Chapter 11

The dream appeared three days after Molly had left the apartment. Being alone at home certainly wasn’t helping in shaking off its awful aftertaste. John had no idea what to do. Even though he had to think about getting a new place to live, he wasn’t able to put his thoughts in one place and do anything constructive.

John checked his bank account and had to admit, Cindy was right. Being jobless for such a long time had a devastating influence on his savings and he really wasn’t able to afford to rent the luxurious apartment anymore. Not by himself. Molly wasn’t any option to help, because one, she lived in her own condo, why would she want to leave it, and two, she wasn’t interested in being in any steady bill-paying relationship with him.

John tried to call the company he worked for, but every time he dialed the number, all he was getting was information that the person he wanted to reach was currently unavailable. No matter if he called the office, or his boss, or the guy he sometimes worked with, all the phones were dead.

After spending half of the day by the phone, he decided he needed to go there, to the company, and talk with the people personally. He walked to the bedroom, changed his clothes, and, just as he was about to leave, he spotted the belt lying lifelessly on the floor, in exactly the same spot he had left it in the small hours when he was crying like a baby, petrified of what was happening, and scared to go back to bed. The moment John saw the damn thing, he felt the pressure in his veins rising and he took a few brisk steps towards it, lifted it up and went to the kitchen. He left the belt on the kitchen counter, took out the biggest knife from the drawer and started ferociously stabbing the leather accessory. One by one, inch by inch, one stab after another. Single drops of sweat appeared on his forehead, his hair was a mess, but John didn’t even notice it as he was entirely focused on putting all of his frustration, anger and fear into cutting and tearing the belt apart.

A few seconds later he was standing in the kitchen, breathing heavily, with a red face and visible forehead veins, and on the floor there were small pieces of what used to be an elegant and quite expensive belt. John spat on the remains and it wasn’t until then that he realized there were single drops of blood on the floor right next to them. They immediately caught his attention and he looked around first, trying to localize the source of the bloody leak, and then he spotted the knife lying on the counter with the edge of the blade covered with blood a bit. John lifted up his left hand, and realized he cut himself. Two of his left hand fingers were red, drops of blood were one by one falling down from their tops and he saw that a quite big piece of his middle fingertip was missing, and a small piece of the ring fingertip was hanging from the finger, connected to it only by a thin piece of skin. John hissed, and immediately put his fingers into his mouth, hoping he would be able to stop the bleeding in this way, but it was too intense; he felt his mouth filling up with hot blood. It was coming out of the wounds, and its metallic taste was instantly perceptible.

He took a bigger step, to walk over the belt remains, and turned the tap on. A splash of cold water brought him some kind of relief, as it was cooling down the burning fingers, but it was also at the same time quite painful. Once the water became a bit clearer, John examined his ring finger more closely, and decided he had to cut the hanging piece off the tip; the skin stripe that kept it connected with the finger was too thin to help it attach back during the healing process. He sighed heavily, cursed under his nose, touched the piece of the fingertip and quickly tore it off. He hissed through his teeth and groaned when he saw the tiny piece of his flesh lying on the sink bottom and observed it being taken away by the water down the drain.

Half an hour later, his fingers weren’t bleeding so much anymore, so John put a bandage around them both, and realized he had to change his clothes because both his shirt and pants were covered in blood stains.

As he was doing his best to button up his new pants using one hand and preventing touching anything with the bandaged and horribly painful fingers of the other one, his cell phone rang. John thought that perhaps it was his boss finally calling him back, but the display showed Paul’s number. John sat on the bed, the pants were now hanging down from his knees, and he answered.

“Yeah, Paul?”

“Hi, John, how’s going?”

John looked at his left hand, thought about the belt remains in the kitchen and only sighed. “It’s all right.”

“That good, huh, ha, ha, okay, I see,” Paul laughed. “Listen, I am calling to ask if maybe you’d like to come to the club tonight, have some fun, you know, relax a bit. We haven’t seen each other for a while, and I’ve been wondering where you’re at, like, you know, what’s happening?”

