tonya/

  

I remind myself how high-functioning I am. I went to an industry friends mansion party in the Palisades the night before. I remember eating cheetos in the hot tub and doing coke in the revamped studio in his guest house. Somebody yelled at me for petting her dog while holding a highball glass of cheap whiskey. "He could drink it!" she yanked him back on his collar. "You brought your dog to a fucking mansion party. People are going to want to pet him," I spat. The dog looked scared either way. Too many people, too much noise. I understood him completely. "Sorry buddy," I told him. I remember afterwards passing around a bag of Cheetos with a couple girls who were famous on OnlyStans, a website for amatuer porn artists. They wore stringy triangle bikinis and had long, claw like acrylics and they mostly ignored me, which I was completely okay with. Someone gave me a couple "microdose" pills of powdered cubensis mushrooms. I swallowed them dry. I wandered around the party in a mindless haze. Some girl tells me she's too drunk to drive, and even though I am as well, I drive her to Santa Monica. I somehow run out of gas somewhere around Studio City. I manage to find a Chevron to pull into, but I can't remember where I've left my wallet. I never ask the universe for favors so I'm not surprised when a young Mexican mom stops and gives me a fiver. She tells me to be careful with real feeling. I swerve out of the gas station parking lot and brush my rims against a curb. Fuck. I get home around seven, find my wallet, and walk to the Ralph's where I buy a couple tallboys so I "can sleep". They work, sort of. I get about two hours in before work and I wake up feeling bloated and groggy. Not caring, I text everyone in my phone asking for Adderall. High functioning my ass. 

ar

  I hate myself at work. I clock in and look around the bar with bleary eyes. The place is a shithole. Our GM Walter is sitting at the bar with our other server, Lloyd. He calls me over. "How are you," he says. "How are you?" I counter. Neither of us care how either of us are doing. My head is pounding. "I've got a new girl coming in to train with you tonight at seven," He says. Of course. "Fuck." I tell him. He ignores this. "We've got a reservation on the patio for twenty." I look at Lloyd. "We should probably grab the propane tanks. It's chilly out there." Walter gives me a withering look. "I was gonna say that," He whines. I shrug. I didn't say it to feed my ego, but in doing so I denied him the opportunity to feed his own. Whatever, bossman. I am too hungover to care about something so petty. "How do you want to split up the sections?" I ask him something arbitrary to quell his ego. He tells me the usual split, but he seems happy enough to tell me what to do. I don't care. I'll defer to him anytime just to have him leave me the fuck alone. Lloyd looks at me like I'm an idiot and I watch both of them with a burning, visceral annoyance. It feels like someone is stabbing an ice pick through my retinas into my pre-frontal lobe. The meeting ends and I say "Go team." Lloyd hops over to the POS to order himself food. I go to the First Aid kit in the kitchen and snag a couple packets of Ibuprofen. We're running low and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who uses it. They don't keep a backstock for it. I'll have to find a way to hint that it needs replenishing. 

  Nobody I knows has Adderall. Again, I miss home. I got fleeced for it, for sure. But at least I knew people who had it. On a night like tonight I wouldn't care. I'd pay twenty bucks to not go through this hell sober. I could take a couple shots but the idea makes me want to vomit up my internal organs all over the front of the bar. The smell of tequila alone causes me physical and emotional pain. I drink a shitty cup of coffee, grab a tray and begin putting the restaurant back in some semblance of order. Walter keeps hiring kids who don't want to bus their tables from the lunch shift before they leave, or restock any of the dry goods. I'm used to carrying the team a little to avoid confrontation (and because I prefer to be too busy to talk to anyone) but today it's just pissing me off. I'm seething. Our bartender shows up late. It's supposed to be Adam but I'm surprised it's Tonya instead. "The fuck happened to you?" She asks. "You look like shit." I take a moment to lean up against the service well. "Oh, I'm aware." I say. I try to spin my tray on my middle finger and it falls on the floor with a plastic clatter. "You know why I think Adam's such a cunt?" I ask her, with no preface and not expecting a real answer. She begins counting her drawer and gives me a little "mm?" to go on. "It's because he doesn't drink. He doesn't hate himself and you HAVE to hate yourself a little bit to be a decent human being." Tonya nods. "Interesting theory." "It's why me and you get along so well. We're humble. We know we're pieces of shit." Tonya smirks. "I'm not hungover today," She tells me. "Well, fuck! We should do shots to celebrate." I drum my hands against the bar in a truimphant little rhthym.  "What do you want?" She asks. I wrinkle my nose. "I was just kidding. I don't know. I'll do one if you do one. I have to train today, too. I don't know. Fernet?" I say. She pours us two shots. "I don't know how you drink this shit." She tells me. "It tastes medicinal," I say, "I feel like it can fix me." "You're beyond fixing," Tonya jokes, but it doesn't feel like a joke. It feels like we both accepted it as truth.