We will be through
And so will you
— Diversion
Foke was satisfied with how I handled the situation in L.A.
He said,"That was gangsta," to which I replied, "I guess I'm a better friend than an enemy."
And speaking of friends, when I got back to Gary, Claire's apartment was my first stop. I needed to see how she was getting by, without me. She sounded so happy on the phone, the last time we talked. But maybe it was just for show.
I was angry at myself for letting her go.
I know our deal was only for one year, but I could have convinced her to stay. And I should have. I needed her, and she needed me. How was she going to take care of herself without me? I only gave her a hundred grand.
Breaking into her apartment was easy. I'm not even good at picking locks and I managed it with ease.
OK, fine. I hired somebody to do it. Feel better knowing the truth? Come on.
I searched the place. It was filled with everything I bought her. The clothes. The shoes. The books she only pretended to read. Even the glasses we bought to make her look smart. It was all just an act, to make the marks think she was something she wasn't. To make them think she mattered.
"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself," she once said, back when we were on the lakeshore beach in Chicago, and I cursed the thought, but I was impressed with her for having thought it, until she said it was from a book. Ralph Walker Emerstein, or something. Of course she got it from a book. She never had an original thought.
Had she found peace? Within herself?
The only thing I find within myself is anger. Just thinking about her makes me furious.
I found her diary. I couldn't even read it. Except for the parts I did. I caught myself mumbling a few times as I rummaged through the thing.
I found a poem she wrote a year ago, right after she met that writer guy. She named it "If Oh You Knew." It said:
I am the girl wanted in bed
But I'm diversion you would dread
If oh you knew
But when you do
We will be through
And so will you
I'm the lust within your loins
I enable gotten coins
My siren song
A ping to pong
The game is long
I will be gone
Look at that. She fucked up the rhyme. Do you see it? That bit at the end. Girl can't even rhyme.
There is no ping.
There is no pong.
I decide what's right and wrong!!!
That rhymes.
The last line though. Hers, not mine. "I will be gone."
Ouch.
What a bitch!
Is it true though?
Is she gone?
Not til I say so.
I decide that, because the game is long. She said so.
Last time we talked, she said, "Life is the real long game. So, you have to ask yourself, 'What am I doing this for? What do I really want?'"
I want freedom, and freedom isn't cheap.
Freedom is the real long game.
Freedom from want.
Freedom from judgment.
Freedom from those who think they've set themselves free of me.
I want the freedom to have it all and not feel guilty.
Don't you fucking judge me. You don't know. You couldn't possibly understand. You haven't been there.
But Claire has. Yet she judges ME?
I wondered how judgmental she'd be once she burned through that hundred grand. She'd come crawling back. After living with me, on easy street, a hundred grand couldn't possibly be enough.
And, really, how much is enough? Claire said, "Enough is when your heart is full."
That girl was full of shit.
And I would know, because my heart is made of shit.
"I will be gone," she said.
Well, that was it.
That was what I came to see.
She thought she didn't need me anymore. She? Didn't need ME?
I needed to leave.
I couldn't stand the sight of what she'd become.
She'd become ordinary.
She said she wanted less?
She'd become less.
I found her lipstick in a drawer, next to the diary. I put it on. I went into her bathroom and kissed the mirror, up high, right in the middle of the thing. I had to climb up onto the sink to do it.
I needed to make sure she knew I'd been there. To make sure she knew I would always be there.
"I will be gone," the poem says?
Never.
Fuck you, Claire.
I made you. I'll always be there.
"Get your fucking words out of my head! I wish you were dead!!!"
She never wanted this?!?
Any of this?
Could've fooled me.
"THAT'S BUTTERSCOTCH, BITCH."
I left twenty bucks on the counter, just like any of the men who'd come before.
Before me.
Before I freed her from all of that.
"I will be gone," she said?
I thought, "I will be gone too, but only because I have somewhere else I need to be." And the hour was getting late.
I slammed the door on my way out.