Avocado Toast in a Shitstorm

I should’ve known I would end up here- I’ve seen No Country for Old Men. The only difference is it wasn’t the money that landed me in deep, dangerous, and very public shit. The money was just the first link on the chain of events that ended with me, here and now- yes, again, in shit. Despite where I ended up, I would do it again. Even if I spent the rest of my life chin-deep in this shit, shit of my own making, I can’t regret showing the world what I found in that little black book.

The sudden and brief interaction with the man who delivered $20,000 cash in a paper bag last Tuesday was, surprisingly, the least questionable thing that happened in this very questionable chain. I learned about my distant family’s mob ties pretty early. It was what the family reunion entertainment factor hinged on- those old gossipy aunts could really make their stories POP! with some good old-fashioned mafia action. A lot of it was exaggerated since only the most distant relatives had anything to do with organized crime, but the connection existed. Apparently, the mob treated my third cousin twice-removed well since a man hand-delivered me a grocery bag with an inheritance entirely in unmarked bills after he passed. That’s how I ended up with the money: someone who had strong ties with organized crime and often forgotten and confusing family ties happened to remember my name when writing their will in the back corner booth of a Subway.

Embarrassingly enough, I’ve already forgotten exactly how I’m related to the dead mob family member that left me $20,000. What I haven’t forgotten was the shock from noticing fading daylight and realizing that I had been staring at the money on the coffee table in front of me for four hours. You’d expect tears and celebration from a normal person, but I have a difficult relationship with money. I’m one of those people who suffer from a nagging sense of social responsibility, and anytime I considered spending money on myself, my mind immediately went to who could benefit from the price of my occasional indulgence. This went beyond the twist in my stomach when I bought Korean face masks for myself; Staring at that bag created a bottomless pit of soul-sucking guilt that threatened to consume me. I knew the only way to fill the pit and evade a lifetime of self-loathing was to get rid of it, so I tucked the bag under my arm and went to research local charities in need of funds.

Don’t let this paint the wrong picture of me in your head- I donated the money to get rid of it and ease my conscience. And it didn’t matter in the end because I stole it a day later from the organization I originally donated it to in an Ocean’s Twelve-style that would’ve made my late mob relative proud. Now, don’t judge me based on this either. I may be selfish but I’m not a monster. What happened was I was anxious to dump the money and the guilt, so I didn’t do a lot of research- you can judge me for this, I certainly did. After cramming $20,000 into a nearby church’s donation box and filling out a suggestion slip where I advised that they make the box’s slot considerably larger (I damaged a few bills in said cramming process), I ducked out of the church so quickly that I almost blessed the tile floor by knocking into the holy water bowl. The anxiety from almost creating a potential lawsuit with my clumsiness stopped me short of making it to my car. Trying to shake the image of an old widow slipping tragically and the resulting Holy Court Date, I stood in the parking lot and found something else to focus on. The crowd picketing in front of the church was a welcome distraction, so I started scanning the homemade signs to see what they were protesting. It was the usual anti-homophobic sentiments and holy shit they’re protesting this church. The familiar guilt pit tore across the pavement and swallowed me entirely, but this time complete and utter horror greeted me in the darkness. I had given $20,000 to a church’s scholarship fund- a fund dedicated to paying for young adult conversion therapy.

My first thought was to turn on my heel, march back up the church steps, get the money back, and bless the church floor with a swift kick to the holy water bowl. Actually, that’s a lie. My first thought was to run and never stop running until I crossed the border and/or died. So the holy kick idea was second, and it was immediately squelched when I remembered the donation box. It was made of thick oak and secured with a padlock that was probably fortified by the twelve disciples themselves or something, not to mention the ridiculously skinny slot that I struggled to get the money into in the first place. I wasn’t getting into that thing without a key, and I wasn’t about to rummage around the church’s office looking for one. Then I’d be homophobic and a felon.

