“What mean ye by these stones?”

I'd been awake for three days. I remember the clock on the dash said 2:40, and I remember thinking that if I didn't call somebody before the sun came up, I wasn't going to.

The card said Twelve Stones, a phone number, and Somebody who's been there will answer. I figured that was a line. A man named Cody picked up on the second ring and said, I'm Cody, I've been clean six years, where are you?

He didn't ask me why

He asked if I was safe, if I'd eaten, and whether I'd go to detox if he drove me. I said no to the last one. He said OK, and asked if he could call again at noon. He did. And the next day.

On the twelfth day I said yes. Cody drove me to detox in his own car, and when I got out there was a bed waiting at Gilgal House and a man named Reggie standing on the porch.

Nine months on Jessamine Street

I hated the 6 AM devotion for about a month. Then I started looking forward to it. I got a job at a tire shop in week three, and I paid my first $125 rent in week seven. I still have the receipt.

Now I answer the line on Thursday nights. Last week a kid called from that same gas station on Chapman Highway. I told him my name and how long I'd been clean, and asked where he was.