Cha-Ching!, page 17
“How many drinks do you consume in an average week?”
“Three,” Theo said.
“Do you ever use alcohol as a tool to alter your mood?”
“No. Not really.”
“Are you currently on any medication for depression?”
“No.”
Because it wasn’t obvious from the questions what population the study was serving, Theo answered each of them in a tone she hoped made her sound like a peppy sorority girl; sorority girls seemed to get things in life. She imagined the alcohol being served in a sterile, fluorescent-lit room. If given a choice, Theo didn’t want to drink whiskey, rum, vodka or rubbing alcohol. She would prefer gin and tonics, beer, red wine or even Campari. Maybe she would meet someone and have an affair with another participant. She knew that people hooked up during these studies. What if Marisol could be in the study too? Then they could have some concentrated time together. When she hung up she had a bad feeling she wasn’t going to be picked, even though they hadn’t given her a flat-out no.
The real cash cow was in donating eggs, but when Theo’s eggs had been young enough for her to do this, she’d been afraid. Even for five thousand dollars, she didn’t like the idea of her genetic child roaming the world without her help. She thought she’d want to be there if the child were ever mired in depression. Now that she was too old to sell her eggs, she’d do it in a second.
When she’d moved to San Francisco there was a whole population of lesbians who made their living doing research studies, or pawning their eggs off to infertile suburban couples. A few had even been surrogates. Most were crazy self-mutilating heroin addicts who bought “nice” thrift-store outfits in an attempt to convince the straight couples, but the couples were as desperate for a baby as the lesbians were for cash. They would coach each other through fake interviews while drinking tallboys.
When asked Do you come from a long line of taxi drivers and hairdressers? the answer is no. When asked Are your parents and grandparents college graduates? the answer is yes. And, no, no, no to whether anybody’s gay or mentally ill. Wear long sleeves. Dye your hair a normal color. Wash those dark circles out from under your eyes, crack a tallboy and fantasize about how you’ll spend the money. It was like a bad B movie, throngs of zombie lesbian egg donors, covered in tattoos and track marks and self-mutilation scars, pushing strollers full of empty beer bottles to the hospitals saying, “We’ll produce great offspring. We promise.”
Theo took a deep breath and dialed Marisol’s number. She would ask her if she wanted to go on a road trip to Atlantic City and she would win back the money she had lost. Marisol’s phone rang and rang, never picking up with an answering machine. She dialed again, wondering if she had punched in the wrong numbers. When no one answered the second time, she gave up. She could see Cary Grant in the kitchen sniffing around the bar where the bone was.
“That’s for later,” she called out to the dog.
She dialed the number for the depression study, confident that if she could make it into any study, this was the one. Her entire life had prepared her for the job title of Depressed, and she had the references to prove it. The phone was answered by a very young research assistant who squeakily asked Theo a series of questions about her depression. Unlike the alcohol study, where she wasn’t sure how alcoholic they wanted their participants, Theo knew a depression study would want her to bring all her sad sacks to the table.
“Is your sleep ever affected by depression?”
“No, I sleep like a baby. Once I slept through a fire and I didn’t even wake up when robbers sawed my upstairs neighbor’s door in half with a chain saw.”
“How would you say depression affects your relationships?”
“It’s nice because I’d never date someone who isn’t depressed, too. It gives us something to talk about and allows us lots of time in bed.”
“Are you on any medication for depression?”
“Nope. Au naturel.”
“Okay. Are you currently employed?”
“Yes.”
“What is your current job?”
“I’m a professional gambler and sometimes work as a janitor in a junk-mail factory.”
“Okay. Thank you for your interest but unfortunately you’re ineligible for our study.”
“What do you mean? I just told you I slept through a fire.”
“We’re looking for people who can’t maintain employment.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry,” the screener said cheerfully.
“This is really fucked up,” Theo heard herself say. “You know more people commit suicide during the holidays than any other time of year and you’re just going to tell people during the Christmas season they can’t be in the depression study because they manage to go to work?”
She slammed the phone down, heartbroken, and Cary Grant darted into the other room.
“I can’t be in the depression study because I come from a certain kind of working-class lineage that’s made me always have a job. What if I was so depressed during all of my jobs that I showed up drunk or slipped away mid-shift to cut myself in the bathroom? What if I used all my sick days calling in because midway on my commute I felt the top of my head detach and float away in an anxiety attack? Do you need me on the couch reading Sylvia Plath or endlessly watching The Price Is Right while eating one frozen dinner after the next?, well, I’ve done that too, just on my days off.”
“Should I shoot my fucking dog?” she wanted to call the woman back and scream into the phone. “Should I just get out a gun and shoot my dog in the head?”
Countless studies had been done about how living with a dog combats depression. The many tasks required to take care of a dog can help a depressed person remain active. At least three times a day a person has to walk a dog and therefore move their depressed body and get fresh air and take the chance of seeing a cherry tree in blossom or feel a sunbeam coming down onto their head, allowing themselves the window of hope.
