mastersofpsychosis-blog

[mastersofpsychosis-blog]

Number Nine

"You picking up dinner before coming home tonight?"

My girlfriend asked me my hand resisting the urge to reach out and touch the arrangements around me. She didn't like when I touched the flowers. Oils from the fingers damaged the petals making the flowers not last as long for whoever bought them. This one in particular was really pretty, had a unique scent to it, rebellious nature inside me scratched at the surface whispering to just touch it, I know I want to. Shoving my hands in my pocket I turned my focus and attention on her.

"Of course babe, what are you in the mood for." I stepped away from the flowers in turn stepping away from her scolding me for ruining an expensive arrangement that she worked hours on. I didn't need to start our relationship off on a bad foot, not paying attention to details, that sort of thing. 

Eloise loved what she did, and as I stood in her shop I could see how much love she poured in to each arrangement, see the devotion she had, the passion. It was only one of the many things that I liked about her. Our relationship was new, some might consider too new. Fast? I didn’t do anything slow. When you meet a dime like Eloise you jump, you run, you speed. I knew from the second I laid eyes on her that there was something intense about her, something special. When I opened up to her and talked about my life there was never a hint of judgement, she was open with her life in return. So things might be new, really new, wet paint on the wall of new but I was actually happy. I wanted to get to know her, if everything about her was as cute and sexy as her passion for flowers then I really couldn’t wait.

"I don't know, why don't you surprise me." She smiled over at me above the big vase of flowers that she was piecing together. It was one of those smiles that just made everything around you make completely no sense. You couldn't keep your eyes off of it.

My eyes widened seeing the time on the clock above her. "Babe, I'm late. I have to go to that interview or whatever. I'll text you when I'm on my way home."

I walked over to her giving her a tender gentle goodbye kiss grudgingly not liking leaving her, we'd both been so busy lately that our schedules hadn't matched up and been in sync and it was like passing each other on a highway. Turning on heel I left her shop heading towards the nearest T station.

Why was I being interviewed? I had no flipping idea to be honest. I thought moving back to Boston, Trent being in prison that the life I once lived there was all behind me. My Grandmother once said that the demons weren't ones from the Bible, the true demons were our past that we could never escape. This lingered on my mind while I looked out the window of the subway pondering why would they choose to interview me? Why did I have to answer any of their questions, what did I owe to them? I didn't know if this was one of Trent's schemes and wanted to keep with the program. I'd heard about the little games he had started to play rearing his ugly head, making it known that he was back. I had no clue why this interview was going underway but I did know that if Trent was behind it, I was going to play this out, reducing the risks of a target on my back.

Getting off at my stop I pulled my pack of cigarettes out of my pocket shoving the butt end in my mouth sparking it up. A homeless man asked for one which I obliged of course. Couldn't help circumstances least I could do for the man was bum him a smoke. Feet to pavement I walked briskly to my favorite location which as requested for the location of the interview. I could have fudged up and lied about the location, was I exposing myself taking someone here? But again my mind went back to Trent and if this was something he was involved in and the man knew me, he'd know if I was lying. How did I end up in something like this?

Stress or something resembling it had the cigarette I felt I had just lit being nothing but a few centimeters short of the filter. Seeing an ashtray in a smoking area just before the interview meet I put it out. The few feet it took me to get to the door wasn't long enough, I saw him sitting there pen and paper with his cup of coffee waiting for me. Opening the door and making it to the booth I slid in to my seat.

"Jason Masters, so nice to meet you." He held out his hand giving a former welcome and starting the conversation.

"Let's just get this over with yeah?" I brought the back of my hand up to my nose rubbing it sniffling slightly the cool from the winter day outside having caused it to run.

"Okay, sure. Straight to business, I like that. First question then. Why did you pick this as your favorite location?" John Ross looked across at me brow perked waiting for my answer.

"I don't know, it was one of the first places I came to when I arrived in Boston." I looked around at the diner. "Alice the owner got me my first job as a bus boy. She taught me a thing or two about hard work."  I fidgeted my thumb tapping the side of my knee thinking of ways to dodge and avoid his questions.

"So it's more about the people in this place not so much the location itself?" John wrote down some notes nodding his head formulating his own opinions or whatever in his head.

"Something like that, look you want some good food and good service you come here, it's locally owned and we like to take care of our people and...what are you writing?" I asked trying to look at his paper his writing unreadable upside down from the position I was sitting.

I was getting more and more nervous about the interview. I wasn’t used to being asked questions about my life. The last time I’d done a real interview that I felt was intrusive was when I applied for Yale. They did the whole talk about your family bit, the what do you want to be when you grow up, where do you see yourself in five years. That sort of thing. I hate it then, and I hated it now. Why my favorite location? How would that be important to anything of this interview. I was kicking myself for not looking this guy up, had I been to hasty in agreeing to meet with him. Was my paranoia about Trent making me make decisions that  could be my Achilles heel?

