Bad Habits Read online

  My first year in college, I did very well academically. By the second year, I was running out of money and could barely pay my bills, which made my grades suffer because I was busy working odd jobs instead of studying. One of the jobs was cleaning fraternity house bathrooms. I knew I could get hired for that because I spent the majority of my time bent over scrubbing. I wish I could have called home to ask for money, but I knew my parents didn’t have any, so I quickly learned how to expand my scrapper career.

  I would ask boys if I could come over to their place and make out. Then I would go over and raid their fridge for frozen pizzas and canned food and take off. Once most of the boys were on to me, I resorted to bouncing checks for food. I was bartending at the time, but all that money went toward my rent and I had no way of surviving without sinning.

  Then I came up with the really good idea of creating a VIP parking pass that allowed you to park anywhere on campus. I made these and then sold them to freshmen for fifty bucks. It was lucrative, but it really started to wear on my soul.

  I thought that if I was sinning to get by, I should at least save the money to use for good, like tuition and books. I promised myself and God that I would not use my money to party or buy clothes. Then my crew of friends came to me with the biggest temptation of all.

  “Jenny, we are all going to Daytona Beach, Florida, for spring break. Want to go?”

  Damn it!

  I looked at my giant vodka bottle filled with fifty-dollar bills. I was in agony. This wasn’t fair.

  I envisioned them all coming back with tans and STDs, and I couldn’t bear to miss out on the action. But I did what any smart Catholic girl would do and said no. My friends understood, which pissed me off more. They all packed up their suitcases and wedged eight girls into a ’78 Chevy Nova. I watched them pull away, limbs sticking out of the car and horn honking.

  I hated being poor. I thought back to that passage in a church song: “Blessed are those who are poor … for someday you shall laugh.”

  I wasn’t laughing.

  I was depressed and angry.

  The next day, the campus was empty.

  There was no one around. Every living soul from SIU went on spring break, and the only good thing about it was that I could park anywhere I wanted to on campus. I went to grab a slice of pizza from Pag’s Pizza (had to mention it for all those SIU alums). While I was in there, two guys walked in and ordered slices and I overheard them talking about heading to Florida for spring break.

  Just as I was about to close my ears so I didn’t have to suffer anymore, I heard one guy say, “Too bad we didn’t post a sign for help with gas. We still have room in the car.”

  Before I could even think about it, I shouted, “I’ll go!”

  With that, I was sitting in the back of a beat-up, disgusting van that didn’t have backseats. I was on the metal floor next to a drum kit and what I thought for sure was a body bag. I think I was in shock as I sat there finally realizing I was with two strangers. I started praying to God for a lifeline.

  “Please, God, don’t let me get raped or killed. I don’t know what I was thinking. If you can get me back home alive, I promise to never steal food or sell illegal parking tickets again.”

  Then I started smelling pot.

  Even though I was a stoner, I never risked it while driving. My fellow road trippers passed the bong back to me and I politely refused. My body started shivering because the van didn’t have heat and I was sitting on metal with holes in it and I could see the road as we drove.

  “Um … how long until we get there?” I asked.

  “We’re driving straight through, so we should be there in twenty-five hours.”

  I would have started crying, but my tears would have froze. I don’t know how many hours had passed when the car pulled into a stop. I asked where we were and the weirdos replied, “Chattanooga.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to flash back to fifth grade when we learned the map and attempted to count how many states we had left until Florida, but I was interrupted with …

  “Hey, how much money you got on you?”

  Shit.

  I’m fucking dead.

  This is it.

  They are going to rape me, kill me, and then rob me.

  I replied like a Canadian. “What do you mean, eh?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “We could use more.”

  “How much more?”

  “Like another twenty bucks.”

  “Okay. Just let me pee and I’ll come back and give it to you.”

  I ran to the truck stop bathroom, which smelled worse than anything I had ever smelled before. I went over my options and it was clear I didn’t have any. Cell phones hadn’t been invented yet, and I was in a truck stop in Tennessee. I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life, but this was the worst by far.

  I came back to the van and handed the guys a twenty. They grabbed it and handed me a hot dog.

  “It was buy one, get one free,” they said.

  I was starving, so I devoured it, as they did theirs.

  Soon we were back on the road.

  I could feel us getting farther south because my body stopped shivering from hypothermia. My thoughts remained on how dumb I was and how much fun my friends were probably having. Finally, we crossed the border into Florida, which the men celebrated with about ten bong hits each. They said we were about an hour away. I had never been so grateful about anything in my life.

  “Where do you want to be dropped off?” one dude asked.

  “Whitehall Hotel,” I said.

  “Whitehall Hotel? There is no Whitehall Hotel,” he said during a bong exhale.

  “Yes. My friends are staying there. It’s on the beach,” I said sternly.

  Both the guys looked at each other and scratched their heads. “We’ll ask when we get into town.”

  “Great idea.”

  After about an hour we pulled into a gas station.

