The “Indie” Beginning

Unlike most stable human beings, I had always given a lot of thought as to how I would die. The fantasies always ranged from the extreme-people that hated me enough hiring someone to put a slug in my brain, to the simple, everyday things that can kill you-choking on a pistachio, falling down stairs. Sometimes it bordered on insanity, such as swallowing glass in a dish at my favorite restaurant and getting tangled up in the shower curtain after having one too many shots of Skull Vodka. Either way, I knew thoughts of my demise either meant I needed serious therapy or I watched too much Six Feet Under.

What I never figured was that I would try it myself.

The sound of the world dissolved around my ears as my head sank underwater. I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling above me, distorted and far away. I felt confident and unafraid in this silent underwater oasis, I had no more fight left in me. No tears were leading up to this decision, I had a feeling that this was the way it was always going to happen, no matter what road I walked in life. I allowed myself to use up some of the air I had stored. I had no patience. Not in life, not in death, not in the endless fuckshit that stretched between. 

In a perfect world where people in movies try to drown themselves in their shitty bathtubs to get away from their shitty lives, the love of their life somehow barges in at the last minute as if by divine providence and saves their life, and kaboom, after endless tears and promises, the person submerged always gets help and stays in love until old age takes them. 

I hate to break it to you, but this was no perfect world and I wasn’t in the room with any cameras, so I knew this would end the way I intended it to. The hero of this story was nowhere near my shitty apartment and probably wouldn’t save me if he was, and nobody, especially me, could blame him for it. My eyes began to sting, but I forced them to stay open-I wanted to see the world close in on me like a bad computer effect on a TV sitcom. Fade to black. Beautiful. 

But while life is not a movie, it is certainly ironic, and if there is a God, he’s sadistic. Only in this day and age and only in my life could a MySpace notification put a stop to this very dramatic suicide attempt.

CHA-CHING!

I heard this sound even though I was underwater and because I was mentally conditioned to respond, my entire body started, forcing me out of the water. I couldn’t help it-I sucked in a huge breath. My lungs were on fire. My hands clawed at the sides of the bathtub. I gulped in huge bubbles of air, my brain was exploding with red and yellow.

Holy fuck. Was I really going to do that?

After several minutes of heaving, I raked my hands through my wet hair, pulling off the old red bandanna that had been my only baggage for death. I couldn’t help but pull it to my face and take a deep inhale. The smell was still there, even through the wetness, even after all this time. Sweat. Hair gel. You.

Due to my unhealthy addiction to MySpace, which I believed was created with crack cocaine, I simply could not snuff out my life without seeing who or what had stopped me from carrying out my grand plans. Yes. MySpace stopped me from killing myself, and if it was a fucking LOL bulletin comment, I was going to be beyond pissed. Fucking pathetic. 

I managed to stand up, though my legs were shaking, and I had to hunt down a towel. I hadn’t laid one out, of course, I wasn’t planning on getting out of the tub in anything less than a body bag. The bandanna remained clenched in my fist. The plan was still on, whatever happened on MySpace.

I stumbled to my chair and typed in my password. 

NEW MESSAGES!

I stopped before I clicked on the link. I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath. 

Please Lord, if you are there, please let it be one of my friends. Please let it be my mother wanting to know how to change her layout. Please let it be a Piece of Flair or even a fucking Spambot. But whatever you do, Lord, don’t let it be him. I don’t want to be saved. I can’t do it anymore. PLEASE. 

Yeah. Like the Lord would let it be that easy after I was about to commit the sin of all sins. But curiosity murdered the cat-so I clicked the link. 

It felt like a sucker punch when I saw his picture. It would hurt less if the picture would have been with some other girl, but in a final coupe de grace, he had changed it to us. Knowing how notoriously private he was, this was a statement in itself. I hated him for it. Hated him for caring. Didn't want him to anymore. Loving me never got anyone anywhere they should ever go. 

