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A quick word of explanation on this rather strange posting. It reflects some writing exercises I did over a period of about two years.

These are “mini-sagas,” or “small stories.” The exercise is to write a story in exactly 50 words. No more. No less. The story should be logically complete, and leave a lot to be “extrapolated” by the reader. It provides a story “framework.”

I figured that the stories I hear every night at N.A. meetings are excellent sources for these. Of course, I have extracted personally identifiable portions from most of these, except for a couple that made it to the newspapers. Even then, I still keep them very generic. However, these are real stories, of real people. You may actually have heard some of these yourselves; told by the protagonists.

I think that we often take the stories we’re privileged to hear in N.A. for granted. People pay money to buy fiction, or see movies or T.V. shows for what we get for a couple of bucks in a basket, or free.

Chosen

We are the trash of society. Even the most liberal will not abide us. We have committed every crime, broken every covenant, betrayed every trust and turned our backs on decency. Our stories are horror and despair, yet God has chosen us to heal the wounds that cannot be healed.

Redemption

I still have the emergency passport from when we left Uganda. Almost every day of the week, I hear stories that would turn your bones to jelly -told by the protagonists. I live in a constant state of wonder. There’s nothing like a taste of Hell to give you Heaven.

Spaced

She was eighteen, blonde, beautiful and couldn’t speak a complete sentence. She’d been firing PCP for years. Her father was in jail for dealing PCP. Slowly, she improved. The last time I saw her, she was marrying a guy who had tried to kill himself with 40 hits of blotter.

Whammy

At nineteen, he had cancer that had metastasized. The doctors told him he had no hope, but he found out about an experimental treatment at NIH. He went for it, and beat the “Big C.” The last time I saw him, he was suffering from this new disease called AIDS.

Gun

I never met either of them, but they were both clean once. A friend told me about how beautiful she was. That’s all in the past. Her son will spend his life in jail, and she won’t be far behind. Heroin, guns and desperation; they beat family values every time.

Baby

He was a beautiful baby. They thanked God for their fortune. When he was eighteen, this world held nothing for him, so he took a four-way of blotter and headed for the stars. Once in a while, we get a dispatch from Andromeda. Was it good they died beforehand?

Shot

They killed his friend, and left him for dead. He recovered, then he got clean. Years later, he was to see the man ho had shot him and killed his friend in a meeting. How can we forgive someone like that? How can we help them, as is our charter?

Atonement

He was a very bad man. He said that he’d killed over thirty men in cold blood. “Pinning Juan to the door.” was how he put it. When he got clean, he had a lot for which to atone, so he helped addicts escape Hell. I’ll never forget the bastard.

Survivor

He was running from the cops and fell off a six-story building. He was shot several times, including the back of the head. It took him quite a while to tell his story. It’s difficult for him to speak. I consider it a rare privilege to hear his story.

Kid

“That’ll be nine seventy-eight.” She says. We’ve known her since she was a kid. The track marks and abscesses on her arms say a lot. The ones on her neck say even more. Most would think she’s a bit unhealthy, but we know different. Death peers out her eyes.

Broken

As a kid, she ran away. Her pimp-to-be had her gang-raped. She turned high-priced tricks for years. I’ve never seen anyone so angry. She taught me you don’t fix people like machines. She carries a gun in her Gucci purse and the Street in her heart.

Blackout

He spent nine years in the worst hellhole in the penal system for a crime he couldn’t remember. Seven of those years, he spent in Recovery. He had almost ten years when I knew him. I remember him for his example. The crime? He killed his son in a blackout.

Rape

Her best friend watched and got off as she was raped. Afterwards, her friend told her that she should have just “laid back and enjoyed it.” These are the types of friends, and this is the type of sage advice we get when we live our lives as active addicts.

Stretcher

He arrived at his dealer’s house, only to find his dealer being carried out on a stretcher. “Don’t use this stuff; it’ll kill you!” his dealer groaned from the stretcher. But that’s how you know it’s good. Years later, he met his dealer again: applying for employment at a rehab.

Suicide

He had everything to live for. He was young, handsome, energetic and wealthy. He had everything to die for. His addiction was running rampant, triggering his mental disease. He couldn’t stay straight, think straight, and he could never see himself growing up, so he chose the alternative. No miracles here.

