OOM: The text that started it all

[obligatoryass]

If Logan were a braver man, he'd call Trina himself. If he were a really, properly brave man, he'd go see her.

But bravery isn't really Logan's strong point. He can't even manage an e-mail, as lame as that would be.

Instead, he sends her a text message.

"Short on cash. Can't pay rent. Please advise."

He hits send and knocks back a shot of tequila.

The bottle's not small, and it's half-empty. He opened it an hour ago. It's amazing that the text came out coherently. Muscle memory, even in a thumb, is an amazing thing.

Comments

[obligatoryass]

"You got up bright 'n' early to get down here, huh? What's so important you had to be in Neptune before noon?"

He'd guess, but...that would be like admitting he'd done something wrong, which isn't in the Echolls DNA.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Well, for one thing, my little brother has stopped returning my phone calls. And I thought, well, you know, there must be something wrong. Really wrong. Maybe he's fallen into a coma or been abducted by kidnappers who couldn't find anyway to contact me about a ransom, but surely if her wwas capable of answering his damn phone, or of calling me, surely he would let me know that he was all right. And maybe even assume that if I was calling him repeatedly, there was a reason."

She hasn't lost the flair for the dramatic, you have to give her that.

Trina washes a mug, stomps on the cockroach starting across the kitchen floor, and then pours Logan coffee.

"Drink," she commands, and goes to get the tequila bottle.

[obligatoryass]

Logan drinks obediently, and only makes a face when he realizes she's given him very black, very strong coffee.

Logan likes dessert coffee, when he drinks it. Which is rarely.

"I e-mailed," he offers feebly.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Forwarding me an incredibly inappropriate list of jokes so doesn't count as keeping in touch."

Trina upends the bottle over the sink. Adios, Jose.

[obligatoryass]

"I really liked the one about the cat," he says. "The cartoons? About why cats stare into the toilet."

Those weren't inappropriate! Just vaguely silly. They certainly didn't count as actual human contact, but at least they proved he was alive.

"So, you're just here to check up on me?"

Not that that's wildly unusual these days, but it seems like a long way to go.

[dead_hooker_2]

"And then yesterday, Beverly called. Remember Beverly, our lawyer. To say that your landlord was looking to file an eviction against you.

"And I know the terms of Dad's will, Logan. You should not be having any trouble making the rent on this place."

Trina slams the bottle into the trash can.

"What the hell are you doing?"

[obligatoryass]

"I forgot to pay the rent?"

Logan blinks. "Yeah, I think it's been a while. Must have slipped my mind."

For three months. Sure. Or he's overdrawn his account and can't touch the rest of the funds until school starts. Something. Whatever.

At her last question, he just shrugs.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Right. It slipped your mind."

Trina does not sound like she believes him.

That would be because she doesn't.

[obligatoryass]

"Been busy."

Drinking. Clearly, it takes a lot of time.

[dead_hooker_2]

"With what?"

[obligatoryass]

"I made a movie."

It was five minutes long, and while a five-minute movie takes longer than most people might think (Logan has, in fact, hours and hours of footage of surfers on his laptop that will probably never see the light of day), he's been done with it for a little while.

Like, a month. Since school let out.

The best part? He never even turned it in, and wound up failing the class.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Really? Did you find a distributer and take Sundance by storm and then win a fucking Oscar while I wasn't looking, too, Logan?"

[obligatoryass]

"No," he mumbles. "Not really. It's only five minutes."

As if the length somehow explains the squalor, the t-shirt, and the tequila.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Oh, for your class then. The one that ended a month ago?

"How'd you do? What did your professor think?"

[obligatoryass]

"Thought I was a fucking genius," he spits. "What else? Wanna talk about the surfing championship I won, too? In addition to the Oscar, of course. Since I'm just so generally awesome these days."

[dead_hooker_2]

"God, Logan, there is a part of me that just wants to slap you," Trina says, and the venom is gone, she just sounds tired.

"What the hell are you doing, Logan? Please, if you have any explanation for what's going on here . . ."

[obligatoryass]

"I don't know," he says, and there's something just completely helpless there. "Parker and I broke up - I mean, that wasn't a big deal or anything, just sort of...one more mooring gone, I guess. And I hate school. Hate it. I'm on probation, anyway, so whatever, but it's all stupid bullshit and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here, and all my friends are losers and...I just have no fucking idea."

[dead_hooker_2]

"Parker? The girl you went out with for, what, like two months? Over a year ago?"

Yeah, she can see where that would cause you lose the will to live.

Trina is not what you might call impressed.

"That's your explanation? That you hate school, that you broke up with yet another blonde, and that you're still stuck palling around with Dick Casablancas? That explains all of this?"

[obligatoryass]

Logan just shrugs.

The ability to explain 'all this' would take a lot more self-awareness than he's managed in his entire life. Someday, he might get there. Today is not that day.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Fine," says Trina.

"All right, here's the deal. Beverly and I have talked to your landlord. I have taken care of your back rent, and paid next month, too. You will not be evicted. But I will not do that again, Logan. You come to me before a problem gets that big, and I will try to help, but I will not bail you out again. Clear?

"You hate school, fine, drop out. But you drop out, you're going to have to find a job. You cannot just hang out in a filthy apartment and drink."

[obligatoryass]

But! Hanging out in the filthy apartment and drinking is a good time!

Oh, wait. That sucks too. Scratch that.

"A job," Logan echoes, as if it is an entirely foreign concept. Which, to be fair, it kind of is.

[dead_hooker_2]

"A job," Trina repeats. "Or you can finish college."

[obligatoryass]

"I'm taking a summer class," he says, thinking. "Starts next week."

To make up for the one he never went to, last semester. "I can pass my film class if I turn the movie in. Not...ace it, or anything, but I can pass it."

He shrugs. "I guess I'll take another stab at it. And look for a job."

Because why not do both? Why not go from being a pathetic, shitfaced loser to an overachiever in twenty minutes?

[dead_hooker_2]

"The movie your professor already loved?" Trina says, drily.

"What class are you taking?"

[obligatoryass]

"English," he says. "It's, uh, writing and comp. I never went."

She'll be shocked by that, he's sure. "If I don't make this class up, I'll definitely be kicked out."

And he doesn't want that, right? Oh, no. Then he'd have to get a job.

"That one, yeah. It was more of a...theoretical love."