that’s why my tips had been so lousy lately: my bad attitude. Just this week I’d been demoted from the primo weekend evening shifts to the day shifts.
So bad attitude equals bad shifts equals less pay equals worse attitude. I was in a downhill cycle, personally and professionally—if you consider bartending a profession, which I hesitated to do.
Then came this bill. Eleven hundred plus change a year. Hell, I couldn’t even afford the two-eighty quarterly payments, not with rent due next week and utilities, and not much to eat in the kitchen.
Where was my money going these days?
A glance at the garbage can gave the answer. I’d been drinking a lot lately. A lot. A depressed woman shouldn’t indulge in depressants like alcohol. But let’s face it, alcohol and other drugs—which I’d refrained from, give me some credit—are the opiates of the depressed masses, no pun intended.
I’m down, so pour me a drink. Isn’t that how it works?
So of course, what did I do? I turned the bill facedown, then pulled out a bottle of Southern Comfort, poured myself a healthy dose and turned on the television.
Everything on the tube was about Katrina. Where would she hit? Would she still be a Category Five when she came ashore, or would the shallower waters decrease her power? How high would the storm surge be? When would the calls for mandatory evacuations begin?
I nursed my drink, sipping slowly, enjoying the warmth of it sliding down my throat. I closed my eyes and imagined that warmth slipping into my bloodstream, spreading throughout my body, relaxing me, dulling my senses, and turning the Channel Four weatherman’s voice into a drone of white noise that worked with the liquor. I drank; he droned on; and everything slowed down and faded.
It could be like this forever, the smooth voice that had tempted me before whispered in my head. Just give up on the world and let go. No more bills. No more Hank. No more drunk tourists propositioning me, laughing uproariously when I told them to go jerk off in the men’s room.
Just let go, sink into the darkness….
The phone rang, yanking me out of my dark reverie. It was an old-fashioned phone with a loud, mechanical ring.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jane? This is Verna Jenkins from Community Homes.”
Clark’s group home. I straightened up in the chair. “Hi, Miss Jenkins. Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I’m just calling to tell you that the house is evacuating for the storm. Do you want us to take Clark, or would you rather he evacuate with you?”
“I’m not evacuating,” I decided on the instant. “So maybe he’d better go with you. Where are y’all heading?”
“We have a standing arrangement with a group home in Baton Rouge. We’re leaving on a bus tomorrow morning. I’m just letting all the families know where we’ll be and how to reach us.”
I took the information, then asked to speak to Clark. “Hello, my baby brother,” I said when he came on the phone. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he said, and giggled. As a kid I’d been embarrassed by that overgrown baby giggle. But I’d learned to love it, just like I loved him.
Emotions clogged my throat, but I forced them down. “So. You’re going on a bus ride, aren’t you?”
“Bus ride,” he answered, giggling with increased glee. “Bus ride.”
“Okay, then. Have fun. And remember that your Janie loves you. I love you, Clark.”
And that was it. He handed the phone to Verna and she wished me good luck. I guess that’s when I finally knew what I had to do. Clark was in good hands, and a three-hundred-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy would cement the cracks in his care a lot better than I did with my weekly visits.
I filled my glass with that courage-giving amber liquid, and stared at my life-insurance bill. The problem was, it couldn’t look like suicide because they wouldn’t pay off, and Clark wouldn’t have that extra layer of protection I wanted him to have.
Then suddenly, like a light at the end of a tunnel, it came to me. If I died during the hurricane they’d have to pay. I could feel the adrenaline surge through my body. If I committed suicide by storm, they’d never know. I’d just be an unfortunate casualty of the horrific wind and waters. Too bad; so sad.
But what if the storm turned away from New Orleans? What if it veered east as they so often did, sparing the city?
Then I would drive to where it was going. My car wasn’t in the greatest shape, and my car insurance was overdue. But so what? If I stalled out somewhere in the road, the storm would just get me there.
I aimed the remote control at the television and upped the volume. Walter Maestri, emergency management director for neighboring Jefferson Parish was on, urging everyone to leave. This could be the big one, he predicted. With the storm surge this hurricane was pushing, we could have twenty-five feet of water in the streets.
The easier to drown in, I decided, switching channels.
I watched television all night, fell asleep around six, woke up at noon, and called in sick.
“The hell you say,” the day manager barked at me. “You’re not sick. The whole damn city’s going crazy. Tourists leaving early, and half the staff is cutting out for Texas. Don’t bullshit me, Jane. You’re evacuating like everyone else. But look. Come in today. You can work a double. I know you need the money. Then you can leave on Sunday if you really have to.”
“I’m sick, Robbie. Really.”
“Come on, Janie,” he said in this wheedling tone.
I smiled to hear the asshole beg. “Sorry. No can do.”
“Come in or I’m firing your ass!” he shouted in an abrupt change of tone.
“Whatever,” I said and hung up on him.
It felt good to do that, and it felt even better to hear him pleading on my answering machine ten minutes later. I guess he’d called around and gotten no takers, so he was back to begging me.
I just poured myself another nice glass of Southern Comfort for breakfast and took it into the bathroom with me.
It’s strange. Unless you’ve been there, I don’t think anyone can adequately explain how it feels to have decided once and for all to end your life. It was perversely liberating. And relaxing. And sad. I had a lot of regrets piled up in my forty-seven years. At the top of the list was Clark, of course. Not that he would miss me all that much. But still. I was his big sister, his only living relative.
Correction. His only living relative who gave a damn, since we had no reason to believe our dad was dead, and I knew he didn’t give a damn.
Next regret? That I’d never had kids. I didn’t dwell on that disappointment too much, but it was always there.
And then there was Mom, who I guess had done the best she could with no husband, a difficult daughter and a special-needs son.
