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Lying as he is, staring directly along the floor, the dust-bu
Down the corridor, the chanting voice has finally reached Targenfield.
THIRTEEN
Callahan was silent for a moment. He sipped at his coffee, grimaced, and poured himself a knock of sweet cider, instead.
"I knew how the climb back starts," he said. "I'd taken enough low-bottom drunks to enough AA meetings on the East Side, God knows. So when they let me out, I found AA in Topeka and started going every day. I never looked ahead, never looked behind. 'The past is history, the future's a mystery,' they say. Only this time, instead of sitting in the back of the room and saying nothing, I forced myself to go right down front, and during the introductions I'd say, 'I'm Don C. and I don't want to drink anymore.' I did want to, every day I wanted to, but in AA they have sayings for everything, and one of them is 'Fake it till you make it.' And little by little, I did make it. I woke up one day in the fall of 1982 and realized I really didn't want to drink anymore. The compulsion, as they say, had been lifted.
"I moved on. You're not supposed to make any big changes in the first year of sobriety, but one day when I was in Gage Park-the Reinisch Rose Garden, actually…" He trailed off, looking at them. "What? Do you know it? Don't tell me you know the Reinisch!"
"We've been there," Susa
"That," Callahan said, "is amazing."
"It's nineteen o'clock and all the birds are singing," Eddie said. He wasn't smiling.
"Anyway, the Rose Garden was where I spotted the first poster. HAVE YOU SEEN CALLAHAN, OUR IRISH SETTER. SCAR ON PAW, SCAR ON FOREHEAD. GENEROUS REWARD. Et cetera, et cetera. They'd finally gotten the name right. I decided it was time to move on while I still could. So I went to Detroit, and there I found a place called The Lighthouse Shelter. It was a wet shelter. It was, in fact, Home without Rowan Magruder. They were doing good work there, but they were barely staggering along. I signed on. And that's where I was in December of 1983, when it happened."
"When what happened?" Susa
It was Jake Chambers who answered. He knew, was perhaps the only one of them who could know. It had happened to him, too, after all.
"That was when you died," Jake said.
"Yes, that's right," Callahan said. He showed no surprise at all. They might have been discussing rice, or the possibility that Andy ran on ant-nomics. "That's when I died. Roland, I wonder if you'd roll me a cigarette? I seem to need something a little stronger than apple cider."
FOURTEEN
There's an old tradition at Lighthouse, one that goes back… jeez, must be all of four years (The Lighthouse Shelter has only been in existence for five). It's Thanksgiving in the gym of Holy Name High School on West Congress Street. A bunch of the drunks decorate the place with orange and brown crepe paper, cardboard turkeys, plastic fruit and vegetables. American reap-charms, in other words. You had to have at least two weeks' continuous sobriety to get on this detail. Also -this is something Ward Huckman, Al McCowan, and Don Callahan have agreed to among themselves -no wet brains are allowed on Decoration Detail, no matter how long they've been sober.
On Turkey Day, nearly a hundred of Detroit's finest alkies, hypes, and half-crazed homeless gather at Holy Name for a wonderful di
It goes fast, and because Callahan is just sitting there, not thinking of anything in particular, when it's his turn he almost blurts out something that could have caused him trouble. At the very least, he would have been tabbed as a guy with a bizarre sense of humor.
"I'm grateful I haven't…" he begins, then realizes what he's about to say, and bites it back. They're looking at him expectantly, stubble-faced men and pale, doughy women with limp hair, all carrying about them the dirty-breeze subway station aroma that's the smell of the streets. Some already call him Faddah, and how do they know? How could they know? And how would they feel if they knew what a chill it gives him to hear that? How it makes him remember the Hitler Brothers and the sweet, childish smell of fabric softener? But they're looking at him. "The clients. " Ward and Al are looking at him, too.
"I'm grateful I haven't had a drink or a drug today," he says, falling back on the old faithful, there's always that to be grateful for. They murmur their approval, the man next to Callahan says he's grateful his sister's going to let him come for Christmas, and no one knows how close Callahan has come to saying "I'm grateful I haven't seen any Type Three vampires or lost-pet posters lately."
He thinks it's because God has taken him back, at least on a trial basis, and the power of Barlow's bite has finally been cancelled. He thinks he's lost the cursed gift of seeing, in other words. He doesn't test this by trying to go into a church, however -the gym of Holy Name High is close enough for him, thanks. It never occurs to him -at least in his conscious mind -that they want to make sure the net's all the way around him this time. They may be slow learners, Callahan will eventually come to realize, but they're not no learners.
Then, in early December, Ward Huckman receives a dream letter. "Christmas done come early, Don! Wait'll you see this, Al!" Waving the letter triumphantly. "Play our cards right, and boys, our worries about next year are over!"
Al McCowan takes the letter, and as he reads it his expression of conscious, careful reserve begins to melt. By the time he hands the letter to Don, he's gri
The letter is from a corporation with offices in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It's on rag bond so luxurious you want to cut it into a shirt and wear it next to your skin. It says that the corporation is pla