Lithium, Chptr. 6 – Xperience Fiction

Lithium, Chptr. 6 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.

Mel exploded a hotdog in the microwave. So did Andy. Mel’s was by accident, Andy’s, not so much, but Mel welcomed the culinary company. They managed to cook the remaining hot dogs and a can of beans in a plastic container they had to buy at the store. They also had to buy a ten dollar can opener; needed, but money they didn’t have. Andy gave him an alternative he learned about on the internet whereby you rub the top of a can back and forth against concrete until the seal sanded off. Mel thought it was neat, but he didn’t figure they would be anywhere with sanitary concrete. But can openers didn’t last forever, so he tucked the info.

They ate and had conversation, which ordinarily Mel discouraged, but in what truly was a fleabag motel, it was welcome.

“We could live on a fishing boat,” Andy said. “We could catch crabs or tuna and be on TV like on Savage Water. They make tons of money and they get to do adventures every day.”

“They won’t let you anywhere near one of those boats, cause you’re too young. But I like where your head is.”

“What about a farm? Baling hay and milking cows; we can live in a barn if we have to,”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Mel said. “But it’s March; they won’t be baling hay right now.”

“Tommy Perrone lives on a farm. He’s in my class.”

Mel stirred his beans around the plastic container that they were sharing. “What farm does he live on if he goes to your school.”

“He said it’s across the river,” Andy said. “Sick something.”

“Sycaway?”

“Maybe. He says baling hay is hard, but it builds muscles. He’s the strongest kid in my class.”

“I’ll bet,” Mel said. “But are you ready to get up at four in the morning?”

“That’s pretty early. I’d have to go to bed right after dinner.”

“You might, at first. You’d probably be able to stay up a little later, like eight o’clock. As long as you get eight hours.”

“They use machines to milk cows.”

“Big farms,” Mel said. “Even most little farms. But they’d probably have you doing smaller stuff like taking care of chickens. Milking cows is probably like a science these days.”

They finished their meals and cleaned up. Mel expected Andy to go for the remote, but he didn’t. He sat on the bed with his feet hanging off. His eyes were on the tips of his socks.

“Could you ever build that home? The one you painted?”

Mel thought about it. He didn’t want to make a claim to his son that he could never honor. Not intentionally.

“I used perspective and made as accurate a design as I could,” he said. “I believe it could be built. Maybe not by me, though.”

“Even the palm trees?”

“I got that from an article I read, about these tiny homes in Hawaii that were built for people on the streets. They had everything… including palm trees.”

“So, you could build it in Hawaii.”

“Or anywhere palm trees grow, like California, or the Gulf Coast.”

Andy was quiet, seemingly rolling the thought in his head. He always thought before he spoke. Mel wondered how Andy could be his kid, for more reasons than who his mother was.

“Were you on the phone with mom?” He asked.

“Yeah. She called.”

Andy swung his feet back on the bed. “Was it about me?”

He wanted to spare Andy the pain of knowing it was. As the parent of an eleven-year-old, it may have been his obligation to lie, but it was yet another obligation he’d shirk.

“Yes and no. She was worried about our child support agreement now that we’re out and about. But it wasn’t really about you; just your mother making threats she has no intention of carrying out.”

Even the bad decision of full honesty was impossible to carry out.

“Is she gonna’ try to get me?”

“She won’t succeed. I won’t let her.”

“You may not have a choice,” Andy said.

Mel sat next to him on the bed and put his hand on his shoulder, turning Andy to face him.

“If I have to fill the tank up and drive us to Hawaii to get away from your mother, get one of those mini houses, I will.”

“You’ll need a boat,” Andy said.

“More like a plane, Hawaii is a hike off the west coast.”

Andy smiled. “If we took a boat, we could fish along the way.”

They watched network television, a first for them in a long time. One of the shows was about two artists living in an apartment in New York City.

“There’s no way two artists with no other jobs can keep that apartment,” Mel said.

