No Way Back by Matthew Klein Page B

see a new shrink once I got to Florida, if he found one that he approved of.
    Gordon is not your typical twelve-step sponsor. He doesn’t buy into all that crap about the power of God to cure an addict. He wants science, and doctors, and white lab coats. He wants
shrinks and therapy. After Cole’s death, it was Gordon’s idea for me to visit Doc Curtis, the matronly dyke with the husky cigarette voice. After a few sessions spilling my guts to her,
crying, with snot dripping down my nose, I relented and agreed to undergo hypnotherapy. The therapy has helped. At least, I think it has. At least now the nightmares mostly happen at night. During
the day, I can forget.
    ‘I know what you’re talking about, Gordon,’ I say, and sigh.
    Doc Curtis was helpful, but the prospect of starting again with someone new is daunting. And besides – how can I afford the time to visit a doctor? There is a magic number seared into the
back of my eyelids, and, right now, it’s all that I can see. The number is seven. As in: Seven Weeks Of Cash Left.
    ‘Here’s the phone number,’ Gordon says. ‘Write it down.’ He rattles off a phone number. I pretend to write it down.
    ‘Got it?’ he asks.
    ‘Yeah, I got it.’
    ‘Read it back to me.’
    Whoops. ‘OK,’ I say, sheepishly. ‘Repeat it one more time.’
    He does. This time I write it on my pad and successfully repeat it aloud.
    ‘His name is Liago,’ Gordon continues. ‘Dr George Liago. He comes highly recommended. He’s successful at treating people like you.’ He means addicts who have done
shameful things, inhuman things, dreadful things. ‘He knows the programme.’
    ‘All right, Gordon,’ I say. ‘I’ll try to make some time”.’
    ‘You won’t “try to make some time”.’ He mimics me as if I’m a sissy complaining about the hem line of my dress. ‘You
will
go see him. Today.
He’s expecting your call.’
    I sigh. ‘All right, Gordon.’ I know he loves me, in his weird Roman Centurion way, but boy can he be a pain in the ass.
    Gordon says: ‘I’m calling Liago tomorrow. If you haven’t shown up by then, I’m flying down there and personally dragging your ass onto his couch.’
    This is no idle threat. Five years ago, when I was still drowning in the shit, I missed one of my first appointments with Doc Curtis. Gordon Kramer called my cell, tracked me down, and somehow
found me in the St Regis Hotel in San Francisco, binging on minibar vodkas, and going through hookers like packs of chewing gum. He showed up, punched me, cuffed me, dragged me down into the
hotel’s subterranean parking garage, and re-cuffed me against a sprinkler pipe. He left me alone, to air out for three hours in Parking Area 4C, which I try to avoid to this very day, any
time I find myself in the St Regis. Then he returned, stuffed me into his car, and personally chauffeured me to Dr Curtis’s office. He waited in the reception room until I was done, then
dropped me off into Libby’s care.
    ‘I know you will,’ I say. The last thing I want is Gordon Kramer showing up at Tao and cuffing me to his wrist in front of my software engineers.
    ‘You promise you’ll call? He’s waiting.’
    ‘I promise. I’ll go today, if he has any time available.’
    ‘He has time available,’ Gordon says, simply. Which makes me wonder if he threatened to handcuff Dr Liago, too.
    ‘I’ll go.’
    ‘That’s my boy.’
    ‘You’re one hard motherfucker, Gordon Kramer.’
    ‘It’s called tough love, kid. If either of us had it growing up, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We wouldn’t even know each other.’
    It’s twelve noon and I’m slinking out of the office, to visit Dr Liago. Gordon was right: the doctor knew I’d be calling – was expecting it – and,
lo and behold, he had an appointment open this very day. That Gordon managed to pull off this feat, controlling the schedules of two very busy, very expensive people while three thousand miles away
from