The lease was up on our apartment and everyone was moving out. Martha was off to medical school, Fritz had left for Chicago three months earlier, and his comely replacement Caroline was bound for a flat in Spain.
The Monkey surreptitiously negotiated a move into the only known vacancy amongst our friends, an open bedroom in a top floor Park Slope apartment.
He would be joining the dream team. A legacy apartment that had a history more akin to a frat house then to a respectable home. It�d been housing members of our wayward clan for nearly a decade, but the Monkey�s entry would soon divide friends, spurn grudges and kill off the legacy.
Brady and I, the leftovers as it seemed to be, were empty-handed and lacking any clear solution.
My landlord, pouncing on my impending homelessness, took the opportunity to extend an invitation for me to stay in the apartment. I briefly flirted with the idea of recruiting a team of strangers to fill the empty rooms, and thus also pay the lion�s share of rent, but that idea quickly evaporated when the rent became an issue.
In return for my status as a �good tenant�, the scumbag landlord graciously offered to raise the rent no more then what he was charging on the open market. The new figure would be only slightly lower then four thousand dollars per month, a sum my brain was entirely unprepared to deal with.
So much for his whole speech about treating his tenants like family. If a member of my family offered to do me a �favor� in return for an extra four hundred bucks a month, I�d be compelled to punch them in the nose.
Compelled, not driven. I�m not an animal; I just play on in print.
My only other option was to secure a new apartment, either alone or with Brady as my roommate, but I wasn�t exactly the ideal candidate. I had no job, no collateral, and the previous year�s income was desperately shy of the poverty line.
In essence, without proof of gainful employment, this New York adventure would shortly be bankrupt.
At this point, my job search changed gears from desperate to frantic, but every lead I chased down evaporated between my fingers in whisps of disappointment. Promising interviews would be followed by deafening silence as my phone stood mute.
All the attractive positions I�d chased with vigor were lackadaisical and non-committal, if not unresponsive from the outset. The lesser positions were content to string me along, leading me to endless interview-and-wait situations.
It would be an understatement to say that things did not look promising.
All my options were exhausted and the last resort held no vacancies.
I busted my ass and worked my fingers to the bone, but I had nothing to show for my efforts other then a brimming file of unanswered cover letters. The house was empty and swept clean. My Uhaul was packed to the ceiling; gassed-up and destined for a small city down the coast named Failure.
It was the final nail in life�s coffin. I�d failed in love, I�d failed in education, I�d failed as a friend, I�d failed to support myself and I�d failed to find a secure job after a solid year of searching.
But I am stoic and cold. My upper-lip is as stiff as a brick and my heart as empty as a canyon.
You can�t break the broken.
The world had served up a piping-hot shit sandwich and I was getting my fork. I gathered up my things, put my tail between my legs and set a course for browner pastures. And just as I was loading the last lampshade, I got a call on my cell phone.
Friday, the last day of the month. Moving day. Get the fuck out of New York day.
I was getting ready to drive my stuff back home and live in my mother�s basement again, jobless, hopeless and without aim.