At first John wanted to decline, to say he wasn’t in the mood for any partying, but on the other hand, why the hell not? He was alone, Molly wasn’t around, he didn’t feel like spending the rest of the day having nobody to talk to, and, well, with all that shit the was happening around him, he surely did deserve some slack.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll come; thanks for calling,” John said and for the first time in a few days he felt at least better. Uplifted. At least a bit.

“Awesome, so I’ll see you here around eight? Sound good?”

“Sounds great, see you there.”

Eight o’clock sounded really good, because John had one thing to take care of before the party. He finally dressed up, took some Aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, put a small package of Advil in his pocket and left the apartment.

About an hour later, he parked his car in front of the office building where the company he worked for had its floor. He walked inside, called the elevator and, as he walked out of it a few seconds later, he immediately spotted two things. One was that there was no company logo hanging above the receptionist office anymore, and two that, basically, there was apparently no company anymore whatsoever. The whole floor was being redecorated, and there were men wearing uniforms walking around everywhere. There was plastic on the floors, protecting them from paint stains, and there was new furniture in the boxes, ready to be unpacked, and the smell of paint filled the entire space.

Confused, and completely taken aback, John walked to one of the men, making sure he wasn’t stepping on anything moist and stain-causing.

“Hi, excuse me,” he said.

“Yeah?” the man turned and faced John.

“Um, what’s going on here?”

“Guess it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” The man smirked and shook his head pointing to the area.

“Well, yeah, but, what happened? When did you start doing this?”

“About a month ago, we’re actually finishing. The floors are new; the furniture is here…” He was pointing at the new things with his index finger, “What, you used to work here?”

“I did, actually, yes,” John said and nodded. He was looking around during the conversation and still couldn’t quite comprehend what exactly he was witnessing.

“We’re only preparing the office for the new people. You should talk to the building’s administration if you want to know such things,” the man replied, shook his head and walked away.

“Yeah, I’ll do that, thank you,” John replied not sure if the man even heard him. He took one more look around and decided to go down to the first floor and get some answers.

Half an hour later, he stormed out of the building with his skull pulsing with anger. John came back to his car, rapidly opened the door and closed it with a loud bang. He then took out three Advil, swallowed them and closed his eyes. He leaned his head on the seat’s headrest and tried to put his thoughts together in one, preferably logical, piece.

The company he had worked for didn’t exist anymore. The building administrator informed him that the firm disappeared about two months ago. From the administrator’s perspective it was a pretty big problem, because the company hadn’t paid its rent for months and left without squaring its debt. Now, John’s boss was wanted by the police not only for that, but also for not paying the bank loan for almost a whole year. He was also suspected of defrauding some large sums of money. Not to mention that there were anti-poaching organizations on his ass co-operating with suitable law enforcement bodies to get him for organizing illegal hunting trips.

John couldn’t believe what he was hearing, couldn’t understand how the owner never warned him, never contacted him, never gave him a hint that soon there might be no job for him and for the rest of the people working for them. Now he really wasn’t able to pay for the nice apartment, and since there was almost nothing left of his savings, he wasn’t sure if he had any perspective of renting anything at all. What the fuck was he going to do now?

John completely lost any appetite for partying, and was already reaching to his pocket to get his phone and tell Paul he wasn’t coming after all, but it occurred to him it might actually be a good idea meeting his friend that evening after all. He started his car.

***

John arrived at the club just before seven p.m. The music was already pounding, but there weren’t too many people there yet, only some single clients sitting by the bar and a few small groups hanging in the lounges upstairs. John raised his left hand to the bartender, Scott, who waved him back and shouted “Ouch!” pointing at the bandaged fingers. John only shrugged his shoulders in a “what can you do” gesture, and went straight to the staff only area, to Paul’s office. He knocked on the door and walked in.

“Hi, you’re a bit early,” Paul said, and walked toward him to shake his hand.

