Part 1: The World’s Worst Tetris Player

I tossed a Purple GelFlex™ foam mattress and a newly-assembled IKEA™ writing desk down on the asphalt next to a locked dumpster, in a middle school parking lot. It was 3 AM on a weekday. I had not slept in forty-eight hours. My shoulders, legs and lower back all ached, from frantically hauling every material item I owned to my car. As I headed back to the house, I reminded myself that there was no time for a break. I had to grab the last of my things, so I could be gone before sunrise.

One of the decisions I’d made on the fly during my frenzied packing efforts was to pull out a plastic drawer from a small set of three I’d bought at Walmart a few months prior. (I’m pretty sure that the other two drawers ended up getting thrown into a dumpster behind a strip mall in Fountain Valley – along with a small wooden chair.)

The strange, almost-ethereal feeling of walking into that house – knowing with certainty that I would never again step over the threshold – was what kept me moving. I walked down the hallway to the room I’d unfortunately occupied for the past six months. I scanned all visible surfaces for anything I’d left behind.

As I quietly closed the door to my room for the last time, the idea briefly crossed my mind to put a sticky note by the doorknob that said “Thanks for the nightmares, bitch.” But I didn’t want to give my landlord one more piece of emotional kindling to roast my memory with. In all honesty, she didn’t even deserve a backward glance.

My fingers tingled with the electricity of anticipation as I walked back down the hallway toward the front door. I slid my door key off my keyring. I scampered across the quiet, dark living room – to set the key with conviction on my landlord’s computer desk. This action was very final, in a way that felt very good.

On that particular morning, the air outside was soothingly mild; a warm breeze was tickling the back of my neck as I walked across the front lawn for the last time. As I opened my car door to slide into the driver’s seat, I looked up at the sky. The night was just beginning to brighten with the first light of sunrise, but the stars were still clearly visible. It was possibly the clearest I’d ever seen the stars over the city of Huntington Beach. I leaned back against the side of my car for a minute – unable to tear my gaze away. Then I quietly slipped into my car, and drove away – with tears of relief brimming in my tired eyes.

As I drove, I had my disembodied bathroom drawer balanced in my lap. It was stuffed with my essential survival tools (toothpaste, toothbrush, phone charger, hairbrush, tampons, makeup, meds, and to-do lists). What do I do now? I wondered. Then I realized that there was no way I would be able to think without a sizable dose of caffeine that morning. So coffee became the priority.

I went through Starbucks drive-thru on Beach Boulevard, the morning I voluntarily became homeless – in a car 3,500 miles overdue for an oil change – wearing my favorite jeans, and a fresh coat of makeup. The passenger seat was packed to the ceiling with clothes; the backseat and the trunk were jammed haphazardly with the rest of my possessions. Indeed, my car was a traveling exhibition of the hard work of the world’s worst Tetris player. I smiled at the barista, left a tip, and made a cup holder for my Frappuccino between a pair of wrinkled jeggings and a bottle of Coppertone SPF 50.

Part 2: Nocturnal Doughnut Deliveries

At twenty-five years of age, I was homeless and broke. I was a sleep-deprived insomniac who frequented Orange County 7/11s and fast food restaurants, picking up pizzas and boxes of doughnuts for UberEats customers. But to keep myself alive, I had to develop a system of survival.

When I had to make a delivery to an address with a locked gate and the customer did not include the gate code on their order, my protocol was to call them. If the customer didn’t answer, I’d wait five minutes; if there was no callback (and especially if the neighborhood was a scary one), I’d leave their takeout at the gate. The customers who didn’t answer their phones were, of course, often the ones who ordered milkshakes at 2 or 3 AM from unmanned, “twenty-four-hour” drive-thrus with all the lights on, and no one working the window.

When I had to park and walk somewhere to find a customer’s address and there were creeps watching me get out of my car from across the street, my protocol was to start speed walking. If the shadows started encroaching on me, I’d throw the food down under a tree or set it on a sidewalk curb – and bolt back to my car.

For two weeks, I drove for UberEats every day from 11 AM or noon until 9 or 10 PM – then I’d check into my cheap, sketchy motel room in a daze, eat an EBT dinner from Ralph’s, and try to take a nap. I’d leave my motel room again at around midnight, and do nocturnal UberEats deliveries until 3 or 4 AM.

At cheap motels, there were typically scary people sleeping on the outskirts of the parking lot after dark. Sometimes I’d just sit in my car until dawn, too nervous to leave it unoccupied. But when the first sign of sunrise brought me back to my senses I’d go up to my bare-bones motel room, dead-bolt the door, and sleep for a few hours. Then I’d get up with just enough time to shower, cover the dark semi-circles under my eyes with foundation, and pack up to leave before the 10 or 11 AM checkout time.

