Stacy’s with that sleaze Cal and I’m bored out of my mind. Sure there’s plenty of blow but when is it not around? Really, I can only take so many of these things before they start getting tired. I’m feeling like the girl dressed for the ball and I end up at the bowery. There’s no one here over twenty-five and I’d be lucky to find a guy with his own money. Just a bunch of trust-fund babies and scrubs living off of credit and flash – anyone worth talking to is on the other side of the hill.
My phone goes nuts and I’m bored so I take a look. It’s a text from Stacy. Cal wants to produce a low-budget movie and have her star in it. Real original. I really should save her from this guy but I figure she’s got to learn one way or another. Plus I’m bored but not that bored.
When I first got here I ran into this green-chick Rachael and couldn’t help but to laugh at the “fresh off the bus” look she had on her face when she first walked in. It was as if she hasn’t ever seen a swimming pool before. Pathetic. I think she even drove up in a beat up Kia or something… might as well have taken the bus with this crowd. At the same time I don’t know why I even give a shit, she won’t ever be able to offer me a single thing in this town. I can tell after watching her for twenty-eight seconds. Like right now for example, she’s laughing it up with some loser-actor type by the beer table; completely oblivious to the twenty-some-odd guys giving her the “fuck me eyes” all of whom are worth over mid-six-figures each.
Her loss, not mine… she’s not even worth getting twisted over.
I’m still not feeling the party and the booze is weak so I figure I’ll head to the courtyard and do one of the Persian’s blow. Last time I was at one of these things some fucker Ali stiffed me with a batch that was so damn speedy I thought I’d have to wear a mouth-guard for a fucking week. I swear to Christ if that shit happens again I’m going to stay home the next time I get a myspace message inviting me to one of these fag-fests.
Walking into the courtyard I can’t help but to be a little turned off when I see only Ali and his “crew” of “bro’s” shoveling shit up the noses of the “nameless slut clan”. I’m actually thinking of blowing this place off all together. I haven’t even had the energy to put up a fake smile so why even bother. In fact the only person here worth talking to after the blow hits my membrane is that guy Donnie Ramo. I’ve seen him from time to time and couldn’t help but to notice he’s about as happy as I am to be hanging out at a place like this. In fact, I saw him with Cal and Stacy a minute ago and it seemed they were completely blind to the fact Donnie despised both of them. I actually remember hearing from someone, Maybe Mel, that Donnie liked ripping off rich kids to pay the bills but that might have actually been this faboulus-boy Dean Mel was talking about. Whatever… I can’t remember. And I don’t even remember why I cared in the first place.
I get into the sweaty mix of the courtyard and become relieved when I see Vallah passing out blow to a select few of his friends. He knows Ali but doesn’t hang with him all that much. In fact, I think he’s the one that sells Ali the speed he cuts his shit with.
I walk up to Vallah in a fashion that shows I’m not impressed by his valley-trash wanna-be gangster ass and ask him for a couple lines. He winks to his buddies in a way that suggests he actually thinks he’s going to bust my pantie-line and I can’t help but to laugh. A) I don’t fuck with the Middle East guys – they’re sleazy, assholes, and they don’t respect women at all. B) they’re pathetic as all fucking hell. They act like they own this town and fail to see how completely unoriginal every last one of their curry-reeking asses are.
But fuck it, I need to get high before I go ape.
“So are you guys gonna keep winking at each other or are you going to help me out?” I say, careful to let them know how bored I am.
Vallah takes a second. Fronts a smug smile like he’s the captain of all things shady. I want to throw up.
“Yeah baby-girl, whatcha need? Can’t one of your white-boys help you out? Think you better off with ‘dem…” He says like a fucking three year-old.
“I think you mean ‘them’ Vallah.”
“The name’s V, girl.”
“Oh I’m sorry V… you going to give me a fucking line or continue this Alpha-Dog shit?”
He smiles… probably trying to hide the fact that I fucking own him. Then he says like the putz he is, “Relax girl… Damn you got an edge on you… I can tell you need.”
I want to give him another timely remark but decide not to. I’ve already lost enough IQ points as it is trying to mix with these fucking Neanderthals.
He lays out a few lines and I give it a go – completely ignoring the fact that these grease-ball fucks are staring at my ass. The coke goes up smooth but smells and tastes too much like ether. I don’t have any other options so I vacuum up the rest – leaving the last line over to dip a Parliament in and do an ice-bump.
I pull a Parliament from my purse and scoop the remaining pile of powder into its recessed filter. One of Vallah’s grease-balls gives me the Jewish eyes but I blow it off. Fuck him.
I snort the last bump out of the cigarette’s filter and light up. The first drag enters my mouth cold, crisp, and surprisingly tasty. My mouth lumps up and numbs out as if the dentist laid the shit out himself. A couple drags into the smoke the drip starts to lay out on my membrane… its bitter-sweet tang makes my eyes water and my clit wetten. I’m actually surprised… the shit’s not half that bad.
Before I can truly enjoy my high I’m taken back to reality from a smug smile Vallah’s flashing my way. I never noticed until now that he’s missing a tooth – probably from malnutrition – and I’m repulsed by him now more than ever, to the point of possibly sicking all over the carefully tailored lawn at my feet.
“So babe… whatcha think?” Vallah asks as if he actually thinks this was something more than me trying to cop free shit.
