Post by Queen Melody on Sept 2, 2019 6:02:48 GMT -6
My name was Emily Lazarus. And this was the day I died.
Most people, when they think of Nebraska, think of two things. Corn? And football. For the rest of us that actually live here, things are a little more complicated. Have you ever heard of L&J Insurance? No? Of course you haven’t… but that man right there? George Lazarus, half owner of L&J Insurance, and my legal sperm donor. He insured virtually everyone for three counties, and made money hand over fist while doing it. Every year the Christmas bonuses just got bigger and bigger, and he loved to gloat about it.
Ever see the movie the Incredibles? Where the former superhero works for an insurance company and can’t handle being a soul sucking leech that preys on people not understanding their policy? Well, if he’s the superhero?
George is the super villain.
Every year, it was the same thing. Reveling in ripping people off, because the risk to reward ratio was just “too good to pass up”. Signing people up for expensive policies under the guise of impending global warming, or hefty deductible accounts for farming equipment that he knew good and well would never actually be covered if they filed a claim. He was the proverbial king of filching the entire district. I’m almost positive that if things hadn’t gone down the way they did, he would’ve made a bid for government property next.
And then, naturally, you have my mother right next to him. You know, the one who looks ready to tear him from asshole to tonsils with the salad fork? That’s the one. You could say I get my temper from her… honestly you could probably say I get a lot of things from her, but that’s the only one I’m going to own up to. She worked hard, trying to be the good role model women are supposed to be to their kids. Instead, she wound up a workaholic who spent all night working and never saw her kids to really drive home any sort of model behavior to begin with.
So to say it was par the course, watching them argue as my brother was being hauled away in handcuffs would be an understatement.
Ah, right. That mouthy little brat would be yours truly. Sure, a younger rounder face… but that sneer that I should probably get trademarked by now.
Yeah. It hurt. But I was never one to let someone else have the last word. I never liked my dad, or his tactics. In fact, it was part of what led our family to this point to begin with. Every year, the checks kept getting bigger and bigger. Every year, he’d try and buy off our affection with over priced stuff from ‘the city’. He blew several grand trying to build an office addition to the house, and that’s when the trouble started. The contractor did a terrible job, so bad that it actually managed to ruin our existing roof and my dad tried to sue the contractor for defective construction work. Lo and behold, he was the guy who sold the insurance policy that effectively didn’t cover shit. Once that came out, that we’d lost a case on getting his own insurance company to pay due to a loophole in the contract?
Chaos.
Thousands, and I mean thousands of lawsuits sprung up. Negligence. Fraud. Everything under the sun, and L&J insurance went bankrupt within 4 months trying to pay out all of the unpaid claims and deductible refunds. If normal myths and fables about karma aren’t enough for you? Let me tell you, watching your family literally lose everything they own due to someone’s hubris? Will make you a believer.
And this, completely hopeless mop of hair, is my brother. Adam. If hippy and punk had a kid, it probably would’ve been him. Thanks to my dad’s penchant for trying to pay us all off, and my mom’s never being around, nobody really noticed when things went south for him. He struggled in school, he started developing a really nasty anxiety, and eventually started doing the only thing there really is to do in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
He started dealing drugs.
I think in a way, it made him feel like he was in control of something. This was money that he’d ‘earned’ for lack of a better term. It was money that wasn’t just our dad trying to keep us occupied. It was his way out, to make enough money to get out of town and find something, somewhere, to belong to. So naturally, when the money started rolling in…? He became just like our dad. He started out small, just your basic surcharge from his supplier. A ‘finders fee’ if you will. Then he got greedy, and started to go into the business of manufacturing it himself. He cut out the middle man, but kept the costs the same. And when the thrill of raking in that much money wasn’t enough?
He started getting reckless.
It’s one thing to just charge more than the next dealer. It’s another to start stiffing your customers. So when one of his regulars got busted by an undercover john in the Waffle House bathroom, and got arrested for a gram and a half of meth, when he thought he paid for two grams?
Well, let’s just say the county prosecutor offered a very generous plea bargain.
My brother was outed, and within twenty four hours our house (or what was left of it, thanks to my dad’s bankruptcy) was swarmed with police. SWAT, Nebraska State Troopers, and a way too smug for his own good member of the DEA were outside my window before I even had my morning toast.
I’ll never deny that my brother got himself into this mess. But he and I both agreed? That he learned it from the best.