On long nights of driving around half-asleep (and waiting for customers’ Uber orders at drive-thrus), my best friends were classic literature audiobook CDs from Huntington Beach Public Library and Del Taco’s Oreo-horchata shakes. My escape was to immerse myself headfirst in the concerns of a protagonist in Treasure Island, or The Fountainhead. I adorned the walls of my daydreams with the colorful scene descriptions and dialogues from fiction written by authors long-dead, since I wasn’t interested in being the protagonist in my own story.

*

I pecked out poetry about intrusive thoughts on an unsent text with no recipient in a parking lot behind a bougie drive-thru car wash in Placentia. I bought cans of Nitro cold brew on EBT at Ralph’s in between 7/11 pizza deliveries. I delivered gourmet seafood takeout and fancy assorted doughnuts to gated communities in Newport Beach on an empty stomach, and less than two hours’ sleep – with my jewelry color-coordinated and hair neatly braided.

Life has taught me that if I say thank you, smile, walk with my head up and keep my hair clean, I can make a bad situation look better. This has served me well.

Part 3: “Excuse Me Ma’am, Did Your Car Stall?”

I taught myself to pretend I had purpose and direction, when in reality I was watching my life slowly fall apart before my eyes. For months (and for various reasons, not the least of which was a psychotic break), I’d been powerless to stop my mental health from spiraling downward. I was currently in the throes of the worst psychosis I’d ever experienced – while still thinking that all I had was ADHD–not a psychotic disorder. What a depressing and recurring reality for me, to have my needs dismissed by everyone (including myself) when I’m at my most vulnerable.

I remember rearranging my houseplants in my laundry hamper while standing at the back of my overstuffed car – behind a Walmart in Costa Mesa. That’s one moment I’ll never forget. It wasn’t that I cared more about my plants than about my own comfort and convenience. It was that I was desperately trying to preserve a few fossils of the life that had been mine only a few weeks before. My waking hours felt less tangible than dreams – which is a common (and telltale) symptom of psychosis. But at the time, I had no idea that I was schizoaffective. I thought I was just unraveling – which, in retrospect, was not entirely wrong.

This is a poem I wrote about my experience with being in a state of psychosis (which for me, feels almost exactly like lucid dreaming):

Lately, my waking hours
Feel more like a dream.
I hope that soon,
I will either wake up
Or sleep more soundly.

Wandering idly past an open freezer in a Ralph’s,
I pause
To lightly place my left hand
On a bag of mixed berries.

The sensation seeps in –
Grounding me.
I close my eyes.

This feels more real than a steering wheel,
Or a Styrofoam cup from the lobby of a Motel 6:
I am reminded that I’m not a ghost yet.

Unfortunately, money runs out pretty quickly when your only source of income is nocturnal UberEats doughnut deliveries. I knew that I would have to make a new plan of action very soon. I was never going to be able to save enough money driving for UberEats to make a security deposit on a rental somewhere, especially since I was paying for sketchy motels every night. The costs of my adventures were adding up.

The next day, I ran out of gas (not due to lack of funds, but due to the fried short-term memory and brain fog that come with having undiagnosed, untreated schizoaffective disorder, and being in a state of active psychosis). My car stalled, at a stoplight – at rush hour – at a busy intersection in downtown Santa Ana. I got out to ask the person in the car behind me for help. His window was down so I approached and said,

“Hi. Can you help me? I need help pushing my car off the road.” The driver eyed me suspiciously–and rolled up his window. But just then I heard a masculine voice somewhere behind me, bellowing over the noise of traffic:

“Excuse me, ma’am! Did your car stall?”

Two young, husky guys in dark blue Chevron uniforms were hustling over from the gas station nearby. As they got closer I called out, “Yes! I’m out of gas!” I remember thinking to myself how nice it was – firstly, that I had stalled thirty feet from a gas pump, and secondly, that the guys in the Chevron store were young, strong, and eager to help.

As they got closer, they yelled for me to get in my car. They then proceeded to push my carful of furniture, clothes and books up Chevron’s slanted driveway, and over to a gas pump. They were so zealous about helping me that before I’d even gotten my door closed, they’d started pushing me off the road. I, of course, steered – with my manicured hands at ten and two.

I realized, as I rolled toward the nearest gas pump in my tiny, literally man-powered mobile estate, that it was time to make a change. My nomadic, diurnal lifestyle did not seem to be working out in my favor.