A year ago, we were paint-splattered, laughing, and drunk off WOW-Ritas after our paintball tournament. The picture that had gotten scathing comments from so many of his admirers, calling me a slut and a bitch and all sorts of horrible names. They hadn’t known me from Adam, but they were right. After seeing those comments, I laughed my ass off, but he looked at me with sadness in his eyes. He had expected me to be upset. Had he wanted me to be? Maybe. Was I? No. These girls didn’t know me, but they were right. Who was I to dispute the truth?

“Nothing affects you the way it should.” He murmured, gazing up at me with his muddy eyes. I stopped laughing.

“So you’re saying you WANT me to be a ball of insecurity because a bunch of teenyboppers are jealous?” Incredulous, I raised my eyebrow. 

He had sighed. “I want you to feel something for anything.”

I smiled and pressed my finger to his nose.

“I feel something for things that matter.”  

That conversation had been six months ago. Six months ago, we had been something. Not whole, not ever whole, nothing ever was, but more than the pile of ashes we were now. 

Returning to the present, I sat there dumbly and stared at that little message, highlighted in blue. His picture mocked me, it made me feel guilt for what I had been about to do to myself, to him. I hated feeling guilty. I wanted to be selfish, dammit. I wanted him to move on. I knew I had to click it. I knew I had to see what he said. I hadn’t heard from him for what seemed too long. I had a hunger that nothing could kill. Not the liquor. Not anything I could put in my body. There was no anti-dote for him. Believe me, I've tried.

I moved the mouse and clicked.

The page loaded. I expected a long message, but all I got was the proof that he knew me too well to waste too much time saying too much. All it said was,

You can't do this. 

His picture grinned winsomly back at me, a big splash of blue on his forehead, his eyelashes flecked with orange. The familiar orange and green gif flickered under our images, indicating that he was online, waiting for me to reply. I knew him, he had seen it in my internal woodwork, and he knew what I had planned to do. He just didn’t know when or where, and my phone had been chucked a long time ago. All he could do was try MySpace in hopes that I’d hear him and come. And I had. At the most crucial moment in my life. Damn him, stealing my thunder, getting in the way. Always, always getting in the way. 

I am a cruel person. I could not and did not respond. Instead, I got up from my chair, dropped my towel, and walked naked to the refrigerator. I dug in the freezer until I found the prize, a bottle of half-full Skull Vodka, icy, deadly. I pulled the cork out with a knife and started guzzling. The urge to puke came but I suppressed it. My gut was roiling, my head full of bees, anger and resentment snarled inside of me like a knot. I wanted to be dumb and slow and unable to move. It didn’t take long. I tied the bandanna around my hand, like bandaging a cut. He used to do that. He used to do a lot of things, but so had I. 

I stumbled back to the bathroom and leaned against the doorframe, drunk and naked and blinking furiously. The water lay still, calm, waiting for me. I stuck my toe in. It was lukewarm at best.

Fuck it, I’m not dying cold. I don’t ask much. I just want to die in a bathtub of hot water. Fuck it, I’ll do it tomorrow. To try now would be utterly gauche, and above all, children, we cannot be gauche, can we?

I didn’t bother draining the water, I just stumbled out of the room, slapped the light switch, grabbed my bottle of vodka, and headed towards the bedroom. I’m so fucking tired. Of this. Of him. Of me. Of being interrupted. I just want to be gone. I just want this endless fucking nightmare to end. 

I collapsed in my dirty sheets. I hadn’t washed them in 8 months. Gross, I know, but his scent is still stuck on my pillows. I didn’t smell him now. I coughed until the vodka came up and choked me, my nostrils bloomed with fire. After hacking up my lungs for several minutes, I finally wiped my mouth with the bandanna and buried my face in my sheets. My eyes fluttered shut. The ninety dollar vodka spilled out onto my sheets.

I knew nothing.

Shelli and Kelli.

The bane of my fucking existence. One skinny, one fat. A mother-daughter duo from law office hell. 

