By Alison Watson
I had been slamming down vodkas at the Blarney Cove since 4:00 AM, waiting with my fellow hard-core barflies for the coke dealer to show up. Desperate for cocaine, the drinks weren’t helping much with my skin-crawling involuntary withdrawal symptoms.
Where the hell was Frankie?
It was over a year since my relapse. My memories of the six years I had managed to stay clean and sober were fading. The drug world had become normal, again.
At 7:00 AM, Lucinda the bartender lifted the bar’s outside metal gate that had hidden us inside after-hours. I went out to the sidewalk to smoke a cigarette.
Rushing down 14th Street were dozens of well-dressed people. People who seemed to have a purpose. Where were they going?
I ran back into the bar.
“I think there’s been another terrorist attack!” I announced to the other drunken addicts.
Greg, a sleazy older man who had been trying to get in my pants all night, followed me back outside.
“No,” he said after a minute. “They’re just going to work.”
Alison Watson is a memoirist who writes about overcoming mental illness, addiction, and being an adoptee. She is currently shopping her full-length manuscript, “A Psychotic’s Journey Through Eastern Seaboard Psych Wards,” with publishers. Alison’s work has been published in The Sun Magazine and Please See Me. In addition to writing, Alison feeds her soul by working in an animal shelter. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and their shelter mutt, Cindy Loo Who! To read more of her writing, please visit her website, alisonmorriswatson.com.
MoonPark Review 