Chapter Text
Here was the thing: Charlie knew he was dumb. He had known it since he saw the pinched look on his mother’s face at his first parent-teacher conference. He had tried to tell her that it wasn’t his fault; the letters wouldn’t stay still when he tried to read them. That had just sent her into a panic that there was something wrong with him, with his brain, and he had spent the rest of the day trying to calm her down. He was dumb, but even he knew that he had made his mom sad.
In sixth grade, his teacher suggested testing. Charlie didn't know what she meant, because they had tests in class all the time, but Charlie’s mom got all upset, her voice going high and loud. This time, she wasn’t saying that there was something wrong with him; instead, she was loudly denying that there was a single thing wrong with her baby. She wasn’t a very good liar. The teacher didn’t suggest it again.
If there was any doubt, he knew for sure that he was dumb when Schmitty asked to cheat from his homework. Charlie didn’t like Schmitty much, even then, but Mac seemed to like him, so he pulled the crumpled, half finished work sheet from his tattered backpack and handed it over. Except Schmitty didn’t copy from his homework, because he was too busy laughing at Charlie’s misspellings and incorrect answers. Charlie looked at Mac. His friend didn’t defend him, just looked away awkwardly.
By high school, he had already accepted that he wasn’t smart, and he stopped trying.
His physics teacher took him aside and asked if everything was okay at home, and asked why Charlie had stopped asking questions in class. Charlie had shrugged, and explained that there wasn’t really any point, was there? She had given him that same pinched look that his mom had worn at his parent-teacher conference, and suddenly Charlie felt very small and exposed like one of the bugs he would pin down. She had told him that he had potential - that he was smart, and creative, and thoughtful - and Charlie found himself smiling, but then she had to go ruin it by suggesting being tested for something, for dyslexia, and he thought of his mother's face and Schmitty’s jeers and politely declined.
One thing that gave him a guilty kind of reassurance was that the rest of the gang were kind of dumb too. Sure, maybe Charlie couldn’t read all that good, but Dee was incapable of learning that Dennis and Mac didn’t care about her, and Mac still seemed to believe that he was a master of karate, so maybe he wasn’t so out of place. Charlie was dumb, but at least he knew what reality was, something that seemed to stump the others.
So while they went in circles, destroying any new opportunities and never moving forward, Charlie at least was aware of how stupid they were being, even if he didn’t point it out. Sometimes being reckless and destructive was easier than actually looking at his life. As long as he didn’t think too long, didn’t get too sober, he didn’t feel that awful pit in his stomach, and in Paddy’s Pub, too much thinking wasn’t a problem.
But sometimes, he remembered his physics teacher, and potential, and felt a sort of grief for what could have been. Whenever he started thinking about it, he reminded himself of Schmitty’s laughter and his parent-teacher conference and went out to get drunk or high or set something on fire. And it was fine. He was fine. He shoved it down to that little spot in his brain where he put Uncle Jack and Christmas and his dad and every other thing that he didn’t want to think about. And he was fine.
If anyone had asked about why Charlie was so dumb sometimes - which, no one really had - he would tell them that words didn’t make any sense to him. On pages they crawled and on his tongue they twisted and sometimes when people talked the words ran together like when he accidentally spilled beer on his diary and the ink smeared everywhere so that even he couldn’t read it.
That didn’t mean that he was always dumb. He noticed things, things that other people didn’t. He saw the way Dennis looked at food sometimes, the way that Mac looked at men sometimes. Charlie didn’t point those things out, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t seen it. Some days Charlie got tired of the rest of the gang. They called him stupid, but they didn’t even understand themselves.
One day, Charlie had stopped at the bodega and saw his old physics teacher there. He didn’t say hi. She looked busy, and probably wouldn’t recognise him anyway. (Later, though, he wondered what she would have said if he had tried to talk to her. Would she still think he had potential?)
He thought about alcoholics anonymous, and his musical career, and all the other things that he had quit. He thought about his future; he was probably on track to die of alcohol poisoning, poor and alone.
He thought that it might be time to make a change.
The next week, he went back to Alcoholics Anonymous. The waitress wasn't there this time. It was probably for the best. Charlie knew that as soon as he saw the waitress, everything else became secondary.
He sat at the back and didn't say anything, but he did listen. He gained a new sponsor: a tall, dark skinned woman named Marcia. She was no-nonsense in a way that was almost intimidating, but at least she wasn’t using him to get to Dennis, and she told him to call her whenever he needed to. He didn’t, at first - calling up a random stranger every time he got drunk felt like a weird thing to do, particularly considering he was still more off the wagon than on - but it was nice to know it was an option.
