Garret Night/warehouse party

 I get pressed for money towards the end of every month. When I lived with Lydia, she took care of all the bills and I would just buy groceries or whatever. She'd tell me to throw her two hundred for utilities from time to time. I don't know how I got away with it. I think she thought of me as her broken but lovable pet. Back home, I made a decent amount of money bartending, and I managed to spend the majority of it on absolute bullshit nonsense. And drugs, of course. But here in Los Angeles I'm careful because I have to be and it still isn't enough. I decide it's time to pick up a second job. It doesn't take long. I wander around Burbank until I find a shitty bar with a pool table. I give the bartender my resume. "You're from Florida?" She asks. I tell her the town. "That's my hometown!" She says, excited. "Wow, that is so crazy. Let me introduce you to the owner." It strikes me as a red flag that she thinks I'm worth meeting the owner based on what town I'm from. But this is LA, and I'll take whatever nepotism I can get. She beckons me up a staircase that looks like it was carpeted in the seventies. The steps creak as I walk. 

  The owner is sitting at a desk with a pile of papers on it. He is in his fifties, balding, nose nearly pressed to the monitor of a desktop computer which fits the general aesthetic of the bar: outdated, falling apart. "You work in restaurant before?" He speaks with a thick Armenian accent and does so without looking at me. "Uh, yeah, I worked at a steakhouse in Florida for six years. I've been in the industry forever." He does not acknowledge this statement. He continues to murmur to himself as he types. I notice he types the same way my father does, using his index fingers to prod each letter in slow succession. "How do you say .... to be strong with guests?" I look over at the computer and scan the e-mail he is writing. It's, apparently, a staff wide email calling them out different discrepancies. Katie, tsk tsk, needs to make sure she's doing all her closing side work. He has used a myriad of different fonts and colors. His normal writing tone is plain Times New Roman. His admonishments are written in bold, red Helvetica. The statement he is struggling with reads "DO NOT LET GUEST LEAVE WITHOUT SIGNATURE FOR TAB. YOU MUST BE              ." "Uh, maybe adamant?" I say. He makes a disapproving noise. His English is poor enough to make me wonder if he knows what it means. "Or, maybe firm?" I posit. "Yes, yes," He answers and pokes the corresponding letters. I watch him and feel my eyebrow raising up the corner of my eye like it does when I find myself in situations that both bewilder and amuse me. This is the weirdest fucking interview I've ever had. He yanks at his tangled mouse and sends the email with a double click. He turns to me. "You come back at eight to train." It's neither a statement or a question. It's a command. "You wear black. You wear shoes that are black. No black shoes with stripes or polka dots or whatever on them," he gives an irritated wave of his hand which suggests he's plodded through many an e-mail berating his employees for their choice of footwear. "Black." 

  I can tell it's going to be a shit show, but I show up regardless. My shoe box of cash that sits under my bed has been emptied twice this month already. In the back of my mind I'm concerned I might not make rent. If things get bad enough I can take out a loan, I suppose, but I don't want to do that. That seems like a dangerous, slippery slope. Miss one payment and suddenly shits doubled and then... I also think I remember hearing that taking out a loan is bad for your credit. I don't know if that's only if you can't pay it right away or if taking out the loan itself is indication enough that you're a financial incompetent. I believe in living an authentic life but I don't necessarily need my credit score to be an accurate reflection of my lifestyle. I'd like, for the meantime, to slip under the radar as completely average and in no way noteworthy. So I show up to the job in black skinny jeans, a black v neck, and all black vans that have laces so long I have to tie them twice. I'm trained by a girl named Bianca who prioritizes chatting with the bartender over bussing her tables. I don't hesitate and just jump in. She gives me her number so I can "practice" ringing things in. The system is old but it's pretty user-friendly. By the end of the night, I have my own small section within her section. "We haven't seem you here before. How long have you worked here?" One of my tables asks. "Oh, this is my first night," I say. "Oh, you're doing great!" they tell me. They tip me twenty, but since I'm training, I'm not supposed to keep the tips. I know some people might pocket them but I think it's an important part of server etiquette to play by the rules. I give it to Bianca who seems surprised. She strikes me as someone who might just keep it. 

