Stank Ass Bitches

Find a seat close enough to the stage, but not directly in the lighting. There. Center spot, middle row right. Close to the door, in case…

Just never fucking know. My body’s still adapting to the new medication. Haven’t been sleeping, my racing thoughts are a loud flip-book of a stick figure doing cartwheels. But I gotta be here, I gotta do this. Get on the mic. Bring this art of yours to public awareness.

I fuckin’ don’t want to be here.

Show should start in 12 minutes. Sit, sit, sit. Chill.

“Helloooo therrrrrre.” Her nasally cat voice purrs towards me. I look up at the large, dark skinned woman with blond highlights, and I realize who it is.

OH. Not this bitch.

As she settles into the seat beside me, Yuengling resting on her misshapen, milkful tit, I feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders wring.

“I didn’t recognize you.” It was the truth. It was also the only pleasant thing I could think of to say to this sick, sad, stupid excuse for a human being.

Keep it together.

Show should start in 8 minutes. She tells me someone is on her way, as if I was part of her evening plans. I glare at her incredulously, then look around to validate the rows upon rows of available seats. I open my mouth to say, “There’s other seats open” when…

“Oh hiiiiiii!” she spies a lady sitting at the end of our row. I remember her from our screenwriting days, but she doesn’t remember me from Jesus, because like this bitch, she’s stinkin’ drunk too.

I sigh a bit of relief, sensing she’ll take her beer and join her equally inebriated friend on the far end. Leave me to my quiet space, mentally prep for my presentation, tamp down the desire to stab her in the throat.

Instead, the wino slides from her seat to the one beside me, and I’m now flanked by two alcohol-wielding, heavy jewelry-clad, flabby forty-somethings. I feel the familiar spike of rage, a spear which usually bursts from my gut through my heart and to my mouth relaying menacingly how dead the two of them will become if they don’t fuckin’ move. But instead, I felt the spike tip my heart and bounce back down. Hmm.

Fascinated by this shift in modicum I let the two sows oink at each other over me, noticing the spear keeps tipping tipping but never breaks to the surface. I think this is what the psychiatrist meant by “mood leveling.” Interesting.

The other woman arrives with a friend, and all of a sudden it’s a sorority reunion, five deep in the same row, everyone armed with alcohol save for me, because I’ve learned in my years of public speaking, drinking anything before reading makes my mouth slippy, makes me slur my words.

It’s beyond showtime and I’m frustrated. Extremely frustrated. When my name is called to present I stand up creakily, as my body had practically rigor-ed from tension. By the time I hit the podium the blood’s returned to my voluptuous ass, and by the time I launch into my presentation under the stage lights I’m fuckin’ relieved.

I can’t see those stank ass bitches when I’m standing in the spotlight. I don’t hear their stupid cow mooing when the microphone is at my command. It is then I realize the comfort my art allows me on stage – the opportunity to escape what and who disquiets me, to control what everyone else gets to experience.

The applauding cues me off, and I’m saddened that I have to return to the hen house, but then I become empowered, knowing I read from my complete, published work while every single one of them is still trying to get past their revisions.

Fuck you, you stank ass bitches. Fuck you in your stupid asses.