Star

Don’t stare. Pity him if you will, but before the bottle, he led an entire battalion. It’s been sold for a pint, but he got a Silver Star for saving the lives of thirty men. He’ll die soon. He rates a patch in Arlington, but he’ll get Potters Field instead.

Rice

He gave us a recipe for a Puerto-Rican variant of Spanish Rice and Beans. He was young and handsome. He seemed healthy to me, but we knew that he was HIV-positive. I was quite surprised to hear that he had suddenly died. AIDS can grab you like that.

Confluence

I’m in a cafeteria, waiting for this kid to buy a soda. It is all he can do to buy his drink. I am a man who has risen from the ashes, and all I can feel is love and gratitude. There, but for the Grace of God, go I.

Houseguest

He was a skinny, pimply gangly kid. We all wanted him to do okay, so we helped him out when we could. I let him stay at my place, but my cat attacked him, which was weird. He stole from the next guy who let him sleep on the couch.

Pigeon

He was headed for success. They could all agree on his star quality. He took the practical way out, and joined the army. Something broke. The war chewed him up and spit him out without inflicting any visible scars. Now he spends his days sitting in Union Square, befriending pigeons.

Lobby

I’m in the lobby of the hotel where I stayed the last week. It’s a nice hotel, but all I feel is gratitude. Why am I sitting here, twenty-five years clean, when so many others never made it? Survivors’ guilt? Sometimes, I feel like an impostor, playing grown-up.

Bidon

I remember the town where our servants lived. They stayed in a small cottage at the end of our driveway. Their hometown, however, made it a palace. The first thing I remember was the smell. They were proud of their home, and offered to share their meager fare with us.

Shoes

I thought he was one of the odder people I’d met, and I’ve met some odd characters. He was a good-looking black man with dreadlocks and Converse sneakers of different colors. When I met him ten years later, he was dressed like a preppie and didn’t remember the sneakers.

Coma

He calmly tells us how he was in a coma for weeks. They pulled out his feeding tube, and he woke up. He hurt everywhere. The miracle was not that he had woken from the coma. It was that we would never have guessed it if he hadn’t told us.

Crazy

He got an urgent call at work. It was her therapist, telling him that she was going to check herself into a mental institution for paranoia and delusions. He had convinced her that she was crazy for always thinking that he was doing drugs. She wasn’t crazy, but he was.

Future

I once read a very good book by a very smart man. He wrote that the future belongs to the legacy of daVinci. That description fits me. I owe my life to people who don’t fit that description. How can I leave them behind? Gratitude is essential to my future.

Crush

She needed more, but didn’t have any money. She did, however, have a pretty, fifteen-year-old granddaughter. The crack dealer gave her another hour’s worth of bliss in return for the privilege of raping her granddaughter. Like a black hole, addiction crushes the very light. There is no bottom.

Death

They’d been together for thirty years. He wasn’t allowed to the memorial service, and they wouldn’t even mention him in the obituary. He wasn’t in the will, and couldn’t collect insurance. Thirty years of life; rendered meaningless. We held a separate service, but it just wasn’t the same. Gay Death.

Serendipity

She told a story about a soccer mom out of gas. Just fifteen bucks for a cab, but I knew better. I gave her a twenty. I had no idea why. I don’t give money to panhandlers. Two weeks later, I saw her in a rehab at which I spoke.

Protection

“Gee, I didn’t know you had a daughter!” he enthused over the phone. I went cold. He had admitted to me that he was a child molester, yet I had to help him stay clean. This was a quandary. I’ve learned to protect myself from those I try to help.

Trailer

When he had nine months clean, he got busted for hauling a PCP lab. A friend had asked him to haul his trailer. I heard him share it in a meeting. Fancy that. The cops let off a guy who looked just like a dust head. That was a miracle.

Stab

The guy stabbed him several times, but he got hold of the knife and stabbed back. He got away, but was charged with attempted murder because they didn’t believe his story. After he was in prison, the guy stabbed someone else, and they finally believed him. He’s been clean since.

Famous

He was a star. People would clamor for his autograph. His alma mater honored him in their Hall of Fame. He traveled the world and was hailed for his skill. Drugs ended all that. He works for minimum wage in a nasty neighborhood, but he still dreams of his past.