Theo was sure all the slots in the depression study had been filled by cat people. Cat people can lie in bed all day if they want to, folding their depression close to their chests and then rolling over and keeping it locked inside the comforter. Cat people never have to put a leash on a cat and walk it. Only the truly insane walked cats on leashes. Cat people don’t ever have to leave the house because of the greatest depression-enabling invention ever: the litter box. They can fill a kiddy pool with litter and plunk it down in the middle of their kitchen floor and a month can go by.
Maybe if she had a doggy door she could get away with her depression—just lie in bed urinating on herself as the dog ran in and out. Theo had never trusted people with doggy doors.
“I’m trying to get better,” she wanted to scream at the phone screener. “I’m trying to help myself!”
Theo started to cry. Why hadn’t she asked to talk to the manager?
•
Theo wished someone had told her to beware of sliding-scale therapists that slide too low. Then she could’ve avoided that five-dollar-an-hour-ex-postal-worker-piece-of-shit-therapist in San Francisco.
“Why are you here today?” she asked when Theo came in.
“I’m depressed.”
The truth was that Theo had been depressed forever, but she’d become especially unraveled when she’d tried to quit drinking a few months ago.
The therapist blinked a few times slowly and said, “Depressed, huh?”
But she said it in this faraway voice, like it was she who was the most depressed person in the world. For the rest of the intake she made small talk as Theo sat awkwardly across from her like a stranger at a bus stop. When she left the office Theo had the same bad feeling she’d had when she’d left the offices of the thirty-three lousy sliding-scale therapists before her. Only desperation, poverty and ridiculous hope led her back to the office the next week.
“I saw this in the paper, and it made me think of you,” the therapist said, showing Theo a tiny rectangular newspaper clipping the size of a personal ad.
When Theo reached to take it she pulled it back, saying, “Let me read it to you out loud.”
Her taupe armchair faced Theo’s taupe armchair, and Theo watched the therapist’s frosted-and-tipped hair bobbing up and down as she read aloud.
“The Depression Van is coming to San Francisco! It will be parked in front of 700 Market Street from 5 pm to 9 pm every Wednesday in January to provide free screenings for depression. No appointment necessary.”
The therapist blinked a few times quickly and then handed Theo the clipping.
Theo took it.
“I think this is for people who don’t know they’re depressed,” she said.
The therapist sat silent, blinking.
Theo continued to break it down for her.“The Depression Van helps people find out if they’re depressed. I already know I’m depressed,” she said, trying to hand back the clipping. It hung wilted between Theo’s fingertips—a piece of trash neither wanted to touch.
“Well, you can keep that in case you ever need it,” the therapist said.
“If I needed it in the future that would mean I’d forgotten I was depressed, which in turn would mean I was cured,” Theo thought.
“Tell me a little bit about your depression,” the therapist said.
This was the first normal thing she’d said. Theo took a deep breath and started to relate her psychotherapy history. About three minutes in the therapist interrupted and began to read aloud from a self-help book she had in her lap. Each time Theo began to talk she interrupted, saying, “Oh, hang on a second. I read something in my book about that.”
She flipped through the pages looking for a passage while Theo sat, courteously enraged, watching the fog hovering over the hills through the small window behind her. It occurred to Theo that if she dove out the window and fell three stories to her death it would probably stop her from becoming a therapist, and that could be a help to others.
During Theo’s third appointment the therapist said, “Tell me again, what do you do for work?”
Theo wanted to say, “I can’t remember what you do either.” But instead she said, “I’m a cashier, but it’s my dream to teach ESL.”
“ESL?”
“English as a Second Language.”
“Huh?” she blinked.
“You help immigrants learn English so they can get jobs and housing and—”
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” she said, disgusted. “Those people always came into the post office. ‘Me no speak, English. Me no speak English.’ But they always knew how to count the money.”
Theo wasn’t sure how long she sat frozen in her taupe chair before she excused herself to go to the restroom. She walked down the hall past the bathrooms, into the elevator and out into the foggy day to begin the two-mile march home. So this was five-dollar therapy. She could’ve done better driving four hours to Reno and feeding a five-dollar bill into a psychotherapy-themed slot machine called Bonkers! Get three psychotherapist couches in a row and you win. Freud, Freud, Freud! You’re rich!
•
Theo tried Marisol’s number again. This time she picked up.
“Hello?”
“It’s Theo. Do you remember me?”
“Yes,” Marisol said.
“What are you doing for Christmas?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want to make me dinner and then we’ll go to Atlantic City?”
“Is Cary Grant coming?”
“Are you making a specific request?”
“I’m only going if Cary Grant is going.”
“Let me ask her. Hang on.” Theo turned to Cary Grant, “Do you want to go over to Marisol’s for dinner and then go to Atlantic City?” The dog wagged.
“Well?” Marisol asked.
“She wagged.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
There was a silence on the phone between them and then Marisol said, “I was hoping you would call.”
Theo felt her heart soften. “I’ve been working a lot,” she said, referring to her all-night gambling bender in Atlantic City.
“What’s Sammy doing tonight for Christmas Eve?”
