Jess Walter

RECOVERY

We’re like bored ghosts—over our horror
as we wait for dispensation
on the hard wooden pews
of bankruptcy court
and next to me
this old ruddy trader
who’s been reading the paper
whistles at something in the stock pages.

“If only,” he says, “I had about twenty G’s
and I complete: “you wouldn’t be here?”
but he slaps at the paper, “No, look
don’t you see, it’s already
here—the next thing . . .” and I’ll be
damned if I can help myself:
“What do you mean?”
Then one by one he lists them
the drugs I already know
“We had tech and pharms
war, biotech and of course housing.”
And now? I say, leading, but he won’t
give it away, he just shrugs
and says it again: “The next thing.”

An hour later we are broke but free
and as we part in the hallway
it’s all I can do to not beg the man
for that last tip, that final stake
like some idiot junkie who
kicks smack by going on crack
kicks crack by going on meth
kicks meth by going on smack—
jonesing for the next thing, because
relapse is what we mean
when we say recovery.