The Discount LIfe: Step Four and Half

“So,” I said clearing my throat,” does anyone have any stories about Step Four?”


“Luv, I think most’ve us here are brand new to the brilliant idea of the Discount Life. I myself am only on Step one,” said Agnes. “When I started to clear out my life I decided I really liked a lot of that shit. What do I do about that?” She took a swig of her Irish crème coffee and made a disgusted face.

Lizzie answered with, “The point is to sort through what you like and what you like that will help you achieve your goals. So you set a goal and then you ask yourself, is keeping this going to help me or keep me from reaching this goal. If not, chuck it.”

 "I’ve been getting rid of stuff most of my life. I have no goals. Just living day by day. And getting to my next drink.” She smiled slyly.

“Well then it sounds like you need a goals list. Tucker, share yours, will you? That might help Agnes, “ I said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a crinkled piece of paper. As he worked to uncrease the folds I couldn’t help but see that his fingers were noticeably cleaner since the last time I saw him. Even clean fingers could be a milestone in a discount life.

“My first goal was to find a place to sleep. I did that. My second goal was to stop drinking and go to my AA meetings. I’m working on that. State of Process if you will," he smiled at me.

“Tucker’s gone to an AA meeting every week since he started the DLA,” Lizzie said.

“Yeah but I haven’t totally quit drinking. So I can’t cross that off.”

“No but you know you’re working on it. That’s half the battle,” I said.

“My next goal’s going to be to get a job. But I’m not pushing myself on that one. The 17th Street shelter is bad enough. All their rules. A job might just send me over the edge.”

Andrew piped up. “I have a list. It’s small but I have one,” he said, looking up at me. “To get promoted at work. To settle down – find someone,” he looked at Marie and I had to tell myself to keep breathing. “Maybe go to Scotland. That’s a place I’ve always wanted to go.” And then the reverse effect took place. Our shared goal restored my faith in him, however unfair the foundation of its lapse.

“I never knew you wanted to go to Scotland,” Mel said to Andrew, then glanced at me.

“Yep,” he said.

“I’ve been to Scotland,” Agnes said. “Right next door to England, course. So it wasn’t hard. It’s okay. Food’s terrible.”

“So if not Scotland, what would be on your list?” Mel asked.

“Look. I’ve traveled the world,” Agnes said. “I have more money than George Bush Senior and George W combined. I’ve had three husbands, and several careers and two children that I see pretty regularly. I’m definitely a drunkard but it hasn’t hurt me any- ‘cept for I’ve put on a stone or two, “ she raised her mug like a cheer, “getting older may come with wisdom but it makes you quite a bit fatter as well.”

“Amen to that,” Lizzie said. “I ate half a bagel last week and now I can barely button my pants!”

“I saw you eat a whole bagel last week,” Tucker said, mockingly.

“Alright, maybe it was more like three bagels last week but I’m just saying! I can’t eat what I used to.” They bantered this way for several minutes and though my eyes followed the conversation, dipping from face to face, my thoughts were on Lizzie’s unintentional half truth. When she thought her secret was safe she was content to let us, and thereby herself, believe she’d only eaten half a bagel, when in reality, she knew, she’d really had three. Why would a woman as in control and successful and content as Lizzie lie to herself about a bagel? The answer was uncomplicated and universal. An elementary philosophy whose emotion was simultaneously releasing and shaming, and it wielded power over all its students: admitting to anyone, least of yourself, the truth of any given situation made you vulnerable. And vulnerability is like weakness. Life has a way of training vulnerability out of us. We build walls, we make jokes, and we shackle the scary beast of the unknown to the floor by selling ourselves and our compatriots on half truths. Be it a bagel or a betrothed.

“Chloe – we’ve lost you,” Andrew was waiving his hand in front of my eyes.

“Sorry, I was thinking…”

“She has so much trouble with that, “ he said looking at the others and pointing a finger at me. They laughed. Marie buried her smile in her mug but I could see that she enjoyed their laughter more than politeness should allow.

“I was thinking,” I paused to make sure I had their attention, “about half truths. I really think they’re the worst kind. Like Lizzie and the bagels. Or me and, well, lots of things. Being honest with yourself is so hard.”

