A Good Place to Die (part 1)

Toni DeForest
A Good Place to Die

A horseshoe shaped, dead mauve colored building, it seemed sad in itself. The many shade trees and shrubs just gave it a crowded, cramped feeling. Inside, the formerly white walls were a light shade of nicotine. Not too many stains on the carpet, but it smelled of a thousand old shoes. The rooms were small; one bedroom like an oversized closet and a combination living room/kitchen. The cabinets reminded her of the color of yellow play dough after being mauled by tiny dirty hands for months. Looking now it seemed like a good place to die.
The years crawled by at first then they all just blended together. Rosa Crimmins sat in front of the television, occasionally gazing out the window at life. Not even a shadow, more like her unself, this was what she had become.
A lifetime ago, dancing, singing, she had been adventurous. And Oh the children; how she had adored them: the gleam in their eyes at a new discovery, their words beyond wisdom. Now she was barely a memory to them. One for a refusal to loan more money, the other due to a failed joint business venture, more his fault than hers. What did it matter on this one of a thousand lonely evenings? Her big outing every day consisted of her senior coffee at McDonalds. She’d sit by the window in the light, living vicariously through the half conversations of passersby. Once a week, on Thursday night; not Friday, because Friday was for lovers and she felt like she stuck out too much; she would treat herself to a meal out. She usually chose Antonio’s, it wasn’t too noisy, and the spaghetti was reasonable and tasty. Most of the clientele were business persons or older couples. The conversations were either work related, of planned and past vacations or what the kids were doing. She wondered what her own children were up to. Had Jessie stopped trying to live beyond her means, was Joe finally holding a job? Who Knew? They hadn’t contacted her in years now; she didn’t even have correct phone numbers anymore. The only other times she ventured out were twice a week to buy her lotto tickets at Jerry’s Market.
On a day like so many; Rosa had her senior coffee. The Fred and Ethel like couple in the next booth were arguing over the cost of her hair do. She’d walked home, watched the Today show, washed her clothes and hung them out. The sky was cloudy and the wind was just beginning to show that it could be more than a polite breeze. It was going to rain for sure; she could feel it in her aching bones. Arthritis wasn’t too bad yet. If there was any reason to, she could probably still dance. There hadn’t been a reason since Arthur died. She had lost her best friend and been left alone with two babies. It had been sudden, a heart attack. She’d gone from aching for him, to hating him, to resenting him to just plain aching. Finally she spent a month of nights curled up with his pillow, where his scent still lived and just tried to remember the good times. It made her smile even now.
Her soaps came on at three o’clock. Afterwards she made dinner for herself and old Pearl. Pearl still had some good years left in her, though that black lab coat was beginning to get a little gray around the edges. In a little while they would walk to Jerry’s, buy a lottery ticket and a Miller high life and return to watch House. It began with a man in his fifties having a heart attack. They were in the ER, he had been DOA. The wife overheard someone say, “Too bad she didn’t wake up sooner.” Moments later the woman collapsed. Those words not only caught the woman on the TV, they had hit home and hit it hard on this gloomy day. She had fallen asleep on the couch that night watching the Tonight show. Those words; they had stung like a bee injecting heartache. She couldn’t have known, she told herself. He was only 29. Why didn’t she wake up? Maybe she could have saved him. He’d always been there for her and in the end she’d abandoned him. He died alone. What kind of wife was she? It should have been her. Surely the kids would have preferred him. Maybe they would have been better off. Maybe she just didn’t want to live without him, without anyone anymore.
She began to actually think about how she could do it. There were the pills left over from her sprained ankle. Who would care? They probably wouldn’t even find her for days.
On the television House bellowed, “FUCK YOU!” at someone. She jumped, where’s your spine she thought? “FUCK YOU”, she yelled. “FUCK YOU kids, FUCK YOU death.” She almost laughed at herself. She liked House. ‘FUCK YOU, I’m gonna walk my Pearl and drink a Miller. On the way back not paying attention she tripped on the curb and went down. Pearl licked her face. She slowly dragged herself up to assess the damage. Her knee was skinned, and her ankle hurt. Shit. Gimping home, she tried to talk herself out of going to the hospital. Safe on her couch she said “FUCK YOU ankle, you get ice and I get another Miller”. This was turning into a FUCK YOU kind of night. She was beginning to feel alive again, some of the old fight coming back. With her ankle propped on a stool and iced, remote in one hand, Miller in the other, she switched on the news. Had to get those lotto numbers and the weather, even though she could already hear the rain. “Crap, where’s my pen, the numbers”. 12, 14, 16, 19, 27, 39; “holy shit. HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT I WON.” Let me call, maybe I made a mistake. It took ten minutes to get through. A ten minute eternity. “HOLY SHIT”, she told the recording. The grand prize had been $600,000 and only one winning ticket. She wrapped her ticket in a handkerchief and tucked it in her bra. She opted to pick up her money instead of waiting; she could use her rent money for the trip.
What do you know; the kids saw her name in the paper and called. It turned out that Jessie lived right in the next county and Joe had moved north and was in school. Jessie sounded drugged up even on the phone. She hung up on both of them after offering to pay for rehab and counseling. Give them a couple of weeks to let that sink in and she would call them. After all they were her babies. The next day she and Pearl left, closing the door on her dreary apartment for the last time. “A good place to die my ass. FUCK YOU life. I win.”