Don't Let Me Die In A Motel 6 or One Woman's Struggle Through The Great Recession (18 page)

I ripped open the packet with difficulty (I’ve always had weak hands – shrink wrap is
not my friend
).
Inside, I saw a wad of gift cards,
to all of my favorite stores:
99
Cents; Ralph’s Market; ARCO.
There was a typed letter from
Rachel
:

Amy:

I didn’t know about your circumstances until Mom & Dad told me.
I am enclosing several gift cards, and I have opened up an account for you at the B of A. I will be depositing $2,000 every month.
A debit card
for the account
should
be arriving in a few days.

Hope we can get together soon,

Rachel

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I did at that moment.
It was a mixture
of relief, gratitude, and the lifting of a weight so heavy it was like Atlas throwing off the world.
So she
did
care!
I was not invisible after all!
In my pride (after all, I was the
older
sister) I had just assumed t
hat she knew
my situation
,
and simply didn’t
give a damn.
The
most
amazing part of this
tale
is that my parents hadn’
t told her.
Two Jews keeping
a secret was the
true
Miracle of Hanukkah!

For the first time in
what felt like years
, I
shook off money worries
.
Now
, I could pay my rent, buy gas
and groceries.
I could
t
ake Aurora off the Free L
unch program
and buy her some
new
clothes (P.S.: children grow).
I left a
message
for
Rachel
(she was generally unreachable) and, voice
choking, thanked her for what
she’d done.  All the harsh words and emails,
the internecine bickering, was
forgotten in a
rush
of
gratitude
.
Sh
e
had come through!
Sh
e had!
 
Like Molly Gibson in
Wives And Daughters,
she
had put herself on the line to take care of her sister!

Feeling elated, I
ran
out to
u
se the gift cards.
For the past year,
my shopping
trips
during
These Times
were those
of
a
U.S. newcomer
.
I bought as much as I could at The
99
Cent store, where the products were
from Mexico
and the
lingua
franca
Spanish.
I went to the one on De
Soto and
Sherman Way
, and
was the only white person there.
I
t didn’t matter a damn
:
t
hese were my peeps
now
; my homies
–
we all needed
to save
and so
swamped
the aisle where they were h
aving a special on
Jarritos.

I w
ent to Food 4 Less in Winnetka
–
again, the token white chick.
I saw things I’d never
seen:
cacti sold as produce;
ox tongue
as a delicacy.
You couldn't find top sir
loin but you sure as hell could
find
m
achacha
.
I didn’t care that you bagged your own grocer
ies
–
not when you were saving
forty
bucks
a
week
!

My favorite was
the check cashing
place
: let’s call mine
“
Joker
.
”
The
B of A
had put me in the CHEX system
since
I’d written a bad check so that Aurora and I could eat.
Being in CHEX was like being on S
talin’
s “This Person Must Be
Eliminated
” list.
You
were forced into
places like Joker
where everything had a fee.
Deposit a check?
That’s two-percent of the amount.
Withdrawal?
Again,
two-percent.
Write a check, say for rent?
You couldn't, so you’d
end up getting a money order
– at
three-percent
.
Those forced to frequent these places were called “the underbanked”
by the system
–
we were the
Untermenschen
of
America
, thrown into the same
pit
as the “Bad Credit”
folks
, and often, we were the same.

Early on, I went to
the Torrance branch with
$12,000
from
the fat times
, a
refunded
gift from Uncle Sam.

INT. JOKER CHECK CASHING – DAY

The Latina CASHIER behind bullet-proof glass STEPS BACK as she stares at the check.

CASHIER

¡Hay Dios Mio! ¡E
sta cantidad es muy grande, tengo

que llamar al jefe!
!

ME

  
(Spanish rusty from
twenty
years of disuse)

Qué?

CASHIER

             
(on bulky cellphone)

Carlos, t
enemo
s un problema con esta gringa --

tiene un cheque de doce mil dollares.
Qué hacemos?

             
(she listens to a lengthy response – TO ME)

OK Missy, we release $500 now, rest over two weeks.

SMASH CUT TO:

ME

But this is from the United States Treasury!

The CASHIER looks puzzled.

CASHIER

Tenemos loans – 60% interest.

ME

  
(TO CAMERA)

And they call
us
usurers?

This then was my new life:
Macys had been
exchanged for
the
Camarillo
Outlet Mall; Target
for
99
Cents;
Von’s
for
Food 4 Less;
the B of A
for
Joker.
I spent most of my time far north of the Boulevard (Ventura, for you
nonpros
). Forgotten
were
four
generations of Americans who had
first arrived
i
n 1900
, hoping for a better,
Czar-free
life.
Forgotten was their struggle to raise themselves from deli counters to those who got degrees and headed companies.
I think that my
Great-Grandma Bubbe, in her thick
glasses and thick
er
shoes,
raising
five children in Brooklyn while
stirring a giant pot
,
aced me on the stability scale
.
My great-grandfather
was a cantor, and
not
subject to a Singing Bubble.

There was one line item that really upset her.
Let me explain
another
big
difference
between
the two of
us
:
Rachel
was
not
an animal lover.
In her eyes, t
hey were
messy
creatures who
dirtied
the carpet and my nephews
weren’t allowed
a dog
until they were almost grown.
This poor thing got a bath if she so much as put a paw in grass; and suffered the undogly indignity of being sprayed with
lavender
perfume
.  I was a big anima
l person (and had big animals:
to wit, the Clydesdale
.) I would
go to an Alpaca Farm to visit the
sweet-faced
creatures who looked like Dr. Seuss
drawings
; I would attend the
Puyallup
State Fair so that I could
pet the cows.
And of course,
I loved horses and always had:
especially my own.

With the proceeds of my
WaMu
settlement,
the prior June
when I’d
caught on
at Vectron,
I had
both of them
trailered
down
.
Now what business did I have, you
ask
, puffing up lik
e a GOP Senator, your jowls
spilling over your
neck
,
to keep
horses
when
I
was
stone-ass broke
?
Lately, I
hadn’t been able
to
afford
their board,
paying
$400
at a time when I was lucky enough to
be working
.
Why then, didn’t I sell them, relieving me of
a
huge
financial burden
and getting
some
cash in the bargain
?

Let me try to express
it, Dear Reader.
Just watching them calmly chewing their hay
or enjoying
Mrs. Pastures
cookies
brought a sense of inner peace
that
for me was rarer than happiness.
I
had owned
both
of them
for six years.
I had nursed them back from
near-fatal
colic and
a serious
leg injury
.
When I was out on the trail – saddle creaking like they did in the
old
Westerns – barely touching the re
ins since Murdoch knew
what to do
–
my troubles fell away, and the days, normally
fraught
with
fear,
panic
,
and sweat, took on another aura – another era
–
and I was a cowboy riding the plains
;
a centaur whose hooves
smacked the soft dirt as I
loped slowly uphill
.
In other words, the horses gave me a reason to live.

Rachel had
no time for such lyricism
.
She was a dollar
s
-and-cents gal, and she had
plenty
of
both
.
Indulgence was not to be borne, unless you could pay for it upfront.
Pleasure must come from
hefty
principal, not monthly payment plans.