Excerpt from "An Unlikely Turn of Events"

Court ordered or not, I don’t know why I still come to these stupid meetings. Maybe it’s my conscience wanting to do my mom’s bidding. I have been free, sober, and clean of alcohol for well over three years, and there’s no way in hell I’m going back to that lonely, despair-riddled life. A prison stint and losing my young marriage to divorce was more than enough to wake me up from the devastating effects of the devil’s nectar. Although every time I think of my ex taking the house, my car, and the dog—the damn dog—I want to slam back a bottle or two. But I don’t. Living three years without the stuff was what I really needed to realize that I didn’t need it in my life any more than I do coca-cola or chocolate cake.
The sudden wave of polite clapping pulls my head from the clouds, and my mind rushes back to the world of this dimly lit, stale-smelling church basement.
“Thank you, Riley,” says Trina, this AA assembly’s chairperson. “Now, would anyone else care to take the podium?” Sitting comfortably at the head of the room, she swivels in her steel chair and glances around at the small, seated crowd of recovering alcoholics, her eyes falling and staying put on me. I look away for a few seconds to admire a painted picture of a stoic-looking Jesus, then glance back to see Trina still gleaming at me, smiling.
“How about you … Paul, was it?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say, tonelessly. “My name is Paul.”
“You’re still relatively new here? You’ve been here a few times, and I don’t believe we’ve heard you speak yet. Would you care to get up and tell us a little bit about yourself?” she asks. She sounds sweet and makes me think of my late aunty, Delores. Trina even shares my late aunt’s hairstyle.
I’d much rather be that guy who just sits in without saying a peep, nodding in accordance whenever someone’s story hits a soft spot. “Sure,” I say, “why not.” The wave of dainty clapping resumes as I get off my stiff seat and move through the centre aisle of foldable steel chairs, the musty smell getting stronger as I approach the makeshift stage. A heavy plume of heat sprays down on me from a ceiling vent.
Standing behind the rickety lectern, I survey the small crowd. A tall guy in the back wearing a grey Stetson stares lecherously at a pretty blonde with her back to him, her ponytail adding a sense of boredom. An old couple sit with one another, holding each other’s hands as they stare up at me like two cats watching a mouse stroll across the room. Trina sits on the very left of the front row. She stares at me as if to say go on, we’re here to listen.
Finally I notice a tall, lanky man slumping in his chair, his long legs messily strewn on the floor in front of him. His attention switches back and forth from me to a beautiful woman sitting two chairs from him who is doing her level best to ignore him. I steer my eyes clear of this pretty woman in fear of losing my cool before I share my less-than-luminous history.
“Hi, uh,”—I clear my throat—“hello, my name is Paul—”
A small babble of hellos, with my name added in, surges throughout the eight attendees.
“—I am—was an alcoholic. I uhh,”—eyes darting—“well, my life story is a pretty long one, so I’ll try and keep it short and simple. Alcoholism has run rampant throughout my family stemming back a few generations. I watched my grandfather, who raised me to the best of his good knowledge, drink himself practically to death. Those were the final years of my high school days and the kickoff to my own days of drinkin’ hard. My grandfather initiated his own life of alcoholism due to his tours of duty in the Vietnam War, and way before that, the Canadian residential school system—”
When I mention residential school, I hear the guy with the long legs scoff and snort. I stop talking and shoot an unkind glare at him as he squirms to get comfortable in his seat. His spiteful grin suggests his own life story of being brought up by racists.
“Terry,” Trina barks. “You know the rule of crosstalk.” She waits until Terry composes himself and is once again paying attention to me, his lips sealed. She reverts back to her sweetness, encouraging me silently with her glance that, once again, reminds me of my aunt.
“Uh, as I was saying, my grandfather suffered many abuses in residential school, effects that never really wore off, I guess you could say. So, he was only able to find his coping mechanisms at the bottom of the bottle, and as a young kid, I watched—”
Shuffling his long legs around, Terry once again lets out a scoff.
I am about to blow up like a hand grenade, but Trina beats me to it. She bolts from her chair to face the disruption. “Excuse me, Terry. Do you want to be a part of this meeting, or would you rather be off and out?”
I cut in, saying, “No, wait, hold on, Trina. Maybe he has something important to say. Let’s just hear him out, if you don’t mind?”
She turns to face me, still reeling in frustration, and nods once. “If that’s what you’d like, then I’m all ears.” She sits back down in her squeaky chair and folds her arms.
“Go ahead, Terry. Let me hear what’s on your mind,” I say, discharging my pent-up frustration by squeezing onto the edges of the lectern.
