Michelle Gurule
NONFICTION BY MICHELLE GURULE
MASSAGES WITH MOMMY
After a month of sugar-babying, my safe’s bill trays were crammed with nearly four thousand dollars, landing me in a position to judge my family on their credit scores (even if mine was classified as only fair). Had my increased income been legal to report, I would’ve entered a new tax bracket, paid off some debt, and, surely, skyrocketed up to a 741—very good.
My dad was certain he had an 819. His vocabulary included the words: budget, savings account, etc. All giving validity to the claim. “The banks call me, Shell,” he said. “Asking if I’m interested in taking out loans.”
My sister, Christina, assured me—although she’d never checked it, had once been evicted from an apartment, and always tallied a late fee on her car payment—that her score was in good-standing.
“How would that even be possible?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It just is.”
My mom’s undisclosed-amount of credit card debt was one of the top five reasons my parents divorced. For years she managed to hide her spending from my dad by only purchasing items she could eat. “She charged Sonic, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and the occasional Red Robin burger,” he’d told me after he’d stumbled upon a sock drawer full of her Target card monthly statements. “Every dollar was spent on food, Shell. Not even a t-shirt to show for it.” God only knows how many cheeseburgers she’d pay 25 years of interest on.
The end of a marriage had been traumatic enough, and I didn’t want to shame her further by asking what FICO determined her worth was. I assumed it hovered around 300. I could help her, but in order to do so, I was going to need to paint a clear picture of where she stood financially. I started with the most pertinent question I could think of.
"Mom, do you have a retirement plan?”
We were sitting at the dining room table, which had very little clear space, had anyone ever wanted to eat there and not in-front of the TV. My elbows stuck to glossy sales pages from last month, coupons for Dove shampoo and Welch’s Fruit snacks. A picture book was sprawled in front of me, so overdue that our library account was charged and it technically belonged to us, though the fee was still outstanding. It’d get paid eventually but not before the Xcel, T-Mobile, Generals’ Car-Insurance, Target and Discover credit card bills. Until then my nephew was stuck reading Otter in Space on repeat.
“I do,” she said, then started sifting through a pile of loose napkins with a fervor that could’ve only meant she not only had a plan in mind, but something printed out, signed, notarized, bound together, then tossed on the table—where nothing was ever thrown away—for safekeeping. She flipped open a floppy blue folder with CARLOS written youthfully in Sharpie. Still, nothing. Her fingers tapped the wooden veneer, as if conjuring knowledge. “Ah-ha,” she said, scooting a handful of Taco Bell mild sauce packets over to the left. Jackpot.
She’d uncovered three Tootsie Rolls that she’d plucked from a metallic purple bucket on the counter at Planet Fitness (a gym she joined solely for the tanning beds). Unwrapping a turd-like candy, she plopped it in her mouth.
Okay, so she didn’t have a formal retirement plan, but I hadn’t anticipated the answer to my question being yes at all. Perhaps my mother’s financial situation wasn’t as dire as I’d thought. I’d foreseen her familiarity with the concept of retirement, pieced together through CBS sitcoms and AARP articles, but I’d been mistaken by fearing my mom had only two options: 1.) being fully reliant on Christina or 2.) being fully reliant on me. There was a 97% chance it’d come down to the latter.
My sister intentionally got pregnant when she was nineteen and working part-time at Family Dollar. Throughout Christina’s school years, our mother would do her homework while my sister watched television, so it was only natural that she pawned the baby off on my mom the second her cesarean stitches healed. Alongside my aging mother, the responsible party risked acquiring guardianship of Carlos.
It was an undisputed fact that I was a more astute caregiver, and overall more fun to be around, but my family also held a misinformed confidence that I’d be able to afford a mortgage and support them simply because I was in college. My mother wholeheartedly believed my degree was synonymous with earning six-figures and living in a cul-de-sac. I could thank CBS for that too. If my mom could take care of herself, then the responsibility was taken off my shoulders, and I could spend my life how I wanted to.
