A Flip of the Coin

 

      When you first start going to AA meetings, you’re new to all of it and, suddenly, you’re hearing all these stories about wasting your life getting wasted in Chicago here.

A guy at one of those meetings was talking about relapse bars one time.  Supposedly, there are these bars somewhere in the city that’ll take AA coins for drinks: the ones with the roman numerals for each year you’re sober and sayings like “Keep Coming Back” and “Let Go, Let God” … words like that engraved on them, you know what I’m saying?  Now, they also have those coins for new people who are still shaky that just have a few months under their belt, but they’ll only get you a shot or two, I’m thinking.

Anyway, the story kind of stuck with me.  Where are these mystery bars anyway, and how are you supposed to find them?  Not exactly something you’d advertise, not like what credit cards you accept but no personal checks.

I suspect they’d have to be dives, right?  One of those places where they sell dollar draft beers and you’re sitting there drinking one after another, wondering how can they sell them so cheap, are they watered down?  Then try to guess how they’d do that. Or one of those little bars attached to discount liquor stores with names like Holiday Liquors that have chain link around the counter in case somebody wants to shake down the clerk for what’s in the register or make a grab for a plastic screwtop vodka pint and run with it, without paying.  You know, dark bars without windows: holes in the wall where people who are deep in their cups go to hide.

Anyway, here I am, staring at that weird crucifix where the Baby Jesus is nailed hanging over the mirror, and I’m wondering, are you one of those bars?  Because the crucifix has me thinking: isn’t it like if some bar in ancient BC took a coin or two from Judas, who probably needed a drink after he sold out the Lord?  What with all the holding our praying hands together while we’re talking to a Higher Power you get in meetings? it’s like, well, I’ll show you what I really believe in: hand me a shot and a beer.

There, caught you smiling.  I thought so.  Well, my friend, I have 31 of those coins in this velvet bag here, and I’m thinking, after all these years, time to party?

Actually, more like a wake.  Because I’m also wondering: did the Chicago cops find any of those coins in her room after they fished the suicide girl I maybe loved out of her bathtub?  Or did she find her relapse bar and spend them all during a dark night of her soul?

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