Now, the trial was over and we were getting our final opportunity to say goodbye before he was shipped down to Leavenworth Kansas, the closest federal pen for guys like him. My mom hadn’t stopped crying since the sentencing and my dad? Well, somehow he seemed more concerned for my mom’s reaction than the fact that his son was going to prison.
We hugged, before the bailiff tugged him away and he left with the rest of the unfortunate guys who were all about to be Adam’s new bunk mates. My mom still crying, while my dad tried to usher us both out of the courthouse. The car ride back home was enough to make you want to drive headlong into the guard rail. Another heated argument, my dad demanding to know why Adam had been such a black sheep. Why couldn’t he have been more like our older brother Derek?
If I’d had more confidence in my ability to take the fall, I probably would’ve tucked and rolled right about then.
As soon as we got home, I sat in my room in silence. Pictures on the walls, posters of musicians and emo quotes like every other millennial kid had on their bedroom walls. I thought hard about what Adam told me. He knew I wasn’t dumb enough, or desperate enough to start dealing drugs. He also knew that I had no desire to stick around any more than he wanted me to stay in Nebraska.
Between what I’d managed to save working at, quite possibly, the most disgusting KFC in the entire state and what Adam had conveniently ‘left’ me before his arrest, I took what little I cared to keep and drove. I didn’t know where I was headed, and I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew I didn’t want to stay here.
That was the night, Emily Lazarus died. I knew if I drove far enough, I would finally be rid of the haunt of my own name. The disgust when someone would say it. They all wondered who I was going to swindle. Was I going to be another druggie like my brother? Was I going to turn into a gold digging tramp? Or would I just wind up homeless under the highway overpass giving anyone what they wanted in exchange for a meal? The bets were all on the table, wondering how long until I fucked it all up too. And how exactly was I doing five years later?
Well I can promise you, none of my graduating class is currently sitting on a chartered jet, flying the eight hour flight from Nova Scotia to Vancouver before detouring south to Los Angeles for a workout and dinner date with one of pro wrestling's hottest commodities. Normally, my preferred flight path would’ve taken me down to Atlanta and then west to L.A., but with the hurricane looming on the horizon, it meant taking the detour straight across Canada instead. And honestly? Given my present company?
No one was going to hear me complain about more time in Canada.
And under normal circumstances? Everything would’ve been fine. Melody Malone, the woman who was sitting with her legs crossed and propped up over an arm rest while sipping on a glass of champagne would’ve been perfectly content to forget that Emily Lazarus ever existed.
But thanks to a regrettable decision on pay-per-view, and a closed caption typist who deserved to be fired, the name Lazarus was rearing its ugly head again. Which was the most unfortunate part of my mini vacation throughout the great white north. Despite the company I’d been keeping, the gnawing teeth of my old life tried to keep crawling back to the forefront of my mind. Wondering if this was finally it - was I finally going to become my dad? All I wanted to do was drink away the memory of that very name… I worked too hard to lose my footing now. If I didn’t reassert myself as ‘Melody Malone’, I wasn’t sure what would happen.
For those who might only have ever heard the name attached to my boyfriend, let me give you the cliffs notes version. The name Lazarus comes from the bible, about a man who was resurrected because of his faith. And if there was anything I was unequivocally sure of, it was that there would be no resurrection by faith. There was nothing to have faith in.
Because ‘Emily’ was dead.
And it terrified me, because if Melody fails?
I don’t know who else I’m supposed to be.
Most people, when they think of Nebraska, think of two things. Corn? And football. For the rest of us that actually live here, things are a little more complicated. Have you ever heard of L&J Insurance? No? Of course you haven’t… but that man right there? George Lazarus, half owner of L&J Insurance, and my legal sperm donor. He insured virtually everyone for three counties, and made money hand over fist while doing it. Every year the Christmas bonuses just got bigger and bigger, and he loved to gloat about it.
Ever see the movie the Incredibles? Where the former superhero works for an insurance company and can’t handle being a soul sucking leech that preys on people not understanding their policy? Well, if he’s the superhero?
George is the super villain.
Every year, it was the same thing. Reveling in ripping people off, because the risk to reward ratio was just “too good to pass up”. Signing people up for expensive policies under the guise of impending global warming, or hefty deductible accounts for farming equipment that he knew good and well would never actually be covered if they filed a claim. He was the proverbial king of filching the entire district. I’m almost positive that if things hadn’t gone down the way they did, he would’ve made a bid for government property next.
