Letters to Mr Loan Shark

The drive-through window closed at two in the morning. I pulled off my visor, stuffed it in my bag, and clocked out four minutes late. The last order had been a family of six who couldn't agree on anything. I smiled at all of them anyway. That was the job. My feet had been done since ten. I ignored them and walked to the bus stop. 2:14am. The air was cold. My breath came out in small clouds. This was my life now. Tuesday: drive-through until two. Wednesday: the pub until eleven. Thursday: back here. Friday: the only night I performed officially — a small venue downtown that paid sixty dollars for two sets. I took it every week without fail because sixty dollars was sixty dollars, and I needed every version of it I could find. I had been keeping this schedule for eight months. The official version of it, anyway. The unofficial version was Nightingale. That was the name I sang under when the bar owner two streets from the pub found out I could actually sing and started slipping me cash to perform on nights no one needed to know about. A mask. A different name. A wig. A second sim card I kept in the bottom of my bag specifically for bookings. Nobody connected Anastasia to Nightingale because the two had never existed in the same room. Different number. Different name. Different face, as far as anyone who booked her was concerned. I kept the circle small on purpose. Word of mouth only. No social media. No recordings. Nothing that could be traced back to a real person with a real name and a real contract she was actively violating. The agency I was signed with had a very specific exclusivity clause. I was not allowed to perform under any name, at any venue, for any compensation, without their knowledge and written approval. The penalty was the kind of number that made my vision go white every time I read it. I had read it many times. I kept reading it and kept taking the Nightingale gigs anyway. Because the math in my life did not leave room for principles. I could not afford the lawsuit. I also could not afford to stop. 2:22 am The bus arrived. The Nightingale sim buzzed somewhere between the third and fourth stop. I didn't lurch the way I did when my other phone went off. The Nightingale phone didn't carry hope. Just money. Those were different things. I pulled it out. A name I recognized. Someone who had tried to book me before. Twice. Both times, I had said no because the situation had felt wrong. Wrong venue. Wrong energy. Something. I had learned to trust that instinct. It had kept me out of trouble more than once. But now it seemed that with Rent and Debt due, I had to ignore the instinct altogether. I opened the message anyway. We have a booking for you. Saturday night. Birthday party. Private venue. Two thousand cash. I stopped reading. Two thousand. For one night? I sat with the phone in my hand and read the number again because the first time felt like a mistake. It wasn't. Two thousand dollars for a single performance from a singer with no public profile, no streaming numbers, no name that existed anywhere outside a small, closed circle of people who paid in cash and kept their mouths shut. That number made no sense for someone like me. I was not a big shot. I was not even close to being a big shot. I typed back: How did you get this number? How do you know about me? Then I put the phone back in my bag and watched the city go past. It had to be something wrong with it. When my stop arrived, I got off the bus and headed towards my apartment building. At 2:47 am, I arrived at the foot of my building. It smelled the way it always smelled. Mold and rot. The stairwell light on the second floor had been out for six weeks. No one had fixed it. No one was going to. I counted the stairs in the dark without thinking about it now. Eight up, turn, nine more. The third from the top made a sound that was getting worse every week. I kept meaning to say something to the landlord. I kept not doing it. I stood outside my door with my key in my hand and didn't put it in the lock. The television was on inside. Which meant my adoptive father, Gregory, was awake, or had fallen asleep in front of it. Both required the same careful entry. I didn't want to get into any sort of confrontation with him. I had no strength in me. So I had to avoid him, the same way I had done over these past few years, or ever since his wife, my adoptive mother, died. 'Don't stop. Don't give him a surface to work with. Get to your room.' I chanted as I pressed my forehead against the door for a moment and breathed. My shoulders ached from the shift. My feet ached from the stairs. I needed to sleep, and the only other option that I had was the street. A roof was better than no roof. I said it to myself every night in this exact spot. It was still true. It was getting harder to feel anything about it. I pushed the door open. Gregory was on the couch. A bottle was on the table in front of him. The television was throwing a blue light across his face. He turned when I came in. That slow, measuring look. The one who was deciding what mood to settle on. And today it was rather calm. I kept moving toward my room without stopping becasue the calm could turn into chaos any second. "You're back," he said. "I'm back." "Did you eat?" "At work." I hadn't eaten since noon. I closed my bedroom door, sat on the edge of the bed, and took my shoes off. I let myself feel, for exactly one moment, how tired I was. Then I picked up the Nightingale phone. A reply had come while I was on the stairs. Your name was passed along by someone who heard you perform. The host specifically requested Nightingale. Cash on the night. Word of mouth. It could be real. It could also be a scam. I thought about it for a long moment. Then I typed back. Booking needs half upfront. That's how I work. I didn't work that way. But I had learned how to spot scammers, and real clients paid deposits. Real clients didn't disappear when you asked for proof. The reply came in seconds. Please share your bank information. I stared at the screen. Was it really this simple? I sent the information about the secondary account I owned. And then, just like that, a notification appeared. $1,000 deposited. I stared at it. Waited for it to somehow disappear. It didn't. I had been looking at the screen for two hours now. The clock on my wall said 3:19 am. Finally, I typed: Send me the address. My thumb hovered over the send button. If the address felt suspicious, I wouldn't go. I would just not show up. Or I would show up and leave the second something felt wrong. I had done it before. I could do it again. I sent the message. The reply came immediately. An address. Not a hotel or club. A penthouse. In one of the richest neighborhoods in the city. My stomach turned. This was not a bar gig. This was not a birthday party at someone's house. This was something else. I should say no. The money was already in my account. Half of it. The other half is waiting for me at night. Rent was due in five days. The loan repayment is two. I couldn't afford to say no. 3:47 am I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. One night, I told myself. One night, and the gap was closed. One night, and I could breathe again. One night, I was done with Nightingale for good. I was always telling myself that. It had never once been true. I closed my eyes. Saturday night. Three days away. I didn't know it yet, but that address was going to change everything.