The Addicts: Brad Upp and Brian Long, a.k.a. Skipper

Brad and Skipper are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts—and the derby is their New Year’s Eve bender. Some people go out on Dec. 31 and get drunk. Brad and Skipper go to the Vineyard every September and stay sober.

A few minutes after we meet, Brad is lifting up his Phillies shirt to show me his back.

“The derby tat,” Skipper remarks.

On Brad’s back is a tattoo that’s the size of one of those pizzas he’s been wolfing down with alarming regularity. It’s a fisherman’s coat of arms: an eight-pointed compass rose, crested with a fleur-de-lis, encircles a map of Martha’s Vineyard. A scroll wends its way around the arms of the rose and the four derby fish swim around it. Symbols float about like circling electrons: the runic symbol for daylight, or clarity; a triskele, the ancient Celtic symbol related to reincarnation and the sun; the astrological symbol for Neptune, Roman god of the seas; an alchemist’s symbol for autumn.

“It’s just to show the level of dedication,” Brad says. “I wasn’t kidding, man.”

“I’ve tried to explain it to people,” Skipper says.

“They say, ‘You going on your fishing trip?’” Brad says, mock condescension in his voice.

“‘You going on your fishing trip?’” Skipper mimics.

“It’s not a fishing trip,” Brad says.

Skipper adds: “I tell them it’s like dropping acid: You can’t understand it until you experience it.”