You could just tell they were friendly, and I don’t know what it is, and you know, I just wanted to be here.

“I was yellow all over, my eyes were yellow—some of my internal organs were shutting down,” he tells me in a voice that is relaxed and confident at the same time. “I had lost about 100 pounds. Of course I have cirrhosis. I’m not too worried about that because I’ve asked a lot of doctors—you can’t die from cirrhosis—that’s the first thing I thought once you get cirrhosis, you’re a goner, but I mean all it is, is scarring of the liver, and I shouldn’t put it like that but I mean you can live quite a while with cirrhosis.” He moves in the same way that he speaks, relaxed and confident. He looks healthy.

“Yeah my name’s French,” he says.

Born in Montana on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, he remembers life there with fondness, with the exception of the Indian Boarding School. “I want to say I supported myself, ‘cause during the summer time I went out and did a lot of fishing and hunting, and whatever I’d bring back, I’d bring it to the elders, and we’d eat that—however they fixed it. Whatever family, whatever clan you were around, they took care of you. ”

“And I kept busy,” French tells me. There is a wistfulness behind his eyes. “Somebody talked me into going out for boxing, and I did a lot of traveling. Back then the drinking age was 18, and that was about the time, towards the end of my boxing career, I started drinkin’ pretty heavily."

Despite “being crazy drinking around,” French always held a job, working for the forest service and for his uncle as a carpenter, taking classes in both fields.  He came to Seattle in ’81. “I thought I‘d get a job right away ‘cause I had enough experience—but nobody would hire me, they’re like, you’re too young! I was, what? 21."

Laid off from a lumber mill in Yakima, French was trained in asbestos abatement and stayed in that field for 14 years.   “Thinking about asbestos—--I gotta take a deep breath!    You know how your lungs got elasticity?   Well it makes ‘em like paper bags, you know.   But I watched myself, I was really cautious, sometimes I think I was too cautious, that’s what people told me.   I’ve always been a safe worker.

He wasn’t cautious about the dangers of alcohol.  “I’ve had alcohol seizures. Geez, I’m thinking. When was that? I think it was in ’96. This last time—been sober for over five years now—that’s when it really affected me, along with my memory. I have a short-term memory deficit, and that’s why I’m on disability right now.” He asks me if I would have guessed that he was on disability. Not working wears on him. Despite his calm nature, his candor, a restlessness is in him, speaking to him about getting back to work.

I ask him how he found Recovery Café. “A friend of mine says, hey there’s a place down there called Recovery Café, you get to eat down there. When I came down I think Darren was one of them at the front door, and they greeted you and the staff were approachable people. You could just tell they were friendly, and I don’t know what it is, and you know, I just wanted to be here.”  

“I’ve never known of a place like Recovery Café, and they need more places like this. There’s people comin’ in, looking at this place ‘cause they want to do something like this in their towns. What if we get something like this back in Montana? You know in my community, the Native community, they’re dying, it seems like weekly, and it hurts me. I still wonder where I would be if I never had run into this here place. Cause it’s scary for me after what I went through, and then having this place of refuge—it says it out there on the sign, a place of refuge—and that’s what this is for me.

“I’m kinda lost right now. I feel like I’m competent most of the time.” He looks up and laughs. “What’s your name again?”