Angeleno Femme

Like An Onion

A drug addict, feening for a couple bucks and a fix, sells beat up acoustic guitars and disco balls to Sunset boulevard storefronts with an urgency not seen in most locals. The leather guffey hat he sports reminds me of bondage role players or maybe just London. Beneath the modest brim, his face is pale and slick with sweat. He smiles politely as I turn down his offer of a leather jacket — two sizes too big — and quickly shoves belongings back into a duffel bag. A drop of sweat gathers at the tip of his nose and is flung into the night as he whips his head to speak.

“Pawn shop wouldn’t take these,” he says, pointing to a few dolls with matted hair.

Somewhere in the background, a guy with a pretty face and gentle eyes clicks around on a computer, ignoring the frantic energy of the vagrant salesman. One time caught with syringes, he may have shot up earlier. But fixed and sedated, he rests now, and doesn’t buy anything either. I wouldn’t take him to be a heroin user. He had me fooled, at least. His well-fed dog sleeps peacefully near his feet.

Hollywood, a land of unveiling secrets and illusions, is a layered town. At a speakeasy nearby where the password was “bird” for the night, discussion panned out regarding one man’s gloat days earlier: “I slept with a porn star last night, and satisfied her. She even wanted me in the morning.” His friend quickly rebutted when not in the same room: “No, no, he didn’t sleep with that girl.” Another Jack on the rocks was ordered. I sipped and listened, thinking about how the man with porn star dreams watched two transsexuals stroll by one night and stated, “They’re not fooling anybody.” Back at the table, words still exchanged: “If he slept with someone that night, he paid for it.” I tossed an ice cube in my mouth and excused myself to use the restroom.

In the speakeasy’s bathroom, I readjusted my skirt to fix an illusion. I wondered if my outfit could, somehow, hide my insecurities, something that had been quietly tapping on my psyche all week. I turned to the side, smoothing down my shirt. I turned to the front and toyed with the layering of fabric. Applied some lip gloss and thought about when I was thinner, though not necessarily happier. When I’d dropped weight simply because I found it difficult to eat around a man for whom I wanted to convey perfection. He’d eat bagels and eggs at 3am with a fork and I always politely declined, save a bite here or there. My waist accommodated vital organs and nothing else. Clothing hung beautifully. Old jeans fit. But usually, with weight loss comes a trade: one anxiety for another. The maintenance of perfection for a man who could not commit left me always chasing a dream of monogamy, while he chased blonds on the side. I looked good, but in my head understood it would never be good enough. To think he could be mine, well, I wasn’t fooling anybody either. Only myself.

Several pounds later he now exists like a haze over the Hollywood sign, seen from afar. We speak, sometimes. I hear from him during his lonelier moments and unfurl beneath him like a safety net. I know, he knows. We’ve unveiled it all and now I am left with a dwindling text friendship that I couldn’t pawn to anyone, even though I could use the cash.

New characters and secrets come and go, like the kind that tend to date hairdressers. Sitting out on Highland one January night, a guy with “13” tattooed on him says to me about fake lashes, “You wear the individual ones or the full ones?” I ask him how he knows so much about falsies, and he cites an ex. “Wearing them is bittersweet,” I remark without a hint of mascara. “You apply them and then realize you look much better with them on than without.” He calls me beautiful like it’s a discussion about the weather, and I think back to how many times the man who chased the blonds said the same to me: once, while drunk.

And on my birthday, seated in a chair beneath a hairdresser, I waiver on whether I’ll apply false lashes or not. “It’s your night, your birthday, come on!” she encourages with a blow dryer in her hand. The last time I’d sported a pair I ripped them off at a 24 hour donut store and left them on the table. I’d already applied layer after layer of makeup, and joked that the transformation I’d had since I entered the salon was startling. But with time pressing down on me and a dinner reservation, I questioned the false lashes and eventually settled on a coat of mascara. I’d indulged in enough illusions, whether with heels or outfits or blush. I wanted something to still be mine, sort of.

I cruise Sunset home, passing stores that some remark are fronts for selling drugs. The cross-dressers with evening stubble strut down the street, the addicts sit with backpacks and plans, and girls like me fuss with skirts and ideals. The overdressed strike a match for a cigarette but don’t inhale. The lights in the city dim, the secrets swirl, the cravings fester, and I apply another coat of mascara as if it could somehow fix things. I know it won’t, a nonexistent sweat slicking down my face, but I try anyways. I’ll sell it as best I can.