Cedric

Cedric had been up all night. Again. I've got to stop doing this, he thought to himself as he turned on the shower and stood there statue-like as the cold water cascaded down his body. It was the eight all-nighter he'd pulled in two weeks and he was exhausted. Playing could do that to him. And when he played, he played hard. The first day of the rest of your life, he told himself. God, he hated the 12 step cliches, but had to admit they worked. I'll stop tonight. Or cut down. Yes cutting down was the trick. That would have to wait.  Right now he wanted to get back to the game.

Saturday meant he could play all day long and do nothing else. No calls from neurotic sisters, no slurring stepmothers and most of all, no pain-in-the-ass boyfriend checking in. Pepe was on a business trip for the last two weeks, which allowed Cedric even longer play times. He hurried out of the shower, half-dried and powered up the computer. He'd log on and find some "friends" and then time would evaporate and he'd get lost in it all. And nobody, not Billy, not Renata, his subway-stop coffee clatch and best friends, would have anything to say about it. He was annoyed, to say the least, by their concern, about how tired they said he looked, or asking why he was running so late. He knew the concern masked something deeper; a fear that he'd relapsed and was back to his old ways. It wasn't any of their business why he looked any way. Today he could look as strung out as he wanted to and they couldn't say a thing.

The computer whirred and beeped alive and Cedric dropped his towel and sat naked at his desk. He didn't need clothes for this. There was no modesty in this game, he could be whoever he wanted. He loved the escape, chasing the high, the anonymity of it all. Online, nobody really knew who he was. And nobody had to. The didn't know the past or the present and that was just fine with him. If he wanted to be a human he could. But he preferred to be a Dwarf for the Alliance and this morning he seriously had to kick some Orc ass. Theses fuckers were impossible to kill and his online teammates were off their game lately. World of Warcraft was not for the faint of heart, although he was getting concerned that it was becoming his only social outlet -- many of the guys in the fellowship, including his sponsor, were calling and he hadn't returned a single call. Cedric hadn't been to a meeting in a few days which was unusual for him. But WoW was getting so good, which he knew was an excuse.

What really was bothering him was that Darnell showed up at a meeting the other night. They partied together in the early 2000's, even had a fling when they thought they could save each other from meth. They hadn't parted on good terms -- Darnell stole the last of Cedric's meth and a credit card that thankfully he was able to cancel before Darnell ordered the entire collection of Racquel Welch wigs from a late night TV infomercial for one of his disastrous meth induced drag performances.

Cedric was sober for the last four years. If you didn't count World of Warcraft. Was this a problem he had to address as well? He decided he was being hard on himself. WoW was not crystal. At least he wasn't on red-eye flights from Chicago to NY for the the Black Party or to Los Angeles for whichever color party was happening that weekend. That was pretty much his life in the meth years -- back to back circuit parties and sex with as many hot, cracked-out boys he could get his hands on. In comparison, WoW was like doing the stations of the cross with cloistered nuns.

I fucking miss crystal, even though it totally fucked my shit up, he thought as he swigged from a glass of Mountain Dew. At least he could admit it. He knew so many guys in denial about missing the drug. And he new just as many who relapsed because the were Pollyanna's about their abstinence. "Every thing is great, don't miss it at all," friends would tell him and a week later they'd be in a psych ward hallucinating that the KGB had video taped him and his boyfriend having sex at the Olive Garden in Times Square. Cedric could admit two things: 1) that the drug made him feel amazing, better than ever and 2) it almost cost him him his freedom and his life. Spending a night in the downtown Tombs, the the massive jail on Centre Street and then another week on Rikers Island had that affect.

The stay at Riker's was fortuitous -- it's where he met Victoria St.Claire, a Brooklyn luscious former addict turned jail psychologist, who kicked his ass right off the drug and inspired him to refocus his psychology career to addictions. First his own, then to others.

"You need to find yourself a higher power, you little fool," He remembered her telling him with a drag queen worthy head snap. Of course, she was right and as soon as he could, he found a good Baptist church in Harlem and he got right with God. And then he got right with himself.