  The guys opened up the back door of the van and the Florida sun nearly scorched my eyeballs. I had been sitting on the floor of a van with no windows the whole trip. I was literally blinded by the light.

  I semi-crawled out of the van and stood up on the ground. The breeze took my breath way, it was so warm and tropical. If that wind could have talked it would have reassured me, saying, “Everything is going to be okay.”

  A gas station attendant approached the car and my stoner dudes asked where Whitehall Hotel was.

  The gasman replied, “There is no Whitehall Hotel.”

  I immediately yelled, “Yes, there is! My friends are there. I know that’s where they are staying. I helped them make the reservation. Whitehall Hotel, Daytona Beach.”

  The stoner dudes giggled. “Well, there’s your problem. We’re in Panama City.”

  “Okay, so how much longer till we get to Daytona?”

  “We’re not going to Daytona. This is our stop.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “We said we were driving to Florida. You assumed Daytona. We were headed to Panama City.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Not kidding.”

  “Well, can I hop on a bus to get there?”

  They laughed and replied, “We are on the gulf. Daytona is on the Pacific side. You’re kind of fucked, but you can come to our girlfriends’ house and see if you can hitch a ride with somebody there.”

  Daytona was the place to go for Spring Break in the early ’90s, so I had hoped that the stoner dudes were right about possibly hitching a ride with someone. I headed over to the house of the chicks who were boning these stoners to figure out what to do next.

  As I sat down on a beanbag filled with cat hair, I saw two girls in the other room giving me dirty looks. I heard the stoner dudes trying to tell them to be cool to me. I had really long bleached-blond hair that was down to my butt and I wore tight jeans. It was not a look you can easily gain new girlfriends with.

  I sat on the beanb
ag for four hours with no one coming to talk to me or offer help. Once in a while I would see a girl peek around the corner to see if I was still there. I was. I started crying a little and decided that my only option was to leave and try to find a ride elsewhere.

  I snuck out the front door and walked down a neighborhood street in Panama City.

  I finally reached a 7-Eleven and tried to call my friends in the hotel to get help. I used four dollars in quarters trying to reach them. No answer.

  Why would they answer? I knew they were all drunk on the beach.

  I was really scared at this point. The only thing I felt I could do was pray. I asked my guardian angels for help.

  “Dear guardian angels, please protect me and guide me to someone who is safe and can help me.”

  I hung out at 7-Eleven for about two hours until I decided to walk to the beach. There were a lot of spring breakers partying, so I thought I might as well pretend to be one of them.

  I was quickly drawn into a few party circles with men who all looked like steroid monsters. I was given a beer … and another … and another.

  The next thing I remember, I was being dragged to a stage for a wet T-shirt contest, kicking and screaming like I was about to be hanged. I cried and begged the guys to put me down to no avail.

  I was plopped onto a stage with ten sluts who were gyrating in G-strings. I crawled to the nearest exit of the stage, but it was blocked. Then hoses were pointed at us and we were soaked.

  I kept thinking that this all had to be a nightmare.

  First of all, I don’t know anyone. Second of all, I’m in a wet T-shirt contest with no tits (pre-boob-job years).

  I stood there in shock, watching the girls practically have sex with themselves onstage while thousands of men videotaped them. Then they all started yelling at me for not moving around like a ho.

  I tried fleeing again, but I was blocked by a beefcake.

  I was left with only two choices: get naughty or punch the beefcake blocking the exit in the face. Just as I was about to throw a right hook, I heard an announcement that the winner of the contest would win five hundred dollars in cash.

  Damn it! Here comes more temptation.

  If I won, I could catch a flight to Daytona Beach.

  Was this my guardian angels’ way of saying, “Here’s some help”?

  My hips began shaking left and right. The men burst into cheers. Then I turned around and shimmied my butt the best I could. More cheers from the crowd. It was kind of liberating until I looked to my left and saw the ho next to me tear her shirt off and bounce her wet, naked boobies all over the stage. It was absolute mayhem. It was as if the animals were unleashed, and the roar of the crowd was deafening.

  I ran toward the exit and kicked the beefcake in the face as hard as I could.

  I grabbed my bag and took off running down the beach in my wet T-shirt.

  As I ran, I was applauded by more spring breakers.

  I just wanted this all to end.

  When I finally felt I had escaped, I plopped down on the sand, laid flat on my back, stared at the sky, and asked my guardian angels for other help besides a wet T-shirt contest. I closed my eyes and passed out.

  When I opened them again, it was sunset. I sat up and felt crispy. I had never been to Florida before and I had no idea how intense the sun was there.

  I got up and walked to find a bathroom.

  Even the warm Florida breeze now hurt my face. I realized that I had been out in the sun all day with no sunscreen, and since I’m Irish, I usually burn in forty-five minutes of Chicago sun. I couldn’t imagine what all-day Florida sun could do. I made my way to a diner and went into the bathroom.

  My face was not only red but forming blisters all over.

  It looked like someone had thrown a grease pan on my face.

