Brickhouse - Dangerous when wet: a memoir

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For Mama Jean, who wouldnt have it any other way

Allow me to raise a glass (some habits die hard) to family, friends, and colleagues without whom Id still be soaking wet and swimming in a sea of words in my head, not on the page.

Cheers to:

My common-law husband, Michael Michahaze Hayes, who lived through most of it and hes still here. I love you.

Dad, who collaborated with Mama Jean to make me the man I am today and not only gave me his love and blessing to publish this book but gave me the opening line of this book. My brother Jeffrey for being my third parent and for all he did for Mama Jean at the end. My brother Ronny for just being Ronny and for calling me Pank.

My literary agent, Lisa Gallagher, who believed in the book ever since that fateful lunch at Le Veau dOr and found the perfect publisher for it at St. Martins Press. My talented editor, Charlie Spicer, whose passion and enthusiasm combined with his keen and ruthless editorial hand made this the best book possible. The peerless team at St. Martins Press: Sally Richardson, Jennifer Enderlin, Jeff Capshew, Brian Heller, Tracey Guest, Laura Clark, James Sinclair, Meg Drislane, Steve Boldt, Elisa Legal Lisa Rivlin, and Brittani Hilles. Special toasts to Michael Storrings for the marvelous jacket design, Jessica Lawrence and Joanie Martinez for launching the book, and April Osborne for her editorial support. Also photographer and friend George Anttila for the courage to take my picture.

Robert Allen and Mary Beth Roche and their marvelous team at Macmillan AudioBrant Janeway, Samantha Edelson, Chealsea Pita, and Laura Wilsonfor publishing the audio edition and letting me narrate it.

My writing teacher, Phyllis Raphael, whose rare gem of a workshop was the incubator for the book. By merely saying to me early on, You need to be pushed, she pushed me. She also gave me invaluable editorial guidance outside of the workshop. Workshop peers, talented writers, and friends Kevin Brannon, Maia McCann, Wesley Usher, and Bruce Ward.

The superb writers Henry Alford, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Wally Lamb, Eric Marcus, Paul Rudnick, and Neil White for blessing the book with their sparkling words; Will Schwalbe for being an early cheerleader and champion; especially Mary Karr, who not only gold-dusted the book with her endorsement but told me early on to keep writing. Those two words were as powerful as rocket fuel and helped me enormously to bring up a book.

My analysts, the late and deeply lamented David Dave Eliseo (Helen Lawson thanks you) and the ever-present Dr. Anthony Demma (Blanche thanks you).

Three cheers and special toasts to close friends: Jason Brantley for always laughing at my jokes when others didnt; David Big Daddy Collins for being my first real reader; Stella Connell, who is always ready for a sip n see; David Cobb Craig, aka DCC, whose taste and editorial precision devastate me; Nicole Todack Cubbage, who is my first and bestest BFF; Michael Bunny Hill for the first triage; Kevin Johnson for being a mentor; intervention angels Jennifer Naparstek Klein, Smith Patrick, and Janine Tiago; Allyson Hancock Kinzel, who predicted all of this when I didnt believe it; Hedda Lettuce and Steven Polito, both of whombald or be-wiggedcan always make me laugh; Mama Jeans friends and mine Dottie Crane, Nancy Dryden, Joan Gilliam, and Sissy Park; Jo Ann Miller for never turning her back on me when others did and for introducing me to Phyllis; John Murphy for being the first to show me a new way of life; Yann Samuels for the second triage; Keith Seabolt for his boundless generosity; Bob Stack for being the first to show me how to live a new way of life; Michael Mr. Parker Stainback for loving me wet or dry and reminding me that in writing this book everythings at stake; Debbie Stier for paving the yellow brick road out of the corporate forest; Warner gals Diane Ekeblad, Ellen Herrick, Patricia Keim, Kelly Leonard, Hera Marashian, and Karen McDermott; Stephen Wilder for introducing me to Cherry Grove; and Karen Wolny for telling me that Liz recognized the potential in me.

Dear friends, many of whom were early readers, whose encouragement and rah-rahs kept a flame burning under my writing chair: Ben Bruton, Adam Chandler, Nick Fiore, Stephanie Glass Flatten, Gene Giles, Michael Halliday, David Littleton, Jamie Malcolm, Kristen McGuiness, Lou Miller, Charles OConnell, Richard Bella Iorio, Sara Nelson, Pam Radford, Kelley Parker, Mark Shenk, Mark Solan, Nickey Bohl Scarborough, Elizabeth Conn Waddill, Maggie Weir, and Suzanne Halbert Wohleb.

A final toast to that invincible bunch: my fellow alcoholics in and out of recovery (especially the Marybills), HIV-positive folk, suicide-attempt survivors, and people affected by Lewy body dementia.

To all of you, I take a cup o kindness yet for auld lang syne.

My father, brothers, and I each had our own deep, complex, and loving relationship with my mother, Mama Jean. This book is the story of my relationship with her told through the lens of my love affair with alcohol, the other dominant relationship in my life. Hence, my father and brothers often have only cameos here, but in the cast of our family they each had as big a supporting role as I did to Mama Jean, the star of our lives. Some of the names and places have been changed.

Whoever said you cant get sober for someone else never met my mother, Mama Jean. When I came to in a Manhattan emergency room after an overdose to the news that she was on her way from Texas, I panicked. She was the last person I wanted to see on that dark September morning, but the person I needed the most.

She doesnt need to know about this, I told my brother Jeffrey, who sat in a dark corner of the room. Call her. Stop her before she gets on the plane.

Its too late, he said in a monotone. Shes already in flight.

There was no stopping Mama Jean.

At thirty-eight I had been living in New York City for sixteen years, almost as long as the time I spent growing up in little ole, flat-as-a-flitter, hot-and-steamy, oil-refinery-oasis, cancer-capital Beaumont, Texas. Beaumont is a southeast Texas port town on the banks of the muddy-brown Neches River with the smaller towns of Port Arthur and Orange, not far off of I-10. The Golden Triangle, this triumvirate of towns is called. With the corrosive winds of the Gulf (guf) of Mexico a mere thirty miles away, Rusty Troika is a better name. Pardon my dust, but I fled that backwater to New York City, where I had carved out a successful career in book publishing with some fancy executive-vice-president titles, alongside my architect boyfriend, Michael Hayes, or Michahaze, as he was known in our circle. I am going to get sophisticated if it kills me, I loved to say, throwing back a martini, Beefeater gin, dry, up, with a twist. I was quoting a line from one of the many old Joan Crawford movies that taught me how to be glamorous and sophisticated. And it nearly did kill me.

I didnt need Mama Jean in the middle of this mess. I could imagine how shed greet me. God damn it! Her goddamn it was said with a pregnant pause after god that left the object of her scorn bracing for the explosion of DAMN it! I knew youd end up like this. I just knew it. I was tired of being in the red with her. The cars. Trips to Europe. College. The apartment.