And then, naturally, you have my mother right next to him. You know, the one who looks ready to tear him from asshole to tonsils with the salad fork? That’s the one. You could say I get my temper from her… honestly you could probably say I get a lot of things from her, but that’s the only one I’m going to own up to. She worked hard, trying to be the good role model women are supposed to be to their kids. Instead, she wound up a workaholic who spent all night working and never saw her kids to really drive home any sort of model behavior to begin with.
So to say it was par the course, watching them argue as my brother was being hauled away in handcuffs would be an understatement.
“I have worked for fifteen years, every night, to provide for this family and you just let this happen?! Under MY roof!?”
“YOUR ROOF?!”
“Well it isn’t yours if you can’t tell your own son is running drugs out of the basement, is it?!”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have to work so hard if YOUR son wasn’t sending people to the ER!”
“Oh fuck both of you.”
“YOUR ROOF?!”
“Well it isn’t yours if you can’t tell your own son is running drugs out of the basement, is it?!”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have to work so hard if YOUR son wasn’t sending people to the ER!”
“Oh fuck both of you.”
Ah, right. That mouthy little brat would be yours truly. Sure, a younger rounder face… but that sneer that I should probably get trademarked by now.
“Emily, go to your room.”
“No. Screw both of you. You’re seriously going to sit here and argue over who’s the better parent when your son is literally going to go to prison. Like, you get that right?”
“Go. To. Your. Room.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll see something I shouldn’t see? I mean, I just watched Adam get hauled off so what’s left? You going to try and get whatever the cops couldn’t find and sell it yourself?”
“EMILY!”
“Don’t act like dad’s some kind of saint. If he can make a buck, he’s going to. What’s his next move anyway? Go through Adam’s stuff to see who he’s been dealing to so you can try and shake some money out of them too?”
The slap jerked Emily’s head to the side.
“No. Screw both of you. You’re seriously going to sit here and argue over who’s the better parent when your son is literally going to go to prison. Like, you get that right?”
“Go. To. Your. Room.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll see something I shouldn’t see? I mean, I just watched Adam get hauled off so what’s left? You going to try and get whatever the cops couldn’t find and sell it yourself?”
“EMILY!”
“Don’t act like dad’s some kind of saint. If he can make a buck, he’s going to. What’s his next move anyway? Go through Adam’s stuff to see who he’s been dealing to so you can try and shake some money out of them too?”
The slap jerked Emily’s head to the side.
Yeah. It hurt. But I was never one to let someone else have the last word. I never liked my dad, or his tactics. In fact, it was part of what led our family to this point to begin with. Every year, the checks kept getting bigger and bigger. Every year, he’d try and buy off our affection with over priced stuff from ‘the city’. He blew several grand trying to build an office addition to the house, and that’s when the trouble started. The contractor did a terrible job, so bad that it actually managed to ruin our existing roof and my dad tried to sue the contractor for defective construction work. Lo and behold, he was the guy who sold the insurance policy that effectively didn’t cover shit. Once that came out, that we’d lost a case on getting his own insurance company to pay due to a loophole in the contract?
Chaos.
Thousands, and I mean thousands of lawsuits sprung up. Negligence. Fraud. Everything under the sun, and L&J insurance went bankrupt within 4 months trying to pay out all of the unpaid claims and deductible refunds. If normal myths and fables about karma aren’t enough for you? Let me tell you, watching your family literally lose everything they own due to someone’s hubris? Will make you a believer.
“So. Twenty five years.”
“Yeah..”
“Yeah..”
And this, completely hopeless mop of hair, is my brother. Adam. If hippy and punk had a kid, it probably would’ve been him. Thanks to my dad’s penchant for trying to pay us all off, and my mom’s never being around, nobody really noticed when things went south for him. He struggled in school, he started developing a really nasty anxiety, and eventually started doing the only thing there really is to do in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
He started dealing drugs.
I think in a way, it made him feel like he was in control of something. This was money that he’d ‘earned’ for lack of a better term. It was money that wasn’t just our dad trying to keep us occupied. It was his way out, to make enough money to get out of town and find something, somewhere, to belong to. So naturally, when the money started rolling in…? He became just like our dad. He started out small, just your basic surcharge from his supplier. A ‘finders fee’ if you will. Then he got greedy, and started to go into the business of manufacturing it himself. He cut out the middle man, but kept the costs the same. And when the thrill of raking in that much money wasn’t enough?
He started getting reckless.
It’s one thing to just charge more than the next dealer. It’s another to start stiffing your customers. So when one of his regulars got busted by an undercover john in the Waffle House bathroom, and got arrested for a gram and a half of meth, when he thought he paid for two grams?
