Lush

I watched you last night, as you sat in your car, your head in your hands, your long, black tresses spilling out over the steering column. I watched you muttering under your breath in time with some indecipherable song playing on your expensive car-deck. I watched you as you finally staggered out, and looked around; looking for something that was never going to be there.

I watched you as you stared at me for a long ten minutes, asking myself what it was about me that made you stare so. Was it my face? The large drink in my hand? Or that I was keeping a beady eye on you, a perfect stranger, at 2 a.m. on a muggy night?

I watched you throw a derisive snort my way; that careless, drunken toss of your hair. I watched you as you walked around your car a dozen times, maybe more, looking for something (your bearings, perhaps?). I watched you open the boot and drag a leather tote bag from it, and a crumpled brown-paper bag.

I watched you, watching me watch you, take several shaky steps towards my staircase, and hoped that you wouldn’t climb up and knock on my door. I watched you change your mind and stumble to the staircase across the street, clutching the bottle of cheap whiskey in the paper bag, loudly cursing life’s vicissitudes, and how things were never where you wanted them to be.

I watched you stop at a neighbour’s parked car. Watched you crane your head up to my balcony and yell “HAH”. Watched your piss-drunk fingers pull out your piss-drunk wiener, and let rip against the neighbour’s car, a long stream of your evening’s takings.

And said to myself, “go home you drunk bastard”.