Bob continued: “And so, stinking and sick, hardly able to sit erect on the bench, I waited out the meeting. Somehow—this was a miracle—some of the meaning of the A.A. program got through to me. I got to talking to the bum who had moved away on the bench. He said he’d been a member for three weeks now and had tapered down to one quart of wine a day.”

The audience laughed.

Bob waited until the amusement subsided. “When the meeting was over I went up to the front of the room and collared the speaker and said something to him—I don’t remember what. This man, someone I’d never seen before and have never seen again—took time to sit down and discuss my problems with me. He urged me to stay at the mission, get some rest, clean up. He even—now get this—he even offered to take me home with him to help me straighten up.”

There was a silence now, a few sighs. Willy thought, My God, that guy was a sucker, offering to take a drunk home, maybe get his place torn up by a maniac with the D.T.s. At the same time, the generosity of the offer touched him immensely, and he sensed that it had made a great change in Bob.

Bob continued soberly, “In the days that followed, while I wandered in a drunken haze, the thought of this man’s trust and confidence kept coming back. Finally I returned to the A.A. meeting on another night at the mission. I won’t try to fool you and say that I changed overnight or never had any trouble with liquor afterwards, or any such lies. It was tough. There were days when I didn’t think I could make it.”

Willy was shaking his head now, trembling. Again he noticed Mitchell’s hand on his arm.

Mitchell whispered, “You just wait and see, friend. Things are going to be different for you, too. From here on out.”

Willy wanted to be caught up in the peace and security that seemed to surround these people. God knows, he thought, being a thief and not able to stop is a lot like being a hopeless drunk. If I could find some way to get over the craving . . . What’s being poor, what’s working my ass off for old man Chilworth, if I had a little self-respect and could know in my heart that I’d never be in trouble again? Why, that feeling would be the most wonderful thing in the world! To be safe. To be absolutely clean. Forever.