At that time, a friend of mine was living with her husband in Las Vegas – which happened to be much closer than Northern California, where my family lives. I called my friend. I asked her to lend me a hundred bucks for gas so I could drive to Vegas. She Venmoed me the money. The next day I did Uber doughnut deliveries until 3 PM, and then drove from the coast of Southern California to Las Vegas, Nevada.

On the drive to my friend’s place, there were quite a few times that I almost got in a serious car accident. Once was when I was getting on the highway from a gas station and pulled out in front of traffic – thinking erroneously that there was another lane there for merging – which did not, in fact, exist. There were also numerous times that I drove through red lights without seeing them, or tried to turn at an intersection from a lane that was not a turn lane. Psychosis can affect many different areas of a person’s life and perceptions – not the least of which is visual processing efficiency.

Unfortunately, service ratings tend to plummet when Uber customers do not get to see the food that they ordered. Uber gave me a warning, and when I didn’t get my ratings back up in the timeframe they specified, my account was deactivated. I have three Associate’s degrees, and a Bachelor of Arts – and UberEats had the audacity to fire me! They just don’t appreciate an educated driver when they have one, do they?

Shortly after going to Las Vegas and setting up camp on my friend’s couch, I ran out of makeup. I started washing my laundry with no detergent. I started re-wearing dirty jeans and sweaty socks; I used bar soap to wash my hair. My bank account hit a negative balance shortly after UberEats gave me the boot – but my nails were the last scrap of my dignity to go. I stopped getting manicures only when I finally had to choose between pretty nails or gasoline.

Part 4: Telemarketing in Vegas

One day, I was scrolling through job ads on Craigslist Las Vegas and saw an ad for a telemarketing job. It said to text the word “apply” to the phone number on the ad if interested. When I did, I got a reply saying:

“How about an interview Friday at 3?”

The interview was very strange. It basically involved sitting across the table from a middle-aged guy in a T-shirt and shorts – listening to him talk about how many times I’d have to hear “No,” or get hung up on, before making a successful sale. He said,

“If you think you can shake off the hangups and the rejection, and move right along to the next caller – eight hours a day – you’ll do fine. So, you decide: can you do it, or not?” I said I’d give it a shot. (After all, I didn’t have much to lose.)

On Monday, almost every cubicle in the place was occupied. I’ll never forget what the first moment of my first day was like: as I walked in, someone ripped their headset off, stood up, stuck an arm in the air and yelled “Verified!!” Chaos erupted in the room, as people vigorously shook their loud, plastic clapper-toys and blew into party kazoos. A few yelled “Yeah!” And “Go team!!!” I was a little caught off guard, to say the least.

The boss came out from the back room shortly, and led me to the only empty cubicle. “Here,” he said, handing me a spiral bound booklet with my name written in black Sharpie on the front cover. “Diamond Resorts,” he said. “Five days, four nights in Miami. Script number four.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Just stick to the script, and make sure to sound excited.”

I kept that job for two and a half weeks. I liked it at first – after I got used to getting called a “scammer” and a “bitch,” and having crude men make inappropriate comments. But it got terribly boring after a while. Soon, I had several of the scripts memorized – and I started messing up, because the job was no longer holding my attention.

In the middle of the second week, I had one day that was particularly bad. I “dropped” three calls in two hours – which means that I kept someone on the line for the entirety of my script, and when I called a “closer” over to get the customer’s credit card info, I went to the next cubicle and logged in under the same username. What this means is that the call was ended – so the closer didn’t get the sale. I had several irritated closers scold me for “kicking them off calls.” Most of them had been in the middle of making a deal, or about to make one – which means I was effectively losing money, too.

After my third dropped call, the shift manager – a young, short guy with an annoyingly easy-going personality – sidled over, swinging his arms casually to the beat of the music as he approached. “Hey, newbie. What’s up?”

I didn’t know why he had decided to talk to me. But I was feeling pretty done, and rather fed up with myself. I said, “I’m not normal, so you can’t expect me to be. Okay?”

In response, the shift manager brandished a big, friendly smile, held out his fist for a knuckle-bump and said, “Hey, I got you. I think you’re normal. Alright?”

In response, I stared at his un-bumped fist – and heartlessly left him hanging there. I said, with acid in my voice, “What gives you the right to decide that I’m normal?”

I’ll never forget the slow-motion fade of his smile, and the pace-matched descent of his fist back down to his side. He paused and said, “What is normal, anyway?” I replied,

“All I know is that everyone else is a lot more of it than me.” Then I put my headset back on, feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Part 5: The Pieces Fit

About a month after I moved in with my friend and her partner, I got a text from her while I was at work one day: “Hey, I’m sorry for the short notice but you need to have your stuff out by tonight. My husband’s grandparents are coming to stay, and they are going to need the couch.”

