On the way here Willy had given Mitchell a line composed equally of imagination and the recollections of his old cellmate. Now he wondered if he might have overdone it a little. No matter. Mitchell’s expression was friendly, and he was safely in the midst of a group with all their wits about them. Willy nodded to Mitchell and gave his attention to the program.

The speaker of the evening had come all the way from Riverside to be with them. He came forward smiling after Jerry’s introduction, a stocky man nearly bald, and looked out over the audience and said, “Yes, folks, this is me—Bob. I’m an alcoholic. Hello, everybody.”

The murmur responded from the listeners, “Hello, Bob.”

As a preamble, Bob began: “Whenever I address a meeting like this I always wonder how many first-timers there are to hear what I have to say. I’d like to see hands of any first-timers here tonight.”

Mitchell glanced at Willy, smiling. Willy raised his hand. A woman down the row, who had a hatbrim pulled over her eyes as if afraid she might be recognized, also put up her hand.

Bob counted the scattering of hands. “Six. Well, that’s fine. I’m especially interested in you beginners. If I could, to encourage you, I’d turn the clock back and show you, for a couple of minutes, how I looked, acted, and felt just three years ago.” Bob shook his head over the memory. Then his voice hoarsened, took on an edge of authority. “I was a bum,” he stated bluntly. “I was down in the gutter. I mean gutter—I laid in it or near it night after night right here in L.A. skid row. I was a thief, too. Anything I could find that wasn’t nailed down I sold to a junk dealer for money to buy wine. I panhandled. I rolled other drunks. I’d have stolen the dimes off my dead grandmother’s eyes if I could have gotten to them. Lucky for her, my grandmother is perfectly healthy and lives in Iowa. She never knew what a close call she had.”

The audience responded with a ripple of mirth. The stocky balding man had won his listeners. What he lacked in skill as a speaker he more than made up in sincerity and force. In spite of a determined inward cynicism and a wish to disassociate himself and daydream over the money, Willy found himself engrossed and impressed. My God, what the man had done with himself was almost unbelievable!

Bob went on to tell other details of his life as an alcoholic. His attitude was without bitterness, had instead a rather clinical air of reflection. Somehow, Willy sensed, Bob had made peace with whatever demons had driven him.