It was Friday and I was sitting at my desk, staring without seeing the folder of legal mumbo jumbo in front of my face. The McDonald's breakfast I had eaten made me sleepy but was necessary if I had to wake up at 6 am to drive out to New Orleans to deal with this shit.

I had the dubious title of Administrative Assistant at the law firm of Jeffries & Joseph, APLC. I hated the work and I hated driving 30 minutes every morning, but I needed to pay my car note some sort of way and I liked having my own email address. It made me feel important. I had no idea at that time how little ole me would come to perceive importance. 

Anyway-I was in charge of writing checks to Katrina/Rita clients who had gotten fucked out of money by Road Home. The amount was usually in the thousands and I had to deal with dispersing agents, who had to deal with clients, who were almost always in a bad fucking mood. This chain of command usually meant I went home pissed too. But Shelli and Kelli, well, they just plain made me fucking angry. Not to mention thinking about that Category 5 megabitch every day was enough for me to want to jump into the Mississippi. 

Shelli was the office manager and Kelli was her daughter, who handled accounting. She was a few years younger than me and had major responsibilities. Too much for a person whose mother handled the books, if you know what I’m saying. Kelli and I got along on the surface but I knew she was two-faced, so I tried to keep what I said close to my chest. Her mother had been acting weirder and weirder towards me over the past few weeks, so all I wanted to do was do my job, double-check it, collect a paycheck, and go home. Employees of this law firm had a way of disappearing one week and next week having a sorority friend of Kelli’s replacing them. This was not a coincidence. 

Daniel, one of the dispersing agents, handed off a case to me around 3:50 that day. It was complex and had several elements that Kelli herself had to deal with. I handed it over to her. Daniel seemed to be okay with that, so I didn’t worry. I was preoccupied with thoughts of my shitty car, which was displaying very low tires. I was worried about getting a flat-I had $100 for the rest of the week. 

At five my phone rang, something that never happened. Shelli’s extension showed up on the screen. I picked it up, and she told me to come to her office. I got up, my mind still worrying around the edges about my car. Kelli didn’t seem to notice. I walked down the hall to Shelli’s office and she told me to close the door and sit. I sat.

She went on to tell me that I had been working there for about 5 months and I should know how to handle cases by now. I looked at her strangely. “That case had to go to Kelli. She told me she needed to work on it.”

“Kelli has her own work to do,” Shelli said coldly.

Something in my stomach lurched. 

“We’re going to have to let you go,” Shelli's voice held all the compassion of a cold hospital bed.

Okay. Now I felt sick. 

“What? You’re letting me go because I was told to give the case to Kelli? Daniel even told me Kelli needed to work on it.” 

“I tell Kelli what to do. I’m sorry. I’d rather not do this.” She pursed her lips. Sure as fuck didn’t look like she had remorse. 

I stared at her, unable to think or speak or even throw her fucking glass paperweight at her head, which, in retrospect, I wished I had done when I looked back on the situation later. She slid papers with words across the desk to me. “Here’s your last check with severance and vacation pay. Please sign to acknowledge.” 

I looked down. The words swam. I wanted to be sick. All over her fucking $500 desk. A few weeks ago, her father-in-law had died. I had come into her office and brought her tissues without asking. She had been grateful. What the fuck?

She pushed a pen towards me, wanting me out of there so she could start on her 5:30 drive home to her rich fucking husband on the nice fucking Northshore. I picked up the pen and signed, threw the pen down, and strode towards my desk. She followed me.

I ignored her and swept up my belongings, the pictures of myself and my family in Vegas, my coat, and my bag. Kelli looked on with what looked like surprise, but I knew she had known all along. 

“I’ll need your card.” She said, referring to the pass card that was needed to get into the office. “It’s at home, I’ll mail it to you.” I snapped back and practically ran out of the office. Looking back, I wished I would have turned around and flipped them off. But their firing me had set an entire chain of events into motion that ensured my life would never be the same.

