start.
âDifferent situation. But yes, about the same costs.â
âAnd you feel yourself to be of sound mind?â Ken getting it out quickly, not comfortable even after all these years with asking such a thing, though the question is my own and I wouldnât give him my business unless he agreed to it.
âI do.â
âAnd itâs something youâve considered carefully. Reviewed over a period of time.â
A short time. âI have.â
âAll right, then.â
I now pronounce you manic and funds.
The money will be in my bank tomorrow, Wednesday morning at the latest. Same account my regular remit goes intoâ$800, two days before the end of each month. Half for rent, the Ownerâs top-up, and half for food, gas and other sundries. A maintenance dose. Money methadone, to keep the cells this side of screaming. And coverable, on average, from a conservative investment portfolio, not touching the principal. Leaving aside a little extra for the unforeseen . Ken double-checking on his calculator that first meeting, but doing most of it in his head.
âKeep well,â he says before hanging up.
âSorry, that suiteâs taken. Hanging in might still be available.â
No dry chuckle this time. âStay safe, my friend.â
Stay safe, my friend . Making another coffee in the French press snagged at Goodwill, I consider it. Bankerâs bonhomie in another mouth, but not in Kenâs I donât think. Not just that. Though we meet barely once a year, neither of us could forget our first encounter. Lifting the lid on my life to let him peep at the roiling. I needed to scare him to gain his full attention. Let him know exactly what he was dealing with. His eyes widened, the MBA part of his soul wanted to run. But the concern he added, then and now, seemed his own. Seems genuine.
Two months after discharge, still lying about the half-empty apartment. Mind blank as sand, hours passing without event, as I moved from chair to bed to chair again. Spring happening unnoticed beyond the windows. Bringing myself slowly off the haze of ward drugs, halving the dosages, quartering them a few days later. Jordanâs cheque still uncashed. Anxious messages from him, mutterings of âexpiry dates,â the danger of funds âin limbo.â Even an icy reminder from Lois, Jordan looming inaudibly behind her. But I needed to know. Or needed to be sure of what I already knew. I wouldnât work again. The hodgepodge of half-jobs and charity placements that had sustained me for two decades was done. At a stroke on a December evening, real winter had begun, and I was no longer work material. That was beyond question. The only question was how to live the time that remained on Jordanâs payout.
Stretching a sum that was huge if life was a day, a week, a month. Modest if it was years. But if the life dragged on for decadesâas even impossible lives were known to do? Live on two hundred grand a yearâhey! Live off it forty yearsâoh oh. The only alternative would be declaringâor trying unsuccessfully to hideâmy atrocity windfall, Social Services suspending my disability pension (with clawbacks for the assets hidden), then burning through the whole amount, leaving me, one fine day, a broke mental patient in his mid- to late-forties. No job, no income, no hopeâa perfect zero.
Psychosis doesnât come with a pension plan. And deathâs the only mandatory retirement.
âYou need to know everything to be of use to me. Iâm a pretty strange case,â I said, that first day in Kenâs office.
âEvery personâs situation is unique,â he replied. I let that go. Ken was better than that. Heâd better be. What Iâd told him so far simply wasnât dire enough. An edited version that would sober him without frightening him off. An ex paid by wealthy in-laws to vanish couldnât shock a banker. Megan might, but
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