The Axeman's Jazz

almost certainly codependent, and if you aren’t codependent, you’re nobody.”
    “Be there or be square,” said Hodges.
    “Well, not exactly. It’s not like you’ve got any choice about it. See, the people who write these books say ninety-six percent of the population’s codependent. They don’t say who the other four percent are, but you can bet you haven’t met them and aren’t likely to. They’re basically saying we’re a very unhealthy society and a lot of the things we hold up as real great qualities are sick, sick, sick. So people go to these meetings to unlearn everything they learned as kids.”
    Cappello said, “I thought therapists were the chic thing.”
    “This stuff’s free.” Cindy Lou looked around the room. “Anybody in here codependent?”
    O’Rourke snorted. “I don’t even know any alcoholics.”
    “You don’t have to know any alcoholics. That’s a big misunderstanding about this whole deal. You can be codependent as hell even if you live alone and don’t form relationships or friendships. It’s a dumb word, ‘codependent.’ Doesn’t work, really. But the reason I asked that was just to see something. These groups are anonymous, and I don’t want to blow anyone’s anonymity, but I’m willing to bet there’s somebody in here who’s been to at least one meeting of one of these things, maybe who goes regularly.”
    “I’m Adam,” said Abasolo, “and I’m an alcoholic.”
    “I was in Alateen,” said Cappello quietly. “I still go to ACOA—that’s Adult Children of Alcoholics.”
    Cindy Lou nodded. “Just about everybody’s got some kind of contact with them. I bet somebody else in here’s got a relative who’s hooked on Al-Anon.”
    O’Rourke said, “You got it. My ex-wife. And she’s as bitchy as ever.”
    “Well, now, that’s an interesting point you bring up. One of the objects of the exercise, reduced to simplest terms, is to quit being too nice to people. Look here.” She opened one of the books she’d brought, turned a few pages. “What do you see?”
    “Looks like lists.”
    “That’s right. Lists of characteristics that make you co-dependent. You read this stuff, you see why they say just about everybody’s got the bug—anything you can name, especially anything that’s common behavior in America, is probably here. Listen to this—page eighty-nine: ‘Codependents tend to blame themselves for everything.’ Two pages later: ‘Codependents frequently blame
other people
for their problems.’ Here’s two right together: They tend to be ‘extremely responsible,’ or ‘extremely irresponsible.’ ”
    Hodges whistled. “Kind of slips through your fingers, doesn’t it?”
    But O’Rourke was interested. “What does that have to do with being too nice?”
    And Skip blurted, “Is it about anything or is it just a bunch of words?”
    “It is about something. These people tend to get a little obsessive—and they’d be the first to admit that obsessiveness is a sure sign of codependency—but basically they’re onto something. They have all these lists of different ways you can react to being codependent, but as far as I can figure out, the bottom line’s this: If you’re codependent, you’re minding everybody’s business but your own.”
    “Sheee-it,” said Abasolo.
    “Yeah?” said Cindy Lou. “You ever feel like you’re the only one in your district doing any work? Maybe you can’t figure out why all these old guys twice your age don’t get half as much work done as you do. You worry about that at all? Spend any time thinking of ways to make them shape up? The codependency folks talk about being obsessed with controlling other people’s behavior.”
    He reddened.
    “Maybe you’re codependent, baby. Besides being an alcoholic.”
    Skip hid her smile with a hand. She’d liked Cindy Lou that morning, but her attitude was deepening to something approaching worship.
    Cindy Lou went on with her lecture. “That’s why I say it’s the bottom line. Everybody’s got that one. In this society, we’re all busy taking up the slack for everybody else, sometimes just with our own secret knowledge that we’re superior, like Adam over there; sometimes we mind their business to the point where we’re trying to guess what they want next and give it to them before they even know.”
    With a jolt, Skip remembered Curtis Ogletree, Linda Lee’s landlord.
    “I’ve heard this crap before and it makes me sick,” said