“That’s coz it hurts, “said Agnes. “Like hell. Most of us don’t want to upset ourselves with what’s really in the mirror.”

“I don’t look in mirrors,” Tucker said. “I think it’s better that way.”

“But maybe if you did –" Jack chimed in. Mel slapped him on the shoulder. “I’m just kidding. Just kidding..” Jack put up his hands in surrender.

“Hey, I’m working on it,” Tucker said.

“I think lying to yourself is for young people,” Agnes said. “They still feel like they’ve got something to lose.” She drank from her mug and made a face again. She could just stop drinking it. Really. “Take me for example. I’m old. I’ve survived my past. I am what I am. I don’t lie to myself coz I’ve got nothing left to lose really. It’s all happened already. But young people – everything’s a first. First love lost. First move, first friendship broken. The disappointments all seem so hard because it’s all new. It’s terrifying to think of losing what you have – Right now. Because most people haven’t the faintest how they’ll go on after that.  But you learn.” She stopped and we were all quiet. Jack, whose arm was around Mel’s shoulders, pulled her closer to him. Andrew, whose arm was around Marie, withdrew his appendage and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“I’ll tell you something else,” Agnes said. “Things is only hard once. After that you know what to expect, so the pains easier to manage. Lying to yourself – it just isn’t worth it.” Lizzie leaned over to the center of the table and sifted through the pastries on a plate there. She picked up a bagel and said, “I’m going to eat this. The whole thing and its going to make my pants tight and I don’t care.” Her interjection was timed perfectly and we all laughed.

“I need a drink,” Agnes said. “That’s enough serious talk for today.”

“No Agnes,” Tucker said. “You’ll only regret it.”

“I’d only regret it if I wanted to change,” she said, standing up and working her way out from her chair. “Nice to meet you all.” She gathered her coat and headed for the door. “See you next time,” she said cheerfully. We chattered on for a bit but Agnes’s words hung in the air like humidity just before a thunderstorm. Her departure disbanded our focus and we all began to make our goodbyes.

As we headed out, I placed myself in close proximity to Jack and Mel, as if they were my pack. Safety in numbers. Andrew left Marie by the door and came over to us.

“So thanks for inviting us,” he said. I wanted to say that his being my DL partner was important to me and that her presence somehow diminished the value of that partnership. Our partnership. But that wasn’t fair, nor was it completely true. So instead I said, “Yeah. Thanks for coming. It means a lot.”

“So see you next week?”

“Two weeks,” I said.

“Two weeks.” He leaned over and gave me a hug. His hugs were completely engulfing. They swallowed you whole in their embrace. He always squeezed a little too tight, a charming after effect of his enthusiasm. “Bye,” he said.

“Bye,” Marie said, tossing the word out and waving from her stance by the doors. “Nice meeting you.”

“Bye, “ I responded. I watched them walk away briefly before deciding that I did not need to bare witness to their partnership and busied myself with checking my phone. No messages. Missed call: Mom.


I called her when we got home. She wanted to talk about Thanksgiving. She did most of the talking. Detailing the plans: dinner at her house, close friends and family. Then finally she said, “Honey, what’s wrong?” There were so many things she didn’t know about. Where would I even begin? “Chloe?”

“Mom. I’m not coming with Stanley this year,” I blurted it out like a surprise we should all be happy about. “We broke up.” Half truth. I left him but that was too hard to say out loud.

“Okay.” That was all she said. Okay. A simple word that ate up all the unanswered questions.

“Okay, “ I said. “So it will just be me.”

“That’s always okay with me and your father. You are plenty.” I smiled. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“I just couldn’t live with myself anymore. Always pretending like what we had was all I ever wanted. It wasn’t real, mom. And it wasn’t enough.”

She was quiet for a moment and then she said, “Well, whatever anything is, it should start with being real. And you know….”was all I got before the line went dead.

“Mom? Hello?” Nothing. She must have hit the end button with her cheek again. She was always doing that. I hit the end button myself and set the phone down on the bed, waiting for her to call back. I massaged my temples and my eyebrows, the beginnings of a tension headache was creeping up into my sinus. The ringing of the phone, despite the fact that I was prepared for it, felt like a shrieking cat in my ears. I grabbed it and hit talk without looking. Please stop that racket.

