by Kim Cayer
This was one week I was happy to be living in my car. It was a week filled with misery, cheats, assholes and frustration.
Having endured a slow weekend work-wise, I was happy to get a Monday show. A Madonna for a guy working in a cargo warehouse out by the airport. I woke early, took care of business at a Burger King for a change (sneaking out when a crowd came in so I wouldn’t have to buy any food), grabbed breakfast at Mickey D’s and then spent ample time composing a terrific song. My make-up was spot-on and I hoped I wouldn’t be mistaken for the real deal as I drove to the gig.
That’s where the day pretty much went to shit. The airline’s cargo hangar was next to impossible to find. I finally realized it was a dinky little hangar belonging to a sad-sack airplane company. Already fifteen minutes late, unable to reach my contact on my cellphone, I pulled up to the security gate.
“Hi, I’m here to do a singing telegram,” I quickly told the guard, no Madonna at all in my delivery.
He merely looked at me, shut his window and picked up his phone. He hung up and then seriously stared at me.
I waited a moment and then loudly asked, “Well?” Nothing. “I’m late, can I get in?” I tried with more volume. He didn’t move; only his eyes slid over my corset. I opened the car door to step out, one leg emerging. My fishnet stockings caused him to jerk.
I started to approach the closed window when I saw two security cars, yellow lights flashing, race up behind my Suzuki. I thought maybe my car is in their way; I should move! I turned to get back into the driver’s seat when I heard two car doors slam.
“Stay right where you are!” one guy shouted.
I slowly turned around. “Who, me?” I asked in disbelief.
“What business do you have with FlyRight Airlines?” asked the guard who’s uniform jacket was four sizes too big on him.
I had nothing to hide. “I’m just here to do a singing telegram,” I politely replied. “For a Michael McMann, in cargo.”
“Ha! In cargo?” the second guard snorted. He was a good foot taller than his mate, and his belt was cinched in to show off his physique. “You have the proper papers to get into the hangar?”
“Well…I…I have a singing telegram,” I explained. “My agent gets the call and just sends me to them. I didn’t know I needed any special papers. They have a cheque waiting for me, you can call them, they know I’m coming!”
I don’t always pick up cheques, but the odd time I do. Some clients just don’t like to pay until the performance has been rendered. If the entertainer doesn’t show, it saves them the hassle of getting a refund. Then most will mail the cheque, but a few prefer to just hand it over to the gorilla.
“I’m sorry, but those are the rules,” the boy in a man’s suit shrugged. “In this day and age, those are rules that can’t be broken.”
“And you want to go to cargo?” the other guard sneered. “Ha! I don’t think so!”
“Oh, come on!” I threw open my arms. “Do I look like a terrorist to you? Do I look like I’m carrying weapons?”
Like synchronized swimmers, the guards’ eyes swept the car from front to rear and then stopped at the same point. I turned to look at my car and saw various unusual pieces sticking up here and there. Wigs, pantyhose, balloons on a stick…but most prominent was the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
“Seriously?” I laughed. “That’s plastic and you know it.”
The tall security guard took a deep breath and for a moment, he resembled a big-breasted rooster. “Look, we don’t know what all kind of stuff you got in that car. So you better get the hell outta here now or you can wait for the airport police.”
I left, but as soon as I reached a neutral zone, I pulled out my phone and called Dawson, the agent at AAA Absolute Entertainment. I explained the situation and he was just as perplexed as I. “But I did get all dressed, I wrote the song, you’ll still pay me a cancellation fee, right?”
Almost all the agents I dealt with were true business professionals. If a show got screwed up through no fault of my own, I would receive fifty per cent of my pay. Dawson, however, walked a fine line between shady and disreputable. His response? “Well did you pick up the cheque?”
“Dawson, I couldn’t get past the security gate,” I reminded him.
“Then I guess neither one of us gets paid then,” was his comeback.
I drove to a Rabba convenience store, grabbed some overpriced junk food as well as their delicious cheap croissants, then motored off to Mississauga. In less than 24 hours, I’d be having lunch with my daughter. Till then, the world could stay away.
Tuesday started off with hope and promise. It ended with betrayal and spite.
