Don't Let Me Die In A Motel 6 or One Woman's Struggle Through The Great Recession (13 page)

Let’s get back to the LAPD
, a central theme in my new life
.
It took
just
a month
in the new place for them to
put in
an appearance.
And on
this
Very Special
Episode Of Amy. . .

Aurora and
David shared their own room – w
rong, I know, but I was a little out of my mind at the time.
I couldn't pay my bills.
I
couldn't find a job
, and unemployment was literally killing me.
For
someone
like me,
accustomed to
churning out some
product
, whether it be spreadsheet or database or story, not being able to
produce irked me
more than a Puritan Father.
I knocked on Aurora’s door.

“Hello, I’d like to get my kitty.”
Aurora had a habit of bringing
home
stray
s
, then
promptly
forgetting about
them
.
As a result, I had taken Cotton, plus a sweet little kitty, Louis, who scrambled over the apartment with his calic
o
brother
, Whipple. David had added to the menag
er
ie with three cages
and twice as many birds.
At least he
remembered
to feed them.

“No!”
Aurora always kept the door closed.

“Go
d
damnit, I am
paying
for this place!”
My
depression sparked the fuse of rage
, and I barreled my way in.
She hurtled toward me like a
puma
, claws – and fists – outstretched.
I was
not
going to be hit again.
“
I’M GOING TO KILL YOU
!!”
I heard someone
yell
.
It was m
e.
I seized
both
of those fists, and dropped her, like a
suitcase,
onto her
waiting
mattress.
Disgusted, I exited, black-and-white Louis in hand.

It was not ten minute
s later that I got the knock on
the door.
I squinted out the peephole.
L.A.’s Finest.
Again.

This time, they were not alone.
In their train was
a
thin
social worker
and an African-American lady from the Department of Mental Health.
I wanted to a
sk her if she w
ould
commit
me.
The two women
went into Aurora’s room, held a
secret
conference, and
emerged.

“She claims
that you hit her
,” the social worker intoned
.
These people were all the same:
young, earnest, no makeup, doing a bitch of a job for very little money.
No wonder they
always looked constipated.

“She tried to hit
me!”
I laughed
in the face of this farce.
Where was
Hesse
when you needed him?
I could see that Swiss
sanatorium
, beckoning from the top of t
he Alps
.
Hans, w
ait,
I’m coming!

“Look,” the black lady, squat as a truck, gave me a no-nonsense stare.
“I’m
Rose,
from Chicago.
I’ve seen a lot of these kids.
I get your daughter.
She’s a straight-up liar and manipulator.”

I could have hugged her, but the collision of breasts might have led
to
a 6.0
earthquake
.

“What do I do?”
I was desperate.
“
We
’ve never gotten real help – not in
Washington
and not here.
We had a social worker come to
North Bend
every week –
useless
.
Aurora
was in
Seattle Children’s
for suicidal thoughts, but she release
d herself after two
day
s
.
She won’t take
any
meds
.
She won’t see a
psychologist.
The only way I can get her
there is with
duct tape
and chloroform!”

Suddenly, this
woman
was my
messiah
, like Rabbi Schneerson to the
Hasidic
.
I looked at her with hope.

“I can give you a list of state-approved therapists,” she said.

“But Aurora won’t go!”

“She says she will.”

“
She’d say she’s Dr. Phil if she had to!”

Rose
looked at me with
real
pity. “You got
dealt
a tough hand here, Mom.”

“Please.”
I grabbed her
shoulder. “Help
me.
I don’t have the skills to deal with this.”

She
nodded
.
“Who does?”

Remember when I said this could be
A Very Dark Ride?
Well,
we’ve come to that part.

Th
e follies with Aurora continued.
Nigel came down to L.A., determined to meet with Pico Pico High.
He fancied himself
an
educator
, since, like me, he had
a
B.A.
from the University of London, and, unlike me, a Master’s
.
His degrees
did him no good
.
If
only he
could have
focused
his intellect inward
– if only he
could have
followed Socrates’ stricture and Known Himself --
he would not currently be
labeled
a
pedophile
and a nut.

The Pico Pico meeting
was another
Molière
farce
.
Aurora claimed she didn’t know Nigel was coming, even though h
e’d been invited by the school. W
hen he appeare
d
in the Admin Office, a
n
unprepossessing
figure with his slight build and distended hip, she
turned
into Sarah
Siddons
, diving under the counter and
pretending
to shake with
fear
.
My old friends the LAPD
w
ere
called, and promptly
locked
Nigel in handcuffs.
Now, whatever else his faults, he
had been
asked
, and Aurora
made the cops dance
like the Great Pup
p
eteer she was.
Nigel was humili
ated, as humiliated as
I’d been
a
t
being
slugged
in public
.
Did Aurora feel bad?  Ha!  She
gloried
in her power –
one
not
granted
t
o many
fourteen
-year
-olds
.
But the State of California had practically made her Governor. 
A
n
old hand
of The System, she
knew
exactly
what button
s
to push.

“Ha!
You should have seen him.
He was yelling at the cops to
unhand him
.
Too bad they didn’t
tase him
!”

“C’mon Auro
ra, this is taking it too far.”

“I hate him.
Hate his guts!
I’d like to
smash
his body parts over the floor, so I can stomp on them
and shove them up his ass
!”
She mimed this grisly action.

I shut
my eyes.
The world was closing in on me,
becoming the size of
a
box
.
Incredibly
,
Aurora
wasn’t my
Number One
problem.
I
still couldn't find a job
– seemingly, no one in L.A. wanted a
database
developer.
I was driving
the B of A’s
stolen
truck, without insurance, and now, I couldn't pay my rent.
How were we going to eat?
I was supporting three people, a bunny, six birds, and two cats.
I felt like Scarlett when she
goes back
to Tara, and everyone is turning to her, “What do we do
now
, Miss Scarlett?
  What do we do?
”
Unfortunately, there was no Frank Burns I could
marry
for
$300
.
I felt utterly alone.

The n
adir of this nightmare was a trip
to the Department Of Social Services, a
.
k
.
a
.
, Welfare.
I would never apply for Welfare
– the
very
thought made my
acid reflux
rise
.
No, I was there for Food Stamps, just one rung
higher
on
t
he
You Know You’re Fucked When
.
. .
Index
.
I had already taken the
unthinkable
step – for me – of filing for Unemployment.
I looked around.
I was surrounded by
young
mothers
in turn surrounded by screaming, crying
kids
.
Yes, most were minorities – blacks and Latinos – because when the economy hit
s
the toilet, they
are
the first ones flushed.
I stared at
the front row
.
There
sat
– of all things! –
an Orthodox Jew, his
black hat crowning his dangling
payot
, his prayer shawl hidden by his long Lubavitcher coat.

WT
F
?!
I wanted to shake him.
Isn’t it bad enough that
one of us
is here
?
Do we have to make it
into
a
bris
?!

I sat
in th
at Waiting Room From Hell,
another soul
emerging
from
limbo
.
One hour passed.
Two.
Three.
My
name
w
as a long way from being called, and the metal seats were hard.

When I heard it, six hours later, I barely had the strength to slouch over to the
numbered
station.
There was
an older
woman
there
,
a Latina
, who listened to
my tale of woe and nodded
as if she cared
.
I’m sure she’d hear
d a lot worse, especially in tho
se
days of sorrow
.
I was handed a packet of forms to fill out – I
did, the English ones.
I turned in my homework, then slumped out
past the guard
.
I had
WaMu
to thank for this
.