CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
2004- Intervention
Fallout from that night was massive, and like all good Brooklyn-to-Westchester family scandal circuits, it took less than 36 hours to decimate me.
The long version of the story is not worth mentioning, so here are the highlights:
Jake showed up to his house at 6am, all fucked up.
His wife saw the hickey and the cum stains and freaked out.
Jake told the wife to go fuck herself, went to their bedroom and passed out for 18 hours.
Jake’s wife called Jake’s mom, hysterical.
Jake’s mom called Jake and he slept through her first seven calls.
Once Jake was awake and able to string together a coherent sentence, he told her that
He ran into me
I asked him if he wanted to grab a drink
I slipped some type of date rape drug into his drink
Took him to a strip club
Forced him to snort cocaine
And then when he passed out “she must have had a hooker suck on my neck,” because
He did not remember a thing.
Jake’s mom called my mom, who lost her shit.
My mom called my brother and told him he needed to get to the bottom of it or they were going to stage an intervention on me.
As soon as I saw my brother’s name flash on my cellphone screen, I knew it was time to face the music. I wanted to ignore his calls, forget that night ever happened, bury the name Jake Fuckin’ Shinman within the deepest recesses of my mind, but I knew that my family would not let this go until they were given the opportunity to drag me through the mud. Rip me another asshole. Make me feel worthless.
I picked up on the fifth ring.
“Hi.”
“We gotta talk, Eula. Mom’s flipping the fuck out over some fucked up night you had with Jake Shinman.”
“She does love to flip out.”
“I know, but this sounds bad. Can I come over and talk to you tomorrow?”
I said yes and gave him my address. Then I crawled into bed and slept for another twelve hours.
Next afternoon, my brother and I went to a local coffee shop- a quiet one, frequented by senior citizens and postal workers.
We sat down, ordered tuna melts and black coffee and got right into it.
“What the fuck happened, Eula?” my brother asked.
I gave him a slightly expurgated account of what had gone down, but I did stress that all of it had been Jake’s idea and I was just going along with it to make sure he didn’t get into any real trouble.
I did not drug Jake’s drink.
I did not coerce him to do cocaine.
I did not buy him a stripper.
She was a dominatrix, not a stripper.
And HE asked HER to bite his neck.
“I swear this is what happened,” I said. “Do you believe me?”
My brother rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Well, Jake Shinman has always been a weasley bastard,” he agreed. “I kind of figured he was throwing you under the bus.”
I smiled in triumph.
“BUT,” my brother continued, “No matter who was responsible for leading the other one on, what you did was dangerous and out of control.”
I started to protest, but my brother held his hand up.
“You’re obviously using again, Eula. That’s the bottom line. Mom wants me to let you know that she wants to throw you into some fancy rehab in Boca Raton. She thinks it’s the only way she can save face with her bridge party posse.”
“REHAB???” I snorted. “I don’t have health insurance! Who’s gonna foot the bill for a fancy rehab in Boca Raton? Not that I would ever consider going to rehab!”
“Mom and dad have a college fund for you. They told me they were giving you until thirty to figure out what you wanted to go to school for. And now that you seem like you’re so far off the rails they’re willing to repurpose the money to try and get you straightened out.”
I let out a poison-filled laugh. My parents never encouraged any of my dreams or interests- yet for all these years, they had a secret college fund for me. And now they were going to use it to save face and ship me to a country club rehab, because THEIR friends’ fucked up son got me caught out there.
“Mom and dad have a college fund for me?” I asked, incredulous. “When were they gonna get around to telling me about it. When I graduated high school they told me they didn’t even want to pay for me to go to community college!”
My brother shrugged and said, “Listen- you’re obviously on drugs and it sounds like it’s the hard shit again. And that never works out for you.”
He gave me a small smile and continued, “Why not take mom and dad’s money and use it to clean yourself up and figure yourself out. Who knows, you may wind up enjoying it. Mom told me to tell you they have yoga and an on-site spa!”
We both laughed.
I guess I was going to rehab.