“Do I stand or sit? You know what, never mind,” Terry says. “I just gotta say this: the residential school system depravity you speak of, its absolute bullsh—BS.” In the dim 60-watt light bulb illumination, I could clearly see that he is of the discriminatory sort of white guy, with greasy, split hair ends peeking out at all angles from the back of his beat-up trucker’s cap. Storybook redneck. “If anything, it was what the damn Indians needed. What with them living their savage ways of life and all. I, for one, agree with our country’s past and the way it dealt with the damn savages. And that’s just—”
“Excuse me!” Trina snaps, leaping to her feet once more. She glares at Terry. “This isn’t a debate club. And even if it was, your racist views would not be welcome here, especially in this House of God.”
House of God. It’s my turn to scoff, only I keep it to myself. I am standing in the basement of a church of the same religion that helped develop the North American residential school system. I shake off my wandering notion and reapply my attention to the riled-up Trina, putting into practice the best tool from my prison days to avoid trouble:
Walk away and be the better man.
“As a matter of fact, as the chairperson of this evening’s AA, I would very much like to ask you to leave,” orders Trina. This time, the applause has more spirit. Terry doesn’t hesitate. He leaps from his seated position, nearly knocking the creaky chair to the floor, and storms out of the basement chamber, releasing a fusillade of foul language in his brash, swaggering wake.
Trina remains standing until we hear the hindmost basement door slam shut. She relocates her consideration to me and says, “I’m so sorry about that, Paul. Please, carry on with what you were saying.” I realize I’ve said all I need to say.
Trina is the type to take the time to stop at a doughnut shop and purchase premium coffee and doughnuts for the meeting attendees out of her own pocket. I always wait until the end of the meeting to grab some of her coffee; drinking it during a meeting makes me overly warm and fidgety when I’m trying to sit and listen to the AA assembly’s stories. The coffee warms my blood for my short walk back to my home, though. Coffee in one hand and a half-eaten doughnut in the other, I’m ready to head to the coat rack when I feel a sprightly tap to my shoulder blade. I choke down my chunk of half-chewed doughnut and face my not-so-much of a disturber.
“I was really moved by your account,” says the beautiful woman who’d been sitting a couple of chairs away from racist Terry. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened to you from your days of drinking. It’s good that you come to these meetings, though. And I’m especially impressed by how composed you kept yourself after hearing what that racist asshole had to say. That must have been so friggin’ hard.”
A stream of outright bashfulness hits me, but I manage to overcome it by curling my feet into fists inside my boots. It always helps for reasons I am unaware of. “Thank you. And most definitely, I wouldn’t miss these meetings for the world. They do wonders to help me live life without alcohol.” I place my coffee cup down on the table, dust off my hand and thrust it out. “I’m—”
“—Paul. Yeah, I know,” she says with a smile, planting her soft hand into my palm and squeezing with construction-worker strength. “I’m Rashida.”
“Rashida?” I say, wide-eyed. “Just like the actor. That’s a beautiful name.” Her eyes alone ripen the beauty her name carries along with it.
“Thank you, it’s Turkish,” she giggles, her eyes darting away from mine as her fingers twirl through her shoulder-length, almost jet-black hair shimmering in the mellow basement lighting.
An awkward moment of uncomfortable silence bloomed between us.
Not this time, I think.
“So,” I blurt out, making her snap some undivided attention back to me. “You—uhh—did you have to travel far to get here?” I ask, the first question that sails into my mind.
She lights up like Santa Claus really does exist. “Yes—and no. I live just a few blocks from the downtown core, sorta uptown if you wanna call it. My dad picks me up and drives me home from each meeting. Just to make sure I’m actually going.”
“Oh, your dad? That’s nice of him,” I say, half-asking an unspoken question.
“Yeah.” She smiles and looks down at her feet. “A typical Islamic father. He told me he’d run me out of the family if I didn’t stop drinking.” She looks up from her shoes. “I picked up the habit from my university friends.”
“There was probably a little bit of BS in that?” I ask, pinching my fingers together at eye level. “I mean, he really wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Yeah, I think he most likely would. It’s against our religion,” she says. “And how about you? Travel far to get here?”
I look upward at the dust-smeared ceiling, already knowing what I’m going to say. “Not at all. I live just a few blocks from here. Just a short walk for me.”
“Wow. You’re so lucky. I’ve always wanted to have my own place in the heart of downtown.”
I wince a little. “Well, it’s not all the hype that I thought it would be,” I say. “Rent’s expensive, and the traffic sucks. And the smog and drunks—well, that’s a different story on its own. I miss the good old country.”
Rashida’s eyes are trained on mine. It seems like she looks right through me, dropping her tense shoulders to rummage through her purse. She extracts a vibrating smartphone. “Sorry, I have to take this really quick.”
“By all means.” She walks off a few feet to take her call in private.
Now is the time. I consume the rest of my doughnut in haste and gulp back my coffee while it’s still warm.
Within a minute, Rashida is back and standing in front of me. “Speak of the devil. That was my dad. He’s outside, waiting impatiently—like always.” She rolls her eyes. “I guess I’d better get going.” She doesn’t leave right away, almost like she’s waiting for something.
