Again within the metropolis, it went on like this—tiring, miserable, unusual, numb—for a couple of weeks. In February, I used to be arrested for drug possession within the Decrease East Facet after two undercover cops discovered me doing key-bumps outdoors a shitty membership, and it was late March or early April when she overdosed. I used to be beginning to see different individuals within the prolonged circle of druggies and theater youngsters and folks I known as “my associates” disappear, drop out, dissolve into…one thing or nothing. Ashes to ashes. At my regular dive bar haunts—the kind of locations the place promoters with names like “Jagger” would apply darkish arts on younger, unsuspecting twinks—our bodies had been transferring round like musical chairs.
It solely took a couple of weeks earlier than I used to be digging again into my previous Rolodex of sellers and scoring my common everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cocktail of drugs and powders and flowers and mushrooms and vials and no matter else the vagrant in entrance of me was hawking. Some cocaine to deliver me up, Xanax to assist me sleep, Molly to sprinkle into drinks and blunts, and, in fact, my latest addition (who was quickly turning into a sequence common): heroin. I’d get it in white powder type to snort, as a result of capturing up simply wasn’t for me. And so, to no one’s shock, actually, however my very own, by the point my birthday got here round, I had a number of eight balls on the prepared and an evening of mediocre Brooklyn debauchery deliberate. It was to incorporate some dumpster fireplace homosexual bars (that undoubtedly didn’t go on to outlive the pandemic), and the wild mixture of associates I one way or the other managed to hold on to throughout my rock-bottom moments.
It’s simply—I’d perceive when you had been having fun with your self, however you appear…
We’re again to 2013. Peter once more. I need him to cease speaking, my ears are bleeding and my mind is struggling to maintain up. Like, shut the fuck up.
I don’t need to be presumptuous, it’s simply—and I’m not judging you, I promise. I’m simply curious, like, why do cocaine and no matter else if it makes you so…
Depressing? I handle to croak out.
Yeah.
I don’t know… I don’t need to do it, however I can’t…not.
I wrestle to recollect the tip of this dialog, as a result of actually the one factor that issues now’s that it occurred in any respect. That for as soon as in my fucking life I might actually say to somebody I didn’t know why I couldn’t cease doing medicine. That I couldn’t sneak, lie, cheat my means out of confrontation, like I did once I stated I used to be going to rehab a couple of summers previous to keep away from getting expelled from Semester at Sea for sneaking medicine onto the boat. Peter opened a door for me to lastly admit for as soon as that I didn’t need to do medicine anymore and that I didn’t know the right way to cease. A seed planted, and the dawn fertilizing it.
***
We’re driving out to East Hampton. Being in a confined house with my father means infinite tapping of my toes in anticipation of no matter serious-but-not-too-serious, slightly-misguided- imparting-of-wisdom-cum-jeremiad he has cooked up. Besides it by no means comes. I look down at my arms, marveling at how their sq. form mirrors his personal, solely a bit smaller. Larry Ivan Dorfman, born within the mid-50s in Brooklyn, Jewish with a signature crew reduce and an infectious smile. A teddy bear of a person. His hand is gripping the gear shift and I’m considering, Oh, shit. This time is completely different. This time he’s quiet and reserved. Once I’d known as him and advised him I needed to attempt to get clear, he’d merely exhaled, and in the identical breath, stated, Lastly. Thanks.
He assured me he’d be on the subsequent flight out of Hartsfield- Jackson, however I requested him for one final evening alone with Peter. He obliged.
Right here’s one thing darkish: When trying to find a rehab that evening, I actually googled “superstar rehab fancy.” I wasn’t well-known, not even shut; I used to be simply delusional and unwilling to go someplace that might ask me to mop flooring or give me cafeteria responsibility. As a result of heaven forbid this shit truly be, you already know, laborious.
The nearer we get to East Hampton, the extra I remorse my choice. A pit in my abdomen begins rising, screaming at me to leap out of the automotive Girl Chicken–model (though Girl Chicken was nonetheless a couple of years off—bless you, Greta).
I don’t assume I can do that, Dad.
You possibly can.
I don’t know. Possibly I jumped the gun.
You didn’t. However when you did, you’ll discover out quickly sufficient. We’re right here now anyway.
I press my brow as laborious as I can into the chilly window of the automotive—besides it feels extra like a hearse.
Fuck.
Tailored from Possibly This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Artwork, Habit and Transformation by Tommy Dorfman, to be revealed on Could 27 by Hanover Sq. Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2025 by Tommy Dorfman