Shannon and I met a the Loblaws grocery store across from her high school. They had a snack area on an upper level that overlooked all the shoppers. My daughter and I had been coming here often since she was a toddler, spending quality time in girl talk and people watching. For a change, by the end of lunch today, people were watching me.
We dug into our pieces of chicken and potato wedges. Shannon quipped, “This sure is a nice change from pizza.”
Maybe I was stressed, maybe I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, but I went into a tirade. “Pizza! Shannon, I give you barely enough money to afford meat, how can you be ordering pizza?” I assumed they ordered; Ben wouldn’t touch a store-bought one. “Don’t tell me you’re spending your hard-earned pay to buy your dad pizza!”
“I’m not buying him pizza, Mom, so chill,” Shannon shushed me. “And it’s not just pizza. He’s got new video games, a better stereo for his car….”
“What the fuck?!” I shrieked. The high-school boys at the next table snickered and gave me a thumb’s up. Shannon looked at me disapprovingly. I leaned forward and whispered at the top of my voice. “Where’d he suddenly get this money then? He’s supposed to be suffering the same as me! Or what, did he finally get a job?”
“I would have told you if he got a job,” Shannon said. “It would be breaking news…history in the making.”
Unfortunately, Shannon could offer no idea as to how Ben was able to still live a life of luxury. After that, lunch wasn’t quite so memorable. Shannon gave me my mail (hooray! Four cheques totalling $1600!) as well as a few household bills. We parted on a sombre note, Shannon giving me a tight hug.
“Come home, Mom,” she whispered. “Sleep in my room.”
I squeezed my tears back into their ducts, then pulled away. Adjusting the collar of her jacket, I put on my current oft-used fake smile.
“Not yet, Shannon, but if it makes you feel better, I’m keeping that as one of my options.” We parted ways.
She walked back to school and I, having nowhere to go until Friday, motored over to Erin Mills Town Centre. I took my pile of mail, went inside, grabbed a nice cup of coffee from a barista, and found myself on the bottom level of the mall.
In one section, around a large coffee table, sat three big overstuffed chairs and a long couch. The chairs were filled with senior citizens, all of them playing some form of lottery (Cash for Life cards, Nevada tickets), but the couch was empty. I set myself up to do some ‘office work’ and began opening my letters.
What was this? A lot of the bills were simply statements, as I allowed most companies to directly take their fee out of my checking account. But the heating bill was double the usual price! So was the Rogers phone bill and the water bill. All basically double what I usually paid.
I scanned the statements and saw the problem…none of the previous month’s bills had been paid due to insufficient funds at the time. I wondered how that could be possible. Every 1st of the month, I made sure I had $4,000 in my household account. The bills usually ate up most of that, but it also left a couple hundred for whatever reason. Never had this account gone below the zero-dollar amount. Something was wrong, there had to be a mistake!
The Visa bill, which I’d casually tossed aside, gave out a silent whistle. I glanced at it, debated opening it but figured, what for? I rarely
used Visa, maybe once every three months. I preferred my AirMiles MasterCard. It often awarded me ten bucks of free gas. Still, something told me the Visa bill could be a big clue. My palms suddenly sweaty, I ripped the envelope open and pulled out a…oh my Lord….a TWO-page bill.
EB Games. Dominoes Pizza. Pizza Hut. Game Play. 2 for 1 Pizza, 3-4-1- Pizza, the PlayStation Network, XBox, Pizza Pizza… Ben must have been desperate when he ordered Pizza Pizza, his least favourite, but the only ones who deliver after two a.m. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars in charges. I shoved all the bills into my purse and stewed for a moment.
I hadn’t called Ben since I’d left but how dare he? How dare he ROB from me? Obviously I’d have to pay all this money back to Visa and Enbridge Gas and who knows how many other companies I’d stiffed. I pulled out my phone and was just about to dial Ben’s number when a couple teens from the local Catholic high school showed up. They plopped down on the couch next to me, set their large Tim Horton’s Ice Capps on the coffee table and then began to make out. Damned if I was going to give up my seat though. Instead of calling Ben, I scrolled through emails. Nothing but a reminder about my show on Friday, days away. I switched to playing Brickbreaker, but the cellphone game had its usual effect of lulling me to sleep.