My thoughts continued to race as I got into my car to head home, but the shame-induced ideas for changing my identity had shifted to plans to either steal the money back or raid a conversion therapy center a la animal rights radicals in a livestock farm siege. Storming a facility with a bunch of repressed gay hormonal rage monsters was more appealing and sounded incredibly fun but was less realistic, so that became the backup plan. I had settled on an unholy heist by the time I got back home and began preparing for a mission for redemption and justice, a mission that would replace a source of massive guilt with possibly one of my proudest achievements. That afternoon, I prepared to rob a religious institution without fear of consequence in the afterlife. I knew that doing nothing meant that I’d be living in a hell of my own creation, and I don’t know if I actually believe in Hell or not but I figured I’d risk my afterlife so the life I was living had a shot. After all, I could probably just go to confession after the robbery and even things out with a couple hundred Hail Mary’s.

I based every aspect of my plan on mob rules that I pulled from snippets of gossip I remembered from childhood, and I quickly learned that the mob really had this whole crime thing down to a science. I paid for the cab there in cash and maintained casual, surface-level conversation without revealing anything identifiable about myself, and avoided eye contact. I arrived just as the sun was setting and slipped in through a backdoor moments before the streetlights turned on. The perfect cover of partial darkness was brilliant really, and I found myself appreciating the mob more than one should. The closest I got to being seen was when an altar boy emerged to hang up his smock and radiate pure annoyance towards the holy duties that cut into his soccer practice time. After the last person locked up for the night, I left the back row of pews and crept to the office. Everything was way too easy- they had even emptied the day’s collections for me and left the key to the lockbox that carried the cash to the bank once a week hanging on a thumbtack at eye level on the wall.

The ease of execution of my plan made me too cocky. I got curious, and when I get curious, I get nosy. *While rifling through the desk,* I ended up flipping through the little black book I found in the bottom desk drawer and stopped in surprise when I caught a glimpse of a familiar name. It was a conservative state senator who had become infamous for his crooked politics, and next to his name was a number. I flipped through a couple more pages and picked out a few more names that I recognized. They all belonged to celebrities or politicians or wealthy CEOs, all-powerful and all followed by a number. Maybe it took me a minute to process because I didn’t want it to be true, but it finally hit me that the numbers were donations. The church kept a ledger of donors in positions of power, and implications for their entire futures were meticulously recorded in a timebomb disguised as a sturdy little journal. The fate of the homophobes in power was in the hands of an obligation-driven social justice warrior with mob ties and no real inclination to believe in Hell. Beautiful.

That book was what put me in deep shit, but it was shit of my own creation and shit that I found an enormous sense of pride in. After spending an unreasonable amount of money at the photocopy place and the post office, the little black book of impending, righteous doom was on its way to the editor of the New York Times at the same time that I was struggling with the guilt and weight of enough backup copies to fill a ream and require several trees. Apparently, someone from the church was in the post office checking their P.O. box when they happened to glance into my purse and see a stack of cash and a small black book, which didn’t bode well for me since not only had I been spotted with the stolen goods, the guy managed to snap a picture of the shipping label with my name and address printed for the return label. How was I supposed to know? I didn’t have any insider mob tips for maintaining anonymity in the U.S. postal system, and now that I think about it, I seriously doubt the mob paid for stamps when they had errand boys like in Goodfellas. But I left the post office blissfully ignorant to the shitstorm forming on the horizon and continued with my errands. Once I had dropped my weapon of mass social destruction off at my apartment, I made one of my rare investments and bought a high-end safe. I justified the purchase with the safety it would provide for the stack of evidence sitting on my coffee table. I took a few bills out of the envelope of cash before sealing it and dropping it off at a local faith-based LGBTQ+ youth center, and for once I went to a hipster cafe and spent too much money on artisanal avocado toast without guilt, just for the hell of it.

Turns out the overpriced but well-plated toast was the beginning of my downfall and the end of the shit hitting the fan. I could have used every cent and maybe might’ve been able to afford a decent lawyer, but I ended up with a burnt-out public defender and a robbery charge with a moderate prison sentence. I walked into my punishment shackled, covered in shit, and proud. I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for the first time in my life. I lost my freedom when I inherited $20,000 from my mob boss relative, robbed a church, and came across a social and political weapon just because I was feeling snoopy. What I gained from this shitty chain of events was worth a lot more. And who knows? Maybe some gay mob boss will hear about my feat and take me under his wing when I get back into the world. Maybe our heists will be followed by a celebratory trip to the gay club downtown and I’ll never go a day without having to pick glitter off of my body again. One thing I know for sure: I’m going to shamelessly spend a fortune on avocado toast.