Addendum #9
Series 1, episode 4: Things to do...
Lloyd feverishly searched through his office. It had to be somewhere in here, the list. He didn't know why he wanted it so badly, because all it would do was remind him that his life was over. But damn, it seemed like the only thing that mattered anymore. Just to see how much he'd fucked his life up.
His damn prescriptions, this damn girl ... Hadn't she known that pills and alcohol were a bad mix? – He shook his head over himself. Of course she'd known, that's why she'd done it. Fuck, couldn't she have done it with somebody else's drugs? Legal drugs? Why drag him into her stupid suicide? He had only tried to help her! – Or had he? He couldn't say, he didn't know. He wasn't even sure he remembered her.
He pulled open another drawer, lifted a stack of manila-folders, and there it was, at the bottom of the drawer, one single page with his neatest handwriting on it. He'd been keeping that list since he was eighteen. He'd updated it once four years ago, feeling a little stupid about it, but at the same time it had been kind of fun; especially seeing how the nature of his wishes had changed over the course of five years.
Things to do before I'm 30:
- get drunk (till I puke)
- meet Michelle Pfeiffer
- get a driver's license
- get a flashy car (or a Harley)
- smoke pot
- get Mother into rehab
- have sex (get a girlfriend)
- watch all episodes of Charlie's Angels
- publish my own book
- be on the Tonight Show
- get my own place
- become tenured
- contact Dad
Lloyd heavily dropped into his office chair, the list resting in his lap.
He'd achieved some of the things on that list. He'd been tenured, for example. He'd also been drunk (several times, and yes, he'd puked, too.) He'd published his book – books, to be more precise. The last one being on the market for only a little over a month now. He even got his own place last year, a fashionable loft, but hardly ever stayed there. Mother was requiring his attention.
And he'd had sex, though not as often as he would have liked, and never with his own girlfriend. 27 years old and he had never even come close to being anyone's boyfriend. – Well, he thought with a bitter chuckle, that was surely going to change now. He was not a fool, he knew what to expect.
He was young, kind of handsome ... if you liked the ragged type. And, most importantly, he was a total push-over. The very reason why he'd written those fucking prescriptions in the first place. Not for the money, although that had been a nice side-effect. No, now, that it was over, he could admit it: He'd written those prescriptions for the illusion of power. He'd loved people coming to him, begging him, paying him. And for what? For a task as simple as putting his name on a prescription. The pen was mightier than the sword, he'd liked to muse. But in reality... In reality it had had nothing to do with might or even strength, and everything with weakness. He'd needed that illusion, that silly business of prescribing whatever to whoever. To feel powerful, to feel in control.
Just how pathetic was that?
And what had it earned him? He'd be everybody's bitch in prison. He wondered how long it would take until they broke him and he hung himself. Somehow that outcome was undisputed in his mind, and somehow it didn't really bother him.
Lloyd shook his head and took a deep breath. He looked back at his list again.
The things he had not managed to do.
He'd never got around to get his driver's license or smoke pot. He was too afraid of the effects of pot – that he'd get addicted. And somehow there had always been more important things to do than get his driver's license. New York was full of cabs, so was Atlantic City. And both cities were conveniently connected by trains and plains and buses. You got around just fine without a car of your own.
But he'd never worked up the nerve to contact his Dad. It couldn't be so hard, finding Lars Lowry. It was not a name you'd find too often. Still, fathers only messed up boys, so maybe it wasn't so bad that he'd left them. Except for Mother. She missed him. That's why she drank. That's why she had such a hard time looking at him, because he was his father's spitting image. Or so she told him. Lloyd wouldn't know, she'd burned all of his father's pictures, when he'd left.
Damn. Maybe now that he was out of her life, she would finally get the therapy she needed. He himself had failed to help her, because he was family, too close to her problem ... actually part of her problem. How could he hope to help her, when he was causing her pain?
Lloyd blinked away some random tears. He'd never wanted to cause her trouble, he loved her. He'd always only wanted the best for her. She never let him give it.
He wiped his face, crumpled up the list and tossed it in the bin. Only thing mattered now.
Things to do before I'm 30: Don't get caught.