He Helped Me Dig.
Gregg and I had been co-habitating, for lack of a better term, since I moved into my new apartment. I’d invited him back for one night, and he just stayed there. Sometimes Gregg disappeared for a couple of days at my request, but we were a couple, for convenience sake rather than choice.
With Bonnie in Akron and Larry (and therefore Ronnie) gone, Gregg was my only friend. So he became my boyfriend. I didn’t want to be too alone.
Gregg was fun, in the way that someone who mirrors your every move can be fun. Everything I wanted to do, Gregg did. Every time I wanted to go out, Gregg wanted to go out, too. Every time I wanted to eat, Gregg wanted to eat, too. Every time I wanted to drink, Gregg wanted to drink, too. Every time I wanted to get high, Gregg wanted to get high, too.
So when I extolled the virtues of cocaine, Gregg wanted to do cocaine, too. He went out and got us some cocaine, which we snorted all weekend while drinking ourselves into oblivion. It was a particularly fun weekend that I barely remembered – which had become my pattern again. I regularly blacked out.
A lot. Again.
On Sunday, as I wandered around the apartment with my last can of beer, I reached into my underwear drawer for some cash, and there was no money there.
“Fuck!” I screamed.
“What?” Gregg asked from where he sprawled innocently on the bed.
“My money’s gone!” I dug around inside my drawer, tossing underwear all over the apartment. I still didn’t wear underwear, but there was lots in the drawer. “My money is completely gone!”
Gregg jumped up. He helped me dig. “Fuck!” he repeated. “Where could it have gone?”
“I don’t fucking know!” I yelled. “That’s all the money I had in the world! I can’t buy any more beer!”
“Fuck!” Gregg said again.
Then I realized that it was May 1st. My rent was due. Immediately. And all of my money was completely gone.
“How am I supposed to pay the rent?” I shrieked. “It’s due today!”
Gregg continued to dig in the drawer. “I don’t know!” he said, seemingly flabbergasted.
I threw myself onto the floor with my beer. My last beer. I would have cried, but I no longer felt my emotions.
“Fuck,” I whispered. I put my head in my hands. “What the fuck am I going to do?”
Gregg plopped down next to me on the floor. He put his arm around me and dipped his head onto mine in solidarity. “I don’t know,” he said.
It took me three hours of whining about the missing money before I realized that I had not left the apartment all weekend, so I couldn’t have spent my rent money during a blackout.
The realization hit me like a brick: Gregg took my cash.
“It was you!” I said, shocked. “It’s only been in there since Friday and we didn’t go anywhere all weekend!”
Gregg sat silently, suddenly hanging his head in shame. Finally he whispered: “I didn’t have enough so I used it to buy the coke.”
“That was my rent money!” I screeched. “How am I supposed to pay the rent?!”
Head still hung, Gregg shrugged. He did not apologize.
“GO.” I spat. “Get. Me. My. Rent. Money!”
Gregg got up off the floor and left without looking back.
On Friday, Gregg reappeared with $250 – the full amount for rent, but not the entire amount he’d stolen.
He stayed, because I had not one other friend in the world.