“The rent there would be five- or six grand a month. Nobody’s buying that much art. They gotta’ have rich parents.”

“It would be cool if grandma was rich,” Andy said.

“It would, but it wouldn’t do anybody any good. The nursing home would just suck it all away.”

“Are we gonna’ visit her again?”

“I’d like to,” Mel said. “She doesn’t remember me. When I go there, she thinks I’m her brother who died in Vietnam.”

“I hope you never forget me, Dad.”

“I hope if I do, you’re well off enough in life to handle it.”

The night descended into madness outside of their four walls. Behind the wall holding the television, a man and woman threw staccato screams at each other like Zeus and Hera wrestling with divine infidelities. The smell of pot, not unknown to Andy, wafted through what Mel assumed was a shared ventilation system. He might as well have been smoking it in the bathroom with the door wide open.

He didn’t want to go outside, but he needed to make sure the minivan’s doors were locked. He walked out to a sloppy, unshaven, drunk man in a robe leaning against the wall and pissing on either the wall or himself. He coughed up phlegm and spat it in Mel’s direction, oblivious to Mel even being there.

“Hey, you really gotta’ pee here?”

The man turned his head, but his eyes stayed put.

“Any port in a storm.” He chuckled and his stream picked up renewed vigor.

Mel secured the car and went back inside. He propped a chair under the door handle even though neither was sturdy enough to survive more than a hard knock.

***

Throwing up is never pleasant but throwing up with a sleeping kid in the next room was a torture of acoustics, Mel sat on the toilet after the fact, his face sweat-slick and the fleeting euphoria that comes with emptying his stomach.

He knew it wasn’t anything he ate. It was the result of half-a-night staring at the ceiling, his mind forming a conveyor belt of things to worry about. Andy. Debra. The money running out. How would they eat? Where would they sleep? How will they keep the car once the payment is a month past due? He looked at a hundred scenarios where they would live and a hundred scenarios where they would perish, and he thought about what he would say at Social Services, and how they would look at him and Andy, and how they would treat him.

He was on public assistance when he first got diagnosed. It was when he debated going on disability; rather, it was when he was denied disability because he once had a job painting and they told him he could still paint if he was crazy. Eventually, he took that cue and worked a string of jobs he could work while crazy, but at first, the new meds were a free-for-all of side-effects; he couldn’t find jobs that wouldn’t can him when he got sick and lost time. So, he had not-so-fond memories of the welfare line.

He got off the toilet and looked down at the mess. His morning meds were in there somewhere. Or part of them. Or none of them. He couldn’t just take more and risk doubling up on mood stabilizers. Especially not when he had to take Andy to the poverty confessional.

The door opened and Andy poked his head inside and yawned.

“You okay, dad?”

“Yeah, kiddo,” he said. “I don’t think those beans agreed with me. I’ll be out in a second.”

Andy shut the door and Mel flushed. No use crying over spilt pills. And no use worrying in general. Either Social Services would help or they wouldn’t. He still had the minivan. He still had two-hundred and sixty dollars, card and cash. And they still had two extra nights at the motel if they were brave enough to use it.

As he was gargling with water from the sink to take the wretch off his breath, he remembered Arelda from Helping Hands. If they struck out, he could always go back. At least he could tell her he tried.

All of that weighed on him, but it was all just a heavy coat compared to the military backpack that was Debra, and her threat. She could get Andy, even if she didn’t want him. She could do it for spite, and he knew damned well his son would become a voodoo doll she’d use to take out her frustrations on Mel. She was well practiced at it from when they were together. Days of not talking to Andy because of some perceived slight she had against Mel. And that was when she wasn’t taking her frustrations out on Andy because there were no friends around to impress with her parenting skills.

