Again within the metropolis, it went on like this—tiring, miserable, unusual, numb—for just a few 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 exterior 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 children and other people 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 observe darkish arts on younger, unsuspecting twinks—our bodies had been shifting round like musical chairs.
It solely took just a few weeks earlier than I used to be digging again into my outdated Rolodex of sellers and scoring my typical everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cocktail of tablets and powders and flowers and mushrooms and vials and no matter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, after all, my latest addition (who was quickly changing into a collection common): heroin. I might get it in white powder type to snort, as a result of capturing up simply wasn’t for me. And so, to no person’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 hearth homosexual bars (that positively 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 if you happen to 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 wish 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 wish to do it, however I can’t…not.
I battle to recollect the tip of this dialog, as a result of actually the one factor that issues now could be that it occurred in any respect. That for as soon as in my fucking life I might truthfully say to somebody I didn’t know why I couldn’t cease doing medication. That I couldn’t sneak, lie, cheat my manner out of confrontation, like I did after I stated I used to be going to rehab just a few summers previous to keep away from getting expelled from Semester at Sea for sneaking medication onto the boat. Peter opened a door for me to lastly admit for as soon as that I didn’t wish to do medication anymore and that I didn’t know learn how to cease. A seed planted, and the dawn fertilizing it.
***
We’re driving out to East Hampton. Being in a confined area with my father means countless 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 fingers, 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. After I’d known as him and instructed 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 looking for a rehab that evening, I actually googled “celeb rehab fancy.” I wasn’t well-known, not even shut; I used to be simply delusional and unwilling to go someplace that may ask me to mop flooring or give me cafeteria responsibility. As a result of heaven forbid this shit really be, you recognize, 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 automobile Girl Chook–type (despite the fact that Girl Chook was nonetheless just a few years off—bless you, Greta).
I don’t assume I can do that, Dad.
You’ll be able to.
I don’t know. Perhaps I jumped the gun.
You didn’t. However if you happen to 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 automobile—besides it feels extra like a hearse.
Fuck.
Tailored from Perhaps This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Artwork, Habit and Transformation by Tommy Dorfman, to be printed on Could 27 by Hanover Sq. Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2025 by Tommy Dorfman
