Ian Matters

I'm being cut off. I get home and get naked while I'm listening to the voice mail on the land line. I feel like Sal after a shoot, a bit morbid and a lot exhausted and I don't have a clue where she is and I miss her. My mother leaves me a message on my machine in her answering machine voice, where she sounds professional and all like that, because “that's how you leave messages”, apparently. Like a mechanical receptionist. She tells me she's cutting off my funding, no more money for her sweet baby boy, and makes up a shit reason why. I don't bother listening to the entire thing and delete all of the messages before and after it. I'm done existing for the day.

I love my mum, I really do, but the woman could make me angrier then anything else sometimes. She was a pain in the ass to be around. She was always way up high or way down low, up and down and up and down; sometimes she was a joy to be around, the best, and other times she was so negative it made you want to kill yourself. I tell you that with no exaggeration, either. She stresses herself out, the woman has nerves so bad it was questionable if they were even still there. You couldn't jump out from behind a door to give her a friendly scare – she'd yell and start to cry and then she'd be like that the rest of the day. It was a relief not to have to deal with it anymore.

My father wasn't any better, for different reasons. I didn't even want to think about him.

After I toss my clothes into my room and pull on a shirt and a pair of jeans I settle myself into the green couch and sigh. It is the morning time, sometime around nine, before or after I don't know, just somewhere around there. I woke up on Nick's living room floor, Dillon had the couch but he was already awake by the time I had woken up. In the kitchen he was making eggs, I think. I could hear something sizzling in the kitchen.

I needed a job now. As much as Sal loved me, though she would never admit to it with anyone else around, I knew she wouldn't put up with my not paying the bills, and if so she'd only pay my half for a month and no more. Fair was fair, after all.

I could talk to Frank. He might know a place with an opening. He was a mechanic, I would ask for a job at his mechanics but I'm no good with that stuff. Cars have never been kind to me. I've been in more car crashes then I can count on both hands. Never too serious, but crashes all the same.

As much as half of me wanted to say my mother was a bitch for cutting me off it was a good thing, maybe. I had to start looking for another job. I've only been living off of their money for a few months, three maybe? Ever since I got laid off. I used to work at a grocery store. I shouldn't have dropped out of college.

I nudge the door of Sal's bedroom at the end of the hall and it creaks open and she's at her desk, sitting all curled up in her chair. It's dark around her eyes, from exhaustion and smeared mascara, and she's been scribbling on some paper in front of her. I remember not to ask her if she's alright. She looks over at me. “Wanna have a drink with me?”

She does. The only time Sal ever really drinks is on my birthday, because I ask her to, because she's my best friend and I want to have a drink with my best buddy on my birthday, you know? It's not my birthday now, but she's drinking. I'm concerned, but I don't ask. We lay on her bed with a six pack, sipping beer. It's been a while since Sal and I have spent some time alone together like this, it's nice.

“My mum cut me off.” I stare down at my drink.

“Of course she did.” Sal replies, her voice sounds like rocks again, “You better go looking for a job tomorrow. I'm not paying your half of the rent.” I nod. I guess it was wishful thinking. It's difficult enough for her to pay her half.

“I thought I'd talk to Frank.” I tell her, “If he knows somewhere with an opening.”

“I don't know why you'd think he'd know.”

“I don't know either.”

“I think I'm going to get a job too.” She says, “Maybe.” I'm surprised, half the reason Sal started to model was for the easy work. She thought it was a slacker job. I mean, of course it turned out she had to do some actual work, but a job like I used to have? A normal one? I couldn't imagine it.

Sal mostly lived off of her families money, like I had been for the past three months, but only if she really needed to. Her family was pretty well off, her dad had some real upper class, high paying job, he made enough money that Sal's mum never had to work. He supported her and her mother and her two younger brothers, Marcus, who was twenty, and her kid brother Harry, who was ten. Her mum got weird once she realized her and Marcus were legal adults and decided to pop another one out.

I look at her, “I thought you were against work.”

She clenches her jaw, “I am.” She blinks slow and almost goes to take another sip of her beer, “We need more money.”

I smile just a bit at her, “Ain't that the truth.” One corner of her mouth curls up ever so slightly. That tiny smile was Sal's big grin. Sal's big grin was another pretty thing she did.

“Have you seen that guy again?” She asks me, I furrow my brow.

“Which?”

“The one you wanted to fuck on the elevator.” Oh.

“Ah, I have not.” I reply, sighing, and she gives a quick chuckle.

“I'd like to see this guy.”

“I'm not going to let you,” I tell her, “If he see's you then he'll want to fuck you and he'll forget all about me.” She gives me a weird face but there's another little smile anyway.

“You're a bit delusional.”

“You're a bit delusional too.” Her smiles gone, she looks down at her beer.

“I know.”