The Next Right Thing by Dan Barden Page A

happened that last night with Terry.
    “Is that why you bought me fish tacos?” Troy asked. “To ask me a bunch of cop questions?”
    “I just want to know.”
    “Do you know what the topic at the online A.A. meeting was today? It came from The Big Book. It was so good that I printed it up.”
    Troy actually turned out his pants pockets before he found a piece of paper. It didn’t surprise me that there was no cash or keys to impede his search. “Here it is.” Troy silently read his piece of paper to himself, nodded, then looked off toward Japan.
    I took exactly two puffs from my cigar before I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What was the fucking quote?”
    “Oh.” Troy once again hoisted the piece of paper. “ ‘Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.’ Isn’t that awesome?”
    “From Chapter Five,” I said. “And what does that mean to you, Troy?”
    “Terry told me the same thing: it’s an inside job. I spent most of today asking myself why you would want to hit me, and then I read this—I must have done something that put me in a position to be hit.”
    “Maybe I’m just homicidal. Did you consider that?”
    “I’ve gotta do a fifth step. You wanna do my fifth step with me? At first I thought Wade was insane, but now I think it’s a good idea.”
    Taking Troy’s fifth step, a process in which he read to me his “moral inventory”—a catalog of his resentments, fears, and misbehavior—didn’t necessarily mean that I was his sponsor. But that’s what it meant to most people in A.A. If you trusted someone enough to share with him your inventory, he might as well be your sponsor.
    “You want
me
to be your sponsor? This morning I almost beat you.”
    “My dad hit me once, too,” Troy said. “In many ways, I admire him more than anyone.”
    “Just hold that thought,” I said, “and tell me, at least, how you met Terry.”
    “If you’ll consider being my sponsor, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
    “Have you even done your fourth step, Troy?”
    “I’m working on it,” he said. “I’ll do it right away.”
    “Slow down,” I said. “Tell me how you met Terry.”
    “How does anyone meet him?” Troy said. “He was hanging around my recovery house, saying lots of inappropriate shit that was actually quite appropriate.”
    “Like what?”
    Troy raised an eyebrow. “Like the stuff that you say? Like telling someone that they’d never be able to forgive their parents until they stopped taking money from them, like telling somebody else that an orgasm was a commitment. You want me to go on?”
    “No.” I laughed. “I get the gist. But why was he there? Was he there on business?”
    “I figured it was just what sober guys did, went and visited the newer sober guys. It seemed like he was friends with Colin. Like what Wade said, he did lawyer stuff for him. But mostly, it seemed like he was there to talk to me.”
    “You?”
    “And guys like me,” Troy said. “He’d tease me, but you know, I always felt special. You know what I mean?”
    “I know what you mean.”
    Troy dropped his Camel Light and crushed it. As he sat downon one of the wooden benches along the boardwalk, I took another hit off my cigar and
really
wished I still smoked cigarettes. Putting my foot on the bench beside Troy, I watched my smoke drift up the hill toward Las Brisas where once, many years before, I had watched O. J. Simpson put two beautiful women into a limousine and then return to the bar with them exactly forty-five minutes later.
    “Did he talk to the girls, too?” I asked.
    “You’re asking me if he fucked them?” Troy said.
    I didn’t say anything.
    “I never saw that, Randy. If it happened, I never saw it.”
    “How about that last night?” I said. “Will you tell me about that now?”
    “Will you be my