Rules of Leaving
Betsy was always just visiting. Anyone who saw her knew she wasn’t there to stay. She seemed like a perched bird, temporary, on display, and just hanging out until a loud noise made her fly away. She had a heavy bag that draped over her shoulder, carrying most of what must be her life, and her shoes looked like they had been slept in, spit on and dragged through puddles of city slop, but the laces were new and neon green. Betsy spoke with whatever accent was in her ear, this made it so that no one knew her after meeting her, except for maybe Chuck.They had been living in the same place for nearly three months. For Betsy it was too long. She was ready to pick up and go at any moment, at the first mention of opportunity, but this hadn’t happened since they left the place they were for the place they are now. Chuck thought she was staying for him, trying to give him a break, but he also thought that maybe she was staying until she knew he wouldn’t leave with her.
“I feel like we just got here,” Chuck said, packing up an olive green suitcase that lay open on his cot.
“And so it be the time to depart, dearest Charles!” Betsy said. She was sitting on the balcony, which wasn’t a real balcony, according to Betsy, it was an “exaggerated windowsill,” smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.
“There’s just no sense in it. Why, in the middle of February, would we leave this beach, where it’s warm and sunny, for a place where it’s so cold your snot freezes?” Chuck asked.
“Who told you your snot would freeze? That’s sheer rubbish,” Betsy said. She was taking swigs out of the bottle of Jameson they had found in the nightstand where a Bible should’ve been and slurring between a Scottish and British accent.
“I don’t know, but I get runny noses, like, real easily, and I know it’s cold there—it’s all anyone talks about when you tell them you’re moving to Chicago,” Chuck said.
“Who did you tell?” Betsy suddenly changed her position, throwing her legs over the edge and inside as if she was going to run at Chuck.
“No, no one. I mean, I told Pete, but I had to because he’d get in trouble if the dishes weren’t done and I was gone,” Chuck said. He turned back to his packing, avoiding Betsy’s eyes which were searching him like two florescent lights, lifeless yet blindingly bright.
“You know the deal, Chuckster—don’t tell anyone where we are going or where we plan to go. I mean, what if I’d told that tattoo artist I was seeing in Atlanta that we were headed to Miami…? I’ll tell you what, he’d be beating us for the money we owe him by now,” she said.
They were staying in a hostel after Chuck made an arrangement with the management. The room wasn’t a room they gave to paying customers; it was a room off the kitchen, reserved for workers who couldn’t pay to stay.
“Shitfuck! What are we going to do about Pete? Maybe we shouldn’t go to Chicago now...maybe Nashville instead,” Betsy said, flicking her cigarette into the night.
“What’s Pete going to do? We don’t owe anyone here nothing, do we? Bets…do we?”
“You’re right. We owe nothing. Off we are as planned then!” Betsy was suddenly standing next to Chuck and staring into the tidy suitcase, which was mostly full of underwear tied-up with neon green shoelaces and hotel toiletries.
“Still haven’t learned to travel light, have you? You don’t need half of this crap,” she said.
“You’re the one that stole this shit, and almost had us put in jail for it, now you’re telling me to just leave it?” Chuck asked.
Chuck knew Betsy better than anyone. He knew how she liked her coffee, and that she really liked tea more; he knew the scar lining the crease of her nose was from a wire hanger and not a nose job; he knew her eyes were really grey and not blue; he knew her birthday was October 1st, not January 1st; he knew her hair always smelled like green apples before it always smelled like smoke; he knew that her real name was Dikranouhi before she had it legally changed to Betsy.
Chuck knew Betsy would leave without him next time. They'd been all over the East coast together, but Chuck felt like they spent most of their time leaving, and his baggage was getting heavier, harder to carry.
They sat on the floor of the studio apartment they were renting on a monthly basis in south Chicago, Chuck was leaning against the bed while Betsy sat on the floor with a map spread out between her legs. The place smelled like an ashtray and Mexican food; when the train passed the walls shook and the floor vibrated. That was Betsy’s favorite part, the shaking and vibrating.
“I love that this place never stops moving. It’s metaphorical, right Chuckster?” Betsy asked.
“Yeah, sure, I guess,” Chuck said.
“So. Where’d you get all them books from?” Betsy asked, pointing to a stack of books sitting next to Chuck’s bed. She was speaking with a hint of a New York accent this time and chewing on strands of red licorice.
“Library,” Chuck said.
“You have a library card?”
“Well, yeah, I had to get one to get the books,” Chuck said, trying to keep the defensive tone out of his voice.
“Damnit, Charles! Why not just go buy a condo on the lake while you’re at it,” Betsy said. Her hair was down, engulfing her face in black chaotic curls. Chuck always thought she looked prettiest with her hair down, but it only lasted a few seconds before she was sweeping it back again.
“It’s a library card. Pretty temporary,” Chuck said.
“We’ve been here for a month and you’re acting like we’re settled. It’s a library card now, but you know how it is...one attachment leads to another,” Betsy said, twisting her hair into a braid.
Chuck was never comfortable anywhere they went. Not because it wasn’t home, home wasn’t anywhere, but because he was always trying to keep to Betsy’s plans and rules. Buying a library card was against the rules; anything permanent, anything traceable, anything lasting was against the rules. When they first met, Chuck understood Betsy’s rules to be anything that went against other real rules—rules for living abnormally, he thought. He liked how Betsy, a woman no one would expect to have rules, actually had a list she kept and followed.
1. Don’t stand still
2. Borrowing is not stealing
3. Don’t tell anyone where you're going when you go
4. Don’t buy things that are permanent, traceable or lasting
5. Use what’s wasted
6. Move with other things that move
7. Any open place is a place to rest
8. No phone numbers
9. No extras (people, baggage, obligations, etc.)
10. No missing (people or places)
It was number six that worried Chuck. Since they’d come to Chicago, one or both of them had broken a rule on this list. Chuck was the greatest offender, everyday left him more still. Betsy recognized this in him, but she feared rule number ten more than any other which is why she hadn't really left, yet. But there were times when Chuck would wait all night for Betsy to come back to their shaking, vibrating studio just so that he could see her close her eyes and feel safe again. After the first month in Chicago, she started coming back to him less; several days would pass and Chuck would think she was gone for good, but then she would appear in her neon green shoelaces with a bag of someone's forgotten (stolen) leftovers. She never explained her absences, but she would talk about things Chuck didn't know about in a new accent, like a dog that developed a new bark after coming home from running away.
Once, Chuck asked Betsy if they could make amendments to the rules. It seemed like a reasonable request, all rules should be amendable so that they are continually applicable to the present, he thought. But Betsy told him he could make his own rules if he wanted to change hers. This is when Chuck knew that Betsy's rules were nothing more than rules for leaving, and this is when Betsy left Chuck and didn't come back, for good.
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