Chapter 5 — Auto-Pay Cancelled

I sat down at my own desk, in my own paid-for home, and I opened the app and looked at the list of recurring payments that had been quietly leaving my accounts, month after month, for years.

Theresa’s mortgage: auto-pay active.

The utility bills: auto-pay active.

Daniel’s credit card: auto-pay active.

The monthly allowance transfer to his mother: auto-pay active.

There they all were, the whole apparatus of my exploitation, laid out in a neat column, thousands of dollars a month flowing out of my accounts and into the lives of people who had just handed me an empty plate.