They stand around with their arms cocked in a position they unconsciously believe exudes class and intelligence, clutching mimosas and champagne and imports, wearing fedoras and bohemian-yet-expensive sundresses (stitched by Hondurans for pocket change) and thick-rimmed glasses. They sport chemically-treated hair and talk about Rush Limbaugh like I talk about women who – despite scorning me in a vapid manner – I still desperately want to fuck. They golf clap and discuss vacations and have the nerve to bitch about the ‘rich elite’, painfully unaware that they are a part of it. They think stroking a check to Obama or PETA absolves them. They think that their parents funding a pseudo-starving artist life in academia somehow separates them from the rest of the animals. They praise the reading I give, oblivious to the fact that it admonishes them. I glean drinks from them as I smile and nod.

They’re merely confused and selfish people, much like myself, and I would feel the same alienation and disgust if I were at a gun show or Captain’s patio or anywhere anymore. But I can’t take much more of these creeps. I need to get out of here.

I excuse myself after my fourth or fifth rum,  driving further downtown, where the buildings get older and more warped, the skin darker, the lives more desolate and hopeless. I feel more in sync here. I have a place here. Duke – on cassette – is my soundtrack. The highway lights blur by at the pace of my thoughts, my confusion, my failures.

I purchase a few deuces from a familiar foot soldier and head back towards the beach, towards the whiter faces, the sunnier lives and the newer building structures — towards home. The Newport cigarette billboards that fluctuate ethnicity depending on highway location, the voice of Phil Collins, the intoxication — it means nothing anymore. Nothing does.

I focus on the pain rather than the beauty. That is my flaw. I laugh at myself — I am a complete fraud. We all are.

I sing along with Phil Collins.

I load up a spike and send it barreling through my veins and lay dormant on the empty landscape, the wet sand clumping onto my jeans. I stare at the moon and think of girls I’ve fucked and society and humanity and myself, in that order.

“And though she will mess up your life, you want her just the same,” I say flatly out loud, to no one but myself and the moon. I can’t decide if I’m talking about the drugs or the women. I realize this is a pathetic metaphor and am glad that no one heard me. Springsteen seems more fitting than Phil. Cooler.

I am a joke. We are all jokes. If I had a purpose, I would act differently. Perhaps this explains the joy of parenthood. The reason to settle down. Play the game. Walk the line.

If there’s a trend in my twenty-six years, it’s that I’ve always had everything I ever wanted, and upon realizing what it was, wanted nothing to do with it.

I load up another fix and hope it takes me away from here. I wish I had more to say.