Remember my psycho ex roommate??? I wrote a book about it and here it begins…
INTRO:
I left the jail in a haze. It wasn’t visiting day. I knew the dates; I studied them up online the afternoon before, but had forgotten. He had been in two weeks but I had merely discovered it the day before.
This was my second trip. The visit prior had not ended well. He spoke to me for only a few short minutes even though the jail allotted a half hour.
“You are happy I am in here! This is what you wished! To see me like this!”
“No, it is not!” I placed my palm up against the bulletproof glass that was dividing us, “I’ve worried about you, I didn’t know…”
“It is what you wanted! You are an actress! That’s smart what you do, start relationships just to write about them. That’s why you are here, to put me in a book!”
“No, it’s not! I care about you! I just found out you were here. Why didn’t you call me?”
“You don’t care about me,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes resembled black holes and he spit his words out as if they were poison. “You are an actress!”
“I didn’t know! Please, sit,” I begged.
He continued to shake his head as he paced the small area.
“I didn’t know!”
I watched helplessly, as he thrust the phone down and stormed out of the room.
I hoped for a softer reaction this time, but I supposed I would have to wait until the visiting hours resumed the following Friday.
After making the lengthy hike across the county court grounds and to the parking garage, I climbed into my car and turned over the motor. I drove feeling transparent as a ghost as I entered the freeway. I recall little of the drive back until something caught my eye two streets before my exit. A small animal bounded into a bush on the side of the expressway. It resembled a kitten.
“I should stop,” I told myself, putting on the breaks. “Don’t stop, Asterisk! It was probably a squirrel. You can’t save everything!” I had been having this conversation with myself a lot lately. Deciding the impending danger to myself far outweighed the reward, and understanding I wasn’t in stable mind, I sped up, noting a pang of remorse.
Chapter 1
It had merely been a week since Vivian left, even though our relationship was less than perfect and I knew the breakup was inevitable, it devastated me. I wasted my evenings drinking craft beer alone on my deck, smoking cigarettes and pigging out on fast food. The weight continued to pile on.
Half-way into my evening six-pack, the phone rang. It was Mary.
“Hi Asterisk I’m so glad you answered. How are you, hun?” she asked.
“I’m really depressed Mary. Vivian moved out.”
“Oh, well, she didn’t deserve you, anyway. She never sounded much like a woman to me, just a truly abusive and confused man. I know you were with her because you have a huge heart and you wanted to show Rosie that transgender people are worthy of love too, but as long as I have known you, you’ve only dated men. You can do better. Go get yourself a real man, with a decent career that can support you!”
“Thank you,” I said, holding back my tears. “You are right.”
Mary quickly changed the subject, “Did you mean what you said over text? Doogie and I are desperate for a place to go. We need to get back to California. I have a friend who offered to rent me a moving truck to drive out there.”
Doogie was Mary’s elderly Dachshund. As long as I had known her she treated the dog like her child.
“You don’t know how bad this year has been for me Asterisk!” she continued, “Doogie has cancer and he doesn’t have much time to live. I need to get him to a vet. I have a friend in California, who doesn’t live that far from you, she promised to pay for him to go. My CBD oil company, HempWow, is about to take off! I’ve told you how I’ve put all my money into it the last four years. Well, I’m now working with retired professional basketball player, Ram Billings. He owns a hemp farm, and he has partnered with me. If I can just get to Los Angeles, he said we could meet in person and he would finance the rest, I could make millions!” Her breathing was becoming heavy. “Millions, Asterisk! I don’t think you understand how big this could be!”
“Yes, of course! You and Doogie are always welcome here. It can’t be forever but you can definitely crash on my couch for a month.”
“You are an angel, Asterisk! Don’t worry, I’ll get a bar tending job right away. I plan to help you out with money immediately. I know what a stress it has been on you, being a single mother for so long.”
“California is expensive. I’ve just been so depressed since Vivian left,” I admitted.
“Honey, you don’t need a user like that in your life. You are beautiful and smart, you deserve a man who will take care of you and put you and your child first! Not some confused sociopath with hygiene issues.”
Bitch had a point.
The discussion reverted. “Asterisk, I can’t even tell you what it’s been like living here! The day I arrived, my roommate, Jenna, left me alone to babysit her children and went out to dinner with her boyfriend, which as I came to find out, was her boss!”
“What?” I asked.
“Seriously! I wasn’t there five minutes from a cross-country trip, I hadn’t even unpacked the van when Jenna said to me, ‘I’m glad you are here, but would you mind staying with my kids for a while? We have dinner plans.’ Who does that? She stayed out overnight and then she moved in with the guy two weeks later. The entire premise of me going there was to be roommates!”
“That’s horrible, Mary.”
“Without asking me, she invited some strange man she met through Craigslist to be my ‘roommate’! I was scared for my life! I didn’t know him. He could have been a rapist or a murderer! A week after that, I went out to walk Doogie and when I returned, all the inside doors were missing! Gone! Taken off the hinges and disappeared.”
I spit out my beer. “Wait, what?”
“Asterisk, these people are literally insane!”
“How do doors just disappear?” I asked.
“I don’t know! This is the level of insanity I’ve been dealing with!”
“Did you go outside to look for the doors? I mean maybe they were just painting or fixing them? Did you check out by the trash?” I asked, playing Devil’s advocate.
“No! They were just gone! I searched everywhere, the entire exterior of the property, they were nowhere to be found and they were never returned. When I brought it up to Jenna, she acted like she didn’t know what happened and that it wasn’t a big deal. Can you imagine living in an apartment with a strange man and no doors? There wasn’t any privacy. I put up curtains in the doorways but I could still hear everything. I could hear him snoring, jerking off to porn until 3:00 am, I could even hear him going to the bathroom. Who wants to hear a grown man urinating? Can you imagine him taking a dump?”
“That sounds like a nightmare!”
“Oh, it gets much worse. After about six months, that man finally left and Jenna let her 16-year-old niece move in. The girl was here illegally from Cuba! She was stealing from me left and right. She stole precious family heirlooms, my dead mother’s jewelry, my designer bags and shoes all to buy drugs! She would have her friends over when I was gone and throw huge parties. I just felt so violated! I had no rights, I paid Jenna everything I had in my savings in advance to stay here, she knew damn well I couldn’t afford to leave! She’s doing this on purpose to get me out. I just need a safe space, I need to unwind and finish getting my company launched! I’m so close Asterisk! I can taste it!”
“Well, what’s your plan?” I asked.
“I can pick up the truck tomorrow. The cross-country drive should take me roughly four to five days, but will probably be closer to six, with Doogie. He’s too old to be traveling so far and I know I must walk him often. If it was just me I’d probably drive straight through and nap in the cab but I can’t with him. We’ll have to check into hotels each night.”
“Okay, I don’t have much to offer you, but what little space I have is all yours.”
“Thank you again for saving us. I’ll text you tomorrow when we get on the road.”
The next morning I awoke with a hangover and began contemplating the seriousness of what I’d done. Mary had always been a good friend to me, we were neighbors several years prior and spoke almost every day. Still, she was in her 50s, and although I could relate to a life of hard knocks, being at that age without a stable income or home life concerned me.
Yet, I wouldn’t go back on my word. Having a friend around to ease the pain of my recent breakup would be a comfort and I couldn’t turn my back on someone in their time of need. I was away from home often, working six to seven days a week and it would be beneficial for Rosie to have another adult around that she trusted. I remembered how Rosie used to get excited every time she would see Mary out walking with Doogie in our old neighborhood and run to greet them. Besides, what was the worst that could happen?
