Ignoring me, Robbie—who I think was a man, though it might have been a woman who smoked heavily—said, “You’re responsible for your bill: Twenty-seven thousand, five hundred and eighty-three dollars. How do you intend to pay it?”
“I don’t. Call my mother back and ask her for the money.”
“She said you would be responsible.”
“See, here’s the thing. I was 5150’d, put into your hospital against my will. Essentially, kidnapped and held hostage. You should be paying me. Damages.”
“You have no insurance?”
“I worked as a barista. Nine dollars an hour plus tips. No insurance, no vacation, no sick days—”
“And what do you do now, Mr. Milch?”
“Mostly, I’m taking care of my grandmother who recently had a stroke.”
“Can she pay your bill?”
“Let me put her on.”
I held my flip phone to my chest for a moment and then did my spot-on imitation of my grandmother in the days following her stroke, “Hewwo, naaway aper mingle whip cwwwee…”
“Very amusing. I’m sure your grandmother appreciates the imitation. Could you ask her to pay your bill?”
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
I mean, seriously. Would I accept twenty-five thousand dollars from her—yes, in a heartbeat. Would I turn it over to a freaking hospital? No, absolutely not.
I decided it was an opportune moment to hang up on Robbie, which, for a brief moment, reminded me that it’s so much less satisfying to hang up a flip phone than it was a desk phone or even a wall phone. You just don’t get the same bang for your buck.
After Nana’s friends left, I straightened up the kitchen just to prove a point. I peeked at each of the casseroles and asked my grandmother which one she’d like for dinner. She chose the tuna casserole. I turned on the oven and slipped it in. As I did, I began thinking about money again.
I suppose I didn’t have to spendallthe money on a car. I could imagine getting around Wyandot County in a car that cost a few thousand. I could even imagine getting around L.A. in a car that cost that. What I couldn’t imagine was driving from Masons Bay to Los Angeles—through gigantic mountain ranges and sizzling deserts—in a cheap used car. Something could easily go wrong. Something waslikelyto go wrong, and cost me every cent I had left. Or land me in the middle of some B-grade horror movie scenario: Extremely attractive city boy’s car breaks down in the front yard of a family of cannibals.
It could happen.
Oh, and then I remembered car insurance. And registration fees. (Necessary if you didn’t want to get arrested by some aviator-wearing sheriff in a backwoods Texas town.) I had no idea how much those things cost in Michigan. Or Los Angeles, for that matter. My mother had taken care of all that.
The best part of her breaking up with whichever boyfriend she happened to be seeing was that she often didn’t want the things he’d given her. My 1990 Honda CRX had been a gift to her from Frank, who she’d been with from 1991 to 1996. Theybroke up just in time for her to give me the car as a high school graduation gift. Except, of course, she didn’t really give it to me. She just let me use it all through college right up until the time she 5150’d me. I wondered what she’d done with it? If I flew to L.A., would she give it back?
“I’m serious about Sheriff Crocker,” Nana Cole said as I fed Riley a can of dog food, which he practically inhaled. He really was a disgusting eater.
“So am I,” I said. “I’m serious, too. I’m not going to talk to him.”
“I’ll give you five hundred dollars,” she said, and I had the uncomfortable feeling she’d been reading my mind. Five hundred wouldn’t make a lot of difference, but it would—
“Why?” I asked. “They said it was a robbery gone wrong. Why isn’t that enough?”
“You don’t believe that. You don’t… think it was a robbery. You said so.”
“Two thousand.”
“What!?”
“You offered five hundred. I’m negotiating.”
“One thousand.”
“Fifteen—”
