A Snake in the Garden

The call came in at 4am. "Why are you telling everyone on the island awful things about me?"

That woke me up. I ask what the f- he's talking about. He says he's heard. That people have told him all the things I've been saying. I wonder if he's drunk dialing, but he sounds coherent. I tell him to give me specifics, that the conversation isn't making any sense as I know exactly nothing about what the caller has been up to the past month.

And so he tells me, and "the people" turn out to be a single person. I'll call him X. X, who I barely know, much less talk to regularly [perhaps three times in the past year]. X, who - each time I have seen him - has badmouthed my late night caller [he's crazy, he needs to be locked up, his mom needs to come get him, he needs to get off island, he's a problem child]. And apparently he also tells this to the caller's new boyfriend, only claims the words are mine.

It's all so strange. I hardly know this guy. We have a few friends in common, but nothing beyond that. I don't know how or why I ended up on his radar screen. I definitely don't know what his game is, or even why there is a game.

The commonality: all three drink like fish. The easy solution is to wipe my hands of the lot of them. Let them all drink themselves to an early bitter death. But one called me for help, and I've never turned my back on a brother.

I'm wondering why now, out of the blue, I am suddenly surrounded by people with drinking problems. One friend has a theory that 40 is the cut off age for breaking free - that if an alcoholic quits before 40 he has a chance of making it, but if he keeps drinking past 40 the odds of him ever tempering his drinking - much less quitting - are remote. The descent comes quick. Maybe it's just the age, and that my cohorts are suddenly realizing that they are standing on the edge of the abyss.

Six am and I am now wide awake and totally confused.