I hurried to my car, but as I approached, I saw shreds of my tire hanging off the ground. There was a hole big enough to put my hand through the back passenger tire. I sagged against my trunk. Fired on Friday from my job in downtown NOLA with a flat fucking tire. Zoom in on me: champion of the fucking universe.

I sat there and tried to compose myself to call the towing company. Earlier that day when I had come off of lunch break, I had noticed my tire looking bad, but I had been late. I had bumped into Shelli when I had come into the lobby. I had TOLD her my tires were low. The bitch had known, and still fired me. I searched my brain for any reason that I had deserved this and came up short. As I stood against my car in the harsh July heat in my stupid fucking conservative work outfit, I noticed a group of people watching me through the black fence next to the law office’s parking lot. I could make out Shelli’s bright green shirt, and a haze of smoke. The fucking cunt was standing there, smoking, watching me burn up with a flat tire after she had fired me. And she was gossiping about me to her fucking coworkers. Next week there’d be a new sorority friend of Kelli’s standing out there to smoke with her, my replacement. My mind swam. I wanted to vomit in their parking lot. But I had to think fast, there was nothing I wanted more than to get the FUCK away from this fucking law firm.

I fumbled for my phone and called information and got a number for a towing company. I told them the address of the fucking law firm and they told me they’d be there soon, they were around the block. At this point, I had no idea what I was going to do for payment, but I knew I had to get out of there. Escape now, details later. I looked away from my ex-coworkers and concentrated on the shapes in the cement. I tried not to let them blur, but it wasn't easy. 

The tow company showed up and towed me out of there. I was so spaced out that I didn’t even have the energy to flip off Shelli and the rest of her minions. Looking back on that day, I regret not doing more to make them regret what they had done. It kept me up at night. It still pisses me off.

Sweat ran down my face in rivers, bayous, and oceans. The stupid shirt I had on with the law firm’s logo on it was sticking to my skin in all the wrong places. My mouth tasted slick, I felt faint, dizzy.

“The total is $200.73.” 

The guy behind the counter at the impound lot looked up at me expectantly. I stared back at him, not hearing what he had said. 

“Ma’am?"

“Yeah?” I answered dazedly.

“You owe $200.73. Cash or card?”

The guy was at least cute, that’s what I tried to tell myself, after the fact. Cute enough that after my card was declined, he had the grace to take pity on my space cadet expression. Cute enough that when I briefly explained why I was there, and that I had only a check from my ex-employer that I could do nothing with since the bank was closed, he took my hand and I noticed. Cute enough that I didn’t notice his pity being replaced by his perversity. 

“Well, what are we going to do about this?”

“I don’t know, what can I do?” I wanted to know, wiping my face with my hand. God, I needed a drink. Or a snort. Or a frying pan to the back of my head.

He beckoned to me with his head and I followed him, still out of it. He led me to a dark room cluttered with receipts and old paperwork. An outdated Playboy poster grinned down at me with grimy teeth. A fan oscillated lazily on a sagging shelf. The guy slouched down in the seat and looked up at me with a smug, lazy smile. I just looked at him, like the idiot I am.

“I tell you what, you do something for me, and we can forgive this $200 fine. I’ll let you take your keys and get out of here.”

“What?” I asked dumbly. Keep in mind, it was around 100 degrees out there, and knowing Louisiana, about an 85% humidity index. 

He unzipped his pants. 

I sighed. “Oh boy.”

It was too hot.

I walked into my apartment, closed the door slowly, and threw my keys against the wall. I ripped the stupid fucking Jeffries & Joseph shirt straight off of my body. Buttons flew and snapped against my hardwood floor. I ripped my pants and panties off and stumbled to my refrigerator. The draft from the freezer felt like beer to an AA member. I took a few deep breaths.

And screamed as loudly as my lungs permitted.

I kept screaming as I walked into my bathroom, turned on the coldest water I could, and forced myself to stand under the spray. 

I screamed until the freezing water choked me. Good thing too, cause the last thing I needed was to get evicted.

