It's All Real

My chest is heavy; every breath feels like a gasp. "How the fuck did I get like this," I shout. Curled on the floor, tears race down my cheeks, the apartment is trashed, the furniture long-gone, the air—freezing. Seething with self-hate, I question if I'm actually even cold—if I even feel anything anymore. The drugs, the shame, the self-pity have eaten at my soul; I've lost everything; I have nothing left, I am nothing, an empty shell, a broken man. I hate myself, and I know I always will: what I am, what I've become, what I once was, and what I'll never be. I'm finished, a failure, completely forgotten, no friends, no family, too lost to ever be found. Boom! Boom! Boom! Pounds the door.

"Go away," I cry thoughtlessly.

Boom! Boom! Boom! "James," a man's voice hollers through the wall.

Who the fuck is that? I murmur to myself. Boom! Boom! Boom! "James, are you in there, son?"

I struggle to my feet; my thin legs barely hold me, my body is bruised, my skin scaly. "James," the voice calls again. "Are you in there, James?"

I turn the deadbolt and crack the door until the chain pulls taught; it's a man I don't know, a man who doesn't belong in this building or this part of town, a man with a fat neck and a fancy suit. "Who the fuck are you?" I say. "You a cop?"

"No, son, I'm no cop. My name is Andrew Arlington. I knew your father."

I snarl as my eyes scan his. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I've been looking for you, James. I've been looking for you for a while now. How about you get dressed, and we go to the diner down the street and have ourselves a little talk."

"How about you get the fuck out of here," I say.

"James, please. I was a friend of your fathers, a good friend. Believe me, son, you want to hear what I have to say."

Mel's Diner is a small smoky shithole catering to the local junkies, cannery workers, and cab drivers. "I'll have a coffee, black," I say to the waitress.

"I'm buying," says Arlington.

"Then make it three eggs and bacon with extra toast."

"I'll have the same," he says and then offers me a smoke.

We sit there as a long silence slides between us; smoking, we stare at one another, his thinning hair, his doughy cheeks, his little eyes, and a gaudy gold watch. "Alright, you've got me here; what do you have to say? I mean, you do know my dad is dead, right?"

"Yes, James, I do. And I apologize that this is our first time meeting." He glances over his shoulder, scanning the room, then leans in, "I've been looking for you, James. I've been looking for a long time."

"Well, here I am." I sneer through the smoke, my jaw clenched, my eyes on his.

"Well, son, as I said, I knew your father quite well. I was his friend, but I was also his financial advisor, his broker."

"Well, he sure was fucking broke."

"Yeah, well, that's what I'm here to talk to you about. You see, James, the day your dad, I'm sorry, I mean, the day your parents passed—"

"You mean, the day I graduated high school."

"That's right." His eyes fall as the waitress walks up to fill our coffees.

"You fellas doing alright?"

"Just fine," he says, waving her off, then turns back to me. "James, I know it's been seven years, but I did try to get ahold of you. After the accident, I tried calling the house, I even stopped by, but you had already moved. I couldn't find anybody who knew where you were or how to get in touch with you. Well, then some time had passed, and shit, here we are. I finally hired a PI a few months back to track you down."

"Why you been looking for me? I ain't got nothing. If my father owed you any money, I don't have it."

"No, son. It's not like that, not at all."

"Well, what the hell are we doing here then?"

He looks back at the door as his hand reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, where he pulls out a little black book. "James, when you were just a child, your father came to my office and set up an investment account for you. He said that he wanted his son to go to college." He opens the book and slides it across the table to me. "On the day your father, sorry, I mean, on the day your parents passed, the balance of that fund was," he looks down at the chicken scratch writing, "eighty-seven thousand dollars—"

"That's bullshit!" I say. "My father died broke, dead broke. Nice try, though," I smirk.

"I'm so, so sorry, James. I can't even imagine what you've been through, but I promise you, son, your father didn't die broke, not at all. He had money; it's just, well, it wasn't his. It was yours."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Your father, he had set up a couple accounts with me, both are yours, one was designed to grow safely, and the other, well, it was to be put into high-risk investments, mostly technology. He would stop by my office every week, usually on Fridays, and he'd give me a check for a hundred dollars."

"That's bullshit; you're lying. My dad didn't have a hundred dollars to spare for nothing, let alone a fucking college fund. He was broke, goddammit, get it, fucking broke, and if you say otherwise, then you're a fucking liar and you're trying to scam me or something. And I promise you, I ain't got nothing left, not a goddamn thing, so fuck off."

"James, I didn't come here to scam you or lie to you. I've been made aware that you were left in a very tough spot when your parents passed. The investigator I hired to track you down told me everything: how you had to sell the house, the cars, how their life insurance didn't cover their debts, and that you couldn't even afford a proper funeral. I know you don't have anything, son. I'm not here to take anything more from you, I promise. I'm here to show you—to give you—what's rightfully yours." He leans in and points to a page in the book. This number here is the current balance of that low-risk fund your father set up. That's 20,000 dollars, and it's yours." I study the number as an icy chill spreads over my skin, and then his finger slides down to the second number. "And this right here, this is the balance of the higher-risk account." My stomach clenches as a bone-deep numbness takes ahold of my body.

"That's not real. It's bullshit," I say. "My father lived paycheck to paycheck, and my parents, they drank every dollar they had. You're making shit up, you motherfucker.”

"James, I’m not. Your father opened these accounts so that you would have it one day. Like I said, they were for college. And, well, I'm sorry that it took so long to get this to you, but it's real, James. This is your money." His finger presses firmly above a handwritten number so large that nobody who's been crashing on couches and sleeping in the streets would ever believe. $9,978,234.27.

"How is that possible?" I ask. "That can't be real." I glance around the small diner, unsure what I'm looking for, something to make sure I'm awake.

"It's real, James, and it's yours. It's all yours. A few of the tech stocks we invested in ended up hitting big, really big. And as of this morning, this is the balance of your account. You're a very wealthy man, James."

"No, no, no, no.... this isn't real; you're fucking with me, I know it. This is bullshit! Who the fuck are you? Who fucking sent you? Was it Carson? Did he put you up to this shit? Tell him I'm gonna get his fucking money; I swear to god I will. I just need another couple of days."

"James, it's real, son. I have no reason to lie to you. None. I met your father when you were a baby; it was back in the summer of 86; I'm sure of the date because that's when the accounts were opened. Your father and I met at a bar downtown, we had some laughs, you know how funny he was, and well, that next week, he stopped by my office with a hundred dollar check. Here, I have all the paperwork; it's yours; it's just been sitting there for you this entire time. This is your money, James. I'm sorry that it took me so long to get to you, to find you, I swear I am, but it's not that I didn't try, believe me. I had called your house several times after they passed. I sent flowers with a card asking you to contact me. I mailed you letters. I even stopped by a few times. Then, the house was sold and I didn't know how to reach you. I know that your parents had money problems, your dad told me all about it. So, he kept this a secret from your mom; he said she wouldn't agree to it. And then, well, after they passed, I didn't submit the paperwork to the probate court; I didn't want to take the chance on some relative getting their hands on it, you being a minor and all. And, well, time went on, and things got busy. That was right around Y2K when we were changing everything over to digital, and well, the next thing I knew, several years had passed before your file found its way back to my desk. Again, I'm so sorry, son, you should have had this money years ago. But it's yours now, and it's all real."