Trust 2

Reality Check

I love capitalism. At least the idea. "Pay what you owe." Well what I do owe. I owe whatever you're willing to sell this for at the agreed price for which I'm willing to buy this for barring any coercion or straight lies. This what I do everyday as a server. When a patron comes to the restaurant they are expecting what they expect from either a place like this, the presentation/placement of the venue and usually equate price with quality from there. With me I'm expected to know how to serve a variety of different people with varying preferences, know the menu, know what to do what when, where things go, be prompt and know how to make people feel comfortable eating. 

So how do customers know what they are about to pay for? Here comes the internet. You can see reviews from dozens, hundreds, and thousands of people on any of the concerns you have, see the menu and even see pictures of the items and the venue on dozens of apps, websites and pages on the world wide web. What a time to be alive. This is what you carry with you when you go to a restaurant. What do I expect of the customer? To not be a fucking asshole. From there you pay me based on the performance vs the expectation and if I hit on you or make you laugh/feel comfortable/give you therapy enough, you pay me extra.

My entire paycheck is based on me knowing people and consistency from the transactions. This is how you get repeat customers. Every single time there should be a level for them to know that when they come, they will receive this. If not there is usually a way to rectify it. If your solution isn't satisfactory then you will probably never see them again. This is why I run around the restaurant trying to maintain even the seemingly minute technical details and why I get pissed when I am getting outworked and aren't picking up the slack. I love my job. I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't so comfortable being there and I wasn't chasing squirrels. But you can only trust consistency. 

This happened before, ya know. I know, I know...

"Blah blah blah. What's your emergency?" I knew if I stayed calm at least that the person on the other line would know my address and hopefully save my life. I also knew I wasn't dying. I knew it. I didn't know it before.

It was my last Uber of the night. I needed the money bad, what else is new, but I didn't want to work anymore that night. I'm lazy. The last guy wasn't picking up either. Fuck it. I'm going home to jerk off. Then a text message came. "I'm deaf," is all I remember and I couldn't let bro down. I picked him up and he spat his way to a very energized conversation about his woman and his children. I was inspired. I got beyond the saliva on my dashboard to look at what his story truly was. He lost one sense but that's not who he was. He used ride sharing, went to see friends, fought, loved, laughed... 

"You wanna do some coke," he mouthed loudly to me. Fuck yeah I did. 

Elephant tree trunk lines is a term I invented that evening. His android smartphone screen that night had less pixels on it than it had combined particles of baby powder, speed, laxative and, of course, trace amounts of pure cocaine. Whatever. It was free. We talked for a little while longer and then I drove home. That's when I started to feel faint. I never had a heart attack but I assume this is how it starts out. My veins felt like they had scaled to minimum size, my heart was beating rapidly in pure ignorance or disregard of the former's status, and my chest had its first taste of the bony person expanding. I was sure I was going to die. 

I composed a text to an ex. People always say not to text your ex. I believe in mending broken bonds if they're worth it to me. A Lannister always pays his debts... Before I could hit send I needed to die. So far I wasn't doing that. Eventually I ended up at home and instead hit send to 911 when playing Playstation with no socks on didn't calm me down. The firefighters and paramedics came. Everyone was too relaxed for my liking. I was on the verge of death with no shoes on in a house I almost burned down and then they stroll in like they're breaking up an illegal canasta gambling ring. The firefighters came and the paramedics checked my vitals. I still felt faint so they took me to ER. 

That bill was high. Charge it to the Iron Bank. The Uber driver that bounced on me at 3a after calling to see where I was going was the worst part. The next person was much nicer. As I laid back in the backseat, well after awkward Uber small talk, I thought "If I live this night through I'm never doing that much coke again." I haven't since. For the first time in my life I truly realized how mortal I was. 

"Well, I was wrong," I thought as I stumbled up the stairs to put a shirt on. Whatever I calculated was clearly incorrect. Two nights from tonight should have tipped me off. I took an entire day away just to adjust for this experiment. I still might fuckin die. Just make it quick. I wasn't sure if Quinn was going to lose it after all the death talk we had that day. I had to snap out of it. I knew this wasn't real. I did the research and, while I don't know all the variables, I knew I should not be in any danger. But goddamn this feels like danger. 

Okay. Okay. But what is really real RIGHT NOW? Look at that only. Breathe... breathe...

"Holy shit. That's the plane to Los Angeles," I say or think out loud to my cousin. It was not the plane to Los Angeles. I was high as fuck on LSD. Probably my fourth weekend in a row. Summer of 2008. Pre-Obama for the world and pre-Kansas for me. I was 21. 

We were headed to my house. I sat on my bed upstairs preparing to wash while my cousin downstairs stayed in the familiar living room (and kitchen, you fat ass) of the place I called home with my mother for the majority of my teen years. He wasn't worried. He had never seen me on drugs before but because of me he knows which one tastes like Toblerone. I hopped in the shower and then the rag started eating my hand. 

"Holy fuck, holy fuck. This thing is..." and the ravenous cloth melted quicker into my skin. Water running down my body, I realized my hand is gone. There's no pain though. "Is this rag eating my hand?" The rag was not eating my hand. I had to look at the facts. My hand was okay. If it was gone it was gone. No point in whining. Can you remove the rag? Yes? Okay. Then wash your ass, you have a show to emcee tonight.

In that moment I had to challenge all the assumptions and knowledge I had of the reality up unto that point to sit through this false one, evaluate and recognize what was real. For the first time in my life, at that level of disorientation, I had to defend what was real. All the while my cousin was eating my cupboards bare. 

I got my shirt on after a few stalls. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't going to die. I didn't believe it yet. I never felt THAT pain before. This specific chest pressure. That heart rate this high at that level of inactivity. The broken screen on my Apple Watch told me so. 110bpm and I'm just walking up the stairs. Fuck I hope I die quick. Knowing is most of the battle. Right now I know I shouldn't be sitting on the couch tearing off my headphones because the song that usually soothes me is making my heart rate go up 10bpm but I am. 

I see the lights outside. Then my chest gets tighter. Flight or fight. I've been here before. Not like this but I've definitely been here before. 

Next up, the conclusion to the three part story on Trust...