Some sixth sense woke me up. I discovered I’d stretched my legs onto the coffee table. After a momentary panic of Where’s my purse?! That couple must have stole my purse! I found it had slid onto the floor. The coffee I’d been drinking, what little there was left of it, had been knocked over, a small pool of liquid congealing on the marble tabletop. But what woke me up was that I’d sensed someone watching me. I glanced up and the first thing I saw was a security guard staring at me from the upper level of the mall
As I grabbed for my purse and adjusted my clothes, I could see the guard making a bee-line for me. I immediately jumped up and even though it was on the opposite end of the mall from where I’d parked, I took the nearest exit.
I drove to the home branch of my bank. It wasn’t far. I would sort this problem out face to face with a teller. I drove into the plaza lot and all I could see were fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. I parked at the far end, gathered my bills and walked over to the bank. Coincidentally, that happened to be where all the action was taking place.
“Excuse me,” I said to a police officer guarding the entrance. “I’ve got banking business.”
“‘Fraid not,” the officer said, not even making eye contact. “Bank’s closed.”
“Did somebody have a heart attack or something?” I asked, trying to look around him.
He moved to block my view and when he finally did make eye contact, it was pretty scary. “I said, bank’s CLOSED.”
I backed away from his intimidating manner. Walking back to my car, I decided to make a pit-stop at Price Chopper and use their handy-dandy washroom. En route, in the fruits and vegetables section, is where I heard the bank had been held up.
Certain they would re-open for business as usual in the morning, I camped out in the plaza parking lot for the night. It was a restless sleep, as I kept dreaming I had to be on the lookout for a bank robber.
Wednesday morning, I was the first customer in line when they opened at nine a.m. I didn’t leave there until lunchtime. By then, I had cried buckets, I wreaked havoc on the name of my husband, I got a nosebleed, I pounded desks and curled up in a fetal position in the office’s visitor chair. The first person to assist me, a nice Indian man, helped me for about an hour. He listened to my problems and then, bless his heart, realized I was heading for a nervous breakdown. He left the room, promising to be right back.
He never returned, but he did send a sweet lady, Jacinta Gonsalves, her name tag said… She had me start from the beginning. By the end of my tale of woe, I had a perfect stranger holding me, her hands patting my back consolingly. “Let it out, Mrs…” a quick glance at her computer screen, “…Magee. Just let it come. When you are able, we will sort this out.”’
To make a short story long, my dearly beloved was sucking me dry. In my desire to remove myself from Ben, I seemed to forget the things in life we shared. Namely, a joint bank account as well as both our names on a Visa card. I didn’t even think Ben still had his Visa card (I found it half a dozen times in the bowels of the couch) and though he signed papers at the bank when we first married, papers to do with all sorts of financial things, I didn’t believe he knew he could withdraw from this account. Ben had his own account that I’d set up, $500 a month for whatever. That, plus the continuously empty wallet I always found myself with, gave him more than enough money for thirty days.
For three hours, I cancelled everything I could – the joint account, the Visa, the direct deposits. I had to sign triplicate forms to stop all the utility companies and Highway 407 ETR and Rogers Telecommunications, as well as the life insurance, pension and other investments, from taking any more money from my account. I had to set up a new household account in my name only. I used the $1600 of cheques to pay off the line of credit Ben was already into (having cancelled that as well) and then asked the big question.
“I have an account at another bank,” I revealed. “It’s still CIBC. Can you check that balance?” Ben didn’t know I had a nest egg. From the first week of marriage, something told me I was married to a lunatic when it came to money. Within one month of wedded bliss, I secretly opened a bank account in just my name, to be used in case of emergency. My income had been so plentiful back then that Ben didn’t notice. I happily kept contributing to that fund until times got tight.
Jacinta brought the account up onto her screen. “Oh, my, you have plenty of funds here! You should take a few thousand and beef up your RRSPs, and you should consider TFSAs, the tax-free savings account…you don’t want all this money sitting here doing nothing!”
