Followed Home

I think I’m being followed. Leaving the bar passing a parking structure big sign screams $7.50 for the whole day but I take public transit and cabs exclusively so I don’t care. Drunk on too many vodka sodas stumbling over nothing. All the shops are shut and the lights are out and so I can see the same person in a American Apparel hoodie and jeans and ugly Nikes following me in the windows and I go right and head toward a lighted bus stop the 78 79 I don’t care. Lean against the wall. Pop a Xanax to calm down but it’s not helping. American apparel Nikes walks past and I figure I’m just being paranoid because drugs because Absolut and I go the opposite direction for the red line station. Waiting for the train a guy calls out that he likes my tits and I give him the finger because I’m almost totally sure he’s just being a dick because they’re barely there and I’m not wearing a push up bra. I’m not wearing a bra at all. On the train -- take up two seats call it three counting my feet even though I’m not very tall and I slouch against the window and a group of girls hipsters seriously Silverlake echo park where the fuck ever get on looking like they’ve just stepped out of an urban outfitters catalog even though none of them would ever shop at urban or at least they’d never admit it. Get off the train and upstairs and into my loft and start taking clothes off slowly it’s a process popping pills to stay awake because I have an email asking to switch shifts at work and I’ll need to be out in five hours. This is not the only email the others say things like but doesn’t it bother you that you live on a street named after a bond girl' and also 'all you do is stay locked up in your apartment what the hell are you hiding from? Are you punishing yourself?' I ignore the first one but I carry the laptop to bed and to the second I reply htis isnt punshmtn . Its salavation and autocorrect changes that to his isn't punishment. It's salvation and I hit send. Drank lots of vodka and mountain dew don’t let anyone tell you different: anything mixed with mountain dew is gonna taste great but the hangover is gonna be a bitch and what’s worse is you can’t even imagine sleeping. I’m lucky I thrive in chaos I was insane before all this. Everything is bright and loud and exhausting in the mostly darkness of my apartment and I turn off the Christmas lights I’ve hanging over my clothing rack but it doesn’t help even though the blinds are shut and my place doesn’t face the street anyway. At work I haven’t washed my hair in three days and people men women boys girls keep buying me drinks. The bar is always open which isn’t legal but I don’t care I’m paid under the table stocking feet heels kicked beneath the bar I am half asleep and a girl says to me ‘I love your hair' and I pour her water every time she asks me for gin because I figure she’s had enough. I’ve had enough. Leaving work past the bouncers get stopped by a guy who says he wants to put me in his new movie drops names of a few actors attached to the script asks who reps me and when I say I’m not an actress when I say fuck off when I walk away and he grabs my arm and I snap I have pepper spray I can feel his eyes trying to pull apart my insides trying to figure out whats wrong with me and I laugh until a taxi stops alongside me and I have to tell the driver my address because if I don’t know whats wrong with me how is anyone else going to know. I go to see my sister for lunch at a shitty hole in the wall in the valley. I mention that I think probably I’m almost certain actually that this restaurant is a front for drugs. She sips a drink delicately candy pink lipstick staining her straw and and says 'sometimes' but stops so I say sometimes? And she says sometimes youre like someones uber cool sort of mostly trashy boyfriend and I say yeah well thats the dream. She gets frustrated a few minutes later because I’m not listening to her talk about fashion school and when she complains I shrug and say sorry bout it and she leaves and the waiter comes over and says on the house smiling at me and I smile back now completely sure it’s a front for drugs something strong heroin maybe that’s going around like the plague (note to self: buy Paris Hilton’s sliving facemasks) except it’d have to be like fucking black tar wouldn’t it and as I’m walking to the bus stop I am almost entirely sure someone’s following me but when I turn around I just see car after car after car and they all seem the same because I’m sort of drunk and I know I could be being followed by someone in a car but it doesn’t seem likely and who would follow me anyway and if I switch buses twice on the way to the station it’s no one’s business but mine. Train is late sun is going down the other train is boarding all around me and so its like an exodus of really bad fashion choices. When I’m on the train fucking finally on the train I pull out a beat up copy of Glamorama and read in starts and stops until I can’t and I just stop, put the book back in my bag. The man in the seat across from me, late thirties, maybe early forties, hair thinning, beer gut, is staring at me, so I tilt my head back, straighten up in my seat, take a deep breath, subtly rearrange my bra. Out of the corners of my eyes, I can see his going wide and I shoot him a lazy smirk that says fuck you and gotcha and you really don’t want to bother with me I am a goddamn menace and at the next stop he gets up and changes seats.