It's For You - Part 2 - From the book "Run Faster Kid" Chapter 10
TW: CSE, Language
“He walks lightly, like a dancer. He has optimism. You feel as though he may burst into a musical number at any moment. He thinks I am captivating.”
“That’s not what that means, Idiot.”
“Well, whatever, I don’t care.”
We are going to be the most fabulous couple ever. He wants it all. He quotes Steve Jobs and reads the Habits of Highly Effective People. He stays up late at night writing software code. He says I am complicated. The relationship moves fast. Really fast. One day he was walking past my sandwich shop and within a few days I am living in this high-rise apartment. Money is no issue. We stay up late, falling deeper and deeper into each other’s minds. He tells me I can quit my job. He wants to pay for whatever I plan to do with my life. I consider going to college for the first time.
“He’s inventing a video game”, I say.
“No, he’s not” she replies.
“Yes! He is! I’ve seen it!”
In fact, I have played it. A cumbersome, wordy game where you direct the main char- acter by typing directions into DOS. “Turn left, look under the rock” It is the very beginning of the rudimentary code writing for what will eventually become Fortnite and Halo type games.
“His family is coming for Christmas.” “From where?” She demands. I tell her. “Oh my God. Who is his family?”
“I dunno, his mom, dad, sister? He has a brother but he’s not coming.” Why is this so difficult for her to understand? My sister is very quiet. I don’t understand the prob- lem, but I can hear it in her voice. She too lived with her husband before she married him.
“I was of age!!!” She screams into the phone.
“You don’t understand” I say. “He thinks I’m magical.”
“Uh-huh”
“He only wants a relationship where you have it all. Dynamic partnership, success, beauty, neither party holding the other back, fantastic, over the top, dizzying, amazing heights of amore. It’s a whirlwind” I say.
Nothing from her end. I think its possible she hung up. Wouldn’t surprise me.
It’ll be a romance unlike any other on the planet. We have vowed it to one another.
“You wouldn’t understand” I tell her.
“You’re an idiot” She tells me. “He’s going to have you working on the street in a week.”
“He isn’t like that.”
“Yet.”
“I’m not. I don’t work on the street.”
I imagine the white linen tablecloths at the yacht club; a far cry from the stroll. I realize she has no idea. No point of reference.
I am not going to settle for some boring, warm, safe, dry bullshit like she did. I want adventure, romance, intrigue, money, travel. I am not like her. I cannot be satisfied to live in a dingy, small rental house and drive an economy car. I want glamor!
“He bought me a ring.” Hoping this will appease her, I hold it up, but she cannot see it through the telephone line. She couldn’t have seen it if it was under a microscope.
“I have to go.” She hangs up the phone.
I hang up the cordless phone. (Cordless, can you just imagine!!) She’s jealous. Who could blame her. She doesn’t see acrylic furniture and go to the expensive luncheons like I do. She isn’t hanging out in the West End on the CEOs porch. She is not IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE like we are.
She did not rent a costume for Halloween and attend a $1000 per plate gala at a fancy Hotel, surrounded by Congressmen. I did. She isn’t sailing on the Harbor, eating Foie Gras on the balcony every day. I, truthfully, did not even know Foie Gras existed. I am crazy about it. Its many years before I learn how it is made. She knows nothing about bunny pancakes. And shopping in boutiques. I am doing this EVERY DAY. Its normal for me. She doesn’t get it.
He thinks I am magical. I am in my teens. He is not. He has already completed his degrees, finished University, has had several serious relationships, is much older than me; a dot com executive. I should be babysitting and car hopping, slinging milkshakes after school. But here I am playing house. Nine and a half weeks, 50 Shades of Grey. If he lived in a trailer park, he’d already have been arrested. I am making reservations and waltzing in and out of the city’s ritziest establishments.
He finally gets home from work.
“I cooked,” I say.
“I thought so, the elevator smells like burnt toast.” Its our inside joke. The only thing I know how to make is Res- ervations.
I ask him about his day. I sit in rapt attention as he explains the ins-and-outs of floppy disks.
