“This is all pretty crazy,” I tell her.
She kisses my cheek quickly, like a little kid would. “Yeah, Charleston’s pretty cool. Anyway, I don’t have any food, really, at my new place, so you should pick out some stuff you like.”
I stop her. “New place? What do you mean?”
“Oh,” she says, actually giggling some. “I forgot to tell you. I agreed to finish school here in Charleston, so in return my mom rented me my own apartment and she agreed to let you stay with me there. You’ll just have to start paying half of the rent once you get a job.”
My eyes go wide. “No shit! Really? That’s amazing.”
“Uh-huh.” She’s smiling all over. “I took care of everything, didn’t I? Now, uh, come on, let’s go get you some food.”
But I don’t let her go in quite yet. I hold her right up to me, and we kiss for a good long time. I think maybe this has all been worth it, after all.
Charleston, South Carolina. Man, I never would’ve guessed it.
And Sue Ellen? She’s just fucking perfect.
I mean, perfect.
Goddamn.
Ch.19
Honestly, I’m not someone who really needs a lot of structure in my life.
I’m not like most people, who seem to go kinda crazy if they’ve got too much free time on their hands. I don’t know—I really can’t relate. Between writing and reading and drawing and playing music and taking walks and watching movies, I never have enough time for everything anyway. So in terms of having to work a regular job, well, I can’t say I was too excited about the idea.
But obviously I had to work, right? I mean, Christ, Sue Ellen had already started her spring quarter at school, and she was working part-time at this clothing boutique downtown, so I felt like a total asshole sitting around the house all day. Of course, I was writing, but when I talked to my editor in New York, she made it pretty clear that I wasn’t gonna see any more money from them till I got a really solid, complete first draft in—and that might take a while. So, yeah, finding a real, you know, job-type job was very necessary.
It actually didn’t take long. Sue Ellen and I went to this kinda funky, pseudo-hippy, knockoff San Francisco coffee shop up the street from us. We ordered drinks and sandwiches, and it was all pretty good and the people seemed cool, so I asked if they were hiring. The manager was immediately called from around back to interview me on the spot. She was a middle-aged woman with long, ratty hair that might as well’ve had flowers all woven into it. She wore a shapeless sack dress with some sort of African-looking print. She wore Birkenstocks. When I told her I was born in Berkeley and raised in San Francisco and that I’d worked at a Peet’s Coffee there, well, the interview was over. At that point all she wanted to know was when I could start. And it’s a good thing, too, ’cause if she had called my references, I would’ve been fucked as hell. But, uh, then again, at least that would’ve held off this inevitable day a little bit longer. ’Cause, as it stands, I’ve gotta be there in about five minutes for training.
Fuck.
I mean, I feel so stupidly sick and anxious—lying here on Sue Ellen’s bed—my bed—the overhead fan spinning and rocking loose overhead—the early summer heat oppressive—suffocating.
But, here, under the fan, I am safe. And the central air-conditioning whirs night and day to try ’n’ at least keep the rest of the apartment somewhat livable, even if Sue Ellen does a whole lot of complaining about the power bill. But the house is small—one-bedroom in the back and a combination kitchen/living room facing the lane… or, well, the alley. In Charleston they call them lanes, but they’re really just alleys—alleys where everyone dumps their trash both in and around the designated bins. Honestly, I’ve never in my life seen as much trash everywhere as I have here. The other day I was walking down to meet Sue Ellen at work, and I saw a passing driver throw her McDonald’s trash and empty drink cup out the window and into the middle of the street. Garbage clogs the gutters, breeds giant roaches in the dark places, lies rotting in the sun. Garbage piles high in the abandoned houses and empty lots. The smell of garbage is carried with the wind. The town stinks of it—mixing with our sweat and the shit-smelling fumes from the paper factory down the river. And our little alley, our little lane, is the apex of it all—the accumulation of crawling insects and shit and garbage and black asphalt hot as torched metal. Only here, inside, am I safe—with the air-conditioning and the fan and my books and writing and sex and the VCR. I want to stay hidden in this apartment forever. I want to be kept like a house cat. I don’t want to have to face the world. I don’t want