“Yeah, I know, sorry about that,” John replied, took his jacket off and put it on the sofa next to the door.

“What the hell happened there? What’s this?” Paul asked pointing to John’s bandaged fingers.

“Nothing serious, I was just chopping my lunch a bit too passionately,” John said and they both laughed.

“Maybe you should eat out more often; you know, for your own safety,” Paul said.

“Maybe, although I don’t know what’s worse, having my fingers cut like that, or having my whole body contaminated with processed fast food.”

“Ah, right; Molly is talking through you, I get it,” Paul laughed, “She’s getting under your skin.”

John looked at him and thought he really did say something that Molly would have said. Maybe it was good they weren’t going to live together anymore.

“Well, I’m moving out, so who knows, maybe this will save me, otherwise organic and bio-dynamic will become my number one adjectives. At least now I can still pronounce them with a slight shiver down my spine, so they’re not in my system yet.” John laughed and sat on the sofa next to the door. Paul got a bottle of whiskey from his small cabinet hidden elegantly in his desk, and poured them both a portion. The ice in the glasses clinked pleasantly when Paul reached out to John and handed him his glass.

“You are? So fast? Damn, John, you’re getting faster and faster with this whole breaking up thing,” he said and drank a sip. “It must be a matter of experience.”

“Thank you,” John replied, taking the glass, drank a bit and leaned on the sofa. His right hand was stretched on the furniture’ back. “Well, I need to explain myself why I am here so early and update you on a few things concerning my life.”

“I’m listening.”

John drank some more whiskey, licked his lips and looked at his friend.

“The company I worked for is gone.”

“Gone?” Paul raised his eyebrows.

“Yes. It vaporized. Disappeared. Became non-existent.”

“When?”

“Officially two months ago, but I think it’s obvious it was all planned. The owner had major debts, and they weren’t paying bank loans nor rent for months. The building administrator said they moved out within a day. Poof,” John snapped his fingers, “just like that. One big floor with four offices and an open space. Disappeared in one day.”

“Jesus. How did you find out?”

“I wasn’t getting any phone calls; I haven’t had any jobs from them for months. I realized my savings were vanishing, so I tried to call them, tried to find out what was happening. Nobody answered. I went there, and I met a redecorating company working their asses off to make the new owner happy with the new office design.”

“Crap. I can’t believe this. And they never told you anything?”

“Nope.” John drank two sips. “Nothing. If it wasn’t for me calling and going there, hell, I’d still have no idea when I’d have found out.”

“What did Molly say?”

“She doesn’t know. I don’t think she’d even want to know. She told me to move out, and I have about ten more days before she comes back home and I’m supposed to be gone by then.”

“Why? What the hell did you do this time?”

“Nothing. This time it wasn’t me. She said she wasn’t interested in a steady, normal relationship and that I was more fun when I was coming to her from time to time and that living with me is turning her life upside down a bit too much,” John replied with a mean grin on his face.

“Oh my God, she beat you, it finally happened, you finally got kicked in the nuts!” Paul burst out laughing, “Oh dear God, you must have been surprised; man I wish I had seen your face!”

“Well, it’s not exactly funny,” John replied seriously. “I don’t have a job, any savings, and I have no place to live. I mean, it’s not funny.”

“Right, right, oh God, I’m so sorry,” Paul said and sighed. “Rent something.”

“From what? I have no income. And I’m basically broke,” John said and bent a bit as he put his elbows on his thighs.

“Sell your car. It’ll help you pay the rent for a few months while you’re looking for a new job.”

“Sell my car? Are you insane? I would rather sell my mother,” John replied. He wanted it to sound funny, but it didn’t exactly work out that way. To tell the truth, he felt quite offended with the idea. He was not the kind of a guy to sell his car, to get rid of anything he owned, for that matter, in order to survive. That’s what losers did. People who were desperate. He wasn’t. He was better than the whole mess he had to deal with.

“Well, if you have a better idea, share it with me, I’m really curious,” Paul replied, finished his whiskey and put the glass on the coffee table.

