Don't Let Me Die In A Motel 6 or One Woman's Struggle Through The Great Recession (31 page)

Still
,
w
hen she was with me this third time, I
didn’t see any signs of drinking.
And trust me, Reader, I know the signs
.
T
urned
out some
19
year-
old guy she’d met on the bus
(I’ll
call him “Asshole”)
had kept her well-supplied with booze.
Then she
stayed out long enough so she didn’t come home drunk.
As far as drugs. . .she mentioned “5
20
” a lot, street slang for pot.
It wouldn't have surprised me if she’d been
toking with Willie Nelson
, or
shooting up with the ghost of
Kurt Cobain.

6.
   
No impulsive decisions
.
Let me give just one example:
s
he was planning to marry
Asshole
.
After she’d known him for a week.
I know – I accepted Nigel’s
proposal after three days, but we
had
corresponded for six months prior.
We were also what you call “
of age.
”

7.
   
No angry outbursts/
NO VERBAL ABUSE.
Har har.
Aurora lashed into me one night so
stingingly
, it almost made me feel bad.

“Your sister is right – you spend all your money and waste it on stupid shit!
You’ll never
get a job, ‘cause y
ou’re fat, ugly and
stupid
!
You’re not my Mom
–
you’re just some bitch I’ve known for four years!”

I say “almost” because after her and Nigel, I was immune to personal insults
.
While she detonated, I kept
playing
online
Solitaire

8.
   
Yo
u are responsible for cleaning up after yourself.
That includes the kitchen & bathroom
.
What do you think, Reader? I would come home to find empty
Coke cans carpeting
the
carpe
t; spaghetti sauce splattered
on
floor, counters, and stove; dog poop left where it
fell
.
Lovely.

9.
   
Take Angel for a walk every day at 5 PM
.
She was rarely
at
home for this duty.
She was
too
busy cruising the bus, meeting strangers who became BFFs in a flash.

10.
Boyfriends must be around your own age
.
Except for
Asshole, ostensibly.
It was a bad replay of David.

11.
 
Simply let me know and we will get birth control
.
I had gone with her
before
to the clinic. This time, s
he never asked me, and
God
knows how many guys she was
“dating
.
”
I only hoped that they used
protection.

12.
MUST
take medication daily
.
Aurora had escaped
from Hollywood
sans
meds
, and she
refused to
get any new ones.
She was running around, feral,
her R.A.D. and Defiance
Disorder
spilling over her
5’2”
frame
and into the streets of L.A.

13.
No visits to the mall (or anywhere else) alone, unless you are going to meet a friend
.
Considering that she would
run
into
the night, this
rule was in ruins,
like
the roof of the
Parthenon
.

14.
No driving by yourself
.
Being such a
“
nice
”
person, I had been giving Aurora driving lessons
.
She repaid me by regularly stealing my car and driving to who-knows-where.
Of course, I hid my keys.
Along with my
cash
and
debit card
.
And my prescription cancer drugs.
A
nice
way to live, right?
It was almos
t as fun
as
prison.

Speaking of which:
It was midnight.
Aurora had been gone all day, and I didn’t know where she was.
RING, RING!
I got a call.
It was the Sheriff’s Substation at Universal Studios.
Aurora had been picked up, and they wanted me to come for her.

Now this was a school
/work
night, and I was far from pleased.
I showed up at the shuttered CityWalk,
which looked
sad
without
all
its neon.
I walked through deserted streets and came to a small alcove.
This was it.
I opened the door, and
was faced with a uniformed deputy.

“Your daugh
ter says you knew she was here.”

“NO.”
Internal
ly,
“Bullshit!”

“She was with a 19
year-old male.”

“
Asshole,
”
I
mumbled.

“Let me bring her out to you.”
She disappeared
around a corner
,
then
re-emerged
with
a
defiant Aurora.
Asshole
, hidden beneath
a floppy hat, slumped
his way
out the door.

Silently, I walked with her through the dead attraction.
I was too angry to speak.
She looked at me
cool
l
y
.
“Chill,” she said.

It was 1 A.M., and I was at Universal Studios
–
not
to
take the tram ride
.
Just like in the movies, I had to take deep breaths to suppress the
urge
to kill.
We didn’t talk on the way back.
After
we got home, she slipped out the door.
I was at the point where I
simply didn’t give a fuck.

The next day
.
My cellphone rang.
Now i
t
was the LAPD.
Jesus!
Next time I turned around, the Coast Guard would
be there
, in flippers.

“You have a daughter Aurora?”

Between gritted teeth.
“Yes.
What’s she done now?”

“We found her in a
Hollywood motel
with a
19
year-old male.
Did you want to come and get her?”

“Hold on.”
I thought –
and thought.
In truth, I couldn't go on.
The cancer had weakened me, and Aurora would
finish me off
, laughing as
my blood splattered her
sword
.
I
did what I should have two years ago – I
called the DCFS.
I told them to come get
her:
that
after three
attempts
of caring for her
,
I was
through
.
They did, and
put her in psychiatric
care
, which
she needed.
Since
Californ
ia was
umpteen billion
in debt,
her stay
lasted
two
whole
week
s
.
After that, it was
Group Home #3, Estrella Vista.
This was
a Level 14 –
the highest on the scale, the Alcatraz of the system.

I
perform
ed
a
sad
post mortem
:
how had I failed again
?
I
wasn’t exactly Mom
Of the Year
, but
you couldn't say I hadn’t tried
.
Aurora, post-Oakland, had intermittent lucidity, like the pause between
fireworks blasts.
I knew this about R.A.D. kids:
they were very into self-sabotage.
Since they
believed they didn’t deserve them
,
they would blow themselves out of their homes.
Aurora had blown out of mine with the force of a bunker buster.

This explosion was heard
in Seattle,
1,100
miles away.
There, Nigel celebrated, since Aurora was
back
on the market.

Let’s turn away from Aurora,
now
safe in Estrella Vista
, to address more mundane matters.
What, you ask indignantly, happened to my desperate job search?
The one where I
worked
ten
hours a day trying to
find
anything
?
I basically never stopped
.
M
id
way through radiation,
I received two interview
offers
!
One was for a
full-time
FileMaker
gig
,
and seemed
like a
perfect
fit
.
But something
inconceivable happened:
I had to call and cancel.
I was so weak,
so wrecked in body and mind from
cancer – not the disease, but
the
treatment
–
that
my will, normally
diamond-hard
,
softened like pounded gold.

My days – and months – were spent playing
online
Solitaire.
I could not read a book.
I could not
watch
a movie.
I wondered if I would ever be
compos
mentis
again.
There
is
a
side effect
in Cancer World – the worst one –
known as
Chemo Brain.
Women who’d once been
CPAs
find
they
can
no longer
add
.
Had this
already
happened to me
, after a single dose?
Would I
end up on
disability
by the crazy lady at the post office?

These
were the toughest of days
.
The
only time I was not
horizontal
was when I drove to radiation and put on
my little
smock.
Then, I would crawl to a Mexican restaurant for my only meal of the day.
With each blast of that machine,
I felt a piece of myself vanish
.
I was a neutron star,
a supernova remnant.
I had blown off my
outer
layer
and now
spun quickly in place, going nowhere.

Now
wait a second
, you say.
How can you even get
nowhere
?
Wasn’t Nigel’s car
up
in Seattle
?
And wasn’t
your
truck
jacked
by the repo man? (
who I only hope
looked like Emilio Estevez
!
).
Yes
,
and yes.
But t
his was L.A., and
without wheels, I might as well be homeless.
Getting them
would be
difficult, as: