Opens a browsers, Googles AA. Gets American Airlines. Grrr.. Googles Alcoholics Anonymous. Gets an idea, goes into the kitchen, grabs a beer, goes back. Can you drink beer and take Motrin at the same time? Decides to find out, pops two.

Lots of links, many of them dead. Useless information. Alanon, Alateen, Alawife. Googles his zipcode. Find a chapter near you. Chapter? Why are they called chapters? Oh, that God thing. God, grant me the serenity, etc. He doesn’t want fucking serenity. He wants to run.

Reaches for the beer, oops, it’s empty. Have another, or go find this meeting? It’s Monday night, there’s a game on. Realizes he can’t remember who’s playing. No, that’s not even true. In order to forget something, you have to have known it in the first place. He’s not disgusted with himself. But he doesn’t feel like drinking another beer. He gets up, gets his keys, gets another beer, gets in the car.

The closest meeting is in a church, about 2 miles away. He could walk there—fuck that, he could run there. In, more or less, 17 minutes 39 seconds. Maybe slower if the songs on his iPod Nano were less raucous. Maybe faster if it was a short running day. He always ran too fast on short days, when he was supposed to take it easy. Opens the beer, takes a swig as he turns a corner. Yeehaa, I’m a redneck. A redneck who drinks 5 dollar beers.

Grits his teeth. Not ran too fast, runs too fast. His calf has nothing to say on the subject. He’s not drunk, but maybe his calf is. Feels gwishy swishy on the gas pedal. Numbish, pronounce the b, num-bish.

Arrives at the intersection where the church is supposed to be. This does not look like the kind of street that would have a church on it. It’s all businesses and cafes and apartment buildings. Why has he never run this way? Because it’s all businesses and cafes and apartment buildings.

This parking lot wants him to pay three dollars to use a spot for the evening. Is it spot or slot? No way in heel he’s paying for a slot only 2 miles from his house. Wait, not heel, hell. No way in hell he meant. This parking lot wants him to be a customer of the bank, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is completely empty because the bank is closed. He hates that he’s not parking there anyway.

Pulls out, around the block, back on the street again, left-turn lane at the intersection. Finishes his beer, damn-it. Wait, is that the place? Across the street? Does an illegal U-turn, parks. Not a cop in sight. What is this city coming to.

Walks up to the house looking thing. Okay, no, this is not it. Not unless they do their meetings in the dark. Maybe they’re Quakers. Maybe they’re crackers.

Fine, he’ll walk around for a while. It’s around here somewhere. There’s a coffee shop. There’s another one. He imagines one is filled with Jets, the other Sharks. What was the name of that actress, the real Chicano, not the fake Natalie Wood one? Formica, Formica is fake wood. No, Rita something. She was spicy. Can you even say Chicano anymore? Didn’t she get cancer?

This is an apartment building. What’s it like to live here? Alone? With enough money in the bank to just hang out in the cafes all day? You wake up, shuffle around in your PJ bottoms, yawn, scratch, get the headlines off the web, put on your running shorts, running shirt, socks, running shoes. Grab your iPod Nano, the arm-band holder for it, headphones, pick a playlist, lock up, key above the door, walk down the flights of stairs for the warm-up, get out there, get a cramp, walk back, and great, you’ve got those fucking stairs to get up. Hobble.

Screw this, he decides. Dumb idea anyway. How’s he going to roll into an AA meeting, tell them he’s addicted, and going through withdrawal. Did you lose your job, they’ll ask. Did you lose your wife? Did you wreck your car? Hell, he doesn’t even want to tell them his name. So much for step one.

Maybe he’s sobering up, because his calf is starting to hurt again and he feels sleepy. Time to stop being so melodramatic. Hide the empties under the seat, go home, recycle the bottles, look at some boobs on the internet, check the scores, go to bed, wait for wife. What did you do all night, she’ll say. Watched the game, he’ll say. Who won? Not me, he won’t say.

The darkened abandoned looking house is oozing people. There are still no lights on—he can see them coming up from the basement. Well god damn it. A few are walking to the bus stop, a few are getting into cars. A few are walking over to one of the coffee shops. He follows them.

The place is busier on the inside than it looks on the outside. It’s more or less packed. More or less. More less than more more. The menu is in chalk and advertises vegan sandwiches. Well no wonder these people aren’t watching the game.

Beer and football go together like sex and regret. Probably why they have the meetings on Monday night. Well, okay, no, that probably has nothing to do with it. Still, it makes sense—maybe he needs to stop associating with running paraphernalia and he wouldn’t miss it so much.

And that would be what, exactly?

He orders a mocha. Pays, he feels, too little for it, tips too much. That would be legs, and the outdoors, and long flat streets, a nice cross-wind that’s cooling but doesn’t knock you off your feet. And feet. And water and sweat and his motherfucking calf muscle so tight and cramped he imagines he’s bursting his sock.

No chairs, cause the ex-alcys before him took the last few, He finds a spot to stand awkwardly sort of near the ex-alcys and not too far from some young student revolutionaries discussing some book. The phrase” young student revolutionaries” is triply redundant.

The mocha is very good. Much better than he thought it would be. He doesn’t even bother putting Splenda in it. And it’s almost not too hot. He slurps at the foam. The walls are festooned with flyers for local bands, sci-fi posters, mediocre art. Flowers, mostly. Is that the correct use of the word festooned? The ex-alcys are hunched over their cups of joe exactly the way the leather hippies at the outreach urn always are. He watches as one of them sneakily slips out an airline bottle of Stoli, opens it, dumps it in her coffee, stows the empty.

The revolutionaries are arguing about… something. Was he ever like that? Yes. One of them is obviously the alpha-male. He was never an alpha. They’re arguing about the hypocrisy of selling and buying t-shirts with pictures of Che Guavara on them. The alpha male is using long words, poetic language, fire and passion. One of the girls will probably sleep with him eventually. But right now his focus is on a slightly overweight prematurely bald kid with tired eyes. The kid has been reduced to repeating It’s. Ironic. Peter. It’s. Ironic.

That’s him. He’s that kid. He sorta kinda a little bit would rather be the lady with the Stoli bottle. A soul in ashes, a slave to the chemical, a cold smoldering weighing him down, an excellent reason to get married, have kids, get promoted, die healthy. But he’s not, he’s that kid. That kid has no excuses.

He wants to go up to the kid, tell him, forget Alpha, Forget Camus. Forget Irony. Forget Zen. Basically, you’ve got the belly, that bald spot, that encroaching myopia. Embrace those. Let that belly keep you at home, and that bald spot will remind you every morning what you have to look forward to for the rest of your life. And don’t bother with Lasik, with contacts, When you wander over to the park, and sit on one of the benches, you’re going to want to take off your glasses so all of the textures disappear, and it’s just shades of light and mottled, melding colors.

You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, Alpha says, sharply. The entire café goes obligingly silent. You are such an asshole.

He can tell, the kid wants to say something brilliant and biting, a retort that will make the girl abandon Alpha and run home with him for Blow Jobs and Aqua Teen hunger Force. All he can manage is: Kettle. It’s incredibly lame. The café goes back to hubbub.

Outside, walking to his car, he takes a funny step and his calf muscle reminds him in fire an ice that it really does not want to be fucked with anymore.