I just keep thinking about what you said. About how you graduated but kept yourself. I keep thinking about how I hit rock bottom but never found out why.
I keep thinking about the power of symbols.
...would you believe I'm not even drink anymore right now?
[Lark has offered tea or drinks to people before, but this somehow comes across as so much more welcoming. He'll have to study that trick, he thinks wryly. He turns up only a few minutes later, well on his way to not being drunk anymore but he does smell faintly of whiskey still.]
I'm sorry to keep you up.
[And he kind of is, but not really. Ricki's a warden, and Lark is unpaired, with his chosen warden away for a while. He doesn't have many people to lean on, is the thing.]
In that case, does the gesture even matter? If the intent is there?
I ask because I keep thinking about-
[Oh, boy. Well, there are things you admit to in polite company, and there are things you say to Ricki Tarr.]
I went to AA back home. But only to find people who needed a home, a direction. I remember going one Monday--which was unusual for me, Mondays at the firm were usually stacked--and sitting in on a chip ceremony.
One man was there to get his...it must have been five year chip. He wasn't like my usual; no military background that I could detect. He didn't cry, but he almost did. We spoke over coffee, he came with me for dinner. We talked.
He joined the pack, but he struggled with the hierarchy. The secrecy. He went out with a few of the others one night to celebrate something, and he got drunk. Beyond drunk. He went from trashing a gas station to losing control and changing shape, staggering after cars. I kept the cops away as best as I could, but it didn't matter--he was struck by a van. I went to clean him up and bury him. We found the chip in his jacket pocket back at the gas station; he'd rubbed the edges so often they were worn and smooth...
Most of us can't drink, can't handle drugs. Me, I can drink myself down and not change, but I don't think that's the same as handling it. Does that make sense?
When I was- thirty something, new, but not new, I had this diplomat I was leaning on. He'd taken up with a dancer, and it wasn't, there was a wife, a family-
I mean, I thought he'd tell me to fuck off, so I came in heavy. And he went-
[He makes a diving gesture, with his hand.]
-right out a top story window.
That's the thing about playing rough. Even if you all know the rules, it's a little alarming when someone loses. You... you feel it, don't you?
What happens is I can turn into a dog and I enjoy chasing tennis balls and peeing on trees. I'll let you shake my paw if you give me a biscuit, Ricki. And I'll be good to you if you rub my ears right. I chase other dogs, I eat people alive, I like chasing sprinklers. I am wired to do and feel and know certain things I never could have as a man.
But people can't get their head around the idea that I'm not human. I don't think like a human anymore. I don't experience emotions like I did as a human.
Yes, maybe the humans here are judging you by human standards, but you don't know whether the Admiral is at all, do you? You're assuming he is, but maybe it's time to make room for the possibility that you have been a very bad dog.
Do I know for certain what the Admiral wants? After having read my file, dug into it, after having watched similar people graduate through similar means? No. But I have a pretty damn good idea.
What actually bothers me more than the Admiral is the people, though. I have to live with them. I've accepted the possibility that I might never graduate, and even if I do, part of being here is living day to day, isn't it? I have to appease you--the wardens--to get so much as an invitation to the gym.
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After midnight; private
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[No. But he is now.]
What's wrong?
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I keep thinking about how I hit rock bottom but never found out why.
I keep thinking about the power of symbols.
...would you believe I'm not even drink anymore right now?
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[Says Ricki, sensibly.]
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I'm sorry to keep you up.
[And he kind of is, but not really. Ricki's a warden, and Lark is unpaired, with his chosen warden away for a while. He doesn't have many people to lean on, is the thing.]
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[He says, sincerely, moving to guide him towards one of the chairs at the little kitchen table.]
I'm used to it. I used to have such bad insomnia here-"
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[He'd enjoyed Ricki's late night philosophizing, even if insomnia is hardly the thing you wish on someone.
He takes a seat and clasps his hands on the table, watching them. They're still faintly dusty from an earlier run in the Enclosure.]
You've been around the world a few times. What do you make of things like- symbolic gestures?
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[He says, with a light shrug.]
The thing about a gesture is you need to be with it on the follow through.
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I ask because I keep thinking about-
[Oh, boy. Well, there are things you admit to in polite company, and there are things you say to Ricki Tarr.]
I went to AA back home. But only to find people who needed a home, a direction. I remember going one Monday--which was unusual for me, Mondays at the firm were usually stacked--and sitting in on a chip ceremony.
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[He says, as he fixes the kettle up for him, nodding along.]
What happened?
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He joined the pack, but he struggled with the hierarchy. The secrecy. He went out with a few of the others one night to celebrate something, and he got drunk. Beyond drunk. He went from trashing a gas station to losing control and changing shape, staggering after cars. I kept the cops away as best as I could, but it didn't matter--he was struck by a van. I went to clean him up and bury him. We found the chip in his jacket pocket back at the gas station; he'd rubbed the edges so often they were worn and smooth...
Most of us can't drink, can't handle drugs. Me, I can drink myself down and not change, but I don't think that's the same as handling it. Does that make sense?
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I mean, I thought he'd tell me to fuck off, so I came in heavy. And he went-
[He makes a diving gesture, with his hand.]
-right out a top story window.
That's the thing about playing rough. Even if you all know the rules, it's a little alarming when someone loses. You... you feel it, don't you?
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[Is absolutely the word for it.]
I used to go with 'disappointing' but it was more than that.
Did you ever lean on people here?
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[He wonders.]
What happened?
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[And he isn't running.]
What happened?
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But people can't get their head around the idea that I'm not human. I don't think like a human anymore. I don't experience emotions like I did as a human.
But I'm here, being judged by human standards.
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[He challenges, right away.]
Yes, maybe the humans here are judging you by human standards, but you don't know whether the Admiral is at all, do you? You're assuming he is, but maybe it's time to make room for the possibility that you have been a very bad dog.
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What actually bothers me more than the Admiral is the people, though. I have to live with them. I've accepted the possibility that I might never graduate, and even if I do, part of being here is living day to day, isn't it? I have to appease you--the wardens--to get so much as an invitation to the gym.
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He advises him, quietly.
"I know that's easier said than done, but the best thing I ever did to let myself graduate was blow up the bar."
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His tone is soft, very dry, like he wants permission to just go ahead.
"Because what you did didn't affect anyone but the alcoholics. The things I want to let myself do...?"
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He wonders, resting an elbow on his knee, and leaning in.
"In complete and utter confidentiality. In my function as a preacher's son, if you like; I mean this."
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"Isn't that sort of confidentiality moot if I were, perhaps, planning to hurt someone? Wouldn't you be obligated to do something?"
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cw suicide, murder, violence of a revolutionary nature.
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