Heather King - Parched

Table of Contents

A remarkable journey of spiritual enlightenment from the depths of alcoholism.

The Bradley Quick Experience, KRLA (Los Angeles)

Pained adolescence... sordid drinking days... King avoids the clichs in favor of self-deprecating humor... terrifying, and equally human.Nashville Scene

Gives us all hope for embracing grace.

King uses humor and bare-bulb honesty to describe her childhood... and the twenty years she spent drunk.

Its a story about a good girl gone badgone good. [Parched] lays naked her eighteen years wrapped in drugs and alcohol: sweet memories, toilet rims, and all.Portsmouth Herald

Poignant, painfully honest, and inspirational.Gay City News

Before I started writing, I used to read other peoples acknowledgments and imagine the writer as having turned out his or her book around a giant dining room table, surrounded by warmth, cornucopias of food, and laughing friends. Now I know that writingor at least my writingtakes place in almost pathological isolation, in a state vacillating between panic attack-level anxiety and religious ecstasy. Which is why its a good thing I do have some people in my life. Its not so much that they help me write as that they give me a reason to live, which is why Im deeply grateful to, in no particular order, Joan Biggs, Judy Horton, Terry Richey, Ann-Kristin Rothen berg, Maud Simmons, Fred Davis, Patrick Kerr, Clam Lynch, my sister Meredith, Julia Gibson, Brad Valdez, Glenn Lind say, Toni Flynn, Jeff Behrens, Janet Moore, Timothy Arthur Brown, Timmy J. Smith, Joe Keyes, and Barbara Fleck.

Between them, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony gave me several amazing months of solitude, space, and natural beautywhich made me feel so guilty I had to write. Without my very sharp agent, Laurie Liss, I might never have finally sold my first book, and without my editor, Anna Cowles, it wouldnt be going out to the world in nearly as good a shape as it is. Its a way bigger deal for me than for them, but they graciously never let me know it.

Finally, special thanks to Ann Leary and Ellen Slezakwonderful writers, sympathetic listeners, and funny, funny friendswho are closer to my heart and helped more than they can know.

For my parents
who gave me life twice

There are places in the heart that do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering that they may have existence.

Lon Bloy

Sitio. (I thirst.)

Christ, as he died on the cross. John 19:28

For my soul is filled with evils;
my life is on the brink of the grave.
I am reckoned as one in the tomb:
I have reached the end of my strength,
like one alone among the dead;
like the slain lying in their graves...

Psalm 88

It was September 1986, right after Id returned to Boston from my week in Nashville, when my mother started calling to badger me about the party she was planning for my fathers birthday. I would have gone up to New Hampshire anywaytheyd be counting on me to brighten things upand it irritated me that she was making such a production out of it. It was also weird that she was having it at night. My parents got up so early they were ready for bed by six, and usually scheduled family gatherings to begin by one at the latest.

Danny will even come down to pick you up, Mom cajoled. Danny? Dan, the youngest of my four brothers, was so busy being a martial-arts nut he never had time for anybody. Oh great, I laughed, careful to keep the edge out of my voice as I looked at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror and groped for a bottle of Visine. Is he bringing his nunchakus?

The party was scheduled for a Saturday. That morning I came to, with the same mixture of guilt, dread, and nervous exhaustion to which Id woken every morning for as far back as I could remember hanging over me like a pall. As usual, I was fully dressed: jeans, boots, jacketI must have stumbled in, once again, and fallen straight to bed. My hands were hanging over the edge, fingers cringingly curled, as if expecting a blow. I still had all ten fingersthat was good. I often woke with bruises, black eyes, or gashes to my head or knees, and fully expected one morning to find myself missing an arm, a leg... Well, that was the price you had to pay. It wouldnt be that badplenty of people were missing a limb; every life had to have a little pain in it. I was parched, my mouth, throat, and cranium on fire from the no doubt packs of cigarettes Id smoked and untold number of life-sapping drinks Id downed the night before. Like a vampire, my habit sucked me dry: if I ever tried to give blood, I sometimes reflected, it would come out straight vodka with little pieces of old lime and bent cocktail straws mixed in. I could easily have drunk a gallon of lemonade at one gulp, but I knew without looking that the refrigerator was empty. The refrigerator was always empty.

One thing to be grateful forI peered gingerly to my left to make sureI was alone. Playing hard to get had never been my strong suit, but lately, even Id been shocked by some of the people Id brought home. One, apparently some kind of teenage runaway, had stayed a week. Another seemed to have lost his shoes. Then again, what were nice clothes? Or good grammar? Or a full set of teeth? It wasnt everyone that could see through to a persons essence, to his innate goodness and decency. I wasnt just sleeping around; it was part of my... ministrypart of my incessant quest, inextricably intertwined with my quest for the next drink, for The One.

Somewhere out there was the man I was destined for, and who was destined for me, and when I found him, peace would be restored, harmony would reign, and all my problems would be solved at last. I looked upon finding him as somewhat like looking for a needle in a haystack, a kind of obstacle-strewn treasure hunt, for if I knew one thing it was that the universe was a wily, withholding place, bent on foiling my best-laid plans. Thats why the usual mate-snaring spotsthe workplace, say, at a job commensurate with ones skills; church functions; dance hallsdidnt occur to me for a moment. No, the way I figured it hed turn up in the least likely locale, which for the moment Id decided was sitting at JTs Place, the old mens bar in North Station Id taken to frequenting of a morning.

There hed be: manly yet tender, self-deprecating yet strong, tormented yet self-possessed, a mixture of Jack Ker ouac, William Burroughs, Dylan Thomas, Robert Mitchum, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Someone who saw the truth of the world; the truth of my own quirkily fragile, precious corethe male counterpart, in other words, of me. It was a long shot, JTs, sure, but... I was there. Why not some wild, smart, funny, poetic, well-built, together, sex-starved, possibly rich guy? Who, like me, also happened to enjoy sitting around a dingy bar with a bunch of wet brains downing sea breezes at eight a.m.?

I loosened my jacketI couldnt remember the last time Id worn pajamasand let my gaze wander around my clutter-strewn, single-room-occupancy loft: dead plants, cracked windows, no sink, no stoveI cooked, if at all, on a hot plate. The bathroom was at the end of the hall. I was an alcoholic, I knew that, and yet to stop... it was impossible to describe the monumental abyss that that would mean crossing. My entire identity was tied up in drinking. Every ounce of my mental, emotional, and physical energy was devoted to drinking. My entire life revolved around drinking. And on top of that I was