You threw a punch at a homeless guy today. The air was cold and you sort of missed and it didn't hurt as much as you thought it was going to, but as your fist glanced off his collarbone you realized dude wasn't even trying to protect himself. You're not sure what it means, but it makes you feel good and you're not sure what that means either, but you took care of business. Your breath steams into clouds in front of the coffee shop and you wonder why he called you a faggot.
You were wearing OG En Noir sweats from a few seasons ago, the lambskin ones with the gold RiRis. You're not gay. You're cool with guys who are, but that's not you. These leathers cost a grip and when this bum, this leering, stinking, bottle-toting street creature piece of garbage, called you a fag, you put him in his place. After you punched him—honestly, you softened the blow because you didn't want to hurt him really, just let him know you were on one—he gurgled off down the sidewalk, wobbling from white chick to white chick looking for change. Who's a fag, you say to no one.
You talk about Virgil all spring. You and your boys. He's like the boarding school friend who's never around, except for holiday weekends and Rocky concerts when he comes through and he's in your city. You have plans to meet up, but it doesn't happen. It's cool. Virgil is the homie. Later, when #Been #Trill does a capsule with PacSun and everyone talks shit and calls him a sellout, you hold it down. So what if he sold out, you tweet. I'd do the same thing. A brand is a business and a business is about making money. You may not know much, but you know that.
Your parents love you and each other and you don't know what to do about it.
In the middle of the night you wake up with a hard on and the first thing you do is scramble and snatch for your phone—your Twitter, your Instagram, your Snapchat. But your mentions are empty and she hasn't responded to the eggplant you dropped on that #tbt you deep liked. She knows it's a joke. It was a joke. In the corner of you room you spy a dusty pair of Red Wings. You wonder when was the last time you actually wore them. But you don't really care because Americana is dead. Beneath the comforter, your boner goes back to sleep and you soon follow.
College was wack as fuck. You didn't learn shit. Everyone was from suburbs like you, but they were fine with it. They were soft. You were different. Asher Roth's corny song dropped your sophomore year and people loved it even though it was corny. It was catchy and you loved it too, but if anyone asked you'd say it was an embarrassment to real hip-hop because you thought it might be.
You remember playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater on N64 with your roommates even though you had an Xbox, and drinking vodka from the bottle and dating two girls, one who was kinda weird and one who would have loved you if you cared. Money over bitches, your away message read. That was before Trukfit. None of it mattered anyway. It wasn't real. College was bullshit.
You debate. You subtweet. You network. You slide into their girl's DMs like. College is over and you are out here now. Soon, you're launching a brand with your boys and it's fire. You're starting out with T-shirts, but they're screenprinted in L.A. by the same manufacturer that Stampd uses, you heard. You're on your grind. The brand is called PVRGATORY and sometimes when you're lying awake at night you practice pitching a collaboration to Ferg. F3RGATORY, maybe. A Facebook push notification illuminates your room like the seawater around a jellyfish. Then it's dark again.
Cruel Summer. PYREX's summer. You're on a plane to L.A. and you snap a picture of the wing to tweet via yfrog, but you don't know if it's lame and you noticed people aren't using yfrog much any more. At a house party in Silverlake everyone is drinking Miller High Life and wearing snapbacks and talking about Grizzly Bear. You talk to this girl about how fucking dope New York is, but she's about to be on a reality television show and keeps trying to change the subject to be about her. Your friends are gone and you are faded. L.A. is soft.
You look in the mirror and come to the harsh realization that you've seemingly had the exact same haircut your entire life. You make a mental note to tell your barber to go shorter on the sides next time.
You're working on PVRGATORY five panels now and a new website that speaks to the lifestyle. You've even got your own URL. No more .bigcartel.com anymore. The brand is killing it. You've sold out of all your first run SKUs. You give an interview on NYLON Guys, but despite trying your hardest to seem #relevant and name-drop and push it hard on all your social media, nobody comments. You email the editor asking if anyone is reading it. He finally hits you back with a cryptic answer that more or less confirms your deepest fears.
You go to the trade shows in NYC, but everyone says they're holding their good stuff for Vegas and you want to go to Vegas so you ask your parents to spot you and they do. You're ashamed about mooching so you tell yourself it's a business loan and fly to Vegas, where you make out with a random PR chick at the 10.Deep after-party. The bassline of "All Gold Everything" plods through your chest as you try to remember her name. You spend the last of your cash buying a lap dance from a light skin stripper with a fat ass at the Spearmint Rhino.
In the airport you meet a buyer from Zumiez and you pitch him on your shit so fucking cool he doesn't even know he's being pitched. So cool. You'll put in the work. You'll build. He loves it and hands you his card and you tuck it in your phone case like a feather in your cap. You never hear back from him, but you don't care because Zumiez is basic and you tell everyone about the time that thirstball fuccboi chased you down in McCarran International.
You fuck a basic from Brooklyn and she jokes that she needs your help getting dressed and not the other way around. It's not a joke.
18 months later when you finally move off your phone's family plan, the card will flutter to the ground—an ancient monument to your ambition, to a time when you had conversations about product with your name on it. Your face burns in the Sprint store and don't know why, but right now you are Making Moves™ and Closing Deals™ and you can't imagine what mediocrity feels like because you are it. As you swipe your credit card, you wonder if you can actually afford this new plan, but you run through data like it's nothing and, besides, you're not going to stop Instagramming.
