Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [36]
I was shocked by her own tone of voice, which was angry, demanding. “I just walked in the door five minutes ago, Debby.”
“I checked your flight information. You got home last night, plenty of time to call me up so I could get my money.”
“I had to take a later flight,” I said. And then thought, she checked my flight arrangements?
I said, “You’re fired, Debby. I won’t be needing you anymore. I’d like my keys back.”
“You cocksucking faggot,” she shouted. “You can’t fire me.”
“I sure as shit can, you ugly fucking midget. Send me back my keys, you granny-cunt.”
“Go to hell,” she screamed and hung up.
Debby had to die.
First, her grandchildren had to be killed in a fiery car crash, and then she must slip under the Eighth Avenue bus.
I called a twenty-four-hour locksmith and had them change my locks. It cost me three hundred dollars but this was three hundred dollars I was happy to spend. Debby was now locked out of my life.
But it didn’t take her long to discover what I had done, and she began calling me nonstop and leaving venomous messages on my machine. “You spoiled, lazy, gay cocksucker. You give me my fucking money.”
I changed my phone number and had it unlisted.
A week later, a summons appeared. Debby was suing me in small-claims court. I was to appear before a judge in two weeks.
Although I was editing my contact-lens commercial and would be working very late for the next month, there was no way I wouldn’t show up for that meeting. Luckily, I’d always paid Debby with checks. Debby always wanted cash, but I never gave it to her. “Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to go to the ATM,” I always said, which was true. “Next time,” I always promised. As a result, I had a record of all the money that I’d paid her, with the exception of the last nine hundred dollars I’d left in cash on top of the box. Hard evidence.
When the date arrived, I saw Debby waiting on a bench outside the judge’s chambers. She was dressed in a suit, her hair in a bun. She looked, for the first time, like a possible grandmother.
We didn’t speak, but I smiled at her. I smiled because I was carrying a briefcase filled with receipts and check stubs.
When we got in front of the judge, I was relieved to see that he was tall. Even though he was sitting behind his desk, I could tell. He was a handsome, tall grandfather, wise and calm. Surely, he would side with me against the evil troll.
Debby outlined her case against me. She claimed that we agreed on a fee of eighteen hundred dollars to unpack my apartment and that I only paid her half and she was due the other half.
I presented my evidence against her. Checks, signed receipts from Debby herself. The judge examined the receipts and he said, “You’ve paid this woman twelve thousand dollars? Over the past eight months? Just to clean your apartment?”
Then he looked at Debby. “I don’t see what your case is, Ma’am. This man has paid you to clean his apartment, and he’s paid you quite a lot of money. Do you have any proof that he owes you money?”
She was furious and defeated. “No,” she said.
The judge then said, “Well, you need to prepare yourself a little better. I’ll give you a month to pull your case together.”
Then to me he said, “And you should get yourself some Windex and a roll of paper towels.”
He set a date to appear before him again in one month.
But wait! Hadn’t I just won? Why was he giving her a month to prepare her case? It didn’t make any sense.
No matter. I’d just come back in a month with my same briefcase filled with documents.
Debby and I were forced to share the elevator going down, and she made a point to stare straight ahead, at the “3” button on the elevator, while I stared at the top of her head and imagined hitting it with a hammer. I’d won, or would win, and wanted her to feel it. No longer would she steal from me or control my mind and life.
Except that on the day I was to once again appear in front of the judge, I was called out to an “emergency” client meeting in New Jersey. Of course, there are no real emergencies in advertising. There is