And then a thought flew into my brain and smacked me into a wonderful realization: I no longer gave a fuck. About any of it, really. 

I turned off the water, quite calmly now. I went into my bedroom, dressed in jeans and a shirt from Walmart, and grabbed my suitcase. I took all my clothes and stuffed them. Panties, bras, socks. I packed it until the zipper moaned in protest when I closed it up. I grabbed another suitcase, the one with skulls and crossbones on it. I filled it with the rest of my clothes. I packed perfumes, makeup, shower toiletries, my toothbrush and toothpaste. I found my lockbox and placed my birth certificate, social security card, and other crucial paperwork inside. I packed my computer and filled up my beat-up ice chest with ice and Cokes and sandwich makings. I unplugged my phone and raided my tampon box for the spare nine hundred I had saved up. I grabbed my keys and left. Got in my car and drove east. I sucked at directions. It’s a miracle I got where I was going at all. 

I didn’t sleep and only stopped when I had to use the bathroom and get something to much on. By the time I rolled into Florida, I had gone about 12 hours without any sleep and I was running on nothing but Hostess cupcakes and 10 cans of Coke, throat sore from screaming along to Disturbed and Slipknot. I parked under the first overpass and slept with my knife in my lap. For five hours, and only because a gruff state trooper told me to move the hell along.

When I awoke, it felt like I had chewed up Shelli’s soul and left it in my mouth to die. I was filthy and bleary-eyed with sleep. A headache threatened to take over. It was around 6 a.m., and I was twenty miles from Orlando.

I hadn’t been to Orlando since I was four or five on a family vacation to Disneyworld. My little bubble consisted of Metairie, Louisiana, and the surrounding parishes. I had never been out of the country. I was twenty three years old. I had no GPS and roughly 1,649 dollars to my name. Negative a job, significant other, common sense. I had zero hubris-I knew jack shit about fuck and liked it that way. 

As precarious as my situation was, I felt immeasurably better being away from that fucking state with those fucking cunts with the stupid fucking names. Away from my family. Away from people I had alienated or lost or thrown away. Away from the past with its vampire teeth and sharp edges in the dark.

I wasn’t quite sure why I had pointed my wheels to Orlando, but I’m sure people would say it was fate that yanked me out of everything I had ever known and put me in the middle of East Jesus Nowhere. The only card I had up my sleeve was the fact that I had an ex who lived somewhere in this area. And that was a card that could either break or make me since the relationship had ended on weird terms. But I had to try. I am many things, but never let it be said that I don't try. It's the things I try for that raise questions.

Thanks to Mr. Google, I managed to track him down. Fortunately for me, the fucker was stinking rich and had a red Prowler, which was easy to spot even in the most affluent neighborhoods. I bribed the extremely underpaid minion at the guardhouse with a bill and cruised through, chewing on a rope of Nerds until I coasted to a halt in front of a gray Tudor-style mansion that had to have sixteen rooms, at the very least. And it was only him living there, the little shit.

I pulled down my rearview mirror and winced when I saw my tangled hair and the shopping bags beneath my eyes. I looked like hell took a holiday. But since I could give a shit less what he thought about me now, I exited my car and stumbled up the too-green, Shire-esque lawn. By the time I got to the door, I was three seconds from entering Hernia-Land, so after ringing the doorbell I leaned against the wall, panting softly. 

It opened. My jaw hit the stoop and punched through the concrete.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Jesus H. Christ is more like it.” 

I straightened up and stared in abject horror at Alan Crane, three-time boyfriend, sole heir to a shipping empire, and would-be savior. I had first crossed paths with Alan back in high school, where he was a short, rich shithead who wore Hot Topic’s best and read JTHM for fun. Hungering for the public school experience amongst the rest of us normies, Alan had convinced dear old Dad to let him slum it with us in his sophomore year. Because our high school had a very small weirdo/freak to jock ratio, he more or less had no choice but to orbit in the same circles as I did, or else get drowned in the alligator-infested pond behind the gym by the football bros.