I tell him I spoke to my sister.
He goes silent.
“What did she say?”
It’s 2:00a.m. The phone besdie the bed is ringing.
He answers it.
He listens for a minute, thinking.
“Its for you” He hands me the phone.
I look at him quizically.
“For me??!”
Its my sister. Calling from downstairs on the Lobby Intercom.
“What the fuck are you guys doing here, its 2 am.” I laugh.
“Come downstairs, we want to talk to you.” He can clearly here the conversation through the phone receiver.
“Who is with you?” Her husband, my brother and my brother’s wife. I laugh. Those crazy kids.
“You better go.”
Jeezuz! It took long enough. They’ve never gone out of their way to visit me before.
Must be the high rise. I nod. Yeah, they do not realize the hour. I am out carousing at all times of day or night. I am living a lavish life- style in a city that hardly sleeps. Whatever you want, whenever you want it. I want it all. I have the means to get it. All of it. So, showing up in your friend’s apartment lobby after the bar closes, not unheard of.
“You have to come with us. We have come to get you.”
Someone grabs my wrist.
I am yanked, forcefully and abruptly out of the Lobby. I am in my bare feet and the Lobby door clicks behind me.
I can feel the cool Travertine tile on my bare feet. The entire expanse of floor to ceiling three story lobby behind me.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“You can’t live with a guy who is that much older than you.”
I pull back on my wrist.
Resistance. I look at them. My sister-in-law looks determined. My sister, clearly the ringleader. My brother looks confused, like he was never told the Mission. He looks at the brass hinges on the heavy door. Not at me. My brother-in-law is here and he looks prepared to carry out any heavy lifting.
I try to invent a reason why I need to re-enter the building.
“I need to get my keys. I am in my pajamas. I left the coffee pot on.”
I am capably dragged to the pickup truck idling on the curb.
“You’re kidnapping me!!” I scream. I feel like they already know this.
I look up at the Penthouse windows. I see a shadow there. But it’s gone in a second.
They open the hatch of the canopy, and someone picks me up and tosses me inside. I hit a mattress as I land.
I hear the canopy latch locking. Oh My God. They planned this. Thats why she was so quiet on the phone. The truck starts and drives away. I have just been forcibly kidnapped from my bed in my high-rise apartment, on the 11th floor, where I can see the entire bay, by both my siblings and locked in a camper. I kick at the canopy windows. I scream through the window. My brother’s car returns to his home.
The truck speeds through the city towards the Inter- state.
“Where are you taking me!?!” I scream and curse her through the double window of the truck topper.
“Home.”
I become very still. Frighteningly still. Suddenly still. The way a lizard realizes if he is quite still, he may be able to get away. I become very still. I am here, locked in the canopy of my sister’s husband’s truck, headed East. I can see his trucker hat nodding when she speaks. He signals his lane changes because well, you don’t want to break any laws.
We pass the Wonder Bread bakery on the left as we head out of the city. A Masonic Temple on the right. St. Frank’s. Strip malls, dark at this hour, give way to suburbs, the suburbs of Coquitlam left behind at the Port Mann Bridge. Guildford and Surrey from here - firmly in the rear- view.
I am still as death. Not many cars on the 401 at 3am. Strip malls give way to horse properties. A smiling Realtor proclaims her spot in the Millionaire’s Club from a bill- board. Chinese Food. Car Dealers. Truck Stop. A 7th Day Adventist Church.
Now, we are in the country. I know this because I can smell cow shit. I left this place six and a half months ago, pockets full of babysitting money, vowing never to return, in large part, due to the cow shit.
She is still talking up front. He nods and looks out the window. Never mind that my sister and this guy were liv- ing together 5 years ago. When she was slightly older than I am now. I show her the ring through the locked sliding window of the truck.
I scream until I am hoarse. Then I go still again. I tell her I will kill her when she lets me out. I chew at the cords holding the windows shut. I am feral.
We arrive at my mother’s house. They unlock the back of the truck. They want to assist me exiting the vehicle.