Mel understood that he wasn’t easy, but he always loved his kid, even when depression robbed him of the personal pleasure of feeling love; he still showed Andy everything he knew to be love. And when he was manic, or even slightly manic, he made Andy his copilot on every flight of fancy. He even taught Andy how to paint, though he didn’t have Mel’s eye. It didn’t matter.

And Debra would take that all away in a courtroom dressed in her only respectable outfit. Mel couldn’t allow it. He had a mission that day.

They stopped at Acorn for coffee and egg sandwiches before taking off for Albany. The Social Services building was downtown, about seven miles down the interstate, and they hit it just as the morning rush hit. They managed to make it there just shy of seven-thirty, when they found a place to park. There was a line down the handicap ramp, and they took their place.

“Is this all for public assistance?” He asked a woman in front of him.

“Some of it’s for Medicaid,” she said. “Probably fifty-fifty.”

‘So you’ve been here before.”

“We’ve all been here before, babe.”

“So the same as before.”

The woman hiked her purse back up on her shoulder. “At least it ain’t cold.”

Mel tried to engage her in small talk, maybe learn something, but each of her answers to his questions were shorter than the last. He stopped trying in time for the line to start moving.

Mel had a number; 23. It was his lifeline, and how he told time, since hours and minutes were irrelevant in a waiting room without a clock. He tried not to clock-watch on his phone. Andy was bored as hell, and Mel realized that boredom was going to be a staple for Andy if they had to keep navigating the system.

“Are all these people homeless like us?” He asked.

“No idea,” Mel said. “Probably not. Everyone’s hurting though.”

“It smells like skunk in here.”

“Maybe someone got sprayed.” Mel noticed it, too, but didn’t want to talk weed with his eleven-year-old.

“23.”

Mel and Andy got up and walked over to the booth, covered in bulletproof glass.

“What’s your name?”

“Mel Miller.”

“What are you here for?”

“We need emergency assistance,” Mel said. “We’re homeless.”

The man pointed to his left, where a man was seated in a non-bulletproof both with a social worker.

“Have a seat over there,” he said. “They’ll call you.”

They waited another hour before the woman called him.

“Okay, let’s see here…” She looked over the intake form. “So you two are homeless right now.”

“Yes, ma’am. We were evicted two days ago.”

“Okay.” She pulled out a large, odd-sized paper and started checking off boxes. When she was done, she turned it over so he could see it, not that it made sense to him. She pointed to some of the checks.

“What I need is your ID, some proof of your resources like a bank statement, and the eviction notice. Did you bring these things?”

“Uh, no. I didn’t know I needed them. I’m sorry.”

“Are you able to get them?”

“I left my eviction notice in my old apartment. I still have access to it for another day. As far as the bank statement, can I get that at the bank?”

“Probably.”

Mel pulled out his driver’s license. “I have this.”

“Just hold on to it. You’re going to have to come back with the things checked off on this paper and start over.”

“Well, can you tell me what kind of assistance I can get?”

“It all depends,” she said. “You’ll have to come back. Try to come back today if you can. We might be able to help you today if you do.”

“Okay, thanks.” Mel took Andy, the odd-sized sheet of paper in his hand like a pitiful treasure map.

***

Pulling off the highway at the Watervliet exist was hollow. Normally it would mean the travails of the day had been conquered and the castle awaited, but that day it felt like the castle had been sacked, and they were going to scavenge.

Mel would’ve wanted, more than anything, to rent a storage space, or leave his stuff in a friend’s spare room or garage. But friends were hard to come by; Debra saw to that when they were married, taking every step in her dance repertoire to alienate him from the people he grew up with. He imagined that if any of them answered his calls at all, they’d be all but familiar strangers now, offering nothing more than small talk. He thought perhaps he should’ve asked Terrence to borrow some storage space, but he figured he blew his chance.

So the minivan would have to suffice as storage space, and, eventually, living space, which would put the storage space at a premium.

