"Separation Anxiety"
Words: 1,258
“Have you told Maggie?”
“I have not.”
“It’s about time you did, don’t you think?”
He checked his watch pointlessly, as the battery had died long ago. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“So what then? She’s to spend her days wondering what happened to you when you just up and disappear?”
He’d been friends with Kevin long enough to know that he would not let the topic drop easily. “You don’t understand. It would kill her. Besides, I haven’t given up just yet.”
They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking out on a bustling midday Broadway. He was only days away now and if something didn’t happen soon he wouldn’t have many more moments like this; moments of freedom.
Not willing to relent long enough for even a moment’s peace, Kevin wrapped his knuckles on his chest firmly enough to demonstrate he was serious. “Darrell, listen to me and listen good. Maggie is a good woman, and a great mother! You’re almost fifty grand in the hole and you’ve two days to get right before they snatch you up. And you know how it works! The cost of your imprisonment will be more than you can ever hope to work off in this lifetime! Which means Einstein, you go in and you ain’t ever getting out!”
“I haven’t given up.”
“You need to tell her.”
“I need just one more day to come up with something. If I don’t, I’ll tell her. You have my word.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“There aren’t a whole lot of moves left that aren’t stupid at this point.”
“Don’t think you can make something from nothing Darrell. It doesn’t work that way. Smarter people than you have tried to game the system and failed.”
He walked the evening streets of Oakland aimlessly. He wasn’t alone in his dilemma. The remainder of his afternoon after Kevin’s rant had been spent watching videos online of debt survivors who’d managed to avoid Debtor’s Prison. His hope had been to find something he could use, an idea, anything. Unfortunately, almost every happy ending had been the result of some deus ex machina stroke of luck. One woman received a bailout bundle of cash from a celebrity for whom she’d started a fan blog. A construction worker in Detroit was the recipient of a lawsuit settlement just weeks before his date of surrender. And another won enough in online poker to pay off his debt the same day the Feds showed up at his door.
He didn’t have a blog, win a lawsuit, or gamble. And the while he’d considered the last option, he couldn’t afford risking a debt so large that it could pass to his children when he passed. Running for it was an option, but that too could result in the debt passing on. Only this time to Maggie. He could turn himself in early, but with only two days remaining the credit to his balance would be laughable and not likely to result in even a day less incarcerated.
With more people in debt than not, Congress had passed the Farley Act two years ago to combat the phenomena. The act outlawed bankruptcy and made debt a Federal offense. Those in debt in excess of $30,000 who’d missed more than five payments were subpoenaed. Individuals unable to pay in full their defaulted balances within 90 days of receipt were to be arrested and sent to one of any private labor camp. In labor camp, men and women were to work off their debts through forced labor. The catch however was that in order to garner enough votes for the act, the cost of maintaining these private super prisons could not pass on to the tax payer. Instead, the debt was to pass directly to the defaulter, adding to their already insurmountable balances.
The aftermath of the Farley Act had been a tremendous closure rate on loans, matched only by the closure rate on real estate sales. And if he too had a home to sell, he most certainly would have by now.
Don’t think you can make something from nothing . . .
His fate wouldn’t sting so bad had the debt been accrued through reckless spending or bad investments. Then perhaps there would be some kind of catharsis in that he’d done it to himself. But no, his debt was unavoidable. Their situation, like most tragedies, had hit them undeserved, unexpected, and unavoidable. He wouldn’t be the first or the last to wear an orange jumpsuit because of cancer. But what else could he have done but take the loan? He wasn’t about to watch Maggie die.
He walked for miles with no thought to trajectory. We walked until the people he saw no longer looked like him and walked some more. Eventually, the city he loved became something unfamiliar. And as night overtook him he began grow weary.
Stopping about halfway up an empty block of what appeared to be some kind of industrial sector he stopped and decided to head home. The wind picked up, as downtown Oakland lit grey a roiling canopy of cloud cover. Without a jacket, he held himself against the chill and for the first time could feel himself giving way to hopelessness. In that moment, something slapped lamely against his leg. Looking down, he found a flyer pressed against his jeans, suspended by the wind. At first hesitant to touch the neon-colored paper, he bent and took it up.
“Give the gift of hope,” the header read in bold Times New Roman font.
For a long time he stood there, alone and cold, ogling the flyer under the flickering orange street light. He read the document over and over, at times mouthing the words aloud.
“This is it. This is my play.”
Mrs. Dabne was her name and beneath the pale track lighting she looked almost elegant in her pants suit. She wore the kind of pearl necklace he once given Maggie early in their marriage. The same necklace long since pawned to chip away at their debt.
Dabne looked down at him with an almost matronly expression. “I’ve spoken with the surgeons. Everything has been taken care of. Your generous forfeiture will make someone very, very happy.” Reaching into a manila folder she withdrew what had to be his salvation. “And that brings us to the end of our brief but pleasant transaction. It is my great pleasure to give you this.”
For a moment it looked as though she might try to hand it to him, but Maggie, her eyes still swollen with tears, spared everyone the awkwardness of an incident. “I’ll take that.”
The woman smiled blankly and handed the check to Maggie. “You may take some solace in the fact that the recipient is a soldier. A soldier who was wounded serving our country in Syria. ‘IED’ I believe they call it.”
“It doesn’t,” Maggie told her, folding her arms. “Please leave us.”
Her hair was coming back nicely and now covered her head in auburn fuzz. She’d been crying for a long time and now was time for more anger. As he lay there, propped up in the clinic bed, no longer in possession of arms, he accepted her indignation with an expression of cool and stern reverence. Inside, however, he was aglow. He had won, magicked something out of nothing. She was alive and in recession and he was a free man. He’d turned coal into diamond. Well maybe not diamond. But he’d definitely turned coal into something at least a little better.
Edit: Not sure why Scrivener is botching the formatting.
