The Lieutenant Part 3

“Wows!” and from his accent he probably worships Brooklyn or worships Brooklyn and is actually from there, “Here I am with a genuine Jennifer Lopez.”

I twirl around a bit to show off the famous caboose in these silly bright green Daisy Duke shorts I’ve got on. If there’s anything I’ve learned while working here, its wear things as ridiculous as you can if only to get your mind off what you’re doing. I’ve got a nice ponytail today. I always liked the pictures of J-Lo in a ponytail. Her face had a really nice shape. The chin came out perfect. I didn’t always like her movies or her music, but J-Lo’s face was always on-point.

“You never regret…” he shakes his head and points at my whole ensemble, “this?” he’s got a big coat on and this NY hat with skulls and weird tribal stuff criss-crossing this way and that through it. I have to look away from the hat after a while because I feel like I could be sucked down in it and the lines go on and on, so that’s how I know I’ve mixed too much of the good stuff in the pipe.

He takes it from me after my first hit, which is deep, a dragon toke, am I nervous with this guy? I don’t get it, but now I’m trying not to cough. When he takes his hit, he widens his eyes dramatically and raises his ears and moves his hairline which is all too weird for me. He looks like Hugh fucking Laurie. All he would need is a cane and he’d be it. Skin and bones and all. Lupus! He’s got Lupus.

And all that sends me chuckling and coughing in nasty fits and the gentleman smiles at me and tells me to take it easier next time. The next hit’s on him he says. Whooooeee.

“No, I better be taking it easy. I don’t get off until five anyway.”

It’s like 11:30 and I’m this fucked up. I’m in shit shape today. Whoooooeee. Is that his hand on my thigh?

“Where you headed after work?”

I look him in the face and then burst out laughing. It takes a while to get my composure back and I remove his hand from my thigh thank you much. I breath a deep sigh and then start giggling again.
He takes another hit.

“I gotta catch up with you, I think.”

Being J-Lo has definitely gotten me the most guys out of all the 90s era celebs. I really wanted a chance to get done as Marilyn Monroe, but practically my whole year at school did that so I went with Audrey Hepburn instead, and I think it worked out better actually.

I wonder if my mom still has those pictures. I was gorgeous and she actually bought me diamonds from Tiffany’s then, but those have gone missing these days and that’s when I wonder why I’m still here, but I know I probably couldn’t make it anywhere else. I’m fast turning into a scratch. I’ve got my own organic garden. I contribute part of my salary to the Pocketocracy. I’ve got a steady job with a boss that wants to keep me around. Maybe I was born a scratch, but back then I had no pocket to get shot into. Life’s pretty fucking good. When I look into the mirror, I’m not in the middle of getting used to a new face. I’m J-Lo and J-Lo’s pretty hot you know? This guy likes me anyway.

“I’m going to a wedding actually after work.”

Now he’s sputtering and smoke bursts out his lungs followed by hacking for air and that satisfaction that comes from schadenfraud revenge and then I’m laughing ‘cause Schadenfraud is such a silly fucking word.

So, as happens often in this place, two people are giggling loudly and distracting the not-yet high customers, freaking out the para-high customers, disturbing the sleeping customers, and making everybody else smile.

This place is laid out like an opium bar I’ve seen in movies about the far East way back when. There’s an entrance and then you come to the back area here where there’s nice silk drapes and soft couches and people fall asleep a lot which is great on those days where you’re not feeling up to it. Sometimes the customer asks to cuddle, so if he’s nice (No, not always just if he’s cute, you know) I’ll be a big softy and read him Hop on Pop before he goes to sleep. The ambience is actually pretty nice, but graffiti is everywhere. Sometimes angry shit like “When did America just become a monarchy?” and sometimes weirder shit like “I paint between my toes because that’s where the needles go.” There are black lights sometimes. My boss is a weirdo and sometimes he wants to have a theme every day and sometimes he’s just too fucking stoned and so he just leaves the shit up from the day before or he’ll be like halfway done with the new theme so there’s two or three themes going at once and every one still fucking loves it. You hear, “I feel like I’m like on the edge between two worlds or like between two different times” at least ten times a day those days.

