Plan A Must Go

I fear that today I was the weather wimp that I have teased other people about being.

Instead of carrying out the plans a friend and I had made days ago, we opted for late afternoon naps with a promise to talk later and make plans then.

By the time I woke up from mine, going to Belle Isle was the last thing I wanted to do, even at nearly 6:00. So I came up with Plan B.

Curious about the movie "Everything Must Go" showing at the Westhampton, I did some research to find out more about it.

Learning that it was based on a Raymond Carver short story, "Why Don't You Dance?" intrigued me. I knew to expect minimalist storytelling and drinking, the Carver hallmarks.

Discovering that it was about an alcoholic played by Will Ferrell (of all people) who hits rock bottom assured me that the story would be of interest to my friend, himself nearly three years sober.

But it wasn't merely a sad sack film about alcoholic binging and ugly behavior. It began the day he gets fired and his wife locks him out and leaves him; the bottom is in sight.

To the disapproval of his suburban neighbors, he sets up living quarters amongst his belongings which the wife has conveniently left in the front yard,.

His AA sponsor (he'd been six months sober before relapsing) is also a cop who tells him he has five days to hold a yard sale before he is breaking the law, so he reluctantly sets out to sell his possessions.

Along the way he finally gives up the multiple cases of PBR he'd been drinking daily because he runs out of money.

Watching the movie was interesting for me but I couldn't wait to hear my friend's thoughts because I knew it must have resonated with him in a way I could never understand.

Our discussion afterwards was illuminating, as has been our entire friendship.

I met him just before he marked his first year sober and I have watched him become a more thoughtful, confident and healthy person in the past two years.

But for him, the film had been downright painful in parts (and in ways it was not for me) encapsulating, as it did, the lowest part of an alcoholic's descent.

But it also had the effect I'd been hoping for, reminding him that the rough patch he's experiencing in his personal life is just one more part of the journey he's on.

I don't want to take too much credit, but I think he got even more out of Plan B than he would have out of our walk on Belle Isle. And I'm not talking about the buttered popcorn or the air conditioning that I got out of the evening, either.

As I like to tease him about so many things, "What would you do without women?"

Insert smiling, sober shrug. Sometimes we do know best.