Chapter 24 Scott - Home Alone
SCOTT: HOME ALONE
The bottle was half-empty. Or half-full, depending on how optimistic you were, which in my case wasn’t very. The whiskey burned going down, but I welcomed it. Felt like punishment. Or maybe penance. I wasn’t sure there was a difference anymore.
Paul sat next to me on the sofa Michelle had bought on Sears layaway.
His boots were up on the coffee table she’d thrifted at the Salvation Army.
And there was smoke curling from the cigarette dangling between his fingers.
If Michelle were here, she would’ve slapped that shit out of his hand so fast. It was bad for the kids, she’d say.
“Hey, you know the rules. Put it out. And get your dirty boots off the table. Have some manners, asshole.”
“Why? The boss isn’t here.”
“Yeah, well, she could be back at any minute,” I said, clinging to hope despite Michelle and the kids having been gone for days with no communication.
“Oh, Scotty, you gotta face the facts. If Michelle were out there on her own with two little kids and no money, she would’ve already been back. Someone is helping her out.”
“She doesn’t have any friends to go to.”
Paul stared at me. “Hello, McFly.” He tapped on my forehead. “She went home. To her millions. Your kids are probably already encased in gold.”
My eyes widened. How had I not even considered that? “Why would she do that? She hates her family.”
“Well, at the moment, she hates you more.”
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my eyes, pissed that he was right, but not wanting to admit I was wrong. “It’s not like I was sleeping around or committing murder. I make one mistake, and she leaves. Takes my kids. Not a word. Shouldn’t I, at least, know they’re okay?”
Paul didn’t respond right away, and that silence made me defensive. I slammed the bottle down a little too hard. “Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped. “I didn’t do this to her. Not on purpose.”
He flicked his ash into an empty Tab cola can. “You were stealing from work, Scott.”
“I wasn’t—” I stopped myself, shaking my head. “Okay, I was. But it wasn’t something I wanted to do. I was trying to fix things. Make ends meet. Give her the life I know she deserves.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Tell me what?”
“That she deserved more? Because Michelle seemed pretty content with the bare basics. She loves you and the kids. She left her life of luxury and spent the past six years in poverty with you. That takes dedication.”
“And she spent the last year of it complaining we had no money,” I grumbled.
“Because you were stealing it from her emergency fund,” he said, his voice sharp enough to slice through my bullshit.
I glared at Paul. Since when was he the voice of reason?
One stint in rehab and suddenly he was… insightful?
I hadn’t lectured him when he gave up on his rock star dreams and then risked his sobriety by taking a job bouncing drunks at a bar.
“Whose side are you on anyway? You’re supposed to be my brother.”
“Yes. And I’m trying to help you, but you’re testing my patience.”
“Then go, and take your cigarette with you,” I said, sinking deeper into the couch.
Paul hooked an arm over the back of it. He wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m not a big fan of single Scott.”
“Join the club,” I said. “You think I wanted any of this? I’m being blackmailed, Paul. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. Every time a car slows down outside, I think it’s him coming for money I don’t have. And then she just walks out… leaves me, like we were nothing at all.”
Paul took a drag, watching me. “You done?”
“Give me a minute. I haven’t even hit the childhood trauma portion yet.”
He exhaled smoke through his nose. “There’s an easy solution to all this.”
“There is?”
“Move.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Move,” he repeated. “Take your family and move away from here.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “I can’t move. My whole life’s here. Mitchell. My friends. My job.”
He scoffed. “Your job? You mean the one that you are going to lose because you’ve been stealing from them?”
“Yeah, Paul. That one! Why are you so fixated on the tiniest, least flattering detail?”
“Sorry. I’ll try not to be so laser-focused on the felony,” he said, lifting his boots off the table one at a time.
“Here’s how I see it, bro. You’re too comfortable here, smoking pot with your high school buddies and surfing as the sun comes up.
You want to show Michelle that she’s married a grown-up?
That she’s safe? Get her out of Venice Beach.
Get a government job that pays benefits, like Michelle wants. ”
I scoffed, pushing back against his verdict.
“Don’t be me, Scott. I’m too old to grow up now. But you’re only twenty-five. You’ve still got time to turn things around. But you’ve got to get out of here, or you’ll lose everything you love.”