“I do have one. Two actually,” said John while finishing his drink. He kept the glass in his hands and was now delicately playing with it, rolling it between his palms.

“What are they?”

“You could help me out, my friend.”

“How exactly?”

“Well,” John sighed, and put his glass on the coffee table, next to Paul’s, leaned on the sofa again and looked at him. “I understand the club is doing fine, I mean, you could make me a co-owner? Or perhaps, you might think of opening a new one, you know, create a franchise, and I could own the other one?”

Paul raised his eyebrows in surprise, but said nothing, allowing John to speak.

“Also, I have been thinking about that apartment you have, the one that was being furnished some weeks ago. I could stay there. For free for now, until I start making some money again, but, you know, I will start paying you eventually. Or, you could just reduce my co-owner salary and subtract the rent money, to simply keep it in your pocket. What do you think? We used to spend some pretty nice time there, perhaps the good days may come back?”

Paul took a deep breath and slowly released the air through his nostrils. Paul was looking at John and he knew that things weren’t going to go as smoothly as he was counting on.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do any of those things for you,” Paul finally said with regret in his voice. The way he said also indicated that he wasn’t going to change his mind. Not easily at least.

“Oh come on, man, why not?” John asked. He felt both angry and extremely disappointed. Didn’t Paul understand that he came here because he had nowhere else to go and nobody else to ask for help? Wasn’t it enough of a reason to agree on his ideas?

“Well, first of all, the apartment is already sold, and I am not planning on buying a new one any time soon.”

“Jesus, Paul, I may be facing becoming homeless in the nearest future, don’t you get it?” John hissed angrily through his teeth.

“Not if you sell your car. Come on, you can’t have the cake and eat the cake every time, don’t you get it? You can help yourself immediately, but you’re whining about becoming homeless. That’s bullshit. Total bullshit. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you needed a kidney, I don’t know, some huge amount of money for an expensive medical treatment, or something like that, I’d be the first person to help you, but not when you’re too comfortable to help yourself. While you can,” Paul said. He was speaking slowly, in a resolute way, as if he was explaining to his teenaged son that because he hadn’t improved his grades, he wouldn’t be able to go camping with his friends.

“So what, you’re going to give me lectures now?” John scoffed, got up, and put his hands in his pockets.

“No, but maybe treat me as the voice of reason?” Paul replied and also got up.

“And what about the job?”

“Don’t you know there’s nothing worse for a friendship than a common business? We’re good together, why would you want to risk it?”

“No, seriously, don’t give me that crap.”

“Oh, John, for crying out loud,” Paul sighed. “I’m sorry, the answer is no.”

“Oh come on, you know I am good at organizing stuff, you know that I can manage big projects.”

“I also know that you chose partying with me here in the club or elsewhere instead of helping your son prepare a presentation for school, or doing the housework Margaret was asking you to do.”

John scoffed.

“I’m sorry, but you’re just not reliable. You’re a great guy to have fun with, but any serious things, like managing a company, because FYI, this club is a company, it needs to make money, it gives people salaries, so it isn’t something I would easily choose to offer you.”

“Look,” John said as he sat down again. “I know what it all looked like, although, God forbid you never felt too bad about calling me and inviting me, partying and taking dope with me, but it’s a different thing if I’m responsible for something. Then it’s a whole other ballgame.”

“John, you’re not even acting as if you were responsible for your own kid. You left Margaret, whatever, but how many times have you called Mickey?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just saying that if you’re not responsible for a kid, who, by the way, is your son, and you don’t even bother to call him, see him, ask him how he’s doing, if you weren’t responsible enough to do your best and keep your family together, then how am I supposed to trust you to come here and manage things? I mean, I can certainly imagine you coming here every night and having a free party with drinks you, technically, don’t have to pay for, but it’s not a game. It’s a business. It’s a job.”

“I can learn.”

“My club is not a lab animal. Start your own company and prove you can be a responsible manager, then we’ll talk.”

