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everybody a party, because they were all supporting me so well, by letting me keep the TV in my room? And so, you know, I sold the TV, for the party, and was taking the bucks over to the Party Place, to get some things for the party, some hats and tooters and stuff like that, but then I’ve got this problem, with substances, and so I sort of all of a sudden wanted some substances. And then I ran into this guy with some substances. That guy totally fucked me! By being there with those substances right when I had some money? He didn’t care one bit about my recovery.”
    “You sold the rehab TV to buy drugs,” she says.
    “To buy substances, Ma, why can’t you get it right?” he says. “The way we name things is important, Ma, Doe taught me that in counseling. Look, maybe you wouldn’t have sold the TV, but you’re not an inadvertent substance misuser, and guess what, I am, that’s why I was in there. Do you hear me? I know you wish you had a perfect son, but you don’t, you have an inadvertent substance misuser who sometimes makes bad judgments, like borrowing and selling a TV to buy substances.”
    “Or rings and jewels,” says Janet. “My rings and jewels.”
    “Fuck Ma, that was a long time ago!” he says. “Why do you have to keep bringing that old shit up? Doe was so right. For you to win, I have to lose. Like when I was a kid and in front of the whole neighborhood you called me an animal torturer? That really hurt. That caused a lot of myproblems. We were working on that in group right before I left.”
    “You were torturing a cat,” she says. “With a freaking prod.”
    “A prod I built myself in metal shop,” he says. “But of course you never mention that.”
    “A prod you were heating with a Sterno cup,” she says.
    “Go ahead, build your case,” he says. “Beat up on me as much as you want, I don’t have a choice. I have to be here.”
    “What do you mean, you have to be here?” she says.
    “Ma, haven’t you been listening?” he shouts. “I got kicked out of rehab!”
    “Well you can’t stay here,” she says.
    “I have to stay here!” he says. “Where am I supposed to go?”
    “Go home,” she says. “Go home with Grammy.”
    “With Grammy?” he says. “Are you kidding me? Oh God, the group would love this. You’re telling a very troubled inadvertent substance misuser to go live with his terminally ill grandmother? You have any idea how stressful that would be for me? I’d be inadvertently misusing again in a heartbeat. Grammy’s always like: Get me this, get me that, sit with me, I’m scared, talk with me, it hurts when I breathe. I’m twenty-four, ma, baby-sitting brings me down. Plus she’s kind of deranged? She sort of like hallucinates? I think it’s all that blood in her lungs. The other night she woke up at midnight and said I was trying to steal something from her. Can you believe it? She’s like all kooky! I wasn’t stealing. Her necklaces got tangled up andI was trying to untangle them. And Keough was trying to help me.”
    “Keough was at the house?” she says. “I thought I told you no Keough.”
    “Ma, Jesus Christ, Keough’s my friend,” he says. “Like my only friend. How am I supposed to get better without friends? At least I have one. You don’t have any.”
    “I have plenty of friends,” she says.
    “Name one,” he says.
    She looks at me.
    Which I guess is sort of sweet.
    Although I don’t see why she had to call me Mr. Tightass.
    “Fine Ma,” he says. “You don’t want me staying here, I won’t stay here. You want me to inadvertently misuse substances, I’ll inadvertently misuse substances. I’ll turn tricks and go live in a ditch. Is that what you want?”
    “Turn tricks?” she says. “Who said anything about turning tricks?”
    “Keough’s done it,” he says. “It’s what we eventually come to, our need for substances is so great. We can’t help it.”
    “Well, I don’t want you turning tricks,” she says.