Living on Borrowed Dime

Guilt is a pretty super thing.

Fortune has taken an upturn since the last column. Actually, it took a swift downturn, plummeted into a crash, then whatever remained took an upturn. Which is usually how things go in my life. But it all started with my dad getting beat into a coma in that rumble last month.

Dad's in the hospital, head injury and all, and the only way he can communicate is to do Dave Letterman's Uma-Oprah bit from the Oscars years back. Put there by Steve, my sister's life partner, during the lesbian-old fogey turf war they had. But check it out, even though Steve clearly put a beating on dad, she's still suing him for punitive damages with the shit he called her. And on top of that, she filed a lawsuit against me for calling her Steve all the time instead of "Stephan," which she alleges is her name. I thought it was a compromise, since I stopped calling her "Marcy" when she asked me. But no. Some lesbians are pretty touchy about name issues.

See? I said some lesbians. My sister is teaching me not to make generalizations about people. Lawyers are always trigger-happy with lawsuits on about generalizations like that.

But none of this sounds good, of course, and it wasn't. Isn't, since the lawsuits are still pending—I guess they have to get in line behind my other libel suit. For about two weeks, though, I'm on whatever cloud is below cloud 9 and gets their plumbing overflow. Dad is in the hospital, but his gang is mending their wounds in my living room, mom is still sharing the same bed, and I'm having trouble making the rent since lawsuit # 1 Jayme Kristofson stole my Metallichick job. Just when things look their bleakest, I manage to pull it out of the fire again.

How I managed to pull it out of the fire was, my sister Cassandra felt so guilty about her old lady suing me and the mom and pop, so she took me out to lunch (her treat, natch). She said she was sorry it was turning out like this, and she was trying to talk Butch out of the lawsuit and whatever, but in the meantime, she was going to help me by cutting me a check to pay the legal bills. And sis hit me with this big-time check, like four zeroes, and said she'd slip me another one if I needed it, until the lawsuit thing passes. Siblings can be beautiful things, dudes.

She had plenty of suggestions on how to spend the money, of course, like telling me the name of this big fancy-pants lawyer in downtown Manhattan, apparently he's the last word in civil litigation. But I don't need to be told how to spend money, just how to come up with it. So I dipped into the lawyer fundage and rented me a place out in L.A. right near the action, so close to Warner Brothers you can hear them making the director's DVD commentaries. It's quality real estate. Pricey, yeah, but I'm not footing the bill.

Needless to say, it doesn't help my New Jersey apartment rent problem none, and mom and the gang might be kicked out on their asses, but I've prepared for that as well—I didn't give them the address of my new apartment. No midnight visits to Clarissa when the eviction notice comes.

I even had enough money left over to get a lawyer, too. He's not top-of-the-line like the Winston Price guy my sister told me to get, he doesn't own a suit or anything, but he's got to be good. His name is Jerry Nascar and he has an office as the same building as the commune, so you know he's legit. He's got a law degree from somewhere on the wall right next to the picture of this huge fish he caught, so the guy's no joke. And now, best of all, I only have to make one trip when picking up my commune paycheck and sorting out my legal issues. Life is sweet.

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