Now he stood before me in all of his dubious glory, impossibly clean, impossibly groomed, shamelessly outfitted with a white polo shirt and a pink sweater (yes, pink) knotted around his neck, like some sort of fucking Yankee WASP. I had barely recovered from the pink sweater when I spotted his blue, yellow, and pink (yes, pink) plaid shorts, which were also decorated with tiny ducks. Yes. Ducks. He had grown from a rich little Manson-playing shithead to a golf-playing soda water-drinking rich shithead. I wanted to redecorate his steps with my vomit. 

“What in the rice crispies fuck happened to you? Did the Mayflower vomit on you when I wasn’t looking?” 

“Nyx, why you? Of all the fucking people in the world, why you? Why does God hate me?” Alan groaned, leaning against his doorframe.

“Because you, my dear, have had too much good luck. Or, judging from your outfit, not nearly enough.” I said wryly, stepping up to him and yanking his fucking pink sweater up over his head. I skipped around him, screaming, “NIGEL! WHERE’S THE BRIE!?”

“Wait, Nyx, you can’t just run in here!” Alan stumbled after me, grabbing me by the shoulders. 

“Why the hell not, nobody else is here besides your sixteen maids, right?” I asked sarcastically, ducking around him. 

“Baby! Who is that?” I heard a very familiar, very Louisiana, and trying-oh-so-very-hard-to-be-cultured-but-failing-miserably voice exclaim from atop the curving staircase.

“Oh Christ,” Alan murmured, hiding his face in his hand. I turned to him, aglow with happiness.

“Alan! No! NOT her!” I exclaimed delightedly. It was as if all my birthdays had come early. I took off, galloping up the steps three at a time, Alan racing after me.

At the top, I collided with a very tiny, very compact, very malleable person. As the force of my weight pushed her to the ground and I flew on top of her with a hug, I heard a very undignified squawk. 

“Christobel! Got DAMN, have I missed your anorexic ass!” I laughed as the girl underneath me used all of her strength to push me off, and none too gently, either. 

“Ugh, God, not you. Is Florida not far away enough?!” She scowled as Alan helped her off the floor, dusting off the back of her slacks. Like there was any dust on that floor. I could have French kissed the tile all day without getting any speck of dirt on my tongue. But Christobel Fontenot (her parents sucked up too many swamp fumes, as you can tell) was notoriously OCD, and I had no doubt that this little spill would have her obsessing for weeks over her immune system. She had been a year younger than me in school and had hated me from the day I made the same mistake of breathing the same air as she did. Part of the problem was Alan. The rest was deeper and darker. I won't bore you with details. All you need to know is that Christobel didn't just hate me. In her most cuddliest and compassionate moments, she prayed for me to get hit by a bus. I thought it was hilarious to pretend we were the best of friends, which made her loathe me even more. After Alan and I had broken up, he had disappeared to his home state of Florida for college. I had been neck deep in a maelstrom of bullshit by the time she took off after him. That had been three years ago. I hadn't spared much of a thought for either of them. 

To give you the Cliff's notes-Christobel was from a no-good family off the bayou and her wet dreams did not consist of Alan himself, but of his bank account. Really, it could have been anyone, but as the saying goes, life punishes us for what we can't imagine, and poor Alan never saw her coming. 

 I had never even noticed Christobel following him, hell, I never even thought he noticed her flitting around him all the time. I knew there was nothing I wanted less than being married to a man who was rich as sin and just as unhappy. He couldn’t understand that, so maybe when Christobel showed up in Florida (surprise!), he latched onto her only because she was something he could at least understand-a woman who wanted his money. I felt bad for breaking his heart since he was by no means a fucking jerk like most rich kids were, but the simple fact was that he and I were a different species. Our relationship had been extremely serious, but only to him. 

