Hope Idiotic | Part 18
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
“HOW MANY DIFFERENT TIMES AND WAYS DO I HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU?”
Weeks later, Gina was still furious with Chuck over his two-day disappearing act.
“Keep going. I’ll let you know when enough is enough. What did you even do?”
“I went to San Diego. I sat on the beach.”
“And you got wasted.”
“I drank some, yeah.”
“You got a fucking DUI, Chuck!”
He didn’t want her to know. But when you give a girl the key to your place, there’s a good chance she’s going to glance at your mail. And when she sees an official-looking envelope from the Clark County Office of the Clerk, she’ll probably open it. And when she reads it, she’ll discover that you’re an idiot who capped his alcoholic road trip off with a DUI.
“And you’re charged with resisting arrest! What is going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“This isn’t nothing!” she said.
“I didn’t set out to get pulled over.”
“I should hope not.”
“Can you lighten up a little bit? You’re not helping the situation here.”
She grabbed her purse and dramatically slung it on her shoulder. “I’m going home. I can’t do this right now.”
“Good. Nice to know we still agree on something.”
He watched Gina’s car pull away from the front door then grabbed a can of beer out of the refrigerator. He sank into the brown leather recliner Lou left for him and placed the unopened beer on the end table. He looked at it a moment and considered that the descent to hell was far too easy. He called Lou and confessed to the DUI.
“Yeah, that’s embarrassing,” Lou said. “Although I would have told you about it right away.”
“Whatever.”
“Listen, that’s some pretty serious shit. Now, I won’t ever tell you that you should stop drinking entirely, but maybe you should slow it down some.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Besides, I’m drinking enough for the both of us out here. Thankfully, we have quality cabs in Chicago that only charge you fifty bucks for puking in them. Much cheaper than a DUI.”
“No fucking kidding. I’ll talk to you later.” He closed his phone, then put the can of beer back in the fridge.
✶
THE NEXT NIGHT, CHUCK WAS UPSTAIRS IN THE HOME OFFICE WHEN GINA STOPPED BY UNANNOUNCED. She startled him in the doorway; he shrieked, jumped and nearly knocked the Mac monitor off the desk.
“What the fuck…” he said as he composed himself.
“I just came by to get my things.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I don’t want to do this with you, Chuck. Not right now. We should stop seeing each other.”
She turned and walked to the bedroom to gather the few clothes and toiletries she kept there. Chuck jumped up and once again almost knocked his computer off the desk. He remembered that Lexi was coming over and that he’d already flipped the room. In order for his two-timing to continue, he had to swap out each girl’s things whenever the other was going to be at the house. It was a meticulous task because he had to be sure to place toothbrushes and blouses and shampoos and soaps and lotions in the exact same manner in which they were left. When he stored the girls’ things, he had to take care not to bend, break, wrinkle or lose anything so neither would grow suspicious. He worked hard to avoid situations exactly like this one.
He sprinted past Gina in the hallway and beat her to the bedroom. He closed the door behind him. “Just hang on a second,” he told her. He dove into the walk-in closet and fished out Gina’s box.
“What the hell, Chuck?”
“Don’t come in! I’m… the room’s a mess. Hang on.”
“I don’t care about the mess.”
She opened the door and Chuck was standing with her box in his arms like a thief caught red-handed.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He thought fast. “I had a feeling you’d be by. I just wanted to make this easier for both of us.” He gently pushed her backward and out of the bedroom as he handed her the box.
“You knew I was going to break up with you?”
“I don’t want you to, but, um… yeah. But you know, you don’t have to, Gina. You’re mad. I get that. Why don’t you go home and we can talk about this tomorrow night.”
“Chuck, you’re a mess right now. You need a lot of support and help in order to get your life back on track.”
“I know. And I’m looking into getting the help I need.”
“That’s great. But I can’t be with someone who is in recovery or AA or whatever. I’m sorry. I just have too much going on in my own life. I can’t carry you, too.”
Her words crushed him. He thought they were selfish, mean. But Chuck understood them. He had let her down. He had become the one thing he never wanted to be: a problem. If he hadn’t been in a rush to get her out of the house before Lexi arrived, he would have fought harder to keep her. Instead, he walked her downstairs and saw her out. And just as her car pulled out of the driveway, Lexi’s pulled in.
“Who was that?” Lexi said as she walked inside.
“A co-worker.”
“What co-worker would be here this late? Looked like a girl.”
“Yeah, this girl Gina from sales and catering. She lives in the neighborhood and just came by to drop off some stuff for pre-shifts.”
“It couldn’t wait until morning?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. She’s strange. Totally could have emailed it since it was all on a thumb drive. Doesn’t matter. Wanna eat?”
He had become the world’s greatest liar and most horrible man. And he knew it.
