Ambulance Blues — Bigger Than Christmas

I can't remember exactly what it was or how it came to me, but it was a crown of sorts. I was working at Refuge Recovery Center. I was doing my practicum for my master's, and eventually, they just hired me full-time, which is pretty rare and which I'm kind of proud of. We'd moved from this beautiful location in Silverlake, right next to the Against The Stream meditation center with which Refuge was most assuredly aligned and wound up on the corner of Lincoln and Washington in Venice. A shithole. Nothing good about this place. I think we moved so that there'd be room for a tattoo parlor beneath us in the same building, which seemed very important to Noah, the founder of Refuge Recovery and our treatment center as well.

Eventually, we pulled down the shutters, and we closed on a dime on a Friday morning after Noah's wholly fabricated and weaponized "Me too" -ing made our business untenable. That's an entirely different story, but while I was never that close to Noah, it seemed clear to me that he'd been fucked on the deal. And ironically, not actually fucked at all.

And so we all moved west which was maybe only eighteen miles away; it was at least an hour and a half of drive time each way. A lot of the Refuge team said forget it. I'm staying on the East Side, the civilized side. I really had little choice as I was earning hours for my degree, and it didn't seem like such a big deal anyway. I listened to a lot of podcasts and smoked a lot of cigarettes. I still made it home each night.

So some of us made the change, but some key people didn't. Loesha, who's a long-time friend and actually was a counselor in a few of my stints in rehab and who was by then the Program Director of Refuge, decided to call it a day, and she moved on. I just got a text from her today inviting me to a dinner in December, asking me to give some guidance to a newly graduated male therapist. Christ, if anyone can help someone navigate that level of imposter syndrome, it's me. I told her I'd be honored and that I'd bake some ciabatta.

One day we were told as we unpacked and secured desks and rooms in the best locations of this upstairs little partitioned plot of therapeutic space that our new Director would be coming in, and we'd have a staff meeting at lunch. For reasons I can't remember, one of the clients made me a crown of flowers or bright paper or something, and I, of course, put it on and just went through my day with it. If you ask Dan, who this entire thing is about, what his initial impression of me was, he'll tell you that he was flummoxed by the gall or at least lack of decorum of me sitting down to the conference table with all of the above-the-line people waiting to welcome him with me with some silly hat on. I just did this stuff. I've always figured it was best to show up on the first day of a new adventure half-fucked up. It created all kinds of headroom in the future. I'd just be "Mike, the guy who dresses weird and never washes his hair." And when I'd wear normal clothes and at least rinse my hair, I'd seem like a king. Try it. It's brilliant.

***

My first impression of Dan was that he was kind. He made time to meet all of us and asked about us as people, not just our jobs. He'd entered into a system fast approaching implosion, yet no one knew it yet. And here he was, taking control of a ship that was manned by half-seasoned sailors and entitled students. He couldn't have known what was about to explode before him like an atom splitting in mere weeks. I liked him from the word go, but we were so wildly different. Where I wore half-cleaned pants and the crazier-the-better shirts, he wore standard issue khakis and trusting light blue or so button-down shirts. I actually envied his audacity. Make no mistake; being an outlier makes everyone else seem like an outlier, too. We get so entrenched in just being different. But he was a truly kind person, and that's all I ever required of anyone.

Within weeks we were soldiers in a foxhole dodging bullets and praying that at least one of us would survive to spread our love to those that survived. He couldn't have been there more than a couple weeks, and he was still learning the ropes when the "Me Too" tsunami slammed against Noah and, by extension, Refuge itself.

I'd received a ton of texts the night before the final normal day with copied and pasted articles about Noah being accused of all manner of nebulous and detailless accusations. He was canceled. So I did what any smart therapist would do. I brought in a couple dozen donuts for the clients to keep them at bay, and we just talked and listened to music. Everyone bailed except for Dan, another intern who at one point threatened me with telling the state about an "inappropriate" relationship I had with someone who I knew for decades and who'd wound up at Refuge and me. And a bunch of confused but very open-to-donuts clients.

