No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella Read Online Free PDF

If
any major changes occurred in her life, like changing jobs or moving,
she was to notify her PO within twenty-four hours.
    Mrs. Scott took the papers and handed Munch a
mimeographed form. " need you to fill out this personal
Financial report." Mrs. Scott went back to the file she had been
stamping with her red ink. Under RECOMMENDAIIONS on the last page,
Mrs. Scott wrote, "3O days county time," and smiled.
    Munch looked at the paperwork her probation officer
handed her. The categories listed were: RENT, UTILITIES, FOOD, GAS,
CLOTHING, and ENTERTAINMENT. On the other side of the ledger she was
to put what she earned.
    Munch wrote in the numbers and handed the form back.
She had left the entertainment column blank.
    "Aren't you saving anything?" Mrs. Scott
asked.
    "What do you mean?"
    "You're making enough to have several hundred
dollars left over at the end of the month. What happens to that
money?"
    "I don't know. I spend it, I guess."
    "By our next appointment, I want to see some
signs of fiscal responsibility"
    "I pay my bills."
    "And is that all you want for yourself? To just
get by?"
    Obviously the woman wasn't going to be satisfied
unless she found something that needed correcting.
    "I'll work on it."
    Mrs. Scott gave Munch a waxy look. "I guess
we'll see." She picked up a plastic cup. "Are you ready?"
    "Yep." Munch stood and made for the
bathroom with Mrs. Scott close behind. The hallway had a bleachy
smell that always reminded Munch of cocaine. She kept the observation
to herself. The clicking of Mrs. Scott's heels on the linoleum echoed
off the walls.
    They pushed into the women's room and Munch was
relieved to see that they had the place to themselves.
    She unzipped her pants and positioned the cup under
herself in such a way as not to cut off Mrs. Scott's view. Mrs. Scott
believed you couldn't trust a dope fiend not to bring along someone
else's sample and try to pass it off as her own. Munch didn't have to
do that. Her test would be clean. She used to feel proud of the
stream of drug-free urine that flowed from her body Lately it was
beginning to feel humiliating to have Mrs. Scott there in the stall
with her. The pee overflowed the tiny container and ran down her
fingers. She poured half out, carefully wiped the sides, put on the
lid, and handed it to her PO. "Anything else you want to tell
me?" the woman asked before they parted in the hallway "Any
problems?"
    "No, everything's fine." She blinked back
the images of the blood dripping from the boot. Was he dead? Really
forever gone? She felt the weight of his key in her pocket as she
walked away Why hadn't she treated him better? Why hadn't she agreed
to go see his kid? Why couldn't she at least have had lunch with him?
The extra half-hour might have altered the course of events—but no,
she had been too caught up in herself and her own needs.
    Stop it, she thought. You don't even know hes really
dead. Obviously there would be no peace for her until she found out
for sure.
 
 
    5
    SHE LEFT THE CLUSTER of court buildings and headed
south. As she neared the familiar streets of Venice, her mind flooded
with images from her childhood—the early years when her mother was
still alive. The Venice Beach she knew then had been a magical place
peopled by beatniks and jazz musicians who treated her like an equal.
Mama filled her young ears with promises of castles and ponies,
singing her to sleep with Joni Mitchell lullabies.
    Munch had believed it all—even when they "camped
out" in different people's living rooms and garages and washed
their hair in the Laundromat sink. She'd been such a dumb kid. She
didn't wise up until she was ten, and that was almost a full year
after Mama died. It had taken that long for the reality to sink in.
Months and months before she finally noticed that as great and
wonderful as heaven was reported to be, it was a place nobody
returned from. So who really knew if it was nice at all? Thats when
she had learned to pay more attention to what