The Poet and the Gangster

The Poet and the Gangster

She had learned the hard way how easy ten grand would go during her undereducated twenties. She inherited it when her Episcopalian grandmother died. After a decade of college she was kicking herself again and again for not being smarter with it. She knew it’s a poet’s dream to be hard up. But weighing the odds of the unfortunate, a girl can get seriously carried away. Her journal this week looked like this:

Monday 6am

Forgive the smoky start, inner child, the plan is to do some laundry- maybe a sun sal, shower, nicotine patch, get dressed for a potential day at work… this place is about to have me show up, how’s that for responsible? Anything could happen!

Tuesday 2pm, After a Sleepless Night [Slept from 9am-1pm]

I want to throw the muck

into the mire and eat it like soup

the fast food particles

seeping into my once vegan braincells

all the while haunted by an invisible outline

of my healthy self

#theonetheyweresurewouldneverbe

#notwiththesehabits

the half-showing-up-half-looking-for-the-thrill thing

consumed by yet another past life

another futile attempt

at adventure

was it not me who obeyed the call to the light

when the light was mysterious and new?

I feel the effort of my healthy outline

now plumped and messy

with notes in the margins of the margins….

And it stops. Everything always stops on Tuesday: her bed & breakfast idea, unedited wafts of short stories, screenplays caught mid wind….I poet on Tuesday, she thought. She set another intention against another bad habit. A pill habit was trying to win its old place in her mind. Perfectionism is just another excuse not to give up… the fools that don’t know…

Wednesday Noon, Before Chet’s Nightshift [Slept from 3am-11am]

She stepped onto the elevator to her lover’s apartment. Little did she know he’d been sober for a decade. She could not figure out where he got his magic, he’d never drunk, smoked or done a pill in front of her in their three-year relationship. She had no idea she was terrible for him if she did not sober up, until today… he had called her asking her to decide between beer and him. She could barely fathom it, after all, she had coined the term “beer here now.” Who would want to stay sober with a wit like that to wake up to on weekends? Her music career would take care of them. That’s what she always thought would happen once she met the love of her life.

She stepped into the hallway and it was chilly today. For forced air, this breaks a lot, she thought. Before she could knock, he was opening the door, “clomp clomp, you’re worse than my mother” he said. His mom had been a wicked drunk with a weight problem, and the poet didn’t understand why he constantly compared them.

“What are you up to this weekend?” She put on her best cute face. Some girl had made it and he lit up like a Christmas tree the other day.

He rolled his eyes, “acting is your thing,” he said, smiling but grumpy. She pouted. “I have something very important to tell you” he said, rifling around a gym bag she had never seen, pulling out a little black book that said, Totally Rad Ideas. “I’m cutting you in,” he said, pulling a handgun, some cash and a burner phone out of the bag.

“What does the cheap cell phone have to do with….wait a minute…” she could not catch her breath. She turned around and wondered if that “born into organized crime” thing hadn’t been a dream. Oh I’m bad for him, she thought, closing her eyes, trying to regain control of her heartbeat and that knot in her stomach she always got at times like these.

“Look in the book,” he said. She opened her eyes and resigned to be strong (again). She had got herself into another jackpot. It’s all for the poetry, she thought, calming a little. Opening the book tightened the knot. Numbers streamed down the right sides of the pages, with names of businesses down the left sides. Her breathing could not decide whether to choke her or be slowed, her mindfulness was so active, so immature, so used for the wrong reasons….

“You’re going to be a hostage!”

“What?!”

“Almost in real life!”

“Chet….no!” She shoved the book into his hands full of cash.

“Whaaaaaat?! You wanted to have more so we could live together,” he said, his voice controlled, but angry, “did you think I was going to afford your ‘artistic process’ with a delivery job at a Chinese place??”

“I don’t eat much,” she said.

“Eat? Well those pills you took the other night were stunning, girlfriend. If I am going to afford you, you’re going to have to pull a few jobs with me.”

“I thought the mafia did high scale jobs, this sounds more like convenient store hits,” she said indignantly.

“We downgraded when Hollywood started blowing our cover,” he gritted his teeth, almost laughing. “Only the families that sold out made anything from that sensationalism.”

She laughed a little, not sure whether that was the right thing to do. “Your vocabulary is all I really wanted from you,” she tried to be coy but convincing.

“You don’t know the half of it, sweetheart,” he cracked up, and re-stuffed the bag.

Today [When the heck did I sleep?]

She eyes the haphazard beer cans from last night, and can barely pick them up. Oh my God, did he drink? Oh my God what actually happened? It would be nice to remember, she thinks.

She lights another cigarette after pouring herself another cup of coffee. Another vice, another day, she repeats like so many days before. She is half laughing, half disgusted with how she feels. I wonder if Chet would even want a baby if we got mar- she drops the cigarette in the ashtray half smoked, astonished she can remember….

______________________

The whole thing had been a set up. The fake hostage scenario, the cashier’s face as he didn’t bother to hit the 911 button….something peculiar about how ingenuine the entire night seemed… How the friend Chet had “hired” looked like he’d never done a drug in his life….

I had the gun pointed at my head, but I wasn’t scared enough. Chet shot at the ceiling to show me he was really toying with my life. I screamed and the cashier stopped reaching for his shotgun, too. Chet’s friend even got on the floor.

Chet turned to me and said, “Now do you understand why that crap is poison?”

“What?!” I was crying and the cashier started to laugh as the friend got up, mostly pissed off. Chet got on one knee and looked into my confused, tearful face, “please choose a life with me over the edge you’ve been living on,” he said, presenting a cubic zirconium engagement ring. I dropped to my knees with him and said, “of course, but one last night of beer, you animal, you damned near traumatized me for life.” He put the ring on my finger. With tears of joy, we kissed.

_____________

So today I’m choosing all the things healthy I’ve been hoping for. The memory of the sound of the gun is my trigger to choose life. It turns out Chet is really good at saving. He also had been listening to my healthier pipe dreams. One of them had been to save a friend who had chosen to “keep the baby.” Our mutual friend had said, “abort.” I had been so out of the picture, I could not help our mutual friend understand abortion isn’t inevitable, as pro-choice as I can be. I was the older, more influential friend, but I had let another boyfriend keep me from partying with them. Wasn’t he good for me?

Angela had had a kid while selling pot…Chet knew I had regretted not being there for her. Chet also knew I’d always regretted the pregnancy I’d allowed with alcohol abuse in tow. I could have gone home to my loving mother and step-father if I hadn’t been so hard headed. I knew I’d chosen the wrong lover… again… The doctors were adamant that my medicine and the alcohol mixed could kill or mame the fetus, anyway. It had to do, I could not tie my awful life to a new life. Even with a clean slate, that could have been way too much baggage for any kid to help me carry. I did not trust that potential father, even though I really did not know him. How awful I felt those days when I needed to be present, but all I could do was pray and follow doctor’s suggestions.

Denoument

Chet was so good at saving money; he had saved enough to give to Angela and Starseed. It paid for 6 months rent, bills and necessities. This way Angela could paint for a living. He’d given them an amazing start. He also saved the poet’s reputation with her father, who paid for their wedding. The poet did not open a bed & breakfast, but a hostel. The remodeled Victorian was equipped with a bulletin board with a zoom recovery meeting schedule and internet; this, shortly after landing a huge contract with a publisher to compile her poetry. Angela and Starseed became an amazing artist duo, eventually. Angela paid Chet back with interest within a year. Altruism is an amazing animal. I even donated to the medical research of marijuana. “Ignorance never helped,” we all agreed.