Back in Louisiana, Christobel only wore clothes from Walmart and she was lucky if she got a decent haircut once a year. She was by no means ugly, but when she took up with Alan and got his Mastercard, she took all the overblown stereotypical things that rich women did to their bodies and did all of it times three. Her dark hair was now a bottle blond and her nails were long and talon-like, the color of eggplants. And to make it worse, she had been locked up inside a tanning bed way too long. Even the skin between her fingers was the color of coffee without cream- even for someone with her Greek heritage, it looked odd. She had been more than fleshy as a teenager but since then had spent way too much time in the gym and even more time in the tiled bathroom puking up her salads. For once in my life I thanked God for making me soft in all the right places.

“Alan, what the fuck is she doing here?” Christobel screeched, and Alan winced.

“Such pristine manners from the lady of the house." I teased. 

“Fuck off.” She shot back.

“Jesus, even with the help of a black credit card, you have all the graces of a rabid bat. Don’t you send your women to finishing school, Alan?” I was joking, but Christobel turned a color previously not seen in nature and Alan actually cowered. Sensing my welcome was already wearing thin, I turned my back on Cruella.

“Um. Right. So, look, Alan, I kind of took off without telling anyone and I was wondering if I could crash in one of the wings of your mansion for a few days. I won’t bother you, or the er…missus..here. I just need to get the fuck out of LA for a while.”

Christobel’s eyes bugged out. Alan looked at her uneasily and then looked at me.

“You are not staying here!” She screeched. To my surprise, Alan grew a pair.

“Christobel, this is not your house. Nyx is an old friend, and she needs help.”

The bitch grabbed his elbow and turned him away from me, hissing, “She’s an old girlfriend, Alan! One that dumped you and broke your heart and now you’re just going to let her mooch off of us?”

“Um, right, I can still hear you, fuck you very much.” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Whatever.” Christobel rolled her eyes right back at me. I took a step towards her, mirth gone, patience razor thin. Her eyes widened, she took a few steps back. I inhaled the scent of her fear like steam and let it curl through my entire body. 

“As you recall, me dumping him seems to have worked out in your favor. And I hate to impose on your happy little oasis here, but I need Alan’s help. And if you knew what was good for you, CHRISTOBEL, you would shut the hell up and let the owner of this house make up his own mind.”

Alan looked at me, his expression doubtful. 

“Alan, I’m not here to mooch. I just need a bed to lie down in. I won’t get in the way. I won’t ask for money. Fuck, you won’t even see me. I will go out and look for a job and then be out of your way. Please, Alan.”

I don’t beg. I don’t ask for help. But I had gone twenty three years without doing much of either and I figured this had to be the time to cash in my luck. He knew better than to think I was here for his money. If I had wanted to mooch off of him, I’d be in Christobel’s place.

He looked through me, as he always did, and nodded. None too eagerly, but nobody can blame him for that. 

Christobel stamped her foot, spun around, and stomped off. We watched her go.

“Did she really just do that?” I asked in disbelief.

“Too much Desperate Housewives.” He sighed, defeat stretched across his shoulders. 

I took his hands and peered up into his face. “Alan. Thank you.” 

He smiled sadly. “Hey, I need company sometimes.”

I found that sad.

After I located a bedroom with no ducks, plaid, or hunting scenes on the wallpaper, I took a bath in a huge marble bathtub with jets. I bathed in salts that were from some spring in France. And when I finally crashed out, it was on a bedspread that had to be at least 1,000 count sheets and made from the down of baby ducks. Knowing a rich person was nice, but I wouldn’t want to be him. Especially not trapped with Christohell.

I laid in bed that night marveling at my nerve, wondering a few times if I had done the right thing, if I had finally lost my mind, if it wouldn’t be smart to just go back and face my life. Hours ago I had been giving a blowjob to a tow truck guy to get my car out of hock after being fired from my stupid job. Now I was nestled in the eiderdown of wealth's armpits. 

What a wonderful world it is. 

If I had known then that the next day nothing would ever be the same, it’s hard to say what I would have done. 

Not knowing Christopher Kirkpatrick, well, let’s just say that was the Catch-22 of the century.