Well, let’s just say the county prosecutor offered a very generous plea bargain.
My brother was outed, and within twenty four hours our house (or what was left of it, thanks to my dad’s bankruptcy) was swarmed with police. SWAT, Nebraska State Troopers, and a way too smug for his own good member of the DEA were outside my window before I even had my morning toast.
I’ll never deny that my brother got himself into this mess. But he and I both agreed? That he learned it from the best.
Now, the trial was over and we were getting our final opportunity to say goodbye before he was shipped down to Leavenworth Kansas, the closest federal pen for guys like him. My mom hadn’t stopped crying since the sentencing and my dad? Well, somehow he seemed more concerned for my mom’s reaction than the fact that his son was going to prison.
“Don’t do anything stupid in there. You could technically still get parole later.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Crazier things have happened. I mean, just look at us.”
“Emmy. Do me a favor?”
“What’s up?”
“Get out of here. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, alright?”
“I learned my lesson years ago man. Don’t cheat the system, it’s going to find a way to make its rounds.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Crazier things have happened. I mean, just look at us.”
“Emmy. Do me a favor?”
“What’s up?”
“Get out of here. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, alright?”
“I learned my lesson years ago man. Don’t cheat the system, it’s going to find a way to make its rounds.”
We hugged, before the bailiff tugged him away and he left with the rest of the unfortunate guys who were all about to be Adam’s new bunk mates. My mom still crying, while my dad tried to usher us both out of the courthouse. The car ride back home was enough to make you want to drive headlong into the guard rail. Another heated argument, my dad demanding to know why Adam had been such a black sheep. Why couldn’t he have been more like our older brother Derek?
If I’d had more confidence in my ability to take the fall, I probably would’ve tucked and rolled right about then.
As soon as we got home, I sat in my room in silence. Pictures on the walls, posters of musicians and emo quotes like every other millennial kid had on their bedroom walls. I thought hard about what Adam told me. He knew I wasn’t dumb enough, or desperate enough to start dealing drugs. He also knew that I had no desire to stick around any more than he wanted me to stay in Nebraska.
“Em, where are you going?”
“Leaving.”
“What? Where?”
“No idea.”
“Leaving.”
“What? Where?”
“No idea.”
Between what I’d managed to save working at, quite possibly, the most disgusting KFC in the entire state and what Adam had conveniently ‘left’ me before his arrest, I took what little I cared to keep and drove. I didn’t know where I was headed, and I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew I didn’t want to stay here.
That was the night, Emily Lazarus died. I knew if I drove far enough, I would finally be rid of the haunt of my own name. The disgust when someone would say it. They all wondered who I was going to swindle. Was I going to be another druggie like my brother? Was I going to turn into a gold digging tramp? Or would I just wind up homeless under the highway overpass giving anyone what they wanted in exchange for a meal? The bets were all on the table, wondering how long until I fucked it all up too. And how exactly was I doing five years later?
Well I can promise you, none of my graduating class is currently sitting on a chartered jet, flying the eight hour flight from Nova Scotia to Vancouver before detouring south to Los Angeles for a workout and dinner date with one of pro wrestling's hottest commodities. Normally, my preferred flight path would’ve taken me down to Atlanta and then west to L.A., but with the hurricane looming on the horizon, it meant taking the detour straight across Canada instead. And honestly? Given my present company?
No one was going to hear me complain about more time in Canada.
And under normal circumstances? Everything would’ve been fine. Melody Malone, the woman who was sitting with her legs crossed and propped up over an arm rest while sipping on a glass of champagne would’ve been perfectly content to forget that Emily Lazarus ever existed.
But thanks to a regrettable decision on pay-per-view, and a closed caption typist who deserved to be fired, the name Lazarus was rearing its ugly head again. Which was the most unfortunate part of my mini vacation throughout the great white north. Despite the company I’d been keeping, the gnawing teeth of my old life tried to keep crawling back to the forefront of my mind. Wondering if this was finally it - was I finally going to become my dad? All I wanted to do was drink away the memory of that very name… I worked too hard to lose my footing now. If I didn’t reassert myself as ‘Melody Malone’, I wasn’t sure what would happen.
For those who might only have ever heard the name attached to my boyfriend, let me give you the cliffs notes version. The name Lazarus comes from the bible, about a man who was resurrected because of his faith. And if there was anything I was unequivocally sure of, it was that there would be no resurrection by faith. There was nothing to have faith in.
Because ‘Emily’ was dead.
And it terrified me, because if Melody fails?
I don’t know who else I’m supposed to be.