Two Hundred Forty-Seven Years

At the year-end meeting the chair does the arithmetic from the front: added together, the room holds two hundred forty-seven years of sobriety tonight. Applause, deserved — it is a true number. At the break, the line forms at the urn around the thirty-year man, warm as a stove. The man with three days stands at the literature rack, holding a styrofoam cup, reading the same pamphlet twice. Nobody reaches him before he leaves at ten past nine. No one was unkind; the room was busy honoring its treasure, and its treasure is not what it is for. Dr. Bob, in his last year, on why he still came (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers): "I belong at that meeting for the sake of the new man or woman who might walk through that door." And: "I am the living example." The years are proof, not rank. Two hundred forty-seven years of proof stood in that room, and the one person it was proof for went home unmet.