I wasn’t thrilled. But I knew that this wasn’t really her decision – and that her relations had given her almost no notice. That evening, I went straight back to her apartment as soon as I got off work and started clearing out my half of the closet. (I’d been sharing a closet with her kids for the past several weeks.) Then I made about ten trips back and forth from my car and up the metal staircase to my friend’s apartment. It was quite a workout – and to make matters worse my friend’s ten-year-old son decided to stand at the top of the staircase watching me, and asking repeatedly if all of my stuff was out yet.

Luckily, it had been so recently that I’d been homeless for the first time that this time, I didn’t have to throw anything away. All the pieces fit – just like a well-practiced puzzle.

At this point in the game, I was emotionally numb. I couldn’t even process what was happening. I was too tired to feel sorry for myself. That’s way too much work. I just wanted to go to sleep so I could dream about one of my past lives, when I’d been a semi-functional being with ambitions.

The night that my friend kicked me out of her apartment, I stayed at Circus Circus Hotel. The rooms had no kitchens, but I was pretty much just living on Taco Bell and snacks that coworkers brought to the telemarketing firm, anyway; I had no ambitions in the food preparation department. Stress is exhausting – as is driving around in the heat of summer in Las Vegas, with no A/C. By the end of the day, I was too tired to think about anything but sleep.

The next day after work, I sat in a coffee shop near the Strip – wearing my favorite Oxford shoes with no socks – and Googling “cheap motels with no parking fee.” I saw there were some very affordable rooms at The Excalibur – which I found very odd, because I’d driven past the Excalibur before and from what I’d seen, it was one of the more touristy hotels in Vegas. I purchased four nights online at $30/night, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be this good. (It wasn’t, of course.)

When I arrived, I realized that parking in their lot was $20 a night. After I’d found my way to the lobby and waited in line to be helped at the front desk, I was informed that there were extra fees that had not been mentioned online. There was also a security deposit of $50 a night – which meant that for the four nights I’d already purchased, I’d need to pay an additional $200. (I’d eventually get the deposit back, of course – but that didn’t matter. I was so short on money that I didn’t have enough to spare any.)

My boss had been kind enough to pay me in cash that day, because he’d heard that I was “in a tight spot.” I presented this cash to the clerk behind the counter, who told me that she would not accept my cash because for the security deposit, only cards are acceptable as payment. My credit card had already been maxed out, so that wasn’t an option. And the reason that I’d tried to pay in cash was because I had literally no money in my checking account.

I started to feel very hopeless. I looked at the woman dejectedly, thanked her (for what, I don’t know), and walked toward the exit doors. I stopped in front of the arcade, and looked around. It really is an amazing hotel, with many interesting things to look at. But I was so exhausted that I could only be overwhelmed by all the dazzling lights, noises and activity surrounding me.

As I stood there, texting one of my coworkers to tell him that I had not managed to get a room for the night, I happened to look up toward the front desk of the hotel one last time. Just to the left of the line of customers checking in, there was a small, gold-colored podium with a little rectangular sign on top that had a small cartoon castle on it. The sign read, “Every adventure has to come to an end.”

The next day, my check was deposited in my bank account (direct deposit) from the telemarketing firm. It was just enough. I washed my hair, put on a pair of dirty jeans and a T-shirt, and drove straight to California without looking back. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I knew it would be better to live with my parents than to try to live in Vegas any longer. I had run out of options. I had to go back to reality.

*

If I die young, I hope I won’t have to watch things fall apart first. I have almost refined the art of unraveling fashionably, but I’d rather not spend my last days in this body doing so. I hope that my death will be quick, like the sudden and final snap of a dry branch under a heavy boot. I hope that my pain will be minimal, my makeup will be freshly done, my hair will be clean and brushed, my nails will be manicured – and I’ll make dying look fashionable.

I’ll be the lady who spends her last ten dollars on a fancy, blended drink, at the only coffee shop with air conditioning in Hell. I’ll ask for three extra shots. I’ll sip my coffee, as I look out the window at passersby. Then I’ll walk to a seedy motel in the heat, wearing my best Oxford shoes with no socks.

Amelie Peterson is an imaginative, multifaceted word artist who is easily bored. She can hear X-rays. She is unabashedly and undeniably neurodivergent. Her work has been featured in ScribesMICRO magazine, Fevers of the Mind, One Page Poetry, and Turtle Way’s literary art journal.