  The next few weeks, I get busy juggling two jobs. This is both good and bad. It's good because I'm making money and I'm too busy to get into any real trouble. It's bad because I start getting so burnt out by being around people all the time that I start going to the liquor store after every shift. I have the same, cute little flirtation with it every night. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Then, I decide maybe I will after all, but this is it, this is the last time, I'm not gonna do it again tomorrow. I'm going to get in really great shape, finish the pilot and be the most actualized version of myself. Tomorrow. Oh, you're a bad boy, aren't you? At first, I'm kind of nervous to not be prioritizing the show, but Damien is working a festival in Texas and barely checks in. I let it sit in the back of my mind and I try to figure out plot points while working, sometimes, but mostly I just try to bust my ass and make money. I try keeping up at the gym, too. Whiskey and wine were preferences of my father as well, and he turned into a bloated, pot bellied monstrosity. I have the same frame as my father. Same ungainly slouch. The same poofy, beady eyes after a night of drinking. The weight collects in the same regions and I fucking despise myself seeing it. I don't hate my father. I don't hold anything against him anymore. But I don't want to be anything like him. It disgusts me. 

  Within a week, I'm the best server at my new job, which compels the owners to give me even more shifts. I excel in customer service. I enjoy it. I even like the shitty customers who think being particular about their orders means they're cool and sophisticated. "I need a lot of olive juice in my dirties. Like, a lot. They neverrrr get it right," A woman tells me. Let's dance. I go out of my way to grab some of the fancy bleu cheese olives from the kitchen, as well as the regular pimento olives that  it in our fruit tray. When I bring her martini, I present her a side of olive juice and the olives to snack on as well. "Oh my God, this is perfect," She tells me. She adds a sickening amount of olive juice to the martini and takes a big gulp of it. I even dote on the regulars that no one wants to deal with because they don't tip well. I avoid seating their favorite tables. I bring them refills on sodas without asking. I remember the inane details about their lives and give them the same attention I give everyone else. It's such a fun muscle to flex because it comes so easy for me to remember the stupid shit people like and to go out of my way to do it. People love it. I don't even really do it for the money. It's really just nice to make people happy and to have people be happy with me. Me. It makes me feel like my existence is justified somehow. Like, I can't really contribute anything else to the world because I dropped out of high school and I don't work in a field, and my show isn't written yet so this is my chance. One shot, one opportunity. 

  But I can't pretend it's not getting to me. I'm good at remembering small details because my brain wants to focus on something. After a night of moving and thinking fast, I can't just pump the brakes on my mind and make it settle down. Even on the nights when I come into work on low sleep or hungover or both, my muscles are still twitchy by the end of the shift and I feel like I could run a marathon. Drinking should, in theory, help that but it just kind of adds this weird, depressing haze to my racing thoughts. What's your five year plan there, bud? You gonna keep serving for the rest of your life? "Well, after the show is written I'll be set," I tell myself. What show? You haven't written shit. You're a hack. You think your Bukowski? You think anyone wants to watch a show about two dumb ass guys trying to make it in Hollywood? Get fucked. When I get really, really drunk I start posting cryptic Facebook statuses about being depressed. Then, I wake up each morning embarrassed as all hell and promise myself I won't drink again. It's important to keep promises to yourself. I think that's something my therapist said to me once. I don't hear it in my voice, I hear it in the voice of a middle-aged woman in a sing-song tone. I can't care about myself without mocking myself for it. Dropping a sarcastic defense is too vulnerable of a place for me to handle right now. I work and I drink. 

  It's been a while since I've gotten more than four hours of sleep at night. I go into work so tired I feel like I might throw up. It's different than a hangover, I would know, it makes me feel like I have motion sickness while walking and I feel like I standing on a ship at sea when I stop. I wonder if I'm slowly destroying my body, maybe I have cirrohsis of the liver, or maybe cancer from vaping. Maybe my eyeballs are going to fall right out of my head and someone will think there are roaches scampering across the floor and smash them with the heel of their shoe. I hate myself. We get an order of beer and wine and I help start unpacking just to give my brain a monotonous task to chew on. It will not be placated. One of the bar backs hands me a box cutter. It's an innocuous action. Open the fucking boxes. I use my thumb to raise the blade and I think about the time in high school when I slammed one of these things against the veins in my wrist. Thirteen stitches. I slice the tape of the boxes with intentional pressure and imagine I'm a surgeon using a scalpel to incise a patients belly. I like how sharp the blade cuts. It leaves a very clean wound in the cardboard. I open the rest of the boxes with careful precision. I'm sad when I reach the last one. I put the box cutter in my back pocket with an awareness that it is there. I don't question why I don't put it back in the office, or give it to the bar back, or any of the hundred other options I have to get the fucking thing away from me. You're not supposed to have sharp objects, my brain jokes in a way that is un-funny, and true, and not a joke. I can literally go into a store and buy one at anytime. The fuck does it matter? I'm twenty-eight years old. It's not like having it is going to make me suddenly decide to kill myself. I'm not going to kill myself. Why on Earth would you think I would kill myself?