Vet

He’s got one leg, and it don’t look so good when he’s wearing shorts. He’s a Vietnam vet, but injured his legs when he got run over by a bus as a homeless man. Despite all that, he’s a joy to know, and devotes his time to helping vets recover.

Traveler

He used to sleep on Venice Beach, dreaming about living in an apartment. He hitchhiked through the Tetons and hung out with the Angels in the East Village. He has the mind of a ten-year-old and is always homeless by himself, but I am better for knowing him.

Lady

I’m watching a lady celebrate twelve years. She is very much a lady; graceful, urbane and well-spoken. She talks about being a biker chick; about being raped, and about stabbing people. Her ten-year-old son is there. He’s never known anything but a lady and all her friends.

Pictures

Going through my picture album is always a bittersweet experience. There are so many happy memories in there, but every now and then, I pull out a picture and say “whatever happened to him?” “Oh, didn’t you hear? He died four or five years ago. Got a hotshot in Canarsie.”

Flashback

She walked down the filthy corridor, feeling the disgusting liquid oozing through the cardboard she used to patch the holes in her sneakers. At the end of the corridor, was another hit, and another rape. She remembered as she walked down her hall, feeling the rug under her bare toes.

Spode

They used the good china tonight. The violet and red feathers of the peacocks offset the hollandaise sauce. The cornish hen was boned and arranged on his plate. Unbidden, a memory came up; of a dissected, half-eaten whopper spread across a crumpled napkin, as he picked out the cigarettes.

Slip

A veteran who had lived the life of a vagabond, he’d escaped from Hell. He’d reestablished himself as a productive member of society for ten years. He’d become a counselor and a teacher. But it didn’t stick. I read about him yesterday. He stole a car and crashed, killing himself.

Flight

He liked Business Class. The seats were wide and soft, they gave him warm mixed nuts, a little tablecloth and real metal cutlery. The last time he’d flown this route, he’d been handcuffed into a coach seat, served warm, stale water and had to hold his pee for three hours.

Xmas

Christmas is always a time of horror and misery for her. No family, a past that makes her wince and hang her head with shame, a future that fills her with fear and hopelessness. Walking past the Macy’s displays, she realizes she’d rather be a mannequin in the store window.

Reflection

After her injury, she descended into addiction and decay. Cocaine was her drug of choice. Cocaine snorted off a mirror. One day after she had been in treatment, she saw her reflection in the mirror as she was about to do a line, and that saved her from a relapse.

Swerve

At sixteen, a squirrel ran across the road. He had a choice. If he swerved left, he would definitely miss. If he swerved right, he would definitely hit. If he didn’t swerve, the outcome was up to the squirrel. He swerved right, and that set the tone for his life.

Trash

Once he was a soldier, but now, he’s a stumbling, mumbling zombie; shuffling warily out of our path, yet turning to beseech crumbs from our Horn of Plenty. He scrambles through our dumpsters and detritus, exclaiming in delight when he finds a gem. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Scars

His arms and legs are covered with white scars. Some are long, straight lines, caused by fending off knives and razors, while others are irregular patches, the result of abscesses caused by dirty needles and bad aim. The bullet holes don’t look like much; just white patches on his feet.

Sparky

He was on Death Row in Texas, doing dry runs on The Chair when they commuted his sentence. After thirteen years of hard labor, he was kicked out of Texas. In Seattle, he found Recovery. He even helped the son of a cop who harassed him. That’s how we work.

Help

He looked out his window at the glaciers of the Alaska Range below. He was flying to Tokyo to plan for the future. He wondered how a broken, angry and pathetic loser had ever gotten out of Hell to look down from Heaven. Musta had some help along the way.

Wink

From the Eastern escarpment, I looked across the Rift Valley to the Mountains of the Moon. An impending thunderstorm gave the air that crisp, clear, anticipatory feel. I turned around and looked at the embankment. Wriggling through the black volcanic soil was a tiny Bush Viper. God Winked at me.

Mirror

I have this mirror in my house. It came from a local mental hospital that was decommissioned a decade ago. There’s something wrong with it. It must have been affected by its stay in the hospital. Every time I look in it, a crazy person looks back out at me.