“You son of a bitch,” John hissed, and took his jacket from the sofa, “you never seemed to care about my family life before.”

“It wasn’t my business, you’re a grown-up. But if you’re coming to me for that kind of help, then your lifestyle kind of becomes my business. You know you can lower your living costs instantly, you can save some money, get a regular job, and then perhaps be credible for some banks to get a loan and start your own thing. You gotta make some changes, man, it’s not like you’re the universe’s puppy and it will always save your ass without any effort from your side.”

“Fuck you, Mr. Pious, we both know who you really are, so why don’t you save yourself some breath and stop making up this crap!” John exclaimed and stormed out of the office slamming the door as strongly as he could, causing a picture hanging above the sofa to fall down.

While on his way out, he walked to the bar, asked Scott to give him a double Scotch, drank it instantly, and told him Paul said it was on the house. Then he asked for a chaser and as he was marching angrily back to his car, he saw a group of special needs children with their three caregivers, collecting money in metal cans. One of the caregivers came to John and, smiling widely, asked him kindly to throw some change to the can as they are trying to repair the leaky roof of the building where the children live. John stopped, looked at her, peeked at the kids walking around the parking lot again, then at the woman and finally bent to her a bit and said through his teeth, “Get your retards back home, someone may accidentally hit them while driving.”

“Excuse me?” She looked at him, very surprised, and blinked a few times.

“You heard what I said,” John repeated and opened the doors of his Land Cruiser. He was just about to get in, when she patted him on the shoulder. He turned around.

“Your breath reeks of alcohol; I wouldn’t be driving if I were you,” the woman said.

“Fuck off,” he hissed and closed the door. As he turned the key, he watched as the woman walked to the front of his car, took out her phone, and took a picture of his license plate. He lowered his window and shouted,

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Spare some change for the special needs kids, or the police are going to find out you’re driving under the influence,” she said firmly, walking closer to the door.

John was breathing heavily; his nostrils were delicately vibrating. He felt the anger inside of him growing, becoming stronger with every second. Stupid bitch. He reached to his wallet and threw a fifty-dollar bill into her can.

She rattled it a bit, looked at him, smiled again and said, “Thank you, sir, now you can tell all your friends how you graciously helped a bunch of retards. I am sure such things are scrupulously counted in heaven.”

John closed his window, showed the woman his middle finger and drove off. While on his way back home, he kept on nervously looking at the rearview mirror to make sure the woman didn’t actually call the cops and there was no patrol behind him. In order to avoid any unpleasant encounter with the police, he was driving as much by the book as possible. No over-speeding, not even by a mile. It wasn’t the first time he drove after having some drinks, or beer, normally he wouldn’t have cared, but this time the threat of the police sitting on his ass was far more practical rather than theoretical, so there was no need to provoke the fate and enhance the chances of getting caught.

When he came back home, he took the bandage off his fingers, biting his lips due to the pain he felt while doing it, washed his fingertips, or better yet, what was left of them, delicately with peroxide and decided to take a shower. A few minutes later, he was standing in the shower, washing himself with his right hand only and trying not to touch anything with his left middle and ring fingers. He was intensively thinking what to do now, and how to handle his problems. He felt betrayed by Paul, whose reaction to his problems was everything but what he was expecting. It was the second time during the last few days that someone surprised him so much and left him without any alternative.

When John washed his belly, he felt the pain in the rib area once more. It was much less intensive; his body was healing. Yet when he walked out of the shower, he noticed that the bruises were hardly visible at all. He recalled Molly asking him about them some days ago. He told her Margaret got so furious when he told her he was leaving her that she threw a metal candlestick at him. Molly bought it. At that time, John thought she perhaps bought it because she was so naive. Now, he was sure she bought it, because she didn’t really care where the bruises came from.

John dried his hair with a towel, brushed his teeth, put a fresh bandage on his fingers and went to the bedroom. He was about to face the last night during which he was to get some sleep.