The guy starts to recover, “You’re joking me, right? A wedding?”

I nod, “Yup…is that weird?”

You know I think I’m a better J-Lo than she ever was. She’s got this dark, tough personality, but then I think if she got just cute sometimes she would be even better than she was. Also, she needed to pick wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better movies and no one liked her relationship with that…guy…my ex was him for a while. I can’t remember. Bradgelina was more appealing for some reason. They were like a power couple. Like American royalty even before the Smith dynasty came. Back when the current president would have a different last name from the guys that came before them, but I wasn’t even alive back then and now I’m a scratch. Life’s easy when bullshit that is so far removed from you doesn’t matter, right?

Except that any day now they could come crashing in and take it all away. Where would I be then? Back to being mommy’s dress-up doll? Shudder to fucking think here. And it’s so weird that I didn’t get how weird that was until I wound up here.

“Yep. That’s pretty weird.”

“But, why, you know? I mean so it’s the end of fucking civilization as we know it. Doesn’t mean we’re animals, you know? Little girls used to dream about marriage.”

“At the start of the millennium maybe, but c’mon. We’re talking modern times here.”

“Oh, really? You never thought once that you’d be old-fashioned, rent a tux and drive the love of your life out to Vegas or Cali?”

His eyes wince a bit before he talks so I call him on it. “Eh! Eh! Every guy wants to pretend he’s never thought about it, but toke any guy up and he’s got a story!”

I do pretty well at this job. I make a bit more in tips than the other girls/boys, and I think it’s because I’m just more genuine or I just know people better. I read a shitload of history to do a good Natalie Portman and then I had to learn a bunch too ‘cause she was so smart. Harvard and everything. Or that’s it. I just know how to play the part.

A few of my friends from back then got kind of fucked up. Dissasociative something or another. They felt like they never knew themselves because they never used their own faces. I can’t even remember what I looked like. My first was Shirley Temple Black. Then I was that girl from Annie for a while. I guess it bothers me if I think about it. I always wondered why it didn’t happen to me. Some people would like hear voices of the others they’d been and they never stopped talking. I have bad dreams sometimes in a long hallway with photos in frames and the same girl in each picture from  kindergarten to high school graduation, at the Grand Canyon, at the Mall of America, always the same girl, but her face is off in every picture. A cheek too big here. An eye bloodshot here. Lips like microscopic small. And the hallway never ends but no one is there. After a while I try to go down the hallway but I’m stuck and it’s because I’m stuck in a picture frame and then people start walking down the hallway watching me and it’s the worst ‘cause I can feel my nose is huge and I want to cover it up but I can’t move because I’m a picture and the people in the hallway compliment each picture and smile but their eyes don’t smile with their mouth and this dream goes on forever like this. New people come by. Smile, say nice things and then walk on. I have this dream for hours. I try to wake myself up but I’m a picture. I can’t wake up because I’m a picture, but sometimes I scream out and whoever’s next to me will like look really concerned and then I never want to sleep again.

Robert was my Ex’s name and I used to visit him in the hospital, but then I stopped going. I didn’t really have a reason. I just couldn’t muster the effort anymore. His father told me that Robert was actually born a girl.

“I…did…have thoughts, yes” and this guy’s name is Joel, so that’s better. Not Robert.

“And…” see here you have to cock your head and bat your eyes expectantly but not too much or it’ll look too sarcastic or like you’re trying too hard.

“And then I met you.”

“Ohhhhhhhh shit,” I say and burst out laughing, “That kind of talk isn’t actually allowed in here. Actually you have to pay me money now.”

He laughs along with the joke and I take the joint back. I don’t know if this shit’s really all that good. I don’t go to those dark places on other blends. I need to tell the boss.