Hope Idiotic | Part 33
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
BECAUSE LOU NEVER OFFICIALLY MOVED BACK IN WITH MICHELLE, he wasn’t invited to move into the new condo with her. However, she was more than happy to have him and his car at her disposal to drive her around town so she could furnish her new place. And since she was shopping so much, he had to be was around quite a bit, so she frequently invited him to spend the night.
Being there made him uneasy, but it was better than being at his dad’s house in the ’burbs. Even though the commute to his sheet-metal-estimator job was less than five minutes from his dad’s house, living in his broken childhood home just wasn’t something he was willing to do. Plus, having to get up and leave before Michelle each morning to make the forty-five-minute commute created the impression urgency—supporting the fact that he was now a workingman with a committed responsibility to a steady paycheck. This was good for their delicate relationship. As long as Lou was going to work and making time to drive her from store to store on the weekends, Michelle was a happy sort-of girlfriend. And Lou could pretend that he lived in the city and that his life wasn’t slowly puttering uphill on an empty tank.
The Greatest Recession! had closed three weeks earlier. It was a big success as small shows go. Lou and Mark even made a little money on it. But without a project, Lou was getting restless again. He was making a little more than five hundred dollars a week and although he was beginning to get the hang of being an estimator, it wasn’t what he really wanted to be doing. So, he used a lot of his time at the shop to look for writing or marketing jobs and to brainstorm new show ideas he and Mark could develop. They pitched one to the Balcony called The Holiday Show. It was a long shot because the Balcony had never before picked back-to-back shows from the same people, at least not that Lou or Mark had ever heard. But there was no harm in putting it out there.
Lou and Michelle were still trying to get past the vast resentments that they held for one another. Things weren’t perfect, but they were calm. And for a while, the thought of their relationship going the distance looked promising. They planned a long-weekend getaway to Cozumel, Mexico, and were both looking forward to it. That trip would be just the thing they needed to put all those resentments to rest.
When they both returned to the condo on Friday night after work, they decided to take a stroll through the new neighborhood and check out a restaurant. It was mid-October, and fall was in full swing. Plenty of leaves had made their way to the sidewalks, and they walked hand in hand to the rhythm of the leaves crunching beneath their feet. The air was crisp and had a hint of burning leaves.
“I don’t know why you have to do this now. It’s going to ruin Christmas.”
They decided on a Cuban place called Café 28. As they were finishing their flan, Lou got a text from Mark.
Start writing. We open in a month.
“Holy shit,” Lou said.
“What is it?” Michelle asked.
Lou looked at her as a smile spread across his face. “Our show got picked up. We open in a month. That was Mark. This is incredible.”
“Wow. That’s great, baby. Good job.” She raised her margarita glass in a toast. He met her with his bottle of Hatuey.
On the walk home, Michelle asked, “So, when are rehearsals?”
“I don’t know. I’ll talk to Mark more about it tomorrow.”
“Do you think they’ll be at night? Or on the weekends?”
“I’m not sure. Probably both. Why?”
She pulled her hand out of his. “You’ll be spending all of your time at rehearsals and Friday nights at the shows.”
Lou laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s not going to take up all of my time. Rehearsals are a few hours out of the day.”
“All you’re going to care about is this show. I don’t want to have to spend all of my Fridays watching your show again.”
“You didn’t watch every night. And you won’t have to watch every night. Just see it once.”
“Because we have things to do, Lou. We have traditions, you know? How are we going to get our tree if you’re at rehearsal? How are we supposed to open presents?”
“Michelle, there will be time to do everything. Don’t worry about it. What’s going on here? This is a good thing for me—for us.”
“I don’t know why you have to do this now. It’s going to ruin Christmas.”
Lou felt the air leave his lungs. His stomach sank. His heart began racing. He felt hot. He was furious. They were quiet during the rest of the walk back to the condo. Lou didn’t notice that he walked a few steps ahead of her until he had to wait for her to catch up and unlock the door.
“Some gentleman you are,” she said. “Thanks for walking with me.”
He barely heard her say it.
Upstairs, in the condo, Michelle went into the small bedroom, which had been turned into an office. Lou poured himself a scotch and sat on the chaise lounge that used to be in the bedroom of the old apartment—it was the only piece of furniture in the living room. They were planning on going couch-shopping the next day. The lights were off in the apartment. With the tree branches mostly bare and no blinds or shades on the windows, the only light in the room came from the nearly full moon and the streetlight on the corner. Lou sat in the yellowish whiteness, sipping his scotch, now realizing for sure that he needed to get out of whatever was left of their relationship.
✶
FOR YEARS, LOU THOUGHT MICHELLE WAS HIS FRIEND. But right there, on that street in Chicago, on that perfect midwestern October night, it was clear to him that Michelle was anything but. She hadn’t been a friend for a long time. A drinking buddy and a sex partner, maybe, but not a friend. At the beginning of their romance, Michelle made a helluva case that she was okay with Lou; that she liked him and accepted all his faults and would support him throughout his career. She painted a beautiful picture of their future in which they would fight together through life’s difficult times and rejoice together during its triumphs. They were sure they were going to be good together as partners. But that never happened. She sold him a bill of goods, and he bought them all. Buyer beware. Because Michelle was not a partner. She was a hindrance.