“She’s hanging out with her family the next couple days. She invited me but they’re all allergic to dogs, and I don’t want to spend Christmas without Cary Grant.”
“Come over whenever you want,” Marisol said.
“Okay. We’ll come over after I go to the laundromat. Should I bring anything?”
“Just Cary Grant.”
When Theo proposed the trip to Atlantic City she was imagining an expanse of time in the car to make out, some roadside sex, eating at the buffet and, of course, now that she was drinking again, a ton of free casino drinks. She took the remaining thousand dollars and folded the envelope of cash into her pocket. It was the last of her lucky Buttermilk money. She fantasized about putting the whole envelope of cash on black again and doubling it, getting on a roll like she had with Big Vic. She’d made a comeback once, why couldn’t she do it again? If she made a whole lot she could give Marisol a thick wad of cash, help her out since she’d lost her job.
Theo went to the laundromat and then came home and got into the shower. After her shower she heard a squeaking in the kitchen behind the stove. There it was, a Christmas mouse, stuck to a glue trap.
She picked up the Styrofoam tray and watched the mouse’s tiny black eyes glance at her face before looking away. Its back muscles quivered, struggling to move, but all four feet stayed planted in the glue. Theo followed the instructions from Bill the Exterminator and filled a bucket with water. The mouse seemed so afraid that Theo couldn’t understand how this could be the more humane choice. She did exactly as Bill had told her, she lowered the tray into the bucket and as she did it she felt the tears come hot down her cheeks. How could she drown a mouse when she could barely go fishing with her father? She could only imagine every fish as a fish with a fish family. If she killed a fish, who would make dinner for the fish family or lead the conversation at the head of the fish dinner table? Theo was so overly sensitive to everything that she tried to feel nothing at all. But now it was impossible not to feel anything, standing in the freezing cold on the front stoop, sobbing in her boxer shorts, pretending not to notice her neighbors staring as they trudged by with last-minute Christmas presents.
How long was she supposed to hold the tray underwater to make sure the mouse was drowned? She’d read it so many times but she couldn’t remember and was now confusing it with the time needed for boiling an egg. A tear ran all the way down her arm and looped around her wrist to where she was holding the tray under the water. Surely the mouse must be dead, because she felt dead herself. She lifted the tray, and when she looked into the mouse’s wet face, it drew a deep breath. Theo thought the mouse had a prophet’s face, and now she would have to try to kill the prophet mouse again. She lowered the tray into the bucket for the second time in a rage and held it underwater for a long, long time. And when she was sure there was no way the prophet could still be alive she left the tray floating in the bucket and went in the house to put on some pants. She thought for a second about whether she should bury the mouse in the backyard. She had killed a prophet on Christmas Eve. Instead, she got dressed and finished crying and blew her nose and put on a coat and lit a cigarette and returned outside, where she turned the bucket upside down and watched all the water run down the driveway. The tray lay upside down in a small puddle, and Theo picked it up with the mouse still affixed and threw it into the garbage.
•
By the time she was on her way to Marisol’s, Theo had shaken most of the apocalyptic feelings she’d had from drowning the mouse and was beginning to feel excited. She popped into a bodega to pick up some wine. A bunch of men sat on milk crates, smoking and drinking and blaring Cuban music from a boom box. The back wall was plastered with posters of Cuba and Cuban flags. She grabbed two bottles of red wine and set them down next to the register. The man behind the counter was scratching a long loop of lottery scratch-offs and made Theo wait to pay until he finished scratching.
“Let me get two of those,” Theo said, gesturing to the same tickets the man was scratching.
He ripped off two from the roll below the counter and rang her up. Theo pulled one of her hundred-dollar bills from her envelope and paid. Then she drove to Marisol’s apartment with Cary Grant beside her.
They walked in the glass door and up the stairs to Marisol’s apartment. Theo knocked, feeling incredibly nervous. Cary Grant sniffed at the chicken smell coming out from under the doorsill. She could hear Marisol walking to the door.
“Hello,” Marisol said, giving Theo a quick glance and then leaning down very slowly to Cary Grant and saying, “Hello.”
“It smells good in here,” Theo said.
She hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in so long. She and Sammy were used to eating slices next to the garbage can. Marisol’s apartment was small, a studio on the second floor with a single window over the fire escape.
“Good,” Marisol said quietly. “I bet you like chicken, too,” she said to Cary Grant who’d trotted into the kitchen and was sniffing around.
Theo saw Marisol was drying the roses she’d given her.
“I gave you those,” Theo said, pointing to the roses.
“Yep,” Marisol said.
Theo handed Cary Grant one of her Christmas bones, and the dog took it and lay down in front of the radiator.
“I brought some wine and a lottery ticket for each of us,” Theo said. “Let’s scratch them now to see if we’re going to be lucky when we get to Atlantic City.”
They both scratched their tickets.
“Nothing,” Marisol said.
“Me neither,” Theo said, feeling vaguely superstitious that it was a sign of bad luck to come.
“How have you been?” she asked, trying to bridge the awkwardness.
