From Riches to Rags Read Free

a pre-teen, just hitting puberty. One day I was sitting talking with my best friend, Bonnie, on the school bus, happily on my way to the public school, and the next day I was in a limousine being driven to an exclusive all girl school where the teachers never said no to the students. It didn’t take long for me to realize that if I wanted to fit in, I’d have to act like the other spoiled rotten rich kids. Surprisingly, that was very easy to do.
    After years of over-indulging myself, I guess my parents had become fed up with having to bail me out of jail for public drunkenness, or throwing thousands of dollars out the car window and causing a five car pileup. Maybe it was that photo published on the cover of a magazine of me naked, at a lesbian orgy. Oh yeah, that one was fun.
    It has been nine months since they disinherited me and kicked me to the curb. For the first few months I thought they were just trying to teach me a lesson. Always before, when they had imprisoned me in a rehab, they would bail me out after I promised to clean up my act. But this time, I almost killed someone while driving drunk and I guess that was the last straw for them. Even as I cried like a baby at their doorstep, they stood steadfast and closed the door in my face. Oh my God, that one hurts my soul so much, even now.
    The first three months, I spent what little cash I had on liquor, but the money dried up fast, along with my rich friends, and I had a decision to make. Either I prostitute myself for booze, or I sober up and get a job. Finally, after waking up in the gutter beside a drunkard who reeked of feces, I decided to sober up and get a job.
    Although I went to college, I dropped out every other year, and never got my diploma. The sober, disgusting part is that I only needed a few more credits to go for my degree. Because I didn’t have it to fall back on, I was turned away from jobs that actually paid something. So I got a job as a waitress at a restaurant. It didn’t even pay minimum wage, and I was so horrible at it that the tips were practically non-existent. But at least I could take home the leftover food at the end of the day. Until I got myself fired, that is. Tomorrow I will go down to Beale Street and look for a job. I hear they’re always looking for help down there.
    Anyway, sitting in my tiny apartment, stone cold sober for six months, I realized that I wanted to do more than just exist. My first compelling thought was that I needed to make amends for almost killing someone when I was drunk a few years back. That realization has begun to eat away at my heart. Even though I was jailed, and my parents were sued, I still need to, at the very least, apologize to the victim. I didn’t have to serve time because my parents settled out of court for a cool two million and the charges were dropped. If I had been the victim, I would have asked for a hell of a lot more than that.
    They tell me that it was only by the grace of God that he lived. Perhaps it is God’s grace now that compels me to do something to make amends? I don’t know. All I know is that having had a taste of debauchery, I am now ready for a taste of benevolence, with the understanding that I am the one who will have to be benevolent if I am too make up for my past misdeeds.
    I’m not sure how I can make amends with the man I ran over when I was drunk. I never bothered to learn his name or where he lives, and now, with my parents not taking my phone calls or writing back to me, I will not be able to find him. In the meantime, I want to pay it forward wherever I can, with what little I have. My parents taught me at a very young age, that a kindness produces a kindness, but cruelty only produces sadness. I don’t want to be sad anymore, and I so desperately don’t want to be alone anymore.
     
    ***
     
    Paying it Forwards, Christine Livingston — Meg Bumgartner
     
    Written report on Christine Dolores Livingston
    Client is her father, Carl Livingston
    Meg