The Exit Man by Greg Levin

Author:Greg Levin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indie Author Project
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Juggling party supplies and suicides is tricky enough without adding a third ball to the act.

Zoe and I had become somewhat of an item since the first dinner at my place, leaving me with little downtime. When I wasn’t managing the shop, attending support group meetings, or planning and facilitating exits, I was with Zoe. Not that I was complaining. Yes, I was swamped, but my life was fuller and richer than ever before. Aside from my girlfriend having recently killed a man, I wouldn’t have had things any other way.

As fulfilling as my life had become, I was forced to do a lot of finagling. Every week I had to keep some activity a secret from Zoe. On nights when I went to group meetings – which I was doing with a little less frequency now that staying home and having sex was a viable option for me – I would tell Zoe I had to stay late at Jubilee to do inventory or to balance the books. When she found two helium tanks beneath some sloppily folded sheets in my bedroom closet, I told her the shop occasionally receives an extra shipment and that space in the storeroom gets too cramped. My trip to the home supply store to purchase a new plastic bag and tube was a visit to my mother’s house for dinner – a safe cover considering Zoe had mentioned on several occasions her aversion to meeting any person who had created any person she was screwing.

And whenever I had an exit scheduled (I had completed only two since we’d started “dating”), I told Zoe I was going to visit my father’s grave – something I preferred to do unaccompanied.

Think about what I was up against the next time you start complaining about how difficult it is to meet somebody and maintain a healthy relationship. You may need to tolerate some annoying habits and create some drawer space, but chances are you have never had to lock half your life away from the person with whom you often share a bed.

I wasn’t overly concerned about Zoe leaving me or turning me in if she found out about the exit man in the room. I was more worried she’d want to be his next client. Though things were going well with us, my fluttering heart couldn’t hypnotize me. I wasn’t fool enough to think a couple of months spent with a failed glassblower were enough to enable an unstable musician to rip up her Lithium prescription – a prescription she too seldom had filled.

Zoe had stopped pressing me about the suicide services I had “made up” when we first met, but she knew I hadn’t just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. It was fine for her to have her hunches. She just couldn’t know the truth. I felt it would be too enticing. She was too volatile, vulnerable. Maybe she didn’t seem it on days when we’d sip whiskey and laugh and make love, but every few days I’d see the other side – the vacancy and the torment.

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