  I started crying as I bounced my finger on all the blisters. I looked like a monster.

  I ran to another pay phone and begged God for one of my friends to be in the room. If it was sunset, it meant they were probably back in the room getting skanked up to hit the town.

  Ring, ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh my God, oh my God. Who is this?” I asked.

  “It’s Erin. Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s Jenny. I need help. I’m seriously fucked.”

  I went through the whole story. All I could hear was uncontrollable laughter, but my friends immediately got me a plane ticket and flew me to Daytona Beach.

  Sadly, when I arrived, they had to take me to the emergency clinic because I had suffered such severe burns on my face. I was ordered to stay in my room for the remainder of spring break. I had to watch my friends come in and out of the room and have sex with strangers as I laid there staring at the ceiling with bandages on my face.

  As days passed, I reflected on how wise my intuition really was and how I should have trusted it to not go down to Florida in the first place. I wondered how many more times I would have to go through crazy shit like this until I finally learned my lesson.

  Well, it turned out to be a shitload more times, but at least I can say that I won the next wet T-shirt contest. Whoop whoop. Jiggle jiggle.

  17

  O Holy Night

  My heart was racing. I kept looking behind me to see if I had ditched the cops. Just to be sure, I continued to floor the gas pedal.

  Thoughts of “How the hell did I get here?” raced through my head. I looked down at my car seat and saw the illegal parking passes I had made in college along with the checkbook I used to bounce checks for food.

  “Oh yeah, that’s probably how.”

  I weaved in and out of traffic and witnessed countless senior citizens flipping me the bird. Who knew they had such pizzazz?

  I pulled off an exit and hid out in a parking lot next to miles and miles of cornfields. The song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was on the radio. I remember it like it was yesterday because I burst into tears while singing the words “Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I’m only falling apart.” I was a hot mess. This is not how I had planned to leave college.

  How would I explain this to my mother?

  Ding-dong. My heart was racing as I waited for my mom to open the front door. “Jenny, what are you doing home?” she asked.

  “At least I’m not pregnant!” I shouted.

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  I moved past her, walked into the living room, and plopped down on my childhood sofa.

  “I went broke. I couldn’t afford to pay rent and eat. And when you don’t have those things, it’s time to go home. I dropped out. Well, it was more like I got chased out of college.”

  My mom burst into tears. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t send you any more money. We are struggling to get by. We have zero in our bank account right now.”

  I looked around our disheveled home. I was hoping so badly I could take care of my parents someday, and now I felt like a failure in every way.

  Even the Baruchs had moved on up and out of our neighborhood.

  I hugged my mom and promised I was going to figure out a way to help her and my dad. Someday I was going to pay off every one of their bills.

  She kissed me on the cheek and then asked, “Is all your stuff in the car? Let’s get you unpacked.”

  “Um, I left everything behind. I was in a hurry.”

  Actually, I really didn’t have anything to take. I was borrowing all of my roommate’s clothes. The only thing that I left there were my tampons, and they were stolen from a restaurant.

  I opened the door to my old bedroom and took a huge leap into the air to plop onto my waterbed. I couldn’t wait for my body to jiggle on it. I hit the bed hard.

  “Ouch!” That wasn’t what I was expecting. My mother had put a box spring mattress in place of my waterbed mattress to make it appear there was still a bed there.

  Who does that?

  My sisters JoJo and Amy, who were still living in the house
, ran into my room, excited I was home. JoJo squeaked with joy: “Can I have your fake ID?” Followed by Amy: “Can you teach me how to smoke a joint?”

  Spoken like true Catholic schoolgirls.

  I responded, “No and no. I need my fake ID, and Amy, I’m pretty sure I smoked myself sober. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “I can’t believe you’re moving back in. Don’t you feel like a loser?”

  “Yes, thank you. You guys are so awesome. You always know what to say to make me feel better. How’s Dad doing?”

  “He’s working three jobs. Tuition at McAuley is killing him,” said JoJo.

  My heart sank.

  “I feel so bad. He works hard for all of us to get great educations and you two are asking for my fake ID and wanting to learn how to smoke pot while I just ran from the cops. He would be so proud.”

  I plopped back on my bed, forgetting it was a box spring. “Ouch! Damn it! I’ve got to figure out a way to get us all out of here. I can’t live like this anymore.”

  “Well, hurry up and think quick. Christmas is a few weeks away and none of us got anything for Mom and Dad.”

  “Let me think, let me think … Hmm … Got it!”

  Ding-dong. An old lady opened her front door and smiled. JoJo, Amy, and I began singing, “We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.”

  I then held out my hand. The old lady smiled with delight and shouted, “Christmas carolers! Let me get you some money.”

  My sisters and I high-fived each other as the old lady came back with her purse. She dug inside for a good minute and handed me a quarter. “Merry Christmas, girls!” she exclaimed, and then shut the door.

  “It’s going to take us forever to make money,” Amy said.

  “Well then, let’s start moving,” I said.

  Ding-dong.