The circle was silent. Harvey cleared his throat.
“Thank you,” Harvey said. He gestured for the next guy to speak.
He was an old guy, Navajo, Jacquie guessed. He took his hat off, like you see some Indian men do when they pray.
“It all changed for me in a meeting,” he said. “Not one of these. These have been what’s made all the difference since. I’d been drinking and drugging for most of my adult life, off and on. Started a few different families up, let them fall by the wayside to my addictions. And then a brother of mine put up a meeting for me. Native American Church.”
Jacquie stopped listening. She thought it would help to say what she said about Harvey in front of him. But looking at him, listening to people’s stories, she figured he’d probably had a hard time. Jacquie remembered the way he’d talked about his dad on the island. How he hadn’t even seen his dad since they got on the island. Then, thinking about the island, Jacquie remembered seeing Harvey the day they left. She’d just gotten on the boat, and she saw him in the water. Hardly anyone ever got in that water. It was freezing. And—everyone had been convinced—shark-infested. Then Jacquie saw Harvey’s little brother, Rocky, running down the hill, yelling Harvey’s name. The boat started up. Everyone had sat down, but Jacquie was standing. Jacquie’s mom put her hand on Jacquie’s shoulder. She must have thought Jacquie was sad, because she let her stay standing for a few minutes. Harvey wasn’t swimming. He seemed to be hiding in the water. And then he was yelling for his brother. Rocky heard him and he jumped in with all his clothes on. The boat started to move.
“Okay, we’re going, sit down now, Jacquie,” Vicky said.
Jacquie sat down, but kept looking. She saw the boys’ dad stumble down the hill. He had something in his hand, a stick or a bat. Everything got smaller and smaller as they made their way slowly across the bay.
“We all been through a lot we don’t understand in a world made to either break us or make us so hard we can’t break even when it’s what we need most to do.” It was Harvey talking.
Jacquie realized she hadn’t been listening.
“Getting fucked up seems like the only thing left to do,” Harvey went on. “It’s not the alcohol. There’s not some special relationship between Indians and alcohol. It’s just what’s cheap, available, legal. It’s what we have to go to when it seems like we have nothing else left. I did it too. For a long time. But I stopped telling the story I’d been telling myself, about how that was the only way, because of how hard I had it, and how hard I was, that story about self-medicating against the disease that was my life, my bad lot, history. When we see that the story is the way we live our lives, only then can we start to change, a day at a time. We try to help people like us, try to make the world around us a little better. It’s then that the story begins. I want to say here that I’m sorry for who I was.” Harvey looked up at Jacquie, who turned away from his gaze. “I get that shame too. The kind that’s made of more years than you know you have left to live. That shame that makes you wanna say fuck it and just go back to drinking as a means to an end. I’m sorry to all the people I hurt all that time I was too fucked up to see what I was doing. There’s no excuse. Apologies don’t even mean as much as just…just acknowledging that you fucked up, hurt people, and that you don’t wanna do that anymore. Not to yourself either. That’s sometimes the hardest part. So let’s close out tonight like we always do, but let’s be sure to listen to the prayer, and say it like we mean it. God, grant me the serenity…”
They were all saying it in unison. Jacquie wasn’t going to at first, but suddenly found that she was saying it with them. “And wisdom to know the difference,” she finished.
The room cleared out. Everyone but the two of them, Jacquie and Harvey.
Jacquie sat with her hands in a pile in her lap. She couldn’t move.
“Long time,” Harvey said.
“Yeah.”
“You know, I’m going back to Oakland this summer. In a couple months, actually, for the powwow, but also—”
“Is this supposed to go like we’re normal, fine, like old friends?”
“Did you not stay to talk?”
“I don’t know why I stayed yet.”
“I know you said what we did, what I did on Alcatraz, how you put her up for adoption. And I’m sorry for all that. I couldn’t have known. I just found out I have a son too. He got ahold of me through Facebook. He lives in—”