You sell a bunch of grails on the forums to make rent.
In the fall, everyone adds A$AP prefixes to their Twitter handles. You're A$AP PVRG, but it's just a joke, and they know that. You're at the Burton party in SoHo and the homies are there and Travi$ Scott is supposed to perform, but Fashion's Night Out is crazy and he never makes it. You eat free Meatball Shop meatballs and snap photos of rare collaborations for something. Your Tumblr maybe? You're not sure yet. You're tired and you want to go home, but instead you pop molly in a cab full of girls headed to Westway, where you sweat until daybreak. Tomorrow afternoon you'll wake up crying, but that shit won't bother you because it's just the drugs.
You stay super late at the Ace Hotel even though it's a weekday night, pounding Tecate cans with salt and lime wedges because that's how you're supposed to drink them. You're hammered and the n-word slips out in front of your black friend while reciting the chorus of this banger you just saw on WorldStar. He lets it slide because you are boys and you send a tweet to your drafts about how you just got your hood pass. You puke all over the lobby at 4am and get kicked out and probably banned from the Ace for life. But you don't really care because Americana is dead.
You pop a 'Gram of your sick new Flyknit Racers. #bae, reads the caption. It hits 11 likes in under two minutes and 100 by the end of the afternoon and it feels good. They ask me who I am and who I do it for, you whisper to no one.
You wonder if Nardwuar gets laid more than you.
When your credit card gets declined at 21 Mercer you nonchalantly whip out another one because you're wearing DSM exclusives and the checkout girl has great style. Must be all the bottles, you say. It's a joke and she knows it's a joke. You walk out slow so she sees your kicks and later when you come back you wear a Gyakusou vest to really seal the deal but she's not working that day. You never see her again.
You fuck a basic from Brooklyn and she jokes that she needs your help getting dressed and not the other way around. It's not a joke. You are sitting in Atrium explaining joggers to her when you realize you hate her so you make up an excuse and skip out after a quick goodbye. You never see her again.
You Instagram your Yeezus Tour tickets and it's the most likes you’ve ever gotten. So #blessed, reads the caption. You don't remember the concert. You don't even remember if you went. You write a thinkpiece for free about Confederate flags and people respond. Your stats bob up Chartbeat like a helium balloon, then sink back down like waterlogged driftwood. You hit up your editor about filing some more darts, except you want to be paid moving forward. Your #content speaks for itself.
You don't think about PVRGATORY much anymore. Your boys all have LinkedIn profiles now and you don't have the time for that, or for them. You still pay $10.99 a month for the URL, because you'll start it back up and get it going eventually. Every once in a while a customer emails you asking why they never got the hat they ordered.
The credit card company used to email you, but now they've started calling and they're calling now. In the glare of your phone screen you read Unknown Number and bite down hard on the inside of your cheek and hit ignore. You can't ignore your parents though. They ask you—gently, offhandedly—about the Vegas money and you tell them you'll write them a check soon, but you don't have any checks and, besides, if they'd just signed up for PayPal like you told them to, you wouldn't have to write them a check to begin with.
You stop worrying about it and get drunk at a launch event for some stupid fucking brand and when the PR girl offers you coke you laugh because who does she think she's talking to, bruh. You head to the bathroom to do a line with her and the shit is bad, but she starts making out with you and touches your dick over your Public School jeans and you go along with it because even though she's a butterface she has perfect ombre hair. She won't smash there and you don't feel like waiting around to meet her after the event and you can't get hard when you're on coke anyway so you leave. You smoke a Marlboro Red you bummed earlier in the night and cough up a lung.
It me, you tweet to no one.
Your boy bails on the SoulCycle class you two signed up for because he's the only person you know more selfish you. You go to the class anyway because you've got on your next level meggings and haven't even broken them out yet. You're surprised at how quickly the time passes as long as you imagine the conversations you'd have with the sexy Asian in the front row who's wearing nothing but a sports bra. As you leave, you spot her wearing Celine slip-ons. You get a cold-pressed green juice for lunch and debate whether or not this is what falling in love feels like.
Twitter's shiny new layout shows favorites and retweets, unblinking zeroes. You have a job interview tomorrow, but you give zero fucks, so you're walking down Broadway at 3am hitting a G Pen you got for free and thinking about that girl from 21 Mercer, the one who never saw your Gyakusou vest because she wasn't there.
When you realize that was almost two years ago, you shiver involuntarily and look up. Broadway seems wider than it used to. From curb to curb there's a mile of inky black asphalt, yawning like the interminable canyon between heaven and hell and you're afraid to fall in. You wonder if that basic chick ever shopped at Atrium again. You wonder if that Zumiez rep even knows what HTM stands for. You wonder what your roommates from college are up to. You wonder if anyone else realizes that Americana is dead. Your breath steams into clouds in front of the Do Not Walk sign, and after a few minutes of wondering what you stand for, it's clear you've already fallen.
Dave Infante is a writer living in New York City. He's totally fine, you guys. Seriously, don't worry about him. Read more of his work on Thrillist and follow him on Twitter while he's still breathing.
