Were we, in fact, really still friends—like we said we were, and thought we were, and which comforted us as we each staked out new lives in cities where we didn’t really know anyone at all? Or, I wondered, were we just slowly transforming into simpler and more easily digestible fictional characters to one another—in other words, becoming our profile pictures: cool, expressionless Dave, unfazed even at majestic Mount Fuji, his much-remarked-upon good looks defiantly hidden behind sunglasses; sweetheart Josh, playfully presenting a prom corsage in a cookbook-filled suburban kitchen to his overjoyed six-year-old sister, standing on a table, playing along; me, as a preposterously anti-Semitic cartoon depiction of Woody Allen at a typewriter, drawn of me at the insistence of my girlfriend, Sarah, by a caricature artist in Times Square who knew only that I wanted to be a writer and that I looked, apparently, extremely Jewish; and Willie, drinking simultaneously from a handle of vodka and a handle of Jack Daniel’s beneath a U-Haul at a tailgate party, surrounded by friends that didn’t include us, screaming at someone or something, the photo filtered to look like an image that belonged in any era.
Except, I thought one day as I looked at that picture, wondering what my relationship to it was supposed to be—we didn’t live in any era. We lived in the era when people treated things like alcoholism and addiction as the problems that they were, something that friends were supposed to save each other from.
Or something.
I tested out my doubts on the others when I would see their names online.
Hey. Kind of worried about Willie?
Seriously!! How hilarious is that guy.
Yeah. I’m actually worried, though.
Yeah, me too.
Everyone agreed that Willie seemed to have wandered into some territory where “out of control” and “out of control!!!” both got by security with the same ID. But he seemed to be self-aware about this—we always learned about his embarrassments directly from him, after all—and we didn’t know what it was we would do about him, exactly, anyway. So it just became the same idea as always, but now sometimes with stars around it in our chats for emphasis—that one of these days, we were really going to have to do something about Willie.
Another few weeks went by, and then one day, Willie posted a photo of himself passed out next to a toilet with the caption: “ROCK BOTTOM!!!”
I called up everyone on the phone—another thing we had not done since college—and said we really had no excuse not to do something. Everyone agreed and then asked what I had in mind.
I had no idea what I had in mind. It felt like no one had ever been our age before.
I knew, in very general terms, from the references made on the television shows I did watch to the shows I didn’t, and from the stray strands of D.A.R.E. that I hadn’t wiped from my memory out of spite, that what we were supposed to do was stage some sort of formal intervention. It would have to be adapted a bit, made a little more personal and casual so that it would be able to fit our group of friends. But all interventions had some personal angle, probably? They were like weddings that way, probably, I figured? Take the traditional structure and make it just a little bit your own? That sounded right?
So, then, basically just a regular intervention?
First, we had to choose a place where we could all physically be together. One option was for us to all travel to Houston and ambush him there, but that had its drawbacks. I knew Willie lived alone in a high-rise apartment and kept “crazy” hours, so we wouldn’t know how to get into his building or when he might be home. Plus, none of us really wanted to go to Houston.
I decided I would try to get him to come to us, so I had to come up with an event that would actually get him on a plane.
I knew from Facebook that Dave’s birthday was coming up, so I announced a surprise birthday party for him in a month’s time in Chicago. Willie responded sounds like so much fun!! and would so love to be there!!! and will definitely try to make it!!!! but that he had a crazy-shifting work schedule and wouldn’t know till last minute.
Dave’s birthday came and went. The day after, it hit me: rather than try to come up with the perfect reason to convince Willie to meet up with us, perhaps we should approach it from the opposite direction.
I sent a group text suggesting a group reunion for absolutely no reason! in Las Vegas.
I’M IN!!!!!! texted Willie within thirty seconds. WHEN????
This weekend, I wrote.
IN!!!!!!!! WHAT ARE THE DEETS????
At 8:00 p.m. that Friday night, Josh, Dave, and I met in the Las Vegas suite that we had reserved for the intervention itself—Party Central, as I had called it on the Evite—and started arranging the furniture in what would look like the most casual but serious configuration.
Willie’s flight was due in at 9:00.