his size XXL shirt then picked up a clipboard. “Question One: When you look back at your life, what memories are still uncomfortable or painful? What incidents make you feel dirty?”

“Okay, look,” I said, my mind now on scream, “I just can’t do this. I can’t do it right now.”

Big Mondo got to his feet. “Well, I guess that’s that. It’s your call, Dante.”

“Okay, look, what about this: Can I take the thing back to the dorm and do it there? In private.”

Mondo wagged his neckless head then sank back into his chair. “Yeah, okay, that’s allowed.”

Then, reaching down into a drawer he handed me a yellow writing tablet, then a pen. “You got two hours, my man. Have it back here by eight o’clock. Complete. Answer all the questions. Understood?”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

Back in my room, ten minutes later, sipping a mug of caffeine-less tea, sitting at the writing desk in my beige-walled dorm room, I made up my mind to complete the annoying exercise. For me, Charles Street was the last house on the block. Fuck it. I’d do what I had to do. I’d been eighty-sixed for the last time.

Then, something startling happened: My hand began to write. My brain switched gears and submitted. Words began pouring out. They were mostly lies but that didn’t matter. I was doing it. Two pages later I was done with Question One.

Question Two was: In what ways do you experience yourself as inadequate?

No problem. Two more written pages. Boom boom boom. Again, the stuff