I have given Flez the un-communicated deadline of Tuesday night, around nine or so, to call me about the money he owes me. $1,700. More than half of the original sum that I had lent him over a year ago.
He originally was to pay me off in monthly installments of whatever-he-can-contribute. I’ve changed that policy a month ago, kicking up what usually amounted to $200 a month to $400.
I had called him on either the 1st or the 2nd of November about October’s installment. Honestly, he is really supposed to call me, and I don’t particularly enjoy the role of loan shark, but I know that if I do not adopt the role, I would assume another role of pauper.
During this phone call, he told me that his pay cheque would not be processed for 5 business days. I confirmed this third-world processing time with my mother (is this how long it takes usually for a cheque to be verified and credited to your account in a developed country?). He told me to give him until Monday, which was 5 or 6 days (2 or 3 working days, with the 2 holidays appearing in one week) away.
At that point he hesitated, and started referring to the 2 holidays in that week, but I interrupted him and told him to call me on Monday, the finality of my decision holding well in my voice. I really was not prepared to give him any more time – I sincerely doubted that he had only gotten the cheque that day. It would have had to have been received sometime the prior week.
Of course, Monday came and went with no sign of Flez. I was willing to believe the cheque had been delayed, and waited until Thursday to call. I called from the client’s office on a day that I should have been home on Study Leave, but ended up having to make a final appearance – arriving to work at 6:15am and leaving at 6:30pm. I must have called Flez an hour before leaving.
Apparently, Flez was too busy to speak with me. Organising how I am to get my money for a particular month is usually all of a 2 minute conversation – and only so long because Flez would often insist on shooting the shit. I assure you – there are a lot of things I would like to shoot with Flez, and also a lot of things I would not. “The shit” is in the latter list.
For whatever reason, however, Flez must have thought that this 2 minute conversation would have turned into a half an hour exchange. He said that he would call me later that night. Around 7pm.
Of course, the promised call never came. That was Thursday night. It is now 3:45 on Monday morning, and I have not been able to get through to Flez thus far.
I must have called his phone over 30 times. I called his sister almost 10 times. His mother, I called once.
I got through to his mother. I told her exactly who I was. No more fake names, even though she hates me. She was quite polite and told me she would tell Flez that I called for him. Apparently she was not home when I called.
I got through to his sister twice. Once, waking her up at 8:30 in the morning and informing her that I would call back, and another time when Flez was not in the house.
I never got through to Flez.
So he has until Tuesday to call. Between now and then, I do intend to continue listening to the frustrating sound of his endlessly ringing phone. I have no intentions of calling his sister again, but I will call his mother once more.
And if I cannot contact him? Simple. I tell my mother about the loan. I tell her everything. She already knows that Flez and I had an intensely sexual relationship. Did I tell you about that little conversation where I offered up some very revealing chunks of information of my own volition save one easily avoidable question? No? I should really talk about that one.
Later.
My hopes are that my mother would not tell my father, in which case I would be on Shit Street, looking left and right before I cross, but getting hit by a bus anyway. When I do tell her, I would like her to be the one to call Flez and remind him of his $1,700 obligation. I would give my left labium to see the look on his face when my mother rings him up with that sweet piece of on-a-need-to-know-basis-only information.
My theory is that he would actually answer the phone when my mother calls from work because:
1. Fate is a bitch, and all bitches like drama.
2. He would not recognise the number (like he perhaps recognised mine) and will actually answer the phone.
And if neither of us can get through to him? Simpler. I will personally call his mother with my mother at my side. It makes a whole lot of sense. She is the only one who actually answers her phone, after all.
Of course, things are never always that simple. Like I told you, Fate likes drama.
There is the possibility that my mother, once hearing of my stupidity with love and money, passes on the information to her husband. No good.
Or, perhaps she would not assist me in trying to make Flez make good on the loan. Kind of a you-shit-on-your-bed-you-lie-in-it affair. Maybe the most she’d do is throw in 3 blocks of toilet paper and one of those pine-scented, pine-tree shaped car air fresheners.
And then there are the consequences of Flez’s mother finding out. It’s bad enough for him that she would be finding out about a Black girl she does not like because she sent a message with the word “fuck” on her daughter’s phone lent her son $3,000. But worse yet, there are the implications that arise solely out of a Black girl lending her son $3,000. She might start asking uncomfortable and embarrassing questions of the nature of the aforementioned “avoidable” question that my mother asked me. Only less avoidable, more persistent, and far more specific.
Maybe not so bad. But yes so bad, if your parents have racist tendencies and are fundamentalist Muslims. Whoa. That’s a bad combination there. Now you’re talking disowning. So you understand the implications? You understand my dilemma?
Part of me wants Flez to call by the deadline. That way, things will continue smoothly. Sorry Fate. The drama was pre-empted. It was replaced by a re-run of Blue’s Clues.
Another part of me, however, wants one of the two latter options to materialise. I’m angry, you see. I am extremely pissed off right now, but I’ve been angry for so goddamned long (since Thursday night, to be exact), that I’ve gone running past the phase where I’m kicking and screaming. Right now, it’s more along the lines of I-don’t-get-mad-I-get-even kind of pent up, latent rage, waiting for the opportunity to explode.
But if he calls me on Tuesday night at 8:59pm, the fuse would be cut before it burned out, the bomb would be defused. I’d be forced to bite my tongue because he would have some semi-valid coughed-up excuse:
1. My phone was giving trouble.
2. I had no money on my phone to call.
3. TSTT (Trinidad & Tobago’s substandard telecommunications providers) was fucking up.
4. I didn’t want to call on my sister/mother/father’s cell because they would have acted like fools.
5. I wanted to wait until I could call you from work.
And on they go. And there’s also the fact that he would have called in a semi-reasonable time – before my un-communicated deadline.
So I’d bite my tongue, and accept the $400. But this would not be an appropriate expression of my anger of being promised something by Flez only to be disappointed yet again. I’m fucking tired of the promises. He’s been making broken promises since he lent me the money (I’ll pay you back in 3 months no make that 6 months here’s what I’ll pay you $300 a month no sorry I can only afford $200) and on and on. I’m fucking fed up. A year of waiting his thinned my patience to near nothingness. And I can’t even get through to him to communicate that fact.
So at 3 in the morning, I closed my books after some heavy duty studying. (Please do not be impressed, I only stayed up that late to study because I spent most of the daylight hours switching between Sorority Girls and Empire Records, and then watching some George Clooney movie that looked an awful lot like The Peacemaker). I sat down on the toilet, bobbing my head slightly to the sounds of Breaking Benjamin, and trying to figure out whether my knowledge of the possible severe consequences for Flez if his mother were to find out cancels out my anger for the past year.
I was way too generous with this money. Flez must think I’m a pushover when it comes to money. I wonder if he is aware that was only because he was fucking me and my emotions were tied up. A few months of separation have changed those things, and I’m even angrier because it has been more than a year, he appears to be treating his obligation lightly, he has gotten away with so many things in the past, and I’m guilty of letting him get away with them.
The moral of the story, kids? Don’t mix love with money. Because when the love is gone, the money will be, too. And even if you get it back, the value would be diminished due to inflation, and you would have lost interest on it if you would have kept it in a Money Market Fund or Fixed Deposit.
I need to go to sleep now.