“What do you mean?” I ask, annoyed that I have to waste the peak of my high with this fuck-buck.
“You ready to hang?” He asks, wet with hope.
“With you guys…” I say with a sour-look, “No thanks”. And with that I leave them behind without acknowledging that they’re alive. His shit is good yes, I’m stoned yes, I’m even bored to the point of tears. But that doesn’t mean I’ll reduce myself to hanging out with those middle-eastern fags for any longer than I have to. I’m not green in this town like the rest of the girls here. I’ve put plenty of coins in the meter. I’m paid up.
A green-bitch like my friend Stacy would have been all over these guys for free shit or even a shot at a comped night on the strip. Not me. I’m beyond that shit. A novice in LA waits for someone to “do for them”… a shark like myself sees the angles before they happen and know exactly what to do when the time comes.
Take what just happened for example. While Vallah (or V) and his cronies were busy scoping my ass – thinking I was gratefully sucking up my free lines – my hands were deep into his stash, picking out three-or-four twenty-bags to get me through the night.
While all the girls in LA are waiting for a Man to give them something, I’m in the shadows finding what I can take. It’s no ancient secret… this shit has worked since the birth of the dollar. It’s a dog eat dog world, and the dog willing to take his meal rather than beg for it sleeps the soundest at night.
To my surprise the high is peaking more than expected. Maybe it was the cigarette, or it could be the rush of successfully pocketing three bags for myself off that sweaty skinned fuck. Whatever the case may be, this party isn’t lagging as much as earlier.
I make my way back to the house and see Stacy and Cal have ditched… I suspect Stacy’s upstairs snorting coke off Cal’s pasty-cock while he puts on a sleazy face. Part of me finds comfort in not having to listen to their shit while I’m this high but there’s another part of me that’s slightly irritated that I may not have anyone to talk to while I ride this snow-slope.
Any irritation I feel is swept away when I get closer to the couches and notice Donnie slumped over by himself. I know the guy is just as sleazy as the rest of these cattle in his own way – but he does it with style. As human as it may seem, I feel a connection to the guy. Not that I would ever fuck him – or he me for that matter – it’s just I feel like we’re on the same team. Comrades.
I head over to the couch and sit next to him. He doesn’t notice at all. His eyelids open and shut at tortoise speed. His neck creeks his head back and forth, and for the first time that I can remember, he allows a boyish smile to crack between his lips. He’s definitely drugged up to his neck – I suspect Oxycontin.
I’m bored and want to chat and can’t help myself on account he looks so helpless so I tickle his side to get his attention. He stirs around for a spell, like a little boy being awoken for the first day of class.
“What the fuck?” he asks groggily.
“You’re stoned aren’t you?” I ask, probably with a pathetic smile.
“Who isn’t at this fucking shack? I can’t stand the people here. I don’t even know why I bother.”
“From what I understand you can’t stand people in general… so you should be used to the feeling by now.”
“I guess you’re right…” he says as he lights a Lucky Strike like he just doesn’t give a fuck. “Maybe I should move to the country or something. Nothing around but me and the animals I raise for food.”
“I don’t think you could hack it. As much as you pretend to hate everyone, you still need them…”
“You think so huh?”
“I know so.”
“How’s that?” he asks.
“Same reason I need people around… They make me feel better about myself… seeing how numb and brainless they are.”
He takes a beat to let what I said sink in. That or he’s so stoned he nodded out before I could make my point – which normally would piss me off but whatever, I’m stoned. Then he says, “Maybe you’re right… no one’s ever put it that way to me before… there is another way to look at it though…”
“Please tell…” I say, three-quarters interested, which uncommon for me.
“Maybe… it’s them that’s okay, you know? Maybe they’re the ones that are getting it right… and we’re sitting alone on the couch THINKING we’ve got all the answers… when in reality, when it’s just as lonely and cold outside as it is in our beds, we realize that we’re the losers. We’re the ones that did it all wrong…” He loses whatever train-of-thought he may have had and drifts away.
I take a minute to think it all over. He could have a point. Maybe Stacy and the rest of the OC-Twigs outside have it right – maybe I’m the one that has it backwards? Who knows, one day I wake up and I’m fifty and I have no one – every bridge burned from the past – and the girls I stiff behind their back now, grew up to have children and a white fence to call their own… while I’m left with nothing but leather skin, a bad job, three kids that hate me, and a bad batting average with abusive guys…
Whatever… I’m coming down off the coke and the last thing I want is a “Confucius Says” session with Donnie fucking Ramo.
I lean in close to Donnie and whisper in his ear, “I jacked three bags of coke from one of the Persians out back… wanna go find a place to chill on it?”
He leans back, looks me in the eye, and says, “Fuck it… why not. I have to come back up anyway. All this talking has been buzzing my kill if you know what I mean…”
I take the cigarette from his lips and finish it off. I want to say something but don’t have the will to craft any words together. The coke’s in my pocket and I’m with the one person at this place that doesn’t give me an ulcer every time I see them.
I stand up and gesture for the stairs. He gets the cue and follows suit.
As we approach the stairs, ready to go up and do the rest of my blow and do god knows what else it finally hits me… what I wanted to say to Donnie just a moment ago… the thought that went through my head…
I couldn’t agree with you more… You understand me, and I understand you.
