Trying to Understand/Pissing in the Wind

She skulked up Haight Street, scowling at the smelly hippy clusters making empty noise and peace signs: The damn 60's have been over for thirty years. Don't these assholes have anything better to do than impede my walk of shame to work? It sure is easy to fund a revolution with your evil parent's blood money. The revolution is against showering, if you ask me. God, how I hate the smell of Patchouli. 

Ewww!

One approaches: "Spare change, sister?"

"Piss off! And I'm not your god dammed sister!"

"Peace, Man!"

Ughhhhh! How dare these putrid rainbow wannabes get in her way! She hoped she didn't have to wait on any of them today. Her time was worth more than serving DeadHeads the dollar-ninety-nine special. They hung out all day, taking up one of the big booths, leaving piles of pennies and hand written notes on napkins: Dear sister, it takes more energy to frown than to smile....Fuck that!They think they are so cool! After all, she is the real revolutionary-escaping drunk abusive tyrant at a young age, lighting out, all of the abandonment since. People just didn't get her, and she didn't like most people. Most people didn't know what it meant to wake with night terrors, to always be on the run from that feeling of not being good enough to be wanted.  She had long since given up trying to understand where she fit in to the world. Instead, she decided it was HER world; her rules, her game. No one was allowed to see the inward pain-only outward hostility. 

She lit a Camel - anticipating being late for her shift. Her stagger sped up, imagining a lecture from her idiot employer. She was ungrateful, almost ashamed of her own beauty. Her long reddish brown hair, catlike green eyes, and slim body attracted many players, but her swarthy manners scared off most of the sissies before they could buy her a whiskey. At 20, her soul felt 220-jaded. Ashen, sunken in cheek bones; anemic. She couldn't remember her last meal. Yeah, she ate something a day or two ago. Who cares. Coffee and cigarettes-what could be a more fitting breakfast? What are you, my mother? Better get a quick bite to soak up last nights booze. Bla bla bla. Last nights clothes full of smoke and glitter, complimented her faded eyeliner; the perfect uniform for today's shift. Glamour at its height of discarded glory.

She stepped on the butt at the front door of "Hippy Hell", the nic-name of the cafe where she worked; the tips that payed for club clothes and rent; booze and drugs; rock n roll, head shots and acting classes- so one day, she could be something more. One day when she was good and ready. 

What would it be today? Would she wait on that hot celebrity? The famous writer? Grunge rock star du jour? They all came in to check out the bitchy devil with the angel face-or was it her perky boobs? She didn't notice  the impact of the scene as much as they did. She was simply lost in the surrender; the haze of not caring about tomorrow. No fear, no apologies. The party tonight would be a new death; tomorrow a rebirth. Same as every damn day. Trying to understand the future was the same as choking  it. She didn't need that bullshit. She had the iron instinct to survive; stronger than a Chinatown cockroach.