The Day I Quit AA

Toward the end of my drinking I had taken an apartment in Springfield over the Blue Eagle Cafe. At night the blue neon light from the bar flashed on the wall of my bedroom. I thought it was very romantic, like in the movies. On any Saturday night after the bars had closed, I could hear from the street below the sound of smashing glass, squealing tires, and Anglo-Saxon English floating up to where I lay in a booze stupor, warmly and falsely secure. This was street theater. I was living with the real people. Out of it all one day would come a great novel, which I would write.