✶
HE WASN’T LYING, HOWEVER, WHEN HE TOLD GINA HE WANTED TO GET HELP. Things had gotten far out of control. While a fair amount of the misery resulted by his hand, there was plenty that was not his fault. And that blame could only fall to the Universe, God or Mother Nature.
Chuck was never the person to shift blame or point fingers. He was a consumer of guilt and self-loathing for every mistake he made and every good deed he did not undertake. And that’s exactly the sort of thinking that got him where he was. He had made himself well known to collection agencies, IRS enforcers, Clark County clerks, billboard advertising attorneys and repo men.
Chuck still had a few thousand dollars left on his car loan when he stopped paying it. This initiated an incredible game of cat and mouse with the repo man. The tow truck was unable to take the car away while Chuck was at work because Tigris prohibited automobiles from being towed off the property unless the auto in question was entirely broken down or unquestionably abandoned. This was less a policy created out of kindness wherein Tigris was standing up for its deadbeat employees as it was an exercise in preventing violence on resort property. Because seeing a repo man towing your car away is cause to incite rage in even the sweetest of front-desk agents.
What Chuck’s repo man would do then is go to the house and wait in the street for Chuck to return. The first time Chuck saw the tow truck as he turned onto the street, he hit the brakes, slammed it into reverse and hightailed it to Lexi’s. He returned at 5 a.m. and, thankfully, the truck was gone. He knew this would be the new norm, so he devised a plan. He would disconnect the garage-door sensors that caused the door to lift back up when an object was in the way. He would press the garage-door remote in his car as he neared the house. Once the door was lifted, he would press the remote again to close the door. Then he’d gun it and whip the car past the repo-man’s tow truck, up the driveway and into the garage with no time to spare and no margin for error. As long as he ignored the phone calls, the doorbell and the knocking on the windows and the front door, he’d be good to go. A closed garage door meant he was safe.
The only problem with this plan is that Chuck didn’t know how to disconnect the garage-door sensors so he pried them off with a screwdriver. Other than that, it worked perfectly.
After three months of this, Chuck’s BMW, a car bought during better times and that symbolized success, was dead. He drove his cars hard, and Bimmers were not cheap to repair. If the dealer wanted its car back, the dealer could have it. He hoped the dealer didn’t mind that he’d run it into the ground first.
He rolled the car out of the garage and into the street. He caught a ride with Lexi to work then phoned the repo man.
“My car is waiting for you outside of my house on the street. It’s yours. You win.”
“I have to tell you,” the repo man said, “you’re the hardest repo I’ve ever had to do. And I’ve been in this business a long time. Job well done, man.”
“Thanks. You know where I can buy a new car? Something cheap.”
“Yeah, I imagine you’ll have a hard time getting a loan.”
“Probably.”
“If you can scrape together three hundred bucks, I can get you something. Not something good, but something.”
✶
IT WAS NOW APPARENT THAT NO GOOD HAD COME FROM PUNISHING HIMSELF with booze or pigging out on sexual opportunities, and that there was a much thicker line than he previously thought between dedicated libertarianism and antiauthority bullheadedness. Armed with that realization, he could move forward and improve much of his situation.
But what about the rest? His mother would still be sick. His boss would still be overbearing, his best friend would still be flailing and failing in Chicago. And although the IRS was no longer garnishing his wages, his finances were going to be in ruins for decades. I was careful not to burden him with my latest stressor that Natalie wanted to have another kid; out of concern that one more worry for him would be his end. He needed positive reinforcement to keep him on track, and that’s what I gave him.
He began paying Lexi and Lou the thousands he owed them. It wasn’t much, about 20 bucks a week to each of them. Not buying three or four cases of beer a week made things easier, though he was drinking a shitload of O’Douls. And he felt better almost instantly. With his head straighter and only one woman to love (and no longer lie to), he and Lexi started talking about the future again.
“Maybe you should move in,” he told her.
“Not yet. Things are good, but let’s be safe and smart about this.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about spirituality lately.”
“Really?”
“I’ll never buy into the God bullshit, but I’m no longer opposed to the idea that there’s something out there. A story about the God particle online the other day. One of the scientists said something about being able to break things down only so far until they can’t anymore. Until they’ve found the first and smallest part of the thing that makes up everything else. So if that thing makes other things, what makes that thing?
“And who do we hold responsible for the randomness of it all? And what happens at the end? What’s going to happen when my mom dies? I know I’ll have to move Darryl out here and try to socialize him and take care of him for the rest of his life, but what about her soul? Does she even have a soul? Anyway… I was thinking.
Lexi sat there for a moment before speaking. “So, this is what happens to your brain when it’s sober.”
“Not very organized, is it…”
“I think it’s beautiful.”