“Oh, it’s busy, it’s doing something,” I informed her. “Just leave it where it is. But, I guess, take out what you need to cover all these insufficient-funds bills.”
The nest egg was badly cracked when I left the bank. Ben’s cost of living had depleted it by nearly half. Had he used the money for repairs to the house or perhaps on Shannon, I wouldn’t have been as upset. It galled me to think that all those years of scrimping disappeared in a puff of pizza and video games.
As of this moment though, Ben no longer had any access to my funds. I paid off the Visa bill and then spoke to an agent to cancel it. I couldn’t wait for Ben to order his favourite meal and have them decline it. But I had a hell of a lot of catching up to do to reach my goal of $100,000.
I felt grumpy and frazzled from my lack of a good sleep. I needed a strong coffee. Yesterday’s brew at the Erin Mills Town Centre entered my mind. It was so strong, such pure coffee, that my taste buds tingled. Thinking of that Kenya Blend java then brought to mind the couch where I drank it, and how comfortable I’d made myself there. I sure could use a dose of comfort.
Twenty minutes later, I was in the same spot as yesterday. I brought in a canvas bag from The Bulk Barn, which held all my paperwork. I needed to go through my notes and see who owed me money. I had to get back on track.
I sat in the middle of the couch, with paperwork spread out on either side. Hardly anybody was behind in payments, except for Dawson at AAA Awesome Entertainment. That company owed me close to $3,000. After gathering all my data together, I gave Dawson a call.
“Awesome Entertainment,” he growled into the phone. Nobody ever used the ‘AAA’ when they mentioned the company name. Those extra letters were strictly for the telephone book’s yellow pages, so that it would be the first name you saw when you searched for entertainment.
And get this, AAA Awesome Entertainment was a name they’d only started using a couple years ago. Before that it was AAA Awesome Erotic Entertainment, specializing in strip-a-grams and stag-party entertainers. But one year, the phone company blundered and forgot to add the word ‘Erotic’. So besides getting the ad for free the entire year, the unexpected bonus was that now peo
ple were calling for clowns, impersonators, magicians…anything to do with general entertainment. Dawson’s business had quadrupled.
“Yeah, hi, Dawson, it’s me, Maggie,” I said. “Look, I don’t want to get into the reasons why, but I really need that money you owe me.”
“Oh, well, send me the figures you have and I’ll take a look at it,” he suggested. “If everything seems in order, then I can mail you a cheque.”
“No, that’s going to take too long,” I sighed. “I have all the paperwork together. These are jobs that have been completed and you simply owe me for them. I don’t want to get mad, I don’t want to fight, I just want my pay.”
“OK, but I need to see the dates and stuff,” he persisted. “Do you have an idea how much it is, approximately?”
“Yeah, approximately $3,430,” I replied.
“No, really,” he said, thinking I was being funny.
“That’s it!” I almost shouted. “I’m going to email you all the dates and jobs and then I’m going to drive to your house to get a cheque. Tomorrow.”
I expected his usual excuses for it not being a good time, but he agreed. “OK, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. But it’s got to be early,” he warned me. “I’m leaving at ten to catch a flight. Going to Vegas for a few days.”
Wow, Vegas? I wanted to get my cheque and have it cashed before his plane landed. I felt like my finances had just dodged another bullet. We made plans to meet at 8:30 in the morning, at his house in Etobicoke.
The next two hours were spent numbing my fingers as I sent a lengthy invoice to Absolute Entertainment. Had I been at home, maybe this would have gone quicker on my laptop computer. But all my forms of communication were reduced to my Blackberry phone. Twice I hit the wrong button and deleted my entire message. When I finally pressed SEND, I leaned my head back on the couch and immediately fell asleep.
My snoring woke me up. I was still on the couch but my paperwork was all over the floor. Sitting to my left was a tiny person, maybe you call them ‘little people’? He was eating a pretzel. To my right, studying her receipt from Sears, was another ‘little person’. Something told me they were a couple…what were the odds of having two height-challenged people sitting on each side of me? Had I been awake, I’d have offered to switch seats. I wondered if they’d rudely dumped my papers.