"Just a few notes, carry on, so you consider yourself a local now? That leads in to my next question Jason, how's life been since you moved from Sloane?" The man brought his cup of coffee up to his mouth taking a sip. "You're right this is actually really good."

I cocked my brow confused by him. I didn't know why he wanted to ask these things. They were vague when it came to being intrusive but it was enough to have my alarm bells going off in my head like emergency res-ponder sirens. Was I divulging too much information? Had I just put my Aunt Alice at risk talking about this place? They say that advertising is advertising but what local station did he work for again? Who was the audience? If everyone was going to be privy to this interview, wouldn't Trent be privy to it as well? The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, my head was spinning trying to formulate a plan on keeping my answers simple and sweet. I didn't want to expose myself, I had more than myself to think about. Call me paranoid if you like, I wasn't going to risk some jerk off news reporter giving Trent more arsenal for his atomic bombs he planned to drop on all of our heads.

"It's been great." I tried to keep my answer short but seeing the expression on his face I knew that he wanted me to go in to greater detail. "I'm working, keeping myself straight and out of trouble, I'm making good enough money I can survive. You've lived in this city, you know how it is. You're just trying to make a dollar rubbing pennies together. Anything higher than being off the street with a roof over your head is success in this city." 

I couldn’t very well tell him what I did for a living. I didn’t have the smooth cut ‘straight’ job that most people did. I didn’t clock in to your regular nine to give. There was no medical, retirement, 401K, none of that. I would just be lucky if I kept off radar long enough to keep myself out of jail. I couldn’t tell him that after this interview I planned to take the T to a nicer part of town, Jimmy Rig a car then take it to my buyer Duane where I unload it, take the few hundred I might get for it after fees and paying off the people that help with my jobs, use that money to get my girlfriend and I something to eat for dinner. For all he knew I was still busing tables or something. I didn’t work in the line of work you talked about, bragged about, even made known you did. I have to admit though, the life of a car thief was never dull. 

"You talk about how it's hard for you to make money, how did you put it? Rubbing pennies together? If you're so hard up for cash why were you known as 'The Wealthy'?" The smug grin on his face taunted me, like he'd trapped me in a corner.

Scratching my head running my hands through my hair I tried to hide any agitation that I might have from that smug look. I wanted to knock the look right off his face. Known for, that was the thing. It was something I was known for. Not something I liked to plaster all over like graffiti on brick walls sending a message. It was a part of my past that I chose not to announce and put out there but somehow it always came back to just that.

"I come from money, it's not something I boast about, try and rub in people's faces or anything like that. It's something I leave behind me. I don't partake in it now and I segregate myself from that life, for many reasons. I don’t need to sit here and have you judge me for it, I don’t live that way anymore like I said and I work for my own money now." You could hear my tone and the way my pride was barking at the surface demanding to be heard. I didn’t need this guy thinking I was just some rich punk faking it on the streets. He didn’t know a damn thing about me.

Why had I reinvented myself when I moved to Boston? When I dropped out of Yale and chose a different life, the path I'm on now? Because my parents, my older brother and his wife, their little family. They don't need to be held responsible for anything that I do. I know I am no white collar, upstanding citizen. I blur the lines of right and wrong and my right wing do good-er go to church family would never understand me, never accept me. If people can be born and feel they don't fit in to their bodies or gender wouldn't there be something like that where people like me don't feel they fit in to the society and class they were born in to? I wasn't meant for private schools, country clubs, degrees and graduate school. I enjoyed my life now, it was simpler and wasn't as complicated as the life I lived back in New York. The life I lived with my family felt watered down, felt fake and a farce. I don't think I truly ever understood who I was until I moved away. Stopped being Jason Gibson and became Jason Masters.

You got what you wanted?" I asked looking at the clock on the wall. I thought the answers I'd given were swift and quick. Seeing the time on the clock over half an hour had already gone by and somehow in being lost in my thoughts the man's coffee was empty.

"Yes, thank you so much Jason, you've given me great answers, this will be great for what I'm working on, you answered more than I thought you would." John closed his notebook reaching out to shake my hand. 

I scoffed sliding out of the booth to stand up. Had no idea what he meant by giving him more than he thought, I gave him nothing. I'd stuck to my plan. I wasn't going to give anything that could be used against me encase Trent got his hands on this. That was the last thing I needed. 

"Yeah well you're welcome." I said in a dry sarcastic tone sure as hell not shaking his hand. "Now do us all a favor, order some food and give more than a 15% tip, you can do more than just report news, you could actually make a difference around here." 

If this was going to be about advertising the least I could do is have something come back to Aunt Alice. The diner was my favorite location for good reason. The food was amazing and Alice welcomed everyone in like it was nothing. She didn’t need some jack ass just ordering coffee not giving a good tip.

Waving to Aunt Alice I left the diner leaving everything spoken and unspoken behind at the table where the reporter was still sitting.