All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir(18)

I was shown a small pocket of space where I would have a computer and a chair. My email was already set up from my sojourn in London, and I was notified that we had a production meeting scheduled in a couple of minutes. I walked into a small room with a large table. Six or so kids were seated there, chatting easily. I noticed a girl with voluminous brown hair looking down at her notebook. She was the only one who looked like she wasn’t an extra from an American Apparel shoot. I sat next to her and she told me her name was Rhana. She pronounced it phonetically for me, “RUN-na. It’s Palestinian,” she explained.

Santiago told us in no uncertain terms that our job was to assist the producers in research for story pitches. We would act as sleuths on the Web, track interesting leads, compile the data, and deliver it in byte-sized form to a VICE producer. We were to arrive early, leave late, and not be grabby about working on our own material. Other duties included running errands, getting coffee, and the dreaded transcription of interviews. We were one step above interns, but barely.

I took a seat at my new desk as a manic goatee-sporting man ran over to me. His name was Brian, and he explained to me that I would be wrangling post details for the MTV show The Vice Guide to Everything. I needed to track down releases and make sure the production bibles—black binders filled to the brim with daily call sheets, music cue sheets, and personal and location releases (the sexy stuff)—were complete and ready to go. I made a mental note that it seemed like you needed to be very organized to make television, or find someone else to organize it for you. When I asked Brian a follow-up query, I couldn’t help but focus on the gumball machine on the corner of his desk. Rather than gum or M&M’s, the machine was filled with aspirin. Which he proudly took like vitamin C tablets for hangovers and/or deep, unrelenting migraines due to stress. The message was clear: Here, pain, often brought on by excessive drinking and partying, was to be worn like a badge of honor. I would be expected to keep up.

I had been working in the New York office for just two weeks when VICE threw their annual holiday party. I arrived at the office nervous as hell. It seemed like one of the requirements of having a job there was being blessed in the looks department. While I do not necessarily resemble a ferret, my looks are not generally something people remark upon when meeting me. I felt insecure and desperately ugly in the unisex bathroom as I changed into a purple sequined dress that I got in London. I was convinced it could transform me into a full-figured Bond girl instead of the less than stellar woman I saw in the mirror. I added a giant fake-fur coat to complete the ensemble. But perhaps the kicker was that my face was covered in Band-Aids. I had developed impetigo from living in the squat. My dad had wisely cautioned me to sit this one out based on my condition, but I refused.

On the neon-lit party bus, I settled in next to the ad dudes and took giant slugs from a bottle of Jim Beam. The bus reminded me vividly of being the odd kid at summer camp with no partner to talk to. I prayed the booze would work quickly and, sure enough, there came the warm blanket coating my tongue and making everything feel just a tad brighter. I closed my eyes and reminded myself to monitor my intake—this was my first Christmas party at my first real job. I needed to get in and out of this without undergoing a colossal embarrassment.

The potion worked its magic. I strolled into that glittering Russian bazaar like I owned the place. I spotted Rhana, and she took in my appearance: “It looks like you’re already having fun,” she remarked. I raised my eyebrows at the drink that had somehow appeared in my hand. I confessed to her that I thought she was smart and cool and I wanted to be very close work allies. She responded nicely, but I could tell she was waiting to see what happened next. I got out on the dance floor and busted a move. This is all going to work out! my brain shouted. And that is the last thing I remember clearly.

I woke up the next day in my loft bedroom, in someone else’s old bed, forgetting for a second where I was. I still had the dress on, the sequins pinching my skin and the giant fur coat draped over me like a blanket. At least no one was in bed with me. I tried to cobble together fragments of memory. Did I really go up to the head of the company and strike up a slurred conversation? Did I try to hit on that older ad exec? What else? I had just started this gig, and I knew my behavior wouldn’t fly. I checked the time—fuck, I had to shower and get to the office.

I skulked in barely on time and lowered myself into my desk chair, concentrating solely on not puking up the bread and whiskey in my stomach. A PR guy spotted me and said, “Carr: Top Five Drunkest.” He repeated it three times. I could only assume he was saying that out of the hundreds of employees, I had made quite the impression. My face was a deep scarlet by the time he walked away. I had been found out. The drink, shame, hangover cycle was alive and well in me. The impetigo would go away in a couple of weeks, but my reputation would require a more dedicated recovery.

I didn’t tell my dad about the holiday party. I just couldn’t; I needed this job to work. We’d shared almost everything about our lives up until that point, including alcohol-related lapses in judgment, but this felt different because I knew it would keep happening if I continued to drink. I also couldn’t bear hearing him say “I told you so.” I always thought that when I entered the real world I would put away childish things, so to speak, and for me that meant my drinking. I worried that this was not the case, that I couldn’t stop. So I did what a lot of people do when it comes to drinking mistakes: I pushed the feelings deep inside of me and ignored them.