I stared at the floor, jaw tight. His words were truer than I wanted to admit.
“Moving doesn’t change who I am.”
Paul stubbed out his cigarette in the can, eyes still on me. “Maybe not. But it changes what you do next.”
I looked up, meeting his stare. There was no judgment there; just truth.
And I let myself wonder if maybe he was right.
I glanced around the apartment. The stack of past-due bills on the counter.
The broken lamp Michelle had taped together because we couldn’t afford a new one.
The extra pillow she wanted but never bought, stuffing a sweatshirt under the case instead.
This was the life I’d built—one busted thing held together by another, the illusion of stability.
Michelle was right to be worried. The question was why I hadn’t been.
She’d never asked me for luxury. All she wanted was a solid foundation on which to build her family, something I’d failed to give her.
Paul got up and grabbed his jacket from the chair. “Think about it,” he said and walked out without another word.
I sat there a long time after he left, staring at Keith’s kid-size surfboard and worrying that I might never ride a wave with him again.
And for the first time since Michelle walked out, I wasn’t angry.
I was terrified. Terrified that Paul might be right, and that staying here meant there’d be nothing left to come home to.
The line moved slower than death, but I had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was the United States Post Office.
It was a government job, I liked to walk, and desperation had a way of narrowing your options.
By the time it was finally my turn, the clerk, an older guy with thinning hair and glasses sliding down his nose, looked up at me with the bare minimum of enthusiasm.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. “How do I apply for a job?”
He squinted. “You mean delivering mail?”
“Or sorting. Or licking stamps. Whatever gets me in the door.”
“Don’t think we have any openings here right now, but it doesn’t hurt to apply. There’s always hiring going on.”
“And if I wanted to apply for a different city, how does that work?”
“Pretty simple. Apply here, and then ask to be placed wherever there’s an opening. Are you looking for a specific city?”
“Nope. Just not here. Though preferably near the ocean.”
“You might try Ventura County,” he said. “I hear they’re hiring.”
“Ventura,” I repeated. That was not a bad option. Close enough to Venice Beach that I could still make Mitchell’s Saturday games; far enough that Michelle might believe it was a real fresh start. “How do I apply?”
The clerk reached into his drawer and pulled out an application form. “Start here. But if you’re serious, come back tomorrow morning. The manager will be here then. Name’s Roger.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Appreciate the information.”
I grabbed the U.S. Postal Service application form and stepped out into the sunlight, my heart thudding with something that felt a lot like hope.
I knew it might take weeks, maybe months, but it was solid.
A plan. Proof that I was trying. I could see myself doing it too.
Predictable hours. A steady paycheck. And it was something respectable.
The kind of job Michelle could trust. I couldn’t wait to see her smile when I told her we were moving to Ventura County. Starting over.
But first, I had to get the job.
No, first… I had to deal with the threat to our family.
And to do that, I had to settle up and remove the leverage Marty had over me.
That meant replacing every ounce of alcohol that I’d taken.
Quietly. I knew the guys at the warehouse.
I could make up a story about buying wholesale for a family wedding.
They’d cut me a deal on the up and up, and then I’d replace everything I’d stolen.
Then once Marty had no more leverage on me, I’d cut him off.
No more cash, no more favors, no more “buddy system.” Then I’d move my family away and never have to deal with him again.
But how to get the money? It wasn’t like I could make it up over time. Sell a few things, skip a couple of meals. The company’s inventory report was coming up, and the product needed to be there so that they’d never know it had been missing in the first place.
Fast money, that was what this plan required. And there was only one way to get it. I closed my eyes, knowing what was necessary, wishing it wasn’t.
The Shaggin’ Wagon.
I tugged at the collar of my borrowed shirt. It wasn’t choking me, but it sure as hell felt like it wanted to. I was nervous. It had been a long time since I’d had to impress anyone who wasn’t under four feet tall and thought fart noises were comedy gold.
“Scott McKallister?” a woman called.
“Here,” I said, like it was roll call.
She led me into a small office, where a man in a short-sleeved button-down was sitting behind a cluttered desk. His nameplate read Roger K. Thompson, Station Manager.
“Take a seat, Mr. McKallister.”
I did, trying to look employable.