Losing Charity

Losing Charity - 19

I wake up in my own bed.

A pale beam of watery autumn sunlight touches my face.

I have a vague sense of having experienced a really intense dream. But the details dissolve like champagne bubbles before I can notice them.

It's Saturday. That means I can sleep in.

Actually, I can sleep in most days if I want.

One of the benefits of being unemployed.

Underemployed. Between jobs.

Looking.

That describes so many areas of my life.

All of them, to tell the truth.

Looking. Looking for work. Looking for love. Looking for direction. Looking for answers. Looking, looking. looking.

Right now I'm looking at the ceiling, which is stained and cracked and missing a few chunks of plaster – the same ugly ceiling I've been looking at for months in my crappy studio apartment in the East Village, a fourth floor walk-up above a funk, punk, and metal gift shop. If you need studded belts or bracelets, band t-shirts in black or black or black, assorted pins and patches, or hookah stuff – I do not get the hookah thing – then it's the place. None of which, needless to say, is my style. At all. Nor is the tattoo parlor next door, though they've got you covered for skull tattoos, creepy vine tattoos, tattoos of creepy vines going through skulls, flaming daggers, black cats, rolling dice, you name it. All the classics.

I am not a tattoo girl. I do not like needles. Or pain.

We redheads, very sensitive to the pain.

I do not like my neighborhood either, not much. Though it does have a certain crazy-guy-on-the-corner-yelling-at-himself charm. But this is where I can afford to live, for now, so this is where I live. For now.

Until I get my break. My big break. My Charity is on her way to the top break.

Something has to break, and soon. Right? It has to. If you keep at it, keep pushing your foot in doors, keep calling, keep pounding the pavement, keep on keeping on, then sooner or later you have to catch a break.

Or so I keep telling myself. Every morning as I stare at my ugly cracked ceiling and talk myself into getting out of bed: "Today's the day! Today I'll get my break!"

Meanwhile, I'm still broke.

I lose the argument with myself and slither under the covers to elude that anemic sunbeam. Sleep. Very important, sleep. I need more.

The door buzzes. Loud. Irritating. Insistent.

On the other side of the room.

"Go 'way," I mutter into the pillow.

The buzzer keep buzzing. I can't sleep like this. I clamber down from the loft bed onto the stepladder, careful not to fall and break my neck.

Yes, loft. I know! This place is tiny. Literally, it is even shaped like a shoe box. Just one big rectangle. Door at one end, window at the other, everything I own in between.

I glance in the mirror. It looks like two alley cats had a fight in my hair. And my hair lost.

The door buzzes again.

"Coming," I mutter. I say some other things too.

I pass the tiny sink, the tiny fridge, the tiny rolling kitchen cart, the tiny cabinet and counter, and I press the tiny button on the speaker beside the door.

"Hello?"

"It's me!" says a voice.

The part of my brain that puts names with voices wakes up, gives me a look, and tells me it's Molly. My bestie.

"Mols?" I guess.

"Your one and only," she confirms.

I press the other button, the one that opens the exterior door downstairs. That's the door that buzzes. Not the door to my actual apartment. Just so that's clear.

I undo the locks. The chain and the little lock.But not the big lock until she gets here, until she's at the door. A girl can't be too careful in the city.

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Losing Charity © Dan McGirt 2019. All rights reserved.

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