Educated

I had a job at the campus creamery, flipping burgers and scooping ice cream.
I got by between paydays by neglecting overdue bills and borrowing money
from Robin, so twice a month, when a few hundred dollars went into my
account, it was gone within hours. I was broke when I turned nineteen at the
end of September. I had given up on fixing the tooth; I knew I would never
have fourteen hundred dollars. Besides, the pain had lessened: either the
nerve had died or my brain had adjusted to its shocks.
Still, I had other bills, so I decided to sell the only thing I had of any value
—my horse, Bud. I called Shawn and asked how much I could get. Shawn
said a mixed breed wasn’t worth much, but that I could send him to auction
like Grandpa’s dog-food horses. I imagined Bud in a meat grinder, then said,
“Try to find a buyer first.” A few weeks later Shawn sent me a check for a
few hundred dollars. When I called Shawn and asked who he’d sold Bud to,
he mumbled something vague about a guy passing through from Tooele.
I was an incurious student that semester. Curiosity is a luxury reserved for
the financially secure: my mind was absorbed with more immediate concerns,
such as the exact balance of my bank account, who I owed how much, and
whether there was anything in my room I could sell for ten or twenty dollars.
I submitted my homework and studied for my exams, but I did so out of a
terror—of losing my scholarship should my GPA fall a single decimal—not
from real interest in my classes.
In December, after my last paycheck of the month, I had sixty dollars in
my account. Rent was $110, due January 7. I needed quick cash. I’d heard
there was a clinic near the mall that paid people for plasma. A clinic sounded
like a part of the Medical Establishment, but I reasoned that as long as they
were taking things out, not putting anything in, I’d be okay. The nurse
stabbed at my veins for twenty minutes, then said they were too small.
I bought a tank of gas with my last thirty dollars and drove home for
Christmas. On Christmas morning, Dad gave me a rifle—I didn’t take it out
of the box, so I have no idea what kind. I asked Shawn if he wanted to buy it
off me, but Dad gathered it up and said he’d keep it safe.
That was it, then. There was nothing left to sell, no more childhood friends
or Christmas presents. It was time to quit school and get a job. I accepted
that. My brother Tony was living in Las Vegas, working as a long-haul
trucker, so on Christmas Day I called him. He said I could live with him for a
few months and work at the In-N-Out Burger across the street.