They stopped in the bodega to pick up a coffee and a soda, and Mel counted his change, and the remainder of their cash. If he couldn’t find his eviction notice before tomorrow, when Larry promised to bring the dumpster, they’d have to live off that money as far as they could.

He turned the corner to see the dumpster already out front. His diaphragm tightened, sweat greeted his forehead. He had another day. Please Larry, don’t pull this shit. He pulled up behind the dumpster and climbed up to look inside. He saw his couch, his bookcase, the beds – all the big furniture. What he didn’t see was anything else. No papers, dishes, and none of his paintings, which would’ve been especially heartbreaking.

“Scumbag,” Mel said. “I was supposed to have until tomorrow.”

“Can you get him in trouble?” Andy said.

“I’d need a lawyer; it would be a whole thing for furniture I can’t put anywhere. He can go to hell, though.”

They walked up to the door. Mel grabbed his key and fidgeted with the lock. No go. He turned the key upside down with the same result. The sweat came back.

“He changed the locks already, the sonofabitch!”

Mel pounded on the door, hoping Larry would come out. Hoping that if Mel popped him in the face and he called the cops, for once they would get there and say that a shitty landlord got what he deserved. But just making him let Mel and Andy in would suffice.

The door opened, but it was Bernie, not Larry.

“Yeah, he changed the locks. I told him you’d be back for your stuff, but he said you’d have to call him.”

“The hell with that,” Mel said. “He broke the eviction order. I can get in upstairs. There’s a trick to the door, doesn’t matter what lock he puts on, especially not the cheap ones he uses.”

“I’m see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” Bernie mimicked the chimps. “Have at it.”

Mel got in easy enough, but he made Andy sit outside in the hallway. If he was going to B&E, he was going to do it alone.

The apartment looked like a derecho hit it. It was tough seeing everything they owned trampled on unceremoniously. He wanted to blame Larry for not being delicate with his things, but aside from breaking the terms of the order, he had no real reason to be delicate. It was garbage to him, just as much of it would be garbage to Mel if he did have a space somewhere.

He hoped that Larry didn’t throw his papers across the rooms as he tore out the furniture. Of course, he didn’t; the piles of papers sat where the stands and his desk once stood. He needed the eviction order, and he needed proof of his expenses, which right then meant the car payment, insurance both car and medical, and his phone bill. And he quickly found the bills for them all. In fact, he found about five pounds of those bills, which he gathered up in his arms.

He went in the back room, the last place he remembered seeing the eviction notice. And indeed it was on his painting desk, secured under a can of paint thinner. His latest work was still on the easel, and it looked entrancing, even dry. He could look at it like he wasn’t the one who painted it. It was vibrant and the curves led his eye through a maze of positive and negative space. He couldn’t just let the painting go in the trash heap. He backed up from the painting and glanced at the collection of canvases piled up on the far wall. None of them could end up in Larry’s dumpster.

He picked up as many canvases as he could, starting with the most current. He would have loved to have Andy’s help, but he still wasn’t letting his kid dance the fine line of the law. It made everything even harder because he couldn’t just hand things to Andy to bring down. Stolen property: granted it was a dubious claim, and he was stealing his own property, but the cops rarely sided with tenants. The courts neither. He watched Just Jenny. She saw tenants as criminals-in-training.

He brought the paintings down three at a time. By the time he was ready for the last load, the paintings took up the area behind the back row of seats. He knew there was no way to keep them if they had to hit the road. But he would sooner burn them all in an artistic ritual than let Larry junk them.

Andy had the last painting in his hands when Mel came back up.

“Put it down,” he said. “I don’t want you to be an accessory.”

“Accessory to what?”

“Me having to side-step the lock.”

“But it’s yours,” Andy said. “When Junior stole my lunch once, he said possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

“Yeah, well that works many ways,” Mel said. “Cause Larry had possession of a new lock.” He looked inside one last time and allowed Andy to poke his head inside for his own last look. Then he shut the door.

“On to browner pastures,” he said.

 

 

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