3:37 p.m. - 2005-06-23
Victory Rant
It was like falling down the rabbit hole and never wanting to go home. I resented 4:30 p.m., when I was routinely banished from this subterranian paradise known as Ward I. My colleagues were the most welcoming people I had ever met. Paula was always pregnant and could be found eyes closed in the darkened office after lunch, an open Bible and a crocheted shawl across her substantial tummy. Carolyn was tiny with a mess of black curls, thick rimmed glasses and a nose that scrunched to nonexistent when she giggled. The rest of the hospital staff called us the "party girls" or "easy money" as the three of us pushed our cart full of games, watered down juice and art supplies. Everyone, from patients to Chief of Staff, was happy to see us. We just exuded that kind of goofy, non threatening vibe that managed to coax a smile from the most hardened sociopath. We offered an exercise group, weekly Bingo and basically everything save the stereotypical basket weaving. I tried not to broadcast it, but I would have done that job for free. I had never felt so happy, so much a valued member of a family. After the unforgivable Disney incident, my parents were barely on speaking terms with me. It was time to find an apartment. Robbie and I rode around all weekend. The idea was to pool our meager resources and rent a place together, at least temporarily. Robbie had gotten a student loan so as to focus on his political science major. I was earning the salary of an aide. Together it still didn't amount to much, but we could probably squeak out rent. Clutching a crumpled paper with lots of red circles scratched out, we finally pulled up in front of a Spanish style building on Victory Blvd. There was a skinny tree just barely waving through the window of the upstairs apartment that stern and stoic Anna Mae reluctantly showed us. She was about seventy something, tall with a straight back. One of those ageless handsome women. She pulled behind her a toothless pit bull that was far less menacing than the southern belle who would sooner sic him on you than crack a smile. It wasn't the best neighborhood, but it wasn't the worst. Inside the courtyard, there was a clean, blue pool and lots of flowers. Fuscia and pansys and sweet peas and baby's breath and little cobbled walkways. As Robbie strutted around, I remember thinking that I wanted the apartment. Alone. By myself. I didn't know how I was going to afford it, but I knew I did not want to share it. I wanted to come home to breathe the fragrant air and to float on my back on the shiny turquoise water. I wanted to live alone. I wanted to get up in the morning and listen to Barry Manilow if I chose, without anyone saying a thing. I wanted to sulk and isolate. I wanted to throw an impromptu party. I wanted to learn my own rhythm. To return to find things just as I had left them. To have pizza for breakfast and popcorn for dinner. I wanted to stretch my feet over the edge of the bed and watch Jerry Springer. I wanted to cry when I was sad and laugh when I wasn't. I wanted only me to hold the key to my apartment, to my life. Anna prepared the paperwork, extending her calloused hand for a quick shake. I asked to speak with Robbie for a minute. He took it pretty well. And so I signed on the dotted line. Just me. The first night I was to spend there alone, I went straight from work to the market just to waste some time. I expected to be lonely and was afraid to go home. Always before, my son had been with me. I had never been really alone. But by then he was eighteen and had decided to stay on at my parents' home awhile longer. So I roamed the aisles of Von's, filling my basket with frozen cheese burritos, five for a dollar. I stalled as long as I could with the little money I had to spend. I rehearsed what I would do when I got home. The friends I would call, the shows I would watch until I fell asleep. But when I finally braved those cobbled steps and closed that off white door behind me, I leaned my back flat against it and breathed the deepest breath I had ever breathed. The breath of freedom. I was so broke I heated those pitiful burritos every night for an entire month, just to catch up on rent. I never grew tired of them. Never. In fact, nothing had ever tasted better. Nothing HAS ever tasted better, before or since. Nothing.
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