This is when, I think, Dan and I became fast friends. I think we'd already started walking around the neighborhood at lunch, as he always had to go to the bank for some inexplicable reason. We were certainly friendly, but this galvanized us.

Dan loved Neil Young. That was our first point of reference. One day, I threw caution to the wind and asked him if he wanted to go see Jordan Peterson speak, as I had 2 tickets. He seemed a bit hesitant, but he said yes, and this experience further cemented our friendship. I won't go as far as saying I "red-pilled" him, but I don't think that Peterson was someone who'd he'd go see on his own accord.

We kept walking at lunch and then at 7 in the morning. I'd get there as early as possible, so I could leave after the last group. Dan was there because he surely had work to do. But we'd walk and, as always, go to the bank. God knows how much is in there. The fuckin' guy must be made of money.

In time, we just became friends, and then something so rare happened. We became brothers. I suppose it sounds awful to say, but I felt like the older brother. I think Dan was in some sort of awe over how out of control I presented myself as being. Who knows? But it worked, and we just started hanging out a lot after work and on weekends. We walked every day without fail, and I mean an endless streak for more than two years. He'd read every paper I wrote for my master's classes, and I'd listen to him divulge little shiny rocks of his life. I grew and still have grown to love him.

***

I've said this about my mom, but it applies to Dan as well: I'd be fucked without him. Eventually, Refuge closed, and I started working in Santa Barbara at Good Heart Recover. Jaymee and Lacee from earlier stories and still such a part of my life helped start this place, and they wanted me to start doing family therapy. And so I did. I was beautiful for so long. I'd drive up on Mondays, and they'd pay for a hotel that night, and I'd drive home the next day. And, as I always do, I fucked it up.

When Covid hit, I thought I was purely designed for quarantine. God, I loved it. But after a few months, it wore on me, so I started drinking a little wine. And then a little more, and then each day would repeat the day before when I was trying to get clients sober while shaking from needing a drink. The inevitable came, and I got Xanax from Craigslist in an effort to stop drinking. The Xanax was meant to "keep the edge off." Well, all that happened was a week-long blackout in which everything collapsed. We still walked every day, and one day Dan, quite reservedly and nervously, suggested I go to detox. I said yes. And there went Good Heart and everything else we'd cobbled together these last eight months, like playing World of Warcraft drunk and my swears to Heaven that tonight was the last night.

Without Dan, my brother, who I never had, I can't imagine agreeing or even thinking of going. But he ushered me in, and I went through it. He brought me cigarettes. He took care of my mom. He was the brother I never had. I'd like to say everything is back to normal now, but I still struggle. This book has required a lot of lubricant, and maybe it actually didn't, but I surely used it as an excuse to drink.

Dan, I think, sees me as something beyond him. Something bigger than him. Someone more unafraid to be a cyclone in a world of thin rain. And I know that sounds horrible, and it's not meant to put me above him, but he's more controlled than I. He's more civilized than I. He's less shattered and less willing to disperse into a million blazing shards of light. In a word, he's better than I. Or at least more human and able to travel through humanity without causing fear and discomfort. I don't always have that quality. And so, I need Dan to reign me in. without Dan, I'd be a million knife blades slicing through a billion hearts, all with a guilty laugh on my face. I'd be a tornado. A cyclone. A rapacious predator slobbering over fresh meat, giggling all the while. And so I love him and need him. In some way, he protects you from me, and my sheer laziness to keep control and my primal desires are what pose a threat. Dan wraps a fence of love around me and makes it okay to just be this version of me and not the terrible me who I so yearn to let loose.

Dan has become my best friend. My. Best. Friend.

So be it. Dan's still here. I still have my brother. He still goes to the bank like a fiend, and he still seems to revel in how weird and unchecked I am. It makes me feel good. He makes me feel good. I love him. I keep trying to get him to do LSD with me, but he's too wise or at least waiting for the perfect time. I suppose they're the same thing.

I know what it's like to have a brother now. I know what it feels like to have someone in your corner, no matter how fucked up you get. I know what it's like to love someone, no matter how weird their banking habits are. I know I love you, Dan.