It didn't happen overnight, but Charlie began drinking less and less. The gang hadn't noticed, but he hadn't really expected them to either. It became harder to be part of their antics. When he was drunk, which had been most days, it was easier to go along with whatever ridiculous plot the others had come up with. Hell, when he was drunk, he came up with plenty of stupid plans himself. As a result, he was spending less time at the bar. It made him realise that he didn't really have anywhere else to be.
One day, on a whim, he went to the library - mostly because it was the few places he could go without spending money. Which he didn’t have much of. He looked through some novels, before realising the only books he would be able to read were in the children's section. He considered looking at them, but thought that it would make him look like a creep. He went back to the apartment and got black out drunk with Frank instead.
It wasn't until the next AA meeting that he regretted it, when he told the group about it and they looked at him with that all too familiar expression of pity and disappointment. Or maybe it was understanding. Either way, he didn’t like it.
It took him three weeks to get the courage to return to the library. When he did, he spoke to a kind looking receptionist who told him about the free adult reading classes that they held on Thursday evenings. Charlie left with a leaflet and a promise that he would give it a try.
Charlie had expected to hate the reading classes (and it took him a few beers until he felt calm enough to go.) It didn't take him long to realise that everyone there was about as dumb as him, and then it didn't feel so embarrassing. He sat next to a hispanic girl who always shared a smile with Charlie when he answered something right, which Charlie returned shyly. It was taught by a dude in jeans, so it didn’t feel like school, and he went real slow over the harder bits, and never laughed even when Charlie asked really dumb questions.
Three weeks in, the teacher asked Charlie to stay behind - like high school all over again - but he didn’t ask Charlie any questions, just gave him a few coloured see through sheets and told him to give them a try. Charlie gave him a long look, couldn’t help but ask, “Are you screwing with me here?” The teacher laughed then, and swore he wasn't. Charlie waited until he had the apartment to himself to try it, feeling like an asshole, placing the colours over his workbook. The first few did nothing except, well, making the page colourful. He was just about to give up and resolve not to go back to the class when he looked through the yellow sheet and found that the words suddenly seemed bolder, easier to read. He went back to the next class feeling a little more optimistic.
Eventually, the gang started noticing that he wasn’t around so much any more. One afternoon, when Charlie came to the bar to find the place covered in rose petals (he didn’t ask), Mac said, “Hey Charlie, where have you been?”
“Oh, y’know,” said Charlie, although no, they didn’t know, and that was how he wanted to keep things.
He quickly got the broom before anyone asked more questions. They generally didn’t talk much whilst he was cleaning; Charlie suspected that they didn’t want to get roped into helping. He only half listened whilst Dee and Dennis screeched at each other, feeling exhausted by their relentless noise, tempted to go get a drink to take the edge off. He didn’t, because he had just managed a week sober. He knew that wasn’t very long, but everyone at AA had seemed impressed, and he didn’t want to go back next week to tell them he was off the wagon already.
He had decided to leave as soon as he was done cleaning, but Mac caught him in the relative privacy of the men's room before he could sneak off.
“What’s going on with you, man?”
“Nothing, nothing’s up with ol’ Charlie,” said Charlie, voice too high and too fast.
Mac gave him a weird look. “Have you got new friends or something? Why aren’t you hanging out at the bar anymore?”
“New friends? No!”
“Then why are you avoiding us?” said Mac, and Charlie thought his eyes looked a little hurt. Maybe.
“I’m not, I’m not avoiding you, I just-” Charlie stumbled.
“Dude, don’t bullshit me! C’mon, what-”
“I’m an alcoholic!”
There was a moment of silence, where Charlie wished he could take the words back. Mac seemed to be frozen in place as the seconds ticked on, before he let out a laugh. “An alcoholic?” said Mac, incredulous. “Well Christ, Charlie, half of Phili’ are alcoholics, it’s not a big deal!”
Charlie felt wrong footed. “It's not?”
Mac slung an arm over Charlie's shoulder. “Of course, dude! Let's go have a beer, it's been way too long-”
“Mac!” Charlie shucked his arm from shoulders, “I'm an alcoholic. I'm trying to get, like, sober.”
“What, so- so you're not gonna hang out at the bar anymore?”
“No, I mean-,” Charlie stuttered, “I'm still working here, I just-”
“Right. Right,” said Mac, frowning pensively. “So… no drinking at all?”
“Listen, don't tell the others, alright? I just-”
“Sure, of course. My lips are sealed.”
Charlie went home with a bitter taste in his mouth. If he didn't have the gang, then who did he have? He wanted to do better, he did, but he didn't want to lose his friends to do it. He really wanted a drink.
For the first time, he called Marcia instead.