Hope Idiotic | Part 15
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
BUT IT DID HURT. FOR THE FIRST TIME, CHUCK FELT LIKE A CHEATER. He made a beeline for San Diego. The beach and the ocean would be better for him than the landlocked whorehouses of Nevada. He burned through two tanks of gas on the eight-hour drive, worried he’d be spotted by someone he knew as he passed through Vegas at the halfway point. In fact, the whole ride was thick with worry. His body needed drinks and drugs. His conscience needed more clearing than it required when he set out on the mission.
He crashed at a Big 7 Motel about a mile inland in Chula Vista. He procured a case of beer and some street-grade muscle relaxers from a crusty college kid who looked like he spent far too much time confused in Tijuana.
Chuck was going to write. He was going to edit the magazine. He was going to be productive. But he miscalculated the balance of booze and pills and his ability to work, so he instead ended up getting plowed, destroyed the motel room and slept on the beach with his head inside the empty beer case to protect his glasses.
In the morning, he returned to Las Vegas with a broken cell phone, a pocket of crushed muscle relaxers, a drained laptop battery and another two thousand dollars in credit card debt. As he exited the I-215, just three blocks from the house, a Henderson cop pulled him over.
Chuck didn’t signal a lane change from the exit ramp. It could have been a routine traffic stop on any other Sunday evening. But when the cop asked for Chuck’s license and registration, Chuck offered him a trade.
“I’ll give you mine if you give me yours,” he said.
“If I give you my what?” snipped the cop.
“My license for your badge number. I can’t read it from here.”
“You don’t need my badge number. Now, please, sir. Hand over your documents.”
“It’s my right to ask you to identify yourself. How do I know you’re a real officer of the law?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“What are you? My wife? My AA sponsor?”
Using more force than was likely legally allowed, the cop pulled Chuck from the BMW, cuffed him, found the plastic bag of pill dust, gave him a Breathalyzer test and threw him in the drunk tank.
Natalie and I were just settling into bed when my phone rang. He needed bail money.
“Look, the guy got me the job at Tigris and has paid me thousands of dollars in freelance money in the last few months alone. He’s in a spot,” I told Natalie.
After fighting about it for an hour, she relented and approved the withdrawing of fifteen hundred dollars in cash to get Chuck out of police custody and have his car released from impound.
“I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, man,” Chuck told me when we went to pick up his car. “I’m sorry about this. Tell Natalie thank you, and that I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about the money. Just worry about Melvin not finding out. And worry about getting your shit in order, man.”
✶
AFTER DROPPING MICHELLE OFF AT WORK and without getting so much as a kiss on the cheek or a “thanks for the ride,” Lou drove to the unemployment office. He expected to see a long line of rundown charity cases slowly shuffling inside to collect their weekly check. But there was no line. There was even ample free street parking.
His hands were shaking. His stomach was nervous, and he was experiencing brief and frequent spells of dizziness. They could have been symptoms of a panic attack. Since they returned from Cabo three weeks ago, Lou had made some serious decisions. He was going to give up writing and become a teacher. He’d apply for graduate schools and secure his substitute-teaching certificate while collecting the unemployment he had due to him from being laid off. Filing for unemployment was the lowest moment of his life. He never dreamed he could ever be one of these people. But looking around at the few others in the building completing the forms attached to clipboards, he realized that he was just like them. This unemployment office wasn’t for the lazy or the entitled. It was for the unlucky, the victims, the disappointed. He felt a little better once his paperwork was processed and was told he’d be getting approximately two hundred and seventy-four dollars directly deposited into his bank account every week.
Still, his hands were shaking, he was dizzy and feeling ill. It could have been panic, but he realized that it also could be partially due to the stress of having to go against his better judgment and giving up the pursuit of being a full-time writer in exchange for a classroom and summer vacations. It would be a new lifestyle to be reckoned with.
Lou had begun a morning ritual of driving Michelle to work then returning to the apartment, where he would drink his first glass of scotch by eight-thirty. He looked at his cell phone. It was almost ten o’clock and he was jonesing.
✶
“WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA?” he asked Michelle that night. She was watching Rock of Love with Bret Michaels on VH1.
“I told you that I’d go any place that’s warm. I’m sick of this Chicago weather. I haven’t seen the sun in two months.”
“You were just in Mexico.”
“But there was no sun here.”
“Alright, I can apply to schools in Florida. The chances of my landing a job there are better anyhow because Florida needs teachers. Specifically English or history teachers. That’s about all I could teach anyhow. It’s all I’d want to teach.”
“You know that I can’t just get up and go with you right when the fall semester starts. I’ll need to find a job, too,” Michelle said.
“Have you started looking?”
“I’m always looking.”
“Anything in Florida?”
“It depends on where in Florida. Lots of jobs in Orlando.”
“We can’t be landlocked.”
“No kidding. I’ll hone my search. I always have headhunters calling me. I’ll get one of them to keep an eye open for something good.” A commercial came on and Michelle came over to Lou who was sitting at the computer desk in the corner of the living room. She leaned back against the tall chair at the foot of the high IKEA table that made up the living room. “And if I find a job. And if I move to Florida with you… how do I know you won’t freak out again? How do I know you can make it work there when you couldn’t make it work here? I mean, I thought you could use your family for help, but they just seem to stress you out, so maybe being away from them will be good. Still, how do I know you can keep it together and be successful for both of us? Because I don’t want to work like I have been for much longer.”
“Michelle, if I’m in school, working toward something with a clearly defined future, I’ll be fine. It’s been the uncertainty that has been so hard on me.”
“You’re just not good at adapting. You have to roll with the punches.”
“I can roll with the punches just fine. I’m just getting clobbered all at once.”
“You’re going to have to prove it to me. I need to know that I can trust you. And I can’t just uproot my life and move with you if we’re not married. And I can’t marry you until I can trust you.”