Giving Up the Ghost by Eric Nuzum

Author:Eric Nuzum [Nuzum, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-345-53468-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

I was sitting on the floor against the wall in my parents’ dining room.

“I will handle it!” I yelled. “Just let me take care of it.”

My parents were sitting in their chairs at the dining table. I drew my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees, rocking back and forth. They told me they were concerned. They’d noticed that I’d lost a lot of weight and my appearance and hygiene were getting worse.

I was constantly in motion—looking around, scratching, bobbing my head, moving my tongue—anything to keep from being still. They had no idea how bad things were, nor would they have had any idea what to do if they did.

“And your checking account is overdrawn by two hundred ten dollars,” my mother said.

“And a hundred sixty is one check,” my dad added. “Why were you writing checks for a hundred sixty dollars if you didn’t have the money to cover it?”

In truth, I had cashed checks to buy all those sleeping pills I was carrying around, which then had started a daisy chain of bad checks written to cover old bad checks, and they just piled up.

The week before I’d received a postcard from the R.E.M. fan club informing me of a string of tour dates through the Midwest. A few days after that I woke up and impulsively decided that I was going to attend as many as I could. I’d told no one, including Laura, that I was leaving. I hadn’t made any arrangements to be gone from work. By then I really didn’t attend classes anymore. When I took off for the shows and no one knew where I was for days, everyone feared the worst.

I didn’t care. I tried convincing myself that I was having the time of my life. In truth, I knew what I was doing, but that just caused my sense of failure and doom to feed upon itself. I was a fuck-up who was in the midst of fucking up, plain and simple. It felt as natural as breathing.

When I got home, I was honestly surprised that my parents were so upset with me or, frankly, had even noticed that I was gone. It wasn’t like we were really seeking out one another’s company much those days.

“On days when I get the mail, there’s always a returned check notice in there,” my father added. “And I know most days you are getting to the mail before we are.”

“There aren’t any more bad checks; those were the only ones,” I quickly offered, hoping the lie would stick.

“Eric, I can’t believe you,” said my dad, waving his hand across the bank statement he’d opened in that morning’s mail. “We don’t know where you are. You disappear or come in at all hours.”

“I work. I have school.”

“I don’t think Kent has classes at one A.M.,” he said.

“You didn’t answer the question,” my mother said. “Where is this money going?”

“I wrote bad checks to get money to buy pills.”

It spilled out of my mouth before I realized what I’d said.

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