“Mom, I didn’t hear the last thing you said..” I trailed off.

“It’s Stanley.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and checked the screen, like I needed confirmation to believe it. Indeed. The phone read Stanley in big letters across the top of the screen.

“Hi,” I said lamely.

“Hi,” he said. “I haven’t heard from you in almost two weeks.”

“No you haven’t. I’m sorry about that. I….I didn’t know what to do. So I just left.”

“I don’t get it. Why? What’s wrong?” How do you explain to someone exactly what’s wrong? What’s wrong is you don’t see me? Don’t try to see me. You don’t get off the couch for me. You won’t go to a cooking class with me. You don’t want me. That’s the truth. “We didn’t even have a fight or anything,” he said.

“We never fight because you won’t fight with me.”

“Well, I don’t like to fight,” he said. “But we can talk about it.”

“We have talked about it. You just don’t seem to hear me. I say what I’m thinking and you listen but you don’t hear me. And then we don’t fight and then its over. And we just go about our days like nothing happened.”

“What are you talking about? Chloe. Come on. Come home. This is just…you just need to talk.”

“Let’s talk about it right now.”

He stammered. “Well okay, let’s talk. What do you want to say?” Ahhhh! I wanted to say, right there that’s what I’m talking about! Circles.

“I just said what I wanted to say,” I said. “I guess you missed it.” There was a harshness in my voice that I didn’t like. The hurt in me trying its best to turn vulnerability into anger.

“Chloe…”

I worked patience into my tone and said “Why didn’t you go to the cooking class with me?”

“Is that what this is about? I thought you were okay with my not going.”

“Could you answer the question please.”

“I didn’t go because …I don’t know. It just seemed like a lot.”

“You didn’t want to go. Just say that.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to go. I mean, I guess I didn’t want to go but I just thought you were okay with that.” I didn’t respond. “Apparently not.” Then he was silent too. We were both doing what we’d always done – letting nothing pass into complacency.

“You don’t kiss me either,” I said. “Not really. Not like I should be kissed. Why?”

“I kiss you all the time. Hello, good bye.”

“You kiss me because you have to. But you don’t look at me and kiss me like you just wanted to. It’s always like you’re… kissing me out of regular obligation. There’s no passion there though…it’s a peck here, a peck there…”

“I…I don’t understand. I kiss you.” Silence again. How do you say that the reason it isn’t working is because it was never two people working together but always one person running in circles to keep the ‘we’ afloat.

“I want a partner,” I said. “I don’t want to go to cooking classes alone when I have someone who supposedly loves me at home. And I want to go to Scotland…someday.  And I don’t want the person who loves me most in the world to make me feel like I’m stupid for thinking I’ll get there …eventually.”

“Okay. We’ll go to Scotland. Come home and we’ll talk about it. Plan a trip.” And right then I lost all my steam. I didn’t have the energy to argue an argument in circles. I could not circle another minute.

“Stanley. I have to go. Thanks for calling.”

“Wait, did I say something wrong? If you want to go to Scotland. We’ll go. That’s what you want right?”

“Someday,” I said. “But not like this. Bye Stanley.” And I hung up. I don’t think I’d ever hung up on a living soul before. It crushed me to think of him sitting on the other end of the phone, staring at it in disbelief and not because of the idea of him in pain but because of the idea that his pain was caused by me. Because of what it said about me. That I was bad for making other people feel bad. But was it bad to take care of yourself? Are you bad if you are doing what you have to do to save yourself?

My phone received a text message. It was from Christian. Perfect timing. Of course. “Thinking about you” was all it said. Was it bad to be wanted? To want someone’s actions to demonstrate that they wanted you instead of you always having to instigate that want?

I curled up on the bed and rested my eyes. Oh lord. I was tired. The phone rang again. It was my mom. I couldn’t answer. I was down for the count. I spotted Get Some Manners on the nightstand and reached for it for the first time since Step Four. Chapter 5: Inventory Yourself. It’s important to take an honest evaluation of yourself. Where is your value? Have you been placing it outside yourself – in things, other people, your job? Oh bother…maybe I’d take a cue from Agnes and get a drink for this chapter. Taking inventory, a potentially excruciating endeavor, would be easier with a little something to take the edge off.  I got up on went to the kitchen.