Chapter 1

Barely making it in Seattle should be my forum name. I had finally found work and my husband slipped and cracked his spine, he’s on disability. Having regained most of his mobility Donald now whinces whenever I bring up applying for work. Stace, our 14-year-old spends like a sixteen-year-old. She doesn’t need the makeup, makeovers, and makewhatevers she saves every cent of her allowance for she’s attractive enough.

We were making a living. I can’t say that for most of our neighborhood. The funny thing is the community next to ours began booming when the LINK rail line passed through it. Not that the mayor’s investments in that district had anything to do with the convoluted divergence from the light rail’s originally planned route. Anywhere within a fifteen-minute walk of that rail line struck gold when the Emerald City took on a silicon sheen, fucking tech companies.

I’m bitter for two reasons, I hate the tech job I nearly had to suck cock for and I have to walk twenty minutes to catch the light rail and fuck my ‘Office Assistant Support Engineer’ job, that’s my actual title.

My walk to work is far more interesting or I should say was. I wouldn’t be writing this if my life turned out to be just another privileged white woman’s fantasy of finding love in a black man’s arms. No, I hate Terry almost as much as my ********. Our combined antipathy couldn’t scratch Donald’s hate for that nigger freak. I say ‘nigger’ only because Terry tells me to call him that and I’d call him anything he wanted to get what I hate needing from him but he does hate being called a freak. I used to call Terry a sad black man but never in public. He jangled pennies in a plastic Slurpee cup at me and I would always add a dollar to it on my walk to work. Nobody looks at anyone on commuter trains or buses. Going to work I felt invisible like my life had no meaning. Even the blowjobs Donald begged for since he couldn’t mount me for long with his back pain were a sad routine.

Stace, like most teens, lived either out of the house or stuck in her room. She came out to make our meals that I barely had time to eat. Her father helped, it took both of them to prepare what he bought from the grocer. She couldn’t be trusted with a credit card and we could only afford raw vegetables and whatever burger was cheapest, fruit was our dessert. Yeah, we were making it, like robots earning just enough juice for their batteries. I went to work numb from the banal repetition my income could afford at least we had paid off our credit cards.

Terry’s eyes burned at me when I walked by, “Privileged, white cunt,” I didn’t hate him then, I didn’t feel sorry for him, I assumed like most people he had earned his fate. He was too old to be a modern war vet and too young to be a Vietnam vet. I bet he had been as fat as a child, imagining that food was his only comfort against a severely deformed cheek and jawline. I knew a dollar wouldn’t save him. There are many options for the homeless in Seattle, food and shelters are available. The truth is I paid him to ease my fear that I would one day end up like him.

“Thanks,” He said one cold but not rainy day, global warming has blessed the Pacific Northwest. He wore a military coat from a supply store, you can tell the difference. His trousers were thick polyester heavily worn at the knees. A folding umbrella lay next to him and he sat on a piece of foam meant for stadium seats with a ripped corner.

“Um, welcome,” I dropped the dollar but missed the cup or did he move it at the last second, I wasn’t watching. His grunt of gratitude unnerved me I wanted to hurry away.

“Fucking wind.”

If only I hadn’t looked back, the dollar bill was danced toward me, I picked it up and returned it to the grim-looking bum, “Sorry,” I spun back towards the rail stop.