“Really? REALLY??!! You just fucking kidnapped me!” I give them a withering look and march in the front doors of my Mom’s place.
I was last assisted leaving a vehicle by a valet, who knew my name, under the golden portico of a world-class hotel. These fucking assholes don’t even know.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
“It’s for your own good.”
They escort me to my mother’s condo. Brother in law is no where to be found now, likely stuffing shaw in his lip waiting for me to make abreak for it.
My mother is in her bathrobe. Now 3:30 or 4 am. I just stare at her as I enter. She asks me if I want some coffee, gesturing at the coffee pot.
I explode. “NO! I DON”T WANT ANY FUCKING COFFEE!! I have to go to work in the morning! I was sleeping in my god damned bed!”
“Don’t swear, please.”
“BOTH OF YOU! BOTH of you were either living with or married when you were my age!” I jab my finger at my mother’s face.
“YOU were pregnant with my brother at my age!” She cannot deny it.
“Please, Don’t yell, someone will call the Police” my sister says.
CALL THEM!!” I scream.
“You don’t even have a drivers license, he’ll get into trouble. What he is doing is illegal. You are under-age’
“Fuck Off.” I don’t tell her I actually do have a Driver’s License. Just got it last week.
I go to my bedroom. Or what had formerly been my bedroom. It’s been six months and a half months since I lived here. I was thinking about starting college. I have a job at a sandwich shop. I have signing privileges at a very exclusive private yacht club. I just show my card to the staff, and I can sign the tab for whatever I want. The attendants at the highly specialized, walk in, climate controlled, security controlled, humidor know my name.
I consider the distance from the bedroom window to the ground. Too far. My sister and her husband leave. I ask if I can make a telephone call.
“No.”
“You can leave in the morning.” I try the door. It’s locked from the outside. At daylight, she enters the room.
“You can leave in the morning.” I try the door. It’s locked from the outside. At daylight, she enters the room.
“Are you hungry?”
“No. If you touch me, I’ll kill you.”
It runs in the family, I guess. For 16 and a half years, I listened to my dad tell my mom he’s gonna kill her. Now, here I am. She looks like she’s been struck. Truth be known, she’s not the first person I have said this to. She’s not even the first person I have said this to this month.
“You can go if you want to.”
“I was planning on it.” I have to open the store. My job depends on it. I’m not gonna make it there in time and they’ll have got me fired”.
“You’re still in your pajamas.”
I put my face close to hers.
I whisper “Because I was in bed at my fucking house.”
My words go into her open mouth and disappear.
I take whatever money I can find from the closet, a few dollar bills left over from chores, and some coins from a jar. I grab a sweater off the hanger and some beach shoes. Since I am still in bare feet. She stands in the middle of the room, bewildered. Some of my clothes are still there, but I don’t take them. They seem odd to me. Like children’s clothing.
“You can always come here if you need help.” This causes me to pause for a minute. To calm myself briefly.
“Mom, that’s actually really great to hear, really, but I am living with my boyfriend who made more money this week,than you made all year. He is handsome and educated and I am in love with him. He says he is in love with me, too. Is it perfect? No, probably not. But thats where I live. I appreciate the offer. What I would like is not to be kidnapped again in the dead of night and forcibly transported here so you can “talk some sense into me”. I’m willing to bet this isn’t what you had planned for this evening either, am I correct?” She nods.
I walk four miles to the bus station as the sun rises. I count out the coins to buy a ticket back to the North Shore. I know the transfers by heart. The attendant looks oddly at me. I pull the red sweater closer. I have fifty-five cents left over after the bus fare. I buy a snack cake from the vending machine. I sit on the floor in my expensive silk pajamas and beach shoes.
The pale pink of the expensive loungewear, the red cable knit, and the lemon Jellies are an odd contrast. I eat my snack cake. The bus headed North pulls in. I know the attendant, the station, the transfer and the bus well. As a child, I followed this path weekly.
I board the bus for home. It is, after all, only one block from Grandmother’s house
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