He almost reached this conclusion the last time he was in Las Vegas, before she begged him to come home again. He didn’t see it otherwise because he had to choose not to. They stayed together because they made a commitment. Their story was too perfect to not last. It was time to settle down, get married, raise kids, grow old together on park benches feeding birds and reading newspapers. Who better to do that with than someone who was a friend first? And the sex was amazing. They had constructed a fairytale future, and abandoning it was not an option. Most of all, Lou chose to stay and fight for the relationship because he needed her. Since he’d been in Chicago, Michelle gave him a place to live, even though she charged him rent. It was better than being at that broken home with his dad and his brother. He came to the city with the goal to advance his career and his personal life. When he arrived and his plans went to hell, the relationship was the only thing he could control even a little bit. Being Michelle’s boyfriend was his only identity and all that he could hold on to. It had become his full-time job.
But now with a little bit of money coming in, a widening group of new friends and the potential to make his way as a writer—the two shows were proof that he had at least some talent—it finally hit him that he didn’t have to hold on to Michelle. She wasn’t worth holding on to. His energies would be better spent elsewhere.
But where would he live? Where would he go? How would he cut all the cords he managed to tangle up with Michelle over ten years of knowing her; almost three years of dating her? He had the marriage talk with her parents. He spent money on a ring. He couldn’t just walk out and disappear. There were too many of those cords tying them together.
It didn’t matter anymore, he thought. He had to leave. Being with Michelle was no longer an option. He needed an escape route—and fast.
✶
MICHELLE CAME OUT OF THE HOME OFFICE. “Lou?” He didn’t answer. He was busy brooding and plotting. “Lou?” she said again as she approached him on the chaise lounge. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“I’m sorry I said all that back there. I am happy for you. I know you won’t let this show ruin Christmas.” She returned to the office.
She sounded sincere. It didn’t matter. He was done.
I called Lou a little past 10 p.m. in Chicago. I never called past six o’clock.
“Hey, man. You all right?” Lou asked as he took the call.
“Not really,” I said.
“What’s up? Natalie kick you out?”
“Chuck’s dead.”
I had said this before. There was an ongoing joke between the three of us that each time Chuck would disappear for a weekend of self-destructive behavior, I would call Lou and say, “Your friend Chuck is dead. I don’t know what the fuck happened to him this weekend.” Lou thought this was another one of those instances.
“Really. What’d he do this time?”
A small laugh got past me. “No. He’s really dead.”
“What do you mean, he’s dead? Like dead-dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Like in-the-ground-dead?”
“Yeah.”
Lou stood up. “Are you telling me that my best friend is fucking dead!?”
“Yeah.”
Michelle came into the living room. Lou turned to her. She looked confused and scared. She mouthed, “Who’s dead? What happened?” Lou turned away.
“I’m sorry I have to call you with this,” I said.
“Jesus fucking Christ. What happened?”
“He didn’t show up for work today. No one could get a hold of him. Lexi went over to the house. Found him in his car in your garage.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“I wish. Kind of fucked up. He actually just went to sleep.”
Another twisted joke that wasn’t as funny anymore.
“It wasn’t suicide,” Lou said.
“I don’t think so. But it looks like—”
“It wasn’t suicide.”
“I know.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Probably. There was an empty bottle of wine in the car.”
“What a fucking asshole.”
“You going to be okay?”
“Are you?”
“Too soon to tell.”
“Did Lexi talk to his parents?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry, Lou.”
“I’m sorry for you, too, Neal.”
“I love you, bro.”
“I love you, too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He closed his phone, dropped it on the chaise lounge and gulped back the rest of his scotch.
I went back into my bedroom and cried in Natalie’s arms.
✶
“WHAT HAPPENED?” Michelle asked him.
Lou set his empty glass on the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen and looked at her. Rage filled him. “Chuck is dead.”
“What!?”
“He’s fucking dead! Are you happy now?”
“Oh my God! Happy? Why would I be happy?” She began crying.
Lou made another drink. “Now you don’t have to worry about him fucking things up for us anymore. You don’t have to worry about Chuck Keller ever again because he’s fucking dead.”
“Oh, Lou. I’m so sorry. How did this happen?”
She moved to hug him. A small part of him wanted her comfort. But the rest of him did not. More rage.
“Don’t touch me!” he said as he pushed her away.
He grabbed his jacket from the back of the stool against the counter.
“Where are you going?”
“To get a drink.”
“Do you want company? Maybe you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“I’m fine. I’ve always been better on my own.”
✶
“I’LL HAVE A MILLER LITE AND A CAPTAIN AND SEVEN,” he told the bartender. The bar was two blocks from Michelle’s condo. It was a dump. Just the kind Chuck would have loved.
“Double fisting, eh?” said the bartender, a cute, but gently used-looking woman with dark hair and big tits. Also the kind Chuck would have loved. “Celebrating something?”
“My best friend just died. These were his favorite drinks.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. They’re on the house then, sweetie.”
He drank and quietly cried.
