A Blank Check

I’ll never forget it

She handed me a blank check

No fucking kidding

A blank check

I was like—

Are you kidding me with this?

Her son wasn’t even there

I don’t know where he was

But he wasn’t there

Just her and me

Sitting in her nice living room

On her nice couch

In her nice house

In her nice part of town

Handing me blank checks

Like I’m a whore

Or something

I told her—I said it

I was like—I’m not a fucking whore

And she flinched at me

Because I said ‘fucking’

Like she’s never heard that before

She’s done it though, hasn’t she?
Got three kids

I’m figuring she’s done it, you know what I mean?

I’m not a crude person

But I’m not dancing around
What I gotta say

When I’m sitting there pregnant

With her son’s kid

And she’s making assumptions

About what I’m gonna do

‘Well you SAID you were going to have it taken care of’

She says to me

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I SAID that to CHRIS.

I didn’t say ANYTHING to YOU.’

‘Chris told me,’ she said

Like I’m an idiot

And couldn’t figure that out

On my own

I told her I didn’t want any money

That’s not why I talked to Chris

And she goes

‘Well what DO you want?’

And she smiled at me

Like this was all some big misunderstanding

Like her son didn’t tell me

He put a condom on

When he didn’t

And yeah, maybe I should have noticed

But he also got me drunk

And told me his name was Dan

And he wasn’t from here

When we were at a bar

Six miles from his house

Then it turns out I’m pregnant

And I’m like, Fuck, I don’t know what happened to Dan

Dan just took off the next day

I woke up hung-over in my apartment

With not even a note

But then guess who pops up

In the People You May Know on Facebook?

Fucking Dan

Except his name isn’t Dan

And wouldn’t you know it?
He IS from here

So I go pay him a visit

At his house

And when he answers the door

Right away, he starts having, like, a panic attack

Because Dan, whose real name is Chris,

Is engaged to this other girl

And here I am

Screwing everything up

We talk a little bit

Very civilized

Nothing bad

And then he asks me

If I can come back in a few days

So I come back in a few days

And Chris or Dan or whoever

Is nowhere to be found

But there’s his mother

Sitting on her nice couch
With a checkbook in her hand

And she’s asking me—

‘What do I want?’

And I tell her—

‘I want him to go with me’

That’s it

That’s all I want

After that, he can take off

Just like he did the last time

But I want him there with me

When I get it done

And she tells me

That’s not going to happen

That he’s not going to go

And I said, ‘Well, in that case,

Maybe I won’t go’

Which was just me bluffing

Because I gotta go either way

I can’t have it

But I tell her I won’t go

If he doesn’t come with me

Even though compared to a blank check

It’s a pretty low ask

You know what I mean?

I say ‘Why can’t he go?
Is he scared of getting photographed or something?
Does he want to be President one day?
I’m not trying to get him in trouble

I just need him to go with me

I don’t have anybody else I can take’

And she doesn’t say anything for a second

And then she goes—

‘He’s not strong enough’

Just like that

No bullshit

She just says—

‘He’s not strong enough’

And I say—

‘Yeah?  Well, I’m not strong enough to go alone’

Fucking…

I said, ‘What am I supposed to do?

Take that blank check

And hire someone

To go with me?’

And she closes her eyes and says—

‘I’ll go with you’

No shit, that’s what she says

‘I’ll go with you’

And I almost fucking fell off the couch

Let me tell you

Because this lady—

I mean, she looks like Jackie Fucking Kennedy

I’m not kidding

But, uh, yeah—

She said she’d go with me

And I meant it when I said

I didn’t have anybody else

So…

I said ‘Okay’

And, uh, I don’t need to go into

The whole details of, uh

Us going there

But we did

She did go with me, and, uh—

She was very nice

The whole time

Very good about it

I never saw her son again

And after the procedure

I went home

And she checked in on me a few times

Just, like, over the phone

She did send me some money

And I did take it

Because I couldn’t work

For a few days

I had some trouble, afterwards

But that’s—

So yeah, I did take some money

But not a lot

And then I never heard from her again either

You know, once I was up on my feet and everything

So that’s…

You know, that’s my story

You know, I told this girl I started worked with last week that story

And she was like—

You should have just taken the check

And I was like—

‘I didn’t want the check’

And I meant it, you know?

I didn’t want it

That was the last thing in the world

I wanted