Friday Night Shakedown: From My Window

Friday night, 3am. Nothing much good happens Friday night at 3am, especially not in this part of town. I had gone to bed at around midnight, which is early for me. I had experienced a distinct lack of energy, my eyes were closing as I propped myself up in the corner of the little sofa, watching an anime show about a boy who steals his crush’s gym clothes and gets blackmailed as a result. The images on the screen were a curious combination of sparse and cartoon-like and photorealistic to the point of inhabiting that uncanny valley. I was not unamused nor lacking in interest, I was simply tired, that was all there was to it. I get tired so easily nowadays.

I find myself running out of gas so fast, the past stretching out behind me in a procession of wasted years and tears and miles of airplane aisles. That realization that I have already been anything I was ever going to be is a little disturbing, sends me slightly reeling. I always had hope. I always had belief in a better future, a kinder time, now I don’t believe in much at all. Nowadays I don’t have dreams of romantic love, I don’t have dreams that anyone will ever love me or me them, and it is too late to make a life, the future has been and gone and left me behind, temporarily happy, transiently comfortable, sadly accepting of the fact th-th-th-that’s all, folks, this is all it is going to be and there is not much to look forward to. The downhill slide, that final moment, those last days with the child I gave up everything for, never to see him grow up, have his own family, be successful and happy, I don’t relish it at all. I don’t know how I am going to survive that awful loss of the last bits of happiness. Such thoughts don’t fill an old girl with much in the way of life and energy. No. I am quite drained, and as my eyes closed on the sofa, the Boy occasionally patting my hand and asking me if I was ok, I accepted it was time to accept defeat and go to sleep.

I think he worries about me. The kid is rapidly turning into a young man, and after everything he clearly cares about me and appreciates me more than I could ever hope for. He sat by the side of my bed, talking to me for a while, then turned out the light and went to his bedroom. I was out for the count. Night night, baby. Sweet dreams, handsome. Goodnight, ma….

So when I was rudely awakened not by the trash collection but by a female voice yelling at full blast outside my window, I was more than a little surprised to be awake and it not be daylight. I didn’t open my eyes for a few moments, hoping that the fuss outside would subside and allow me to go back to sleep. It didn’t. Instead heavily accented English filled the air. Let’s say, I will change the names of the people involved…”Ginny she say she no work tonight! She motherfuck, she no wanna do no tonight. She say too much dick! She no come.” That was it. I got up to look out of the window and see who was tormenting me. Outside two women dressed in long thigh-high boots, low cut white tops, and tiny mini skirts, enough make up on for me to make out eyelashes from all the way up here, stood outside my window, while a car with it’s hazard lights on and a gentleman sitting behind the wheel, kept it idling quietly. For crying out loud, I thought, take that shit two blocks to the south, for heaven’s sake, or at the very least to a parking lot, just anywhere that is not in front of my bedroom window.

One of the women was now squatting down on the sidewalk, moving her hands slowly in front of her face forming boxes and blocks, drawing shapes that were only visible to her, occasionally spitting and interjecting thoughtless encouragement to her friend. “Yes! Bitch! Motherfuck! Big dick!” Words spilled out of her at random like a doll whose string has been pulled and vomits forth pre-recorded phrases to amuse the child that operates her voice box mechanism. The louder one was on her feet and capering around in a streak of white heat white light methamphetamine-fueled movement. She was energy. She seemed to have all of it that I lacked. She was bright and awake enough to never need to sleep again, her synapses misfiring in all directions, occasionally leaping to one side, limbs failing to remain under her control, jerking on the marionette strings that were keeping her upright, face gurning, lips smacking, hands and arms working independently from her legs and body, making strange shapes and patterns. Her head was nodding emphatically as she yelled furiously about the ‘motherfuck’ Ginny and her lack of work ethic and ability to deal with large and numerous dicks.

I knocked loudly on my window to let her know that someone was there, and being disturbed by her ranting, screaming, smoking and speed-dancing. No judgement call, no threats to call the cops, no nothing except the desire to sleep, cause there is no chemically fuel for me and nor am I likely to ever subject myself to that rollercoaster ride ever again. She shouted up that she was ‘so sorry’ and then proceeded to carry on, temporarily a little quieter, but still loud, and of course, being higher than any person should be if they have any regard for their mental and physical health, the volume crept up.

I heard a window open and a man’s voice from the apartment to the left of mine. He shouted out, and was also apologized to….and summarily ignored. Two hours later she and her friend were still agreeing that Ginny was a motherfucking bad whore, and the car was still sitting with it’s hazard lights on. My usual ability to feel comradeship, kindness or sympathy was more of less gone. I needed to be allowed to sleep. I would drift off and be woken up with loud exclamations. “Donkey dick! It tooo big!” or…”He stinky never wash man!” or “Freaky fucka!…or “He strangle me and then he no pay!” or “He want me to fuck his girlfriend, I say extra!” I got back up to stare pitifully out of the window. Men ruin my life on a regular basis, and to be frank I hope that Ginny gets off the game. Poor cow, she had clearly had enough and walked off, she had no duty to suck, fuck or pull, she had no contract she had to fulfill to take on dick, and yet her saying she had enough and didn’t want to toil at the cock and balls was seen as the ultimate betrayal by the other women, trapped into a life in servitude to the almighty Penis.

And yes, yes, some women have a choice and chose to go into sex work, but the vast majority do not have that choice. They are sold into the sex trade, human trafficked, or else they are trapped there by addiction, poverty and abusive pimps. Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender – these tactics are used against women time and time again by Patriarchal society. The ‘buts’ and ‘what if’s’ and ‘gotcha!’ raids of men who excuse the abuse of women, and often women who are immigrant or not white suffer disproportionately, act to downplay and excuse the terror caused in man’s relentless quest for orgasms and domination.

Still, all I wanted was to go to sleep and to sleep without dreams of penises going through my head. I didn’t want to dream of cock or slime or men, or women complaining that they had no choice but to fuck because that was their lot in life. I wanted to dream about a lake in Minnesota, or lay here with my headphones in and the sound of water lapping against a shoreline, or cicada singing in the Japanese bamboo jungles. A life in servitude to dick. Not a life at all really, is it.

I watched as the capering speed freak with the go-go boots climbed into a car, I momentarily wondered if she was going to see the morning. It is always a risk, if a john goes psycho. She could be getting into a car with a serial killer. Still, we have to give men the benefit of the doubt, and toil endlessly to provide them with pussy and children, bodies and people to dominate. To be frank I have had enough.

I lay here, the whores finally gone off to work, or bed, or both, and wondered to myself about the past and the future. I wondered if I could have done it any better. I wondered how my life would have gone if I had access to a free medical supply of smack during my addicted years. I thought about Tokyo and expensive leather purses. I wondered if the electricity flowed through my veins once and if I would ever feel truly alive again. My face feels like bones, the bricks and mortar of my being is crumbling. There might be a flicker of life now and again, but mostly I feel as if I am simply passing time until the end now. I played my part, I had my role and now I am not needed, surplus to requirements, old and barren and besides, I have no use of men romantically anymore.

The kicker to all of it is, I love my male friendships and I adore my son and his company. I just wish that the vast majority of mankind was not toxic. Oh well. We all wish for something, even if, like Ginny, if it is a night away from cock without anyone berating you for it.

I never did get back to sleep.