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restaurant on the fifth floor getting prepped for the day ahead. Though it hardly bears repeating, this was hardly my ideal employment option but it was, unquestionably, my only option. I was 28 years old, and even if I wanted to begin to forge something of a professional career, I had only six months of Archer Advertising and career-oriented work experience to put on a resume. Hence, I already knew the only thing I had to fall backon in Stamford was my New York City restaurant experience which is
always
a big hit with the wider hospitality crowd.
    Although I passed several other restaurants in other parts of the mall, the fifth-floor eatery was the only one I thought I stood a chance of getting hired at. So as I stood there peering through the windows of the establishment and sizing-up my chances while shielding my eyes from the pink neon lights that lit up the
Rock and Roll Café
—I’d finally become a parody of myself.
    After a few moments spent coming to terms with some harsh realities, I departed the mall and wandered around Stamford until noon, when I decided it was finally late enough to chug back up the hill to Glenbrook Road and get it over with. When I arrived at the entrance to the condo I buzzed my mother’s apartment and within less than a minute she answered the intercom.
    “Yes? Who’s there?”
    “It’s Craig,” I said after taking a deep, jittery, breath.
    “Who???”
    “Your son!”
    “Oh,” she said after taking a deep, jittery, breath.
    A grueling and seemingly endless five seconds had elapsed before I actually heard a heavy sigh followed by a buzzer unlocking the door. I felt so incredibly uncomfortable I almost headed back to the train station, even though I had nowhere else to go and no money to get there with.
    As I climbed the staircase leading to my mother’s apartment my legs were suddenly heavy and it became a psychosomatic struggle to get there. When I did, she was standing there in the doorway with an expression on her face that was the perfect mixture ofdisappointment and disgust...
and she didn’t even know I was a junky
. She lingered there for a moment not saying a word, and then walked toward the kitchen as I slowly and uncomfortably stepped into her home with the awkward gait of a stranger.
    After a quick perusal of the apartment I detected some changes to the living room décor. Immediately I noticed the broken glass end-table and shelves had been replaced by wooden counterparts as I thought for just a moment that Mother had made an attempt to junky-proof the apartment. But if that were the case I suppose I might’ve tacitly been welcome which I clearly wasn’t, and that fact was tacitly confirmed by the addition of a brand new, extremely beautiful, extremely expensive glass coffee table sitting squarely in the middle of the living room.
    “What happened to the black coffee table?” I asked referring to the Formica predecessor I didn’t recall demolishing.
    “Why are you here?” she suddenly blurted out with her arms crossed while ignoring my question and glaring at me from the entrance to the kitchen.
    “I need a place to stay for a few weeks,” I said with more reluctance than I can possibly convey.
    “Oh, God…Again??? You know, Craig, I really thought that by now I’d finally be done with this shit. Celine doesn’t even live with her fucking mother anymore!”
    “Well then fucking lucky for Celine.”
    “Well then
you
can just get out also!”
    “I’m sorry, I was just kidding. I promise it won’t be a permanent thing.”
    “Oh, believe me—I wasn’t worried about
that!”
    “I just have some issues to sort out and I’ll be out of here before you know it,” I said as I ignored the insinuation and was about to absentmindedly sit on the couch.
    “And stay the fuck off the furniture!” she screamed at me before my ass had a chance to grace that cushy black surface it had always been deprived of as a child. “You’re an expensive guest to have