Hope Idiotic | Part 42
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
MONTHS HAD GONE BY. Lou loved his job, and the job loved him back. The people he worked with were interesting, smart and funny. The work was challenging, but also interesting and smart. He was still freelancing, which kept his evenings and weekends busy. He would sometimes go out with Spark people after work, or meet up with other friends for a few drinks, but mostly Lou kept to himself.
It took an incredible amount of energy for him to keep his anger over Michelle and sadness over Chuck and Pop in check. Lou always found it exhausting to put on the public performance of having it all together and being the guy with a joke or an exciting idea of action at the ready. It was even more exhausting now, so he stayed in. He worked. He wrote and fleshed out ideas for books, TV shows, plays and movies. His plan was that once he had them polished, he’d talk to Mark about pitching them to New York people or possibly fly out to L.A. and pitch them there.
He loved having money, but he hated spending it, though he did. He updated his wardrobe and didn’t flinch when he bought a pack of gum. He was paying Grams back with ease and managed to stuff his freelance money—a few hundred bucks a month—away into a savings account. He sprang for a few good bottles of scotch. And he drank them quickly, then restocked his shelf.
Lou managed to kick the cigarettes, but the heavy drinking was maintained. Because of the gig at Spark, he couldn’t drink during the day like he had been while at the sheet-metal shop, but he made up for it at night while writing in the second bedroom of his apartment, which he had turned into his office. He was always at the Spark office on time and continued turning out good work, but he was aware that he was walking that fine line between being a functioning alcoholic and full-blown fuckup.
The drinking always started simply enough. Once glass of scotch to soothe the anxiety. He’d write through the first glass, then require a second to keep the anxiety at bay. But as the booze kicked in, the darker thoughts revealed themselves. He would lose his focus and retire to the living room with a fresh glass and the television. The thoughts of Chuck and Michelle and his damaged relationship with his mother and the fear of being unemployed again consumed his mind. He could never seem to watch a single complete program, but instead flipped through the channels, finding the constant change of picture and sound relatable. Many nights, he’d pass out on the couch with a watered-down glass of scotch resting on his chest, the TV blaring an infomercial or some tween comedy on the Disney Channel. When this happened, he’d wake up with just enough time to go to his bed and get an hour or so of proper sleep before having to get up, shower and head off to Spark.
He was walking that fine line between being a functioning alcoholic and full-blown fuckup.
Despite his past behavior in dealing breakups, Lou never once drunk-dialed Michelle. The thought never even crossed his mind. Once, years ago, after a rough break up, Chuck had to hide Lou’s phone from him to prevent him from calling his ex. Lou managed to sneak away, find a pay phone and collect-call her. She didn’t accept the charges. Lou did not miss Michelle, but he missed loving someone. He missed being touched. And when these thoughts came to surface, Lou ordered women. He was spending about a thousand dollars every two weeks on hookers. He liked the ease they came with. They’d show up at his door, he’d make them a drink, they’d chat on the couch for a while and then he’d invite them back to his bedroom. They’d use their iPhone Square app to take payment from his credit card and then he’d fuck them like he loved them. If anyone ever asked him how he’d like it, he’d say, “Just pretend to care,” and they’d oblige.
He could have kept spending his money like that had the clutch in his car not given out. The repairs cost more than two grand, and as he looked at his bank account, he realized he had been mismanaging his money. With the Spark job and all the freelancing he was doing, he was earning nearly ninety grand a year, but the hooker habit was not a financially sustainable one. He began to worry that he was becoming more and more socially inept, even afraid of going out and making friends and fostering new, real relationships.
We spend our lives surrounding ourselves with the right people and the right job and right amount of shit to call our own. Life is a puzzle. We gather the pieces and put each one in place, and when we can finally make out the picture, we’re complete. But then a piece is taken away or lost. People die. Friends become strangers, lovers lie. At best, we can still make out the picture, but it’s clear something is missing. And those pieces can never be replaced.
Over the last three years, Lou’s closest relationships had only let him down and brought him to such painful conclusions. His career was fleeting, he’d seen the evidence of that, and he knew that Spark could just as suddenly change and not need him just as suddenly as it had brought him on board. But he needed a job because he needed to pay rent; there was no way to avoid that. He could, however, avoid allowing himself to be at risk of more emotional pain by caring for others or letting others care for him. It’s like that old Simon and Garfunkle song: if he never had loved, he never would have cried. Chuck was gone, so was Pop. Michelle and everything she had stood for was gone. His parents had revealed themselves as fools, the same as everyone else. Mark had left town and Neal was struggling to keep himself from going crazy in a city Lou was terrified of ever returning to; it represented too much of the false hope he once had had. Lexi was around, and though they would meet for the occasional drink or dinner, seeing her and noticing how distraught she was by Chuck’s death only made Lou more angry. And he was growing tired of being angry. Grams wouldn’t be around forever—no one would be.
So, he wondered, what was the point?
