The Associate

Baxter was tanned, fit, and in relatively good spirits. He had gone ninety days with no booze or drugs, the longest stretch in at least ten years. Under the direction of Uncle Wally, he had reluctantly signed the paperwork that allowed the clinic to keep him locked away for up to six months. Now he was ready to leave. Uncle Wally, though, was not so sure.

The meeting belonged to Dr. Boone, and he went through a rather wordy summary of Baxter’s progress. Once properly dried out, Baxter had proceeded nicely through the initial stages of therapy. He was aware of his problem. On day 23, he admitted he was an alcoholic and an abuser of drugs. However, he still would not admit to being physically addicted to cocaine, his favorite. At all times, he had been cooperative with his counselors, even helpful to other patients. He exercised strenuously each day and became fanatical about his diet. No coffee, tea, or sugar. In short, Baxter had been a model of good behavior. His rehab had been successful, so far.

"Is he ready to be released?" Uncle Wally asked.

Dr. Boone paused and stared at Baxter. "Are you?" he asked.

"Of course I am. I feel great. I’m enjoying the sober life."

"I’ve heard this before, Baxter," Walter said. "The last time you stayed clean for, what, two weeks?"

"Most addicts need more than one rehab," Dr. Boone added.

"That was different," Baxter said. "It was only thirty days, and I knew when I left that I’d start drinking again."

"You can’t stay clean in L.A.," Walter said.

"I can stay clean anywhere."

"I doubt that."

"You doubt me?"

"Yes. I doubt you. You have a lot to prove, son."

Each took a breath and looked at Dr. Boone. It was time for judgment, for the sentencing, for a final word in this horribly expensive facility. "I want your frank opinion," Walter said.

Dr. Boone nodded, and without taking his eyes off Baxter, he began, "You’re not ready. You’re not ready, because you’re not angry, Baxter. You must reach a point where you’re angry at your old self, your old life, your addictions. You have to hate the way you were, and when this hatred and anger consumes you, then you’ll have the determination not to go back there. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not a believer. You’ll go back to L.A., back to the same friends, and then parties, and then you’ll take a drink. You’ll tell yourself that one drink is okay. You can handle it, no problem. That’s what happened before. You start with a couple of beers, then three or four, and then it spirals down. Booze at first, but the coke quickly follows. If you’re lucky, you’ll come back here and we’ll try again. If you’re unlucky, you’ll kill yourself."

"I don’t believe this," Baxter said.

"I’ve talked to the other counselors. We’re all in agreement. If you leave now, there’s a good chance you’ll screw up again."

"There’s no way."

"Then how much longer?" Walter asked.

"That depends on Baxter. We haven’t broken through yet, because he’s not angry at his old self." Dr. Boone’s eyes met Baxter’s. "You still have this fantasy of making it big in Hollywood. You want to be famous, a star, lots of girls, parties, magazine covers, big movies. Until you get that out of your system, you cannot stay clean."

"I’ll find you a real job," Walter said.

"I don’t want a real job."

"See what I mean?" Dr. Boone said, pouncing. "You’re sitting here now, trying to talk your way out so you can hustle back to L.A. and take up where you left off. You’re not the first Hollywood casualty I’ve seen, Baxter. I’ve been around the block a few times. If you go back there, you’ll be at a party within a week."

"What if he goes somewhere else?" Walter asked.

"When he’s finally discharged, we’ll certainly recommend a new place of residence, away from his old friends. Of course there’s booze everywhere, but it’s the lifestyle that has to change."

"What about Pittsburgh?" Walter asked.

"Oh, hell no!" Baxter said. "My family’s in Pittsburgh, and look at them. I’d rather die on skid row."

"Let’s work here for another thirty days," Dr. Boone said. "Then we’ll reevaluate."

At $1,500 a day, Walter had his limits. "What will you do for the next thirty days?" he asked.

"More intensive counseling. The longer Baxter stays here, the better his chances of success when he reenters."

" ‘Reentry’." I love the term," Baxter said. "I can’t believe you’re doing this."

"Trust me, Baxter. We’ve spent hours together, and I know that you’re not ready."

"I’m so ready. You don’t know how ready I am."

"Trust me."

"All right then, let’s meet again in thirty days," Walter said.

Chapter 15

The orientation dragged on through Thursday and became as dull as most of the litigation files the new associates would soon be assigned to. On Friday, they finally got around to the issue that had been conspicuously ignored the entire week  –  office assignments. Real estate. There was little doubt that their space would be cramped, sparsely furnished, and hidden from view, and so the real question was, how bad will it be?

Litigation was concentrated on floors 32, 33, and 34, and somewhere in there, far away from the windows, were cubicles with the new names mounted on small plates and stuck to the movable walls. Kyle was shown to his on the thirty-third floor. His cube was divided into four equal shares by canvas partitions so that it was possible for him to sit at his desk, talk quietly on the phone, and use his laptop with some small measure of privacy. No one could actually see him; however, if Tabor to his right and Dr. Dale Armstrong to his left rolled their chairs back no more than two feet, then they could see Kyle and he could see them.

His desk had enough surface area for his laptop, a legal pad, the office phone, and not much else. A few shelves finished off the design scheme. He noted that there was barely enough room for a man to unroll his sleeping bag. By Friday afternoon, Kyle was already tired of the firm.

Dr. Dale was a female mathematics whiz who’d taught at the college level before deciding for some reason to become a lawyer. She was thirty, single, attractive, unsmiling, and frosty enough to be left alone. Tabor was the gunner from Harvard. The fourth member of their little cube was Tim Reynolds, a Penn man who’d been eyeing Dr. Dale since Wednesday. She did not seem at all interested. Among the torrent of firm policies and dos and don’ts that had been carped on all week, the one that rang loudest was a strict prohibition against interoffice romances. If a love affair blossomed, then one of the two had to go. If a casual affair was discovered, there would be punishment, though its exact nature was not spelled out in the handbook. There was already a hot rumor that a year earlier an unmarried associate had been fired while the married partner who’d been hounding her got sent to the office in Hong Kong.

A secretary was assigned to the four. Her name was Sandra, and she had been with the firm for eighteen long and stressful years. She had once made it to the major leagues as an executive secretary for a senior partner, but the pressure proved too much, and she had slowly been demoted down through the minors, all the way down to the rookie league, where she spent most of her time holding the hands of kids who were just students four months earlier.

Week one was finished. Kyle had not billed a single hour, though that would change come Monday. He found a cab and headed for the Mercer Hotel in SoHo. The traffic was slow, so he opened his briefcase and pulled out the FedEx envelope sent from a brokerage house in Pittsburgh. Joey’s handwritten note read: "Here’s the report. Not sure what it means. Drop me a line."