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I remembered the young man saying nothing can give you what isn’t already there.

“It’s all right,” I said, and laughed a little.

It wasn’t all right, it stung, but I understood the sting would go away. I’d go back to my life and the sting would go away. I had my famous father’s affairs to tie up, that would keep me busy, and I’d have plenty of money. Maybe I’d go to Aruba. It’s all right to want what you can’t have. You learn to live with it.

I tell myself that, and mostly I believe it.

THE FIFTH STEP

Harold Jamieson, once Chief Engineer of New York City’s Sanitation Department, enjoyed retirement. He knew from his small circle of friends that some didn’t, so he considered himself lucky. He had an acre of garden in upper Manhattan that he shared with several like-minded horticulturalists, he had discovered Netflix, and he was making inroads in the books he’d always meant to read. He still missed his wife—a victim of breast cancer five years previous—but aside from that persistent ache, his life was quite full. Before rising every morning, he reminded himself to enjoy the day. At sixty-eight he liked to think he had a fair amount of road left, but there was no denying it had begun to narrow.

The best part of those days—assuming it wasn’t raining, snowing, or too cold—was the nine-block walk to Central Park after breakfast. Although he carried a cell phone and used an electronic tablet (had grown dependent on it, in fact), he still preferred the print version of the Times. In the park he would settle on his favorite bench and spend an hour with it, reading the sections back to front, telling himself he was progressing from the sublime to the ridiculous.

One morning in mid-May, the weather coolish but perfectly adequate for bench-sitting and newspaper-reading, he was annoyed to look up from his paper to see a middle-aged man sitting down on the other end of his bench, although there were plenty of empty ones in the vicinity. This invader of Jamieson’s morning space looked to be in his mid to late forties, neither handsome nor ugly, in fact perfectly nondescript. The same was true of his attire: New Balance walking shoes, jeans, a Yankee cap, and a Yankee hoodie with the hood tossed back. Jamieson gave him an impatient side-glance and prepared to move to another bench.

“Don’t go,” the man said. “Please. I sat down here because I need a favor. It’s not a big one, but I’ll pay.” He reached into the kangaroo pouch of the hoodie and held out a twenty-dollar bill.

“I don’t do favors for strange men,” Jamieson said, and got up.

“But that’s exactly the point—the two of us being strangers. Hear me out. If you say no, that’s fine. But please hear me out. You could…” He cleared his throat, and Jamieson realized the guy was nervous. Maybe more, maybe scared. “You could be saving my life.”

Jamieson considered, then sat down. But as far from the other man as he could, while still keeping both butt-cheeks on the bench. “I’ll give you a minute, but if you sound crazy to me, I’m leaving. And put your money away. I don’t need it and I don’t want it.”

The man looked at the bill as if surprised to find it still in his hand, then put it back in the kangaroo pouch. He put his hands on his thighs and looked down at them instead of at Jamieson. “I’m an alcoholic. Four months sober. Four months and twelve days, to be exact.”

“Congratulations,” Jamieson said. He guessed he meant it, but he was even more ready to get up. To leave the park, if necessary. The guy seemed sane, but Jamieson was old enough to know that sometimes the woo-woo didn’t come out right away.

“I’ve tried three times before and once got almost a year. I think this might be my last chance to grab the brass ring. I’m in AA. That’s—”

“I know what it is. What’s your name, Mr. Four Months Sober?”

“You can call me Jack, that’s good enough. We don’t use last names in the program.”

Jamieson knew that, too. Lots of people on the Netflix shows had alcohol problems. “So what can I do for you, Jack?”

“The first three times I tried, I didn’t get a sponsor in the program—somebody who listens to you, answers your questions, sometimes tells you what to do. This time I did. Met a guy at the Bowery Sundown meeting and really liked the stuff he said. And, you know, how he carried himself. Twelve years sober, feet on the ground, works in sales, like me.”

He had turned to look at Jamieson, but now he returned his gaze to his hands.

“I used to be a hell of a salesman, for five years I headed the sales department of… well, it doesn’t matter, but it was a big deal, you’d know the company. That was in San Diego. Now I’m down to peddling greeting cards and energy drinks to convenience stores and bodegas in the five boroughs. Last rung on the ladder, man.”

“Get to the point,” Jamieson said, but not harshly; he had become a little interested in spite of himself. It was not every day that a stranger sat down on your bench and started spilling his shit. Especially not in New York. “I was just going to check on the Mets. They’re off to a good start.”

Jack rubbed a palm across his mouth. “I liked this guy I met at the Sundown, so I got up my courage after a meeting and asked him to be my sponsor. In March, this was. He looked me over and said he’d take me on, but only on two conditions. That I do everything he said and call him if I felt like drinking. ‘Then I’ll be calling you every fucking night,’ I said, and he said ‘So call me every fucking night, and if I don’t answer talk to the machine.’ Then he asked me if I worked the Steps. Do you know what those are?”

“Vaguely.”

“I said I hadn’t gotten around to them. He said that if I wanted him to be my sponsor, I’d have to start. He said the first three were both the hardest and the easiest. They boil down to ‘I can’t stop on my own, but with God’s help I can, so I’m going to let him help.’?”

Jamieson grunted.

“I said I didn’t believe in God. This guy—Randy’s his name—said he didn’t give a shit. He told me to get down on my knees every morning and ask this God I didn’t believe in to help me stay sober another day. And if I didn’t drink, he said for me to get down on my knees before I turned in and thank God for my sober day. Randy asked if I was willing to do that, and I said I was. Because I’d lose him otherwise. You see?”

“Sure. You were desperate.”

“Exactly! ‘The gift of desperation,’ that’s what AAs call it. Randy said if I didn’t do those prayers and said I was doing them, he’d know. Because he spent thirty years lying his ass off about everything.”

“So you did it? Even though you don’t believe in God?”