“Please do tell,” I said.
“I’ve got a life insurance policy through work. Y’all will be taken care of, so don’t worry.” My mom got up from the table and moseyed over to the most-high trafficked area in our apartment: the L-shaped sofa.
It was a spectacular beast. Three cushions made up the eight-foot side, which we’d had pressed against the wall, and one extra-long rectangular piece made up the tail that jutted towards the center of the room. It was the spot to eat. As anyone who’s dined in a restaurant knows, everything tastes better in a booth. As a multi-purpose piece of furniture, it also functioned as a microfiber storage unit for anything and everything—backpacks, candy wrappers, phone chargers, loose paper clips—where clean laundry sat for days until someone could be bothered to fold it, and every night it transformed into a perfect, medium-firm bed. There were TVs in every room, but the one that sat in front of the couch was ginormous. 65 inches across and HD. And it was positioned one foot away from the sliding glass door, which we always kept cracked, letting in a cool breeze that the back rooms lacked.
Due to all the perks, I never got to sleep on the couch consistently. We all rotated around, like lawless musical beds. One night I’d be in the living room, while my mom and Carlos each occupied a single in the back bedroom they shared. Then the next day I’d be in the back, my mom and Carlos on the sofa. Mostly we left Christina’s room alone because it stunk like her, a scent best described as corn chips and hair oil.
There was a technique in sleeping two comfortably on the couch: one person would lay on the long part and the other on the short side, the pillows for both being at the point of intersection. We’d tried it all, feet-to-feet, head-to-foot, both parties on the same side, but this was the best. Feet flail; heads only turn. My nephew was the perfect candidate for the smaller section of the sofa, being only around three feet tall, but I’d occupied this cushion as well, specifically when I’d had girls over. Always charming, I’d offer up the long side of the couch so that they’d be able to stretch their legs out after a romantic night.
The only downfall to staking claim to the living room was being woken up at 6 A.M. by my nephew’s ass sinking into the cushions, slurping the sugary milk out of a bowl of Froot Loops and watching PBS before school. Not that there was any more privacy in the bedrooms. All closets throughout the apartment were fair game, so I was bound to be disrupted by someone’s early morning shuffling around. Technically speaking, we lived in a small commune.
I followed my mother across the carpet, claiming the cushion beside her.
“And you’ll be happy to know this, Michelle,” she said, squeezing my knee. “I’ve signed up to give my body to science through some program at the hospital, so they’ll take what they want and then cremate the rest of me. For free.” She raised her eyebrows at me, then added, “All y’all have to do is buy the urn.”
It was the best financial decision my mom had ever made. Not having to buy a casket would save my sister and me around two thousand dollars. Still, I hoped urns were inexpensive, or that she wouldn’t mind being preserved forever in something we picked up from a thrift store—one in an upper-class neighborhood.
“That’s very thoughtful.” I paused, so she could absorb the compliment before I spewed off my concerns. “Okay, Mom, while I do like the sound of your post-mortem arrangements––a whole lot––it’s not a retirement plan.”
“Well, I’m never going to be able to retire,” she said, chewing on the candy. “My plan is to die at work.”
“You don’t get to pick where it happens! What if you get in a car accident? Are you going to have the ambulance drop you off at Sunny Days Health Care?” My mom had been tending the front desk at a physical rehab facility for elderly patients for over a decade. Collecting twenty cent raises each year.
“I always tell everyone at work that, and they always say, ‘You’re so funny, Miss Donna.’”
“Yeah, it’s funny, but it’s tragic. You really don’t want to retire?”
“Well, of course I want to, but I can’t afford it.”
Why had she spent her twenties working full time at whatever jobs were available to her—waitressing, CNA-ing, desk jobs–-and not as an entrepreneurial sex worker? “Oh, but don’t worry, Michelle. I’ll probably ask Stanley if I can work four days a week instead of five and collect my social security checks once I’m sixty-seven.”
“Beautiful,” I said. “Just as long as you’re getting three-day weekends.”
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