Do I ask her for her number? I decide it’s still too early for that level of intimacy. “Will you be here for the next meeting?”
She lights up again, “Yes.”
“I’ll see you then,” I say, the coolness of my voice not betraying how nervous I feel. “And perhaps I can buy you a latte afterwards? I mean don’t get me wrong, Trina’s coffee is hella good and all, but I do like me an old-fashioned French vanilla. Made the authentic way.”
“So, you know of a place around here?” she asks.
“I do.”
“Okay then,” she says, still beaming brightly. “I’m so down. But look, I better get going before Grumpy Grady goes all off on me. See you soon?”
I nod and smile.
“Okay. Bye,” she says and waves before vanishing up the stairs, leaving me in a state of contentment. Yes. Scored a date without even having to ask for her cellphone number.
I gather up my coat, refill my paper cup and thank Trina on a job well done.
“See you next time,” Trina hollers as I ascend the small staircase leading up to the back alley.

It’s a nice night out. I settle for taking a minor detour through the city’s once-upon-a-time-ago red light district. The always-busy avenue is now a sideline of lively bars and classy restaurants, some with people out on the patios. Two blocks in and I realize I’ve made a mistake. All the happy people swigging back glasses of beer and sparkling wine is enough to drive a devilish craving through my body.
A swift exit to the nearest back alley it is.
Much like the typical gloomy back lanes near my apartment, this one is barely lit except for a dingy neon light blinking: Monarch Bar & Grill, barely illuminating the parking lot in a wash of strobing red and yellow. I tread through the grit-speckled pavement, my peripheral vision landing on a group of men milling about in front of a closed set of steel doors. One man is half grounded. I’d seen my share of barfights and knew one when I saw it.
“Call me a camel jockey, will you, you racist piece of shit?” barks one of the men as he throws a haymaker at the man on his knees in a praying plead.
I remain motionless in the centre of the alley, watching until one of the men sees me and eyes me harshly. “You best keep walking if you know what’s good for you, guy,” he advises.
This isn’t my fight. I heed the advice and keep on moving, strolling away until I reach a dumpster where I hide and keep on watching.
Unlike most of my family members, I was one of the lucky few. Prescription eyeglasses were never a necessity, but seeing in the dark? I’m no Andean night monkey. I stare out from my half cover of the sour-smelling dumpster, but I can’t perceive shades of skin tones that might make sense of the racial slur that no doubt brought on this horrible street fight. What I can see is three hooded figures circling another guy whose face is already obscured with blood. That man, on his knees, crashes to the pavement from a swift kick that bangs out from one of the hooded figures, then another, and another. The hooded guys take turns jeering and kicking. The man on the ground rolls over and groans. At least he’s not dead. In the dim light of the blinking neon sign, in spite of all the blood, I recognize the face of the man now resting on his back, no battered trucker cap in sight. It’s Terry.
“Gettin’ a taste of your own medicine?” I whisper under my breath, my inner voice laughing like a madman. I watch as the attackers start feeding Terry a last round of kicks to the ribs. I had, in years past, trained in martial arts and was a fan of fight movies and pay-per-view events. But the real life, no-holds-barred street fight action was too much to bear. I stand up, turn my face away, and walk away eastward to my apartment building, which stands among one of the many vertical towers in sight.
I am hardly a block from the site of the brawl—if it could even be called that—when a piercing scream curdles my blood like death on the airwaves.
Keep going. The son of a bitch deserves it, says the bad wolf side of my psyche. But then the other side feels sympathy for Terry’s agonized shrieks of agony.
The wolves’ voices in my head are replaced with my Gramma’s voice: “Would you want the same for you? What if a man walked by while you were getting jumped by a group of men, and just kept on strolling like his shit don’t stink?” Even her stout, charming face comes to mind.
“Fine,” I say out loud. I turn back and head toward the commotion. Maybe some calming words might stop the guys from going further with the beat down.
By the time I reach the dispute, all three men are throwing in their own mixture of kicks and punches at the limp body on the pavement.
“Guys,” I interrupt.
Nothing.
“Guys!” I belt.
Three heads whip around and face me, eyes flashing with hate.
“He looks like he’s had enough.” I point at Terry, his body twisted as he moans in pain, his face covered in streaks of crimson.
“I thought I told you to keep walking,” says one of the men, his hair styled into a slicked-back pompadour. “Just don’t know when to mind your own business, eh?”
“Yeah,” says the other. He glances down at the writhing body on the street, then stares back at me. “I guess you’re a part of this now. Come on, fellas.” He struts toward me, the remaining two toughs hard on his heels like a roving hyena pack moving in for the kill.
“Oh shit,” I whisper to myself, backtracking on the heels of my boots.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, dummy,” utters Gramma’s raspy voice in my head. “I would have called the police or gotten help, not try to go all Bruce Lee on them.”