Down the Drain

by Julia Fox

This is for the dreamers and the delinquents

I feel small in a way that feels exciting, like I have yet to be discovered.

But mostly, I love the warm, calming sensation of knowing that I’m going to be taken care of.

I want to love him but I often find myself wishing he could just be an asshole all the time. This way I wouldn’t have all these inner battles with myself. I learn to navigate my way through shattered expectations and constant disappointments by putting an impenetrable wall up between us. Every time I let my guard down, I’m quickly reminded why my defenses were up in the first place.

I’m forced to face the unsettling reality that the people who are supposed to protect us are sometimes the same people we need protection from.

Maybe she wants to protect me, but it feels like she’s projecting her own limitations onto me. As I think to myself that my mom just doesn’t realize what I’m capable of, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not good enough.

“Mothers and daughters can’t be ‘friends.’ ” I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on something fundamental in life.

I don’t understand why these men are lamenting about getting older. It’s not like they’re given expiration dates, the same way women are.

The Irish guy follows me around, proclaiming his love for me over and over again. I’m starting to get repulsed by him as he wipes his runny nose on his hand. His skin is translucent, and I can clearly see his entire vascular network through his clothes. I can barely understand him through his grinding jaw and thick Irish accent.

I walk them out and then get on my hands and knees and scour the carpet for cocaine residue, mistakenly rubbing cigarette ashes on my gums. I dig through all the ashtrays trying to find any remnants of a dust blunt. I keep hearing the techno playing in my ears. I stand up and look around to no one. Who the fuck is playing techno?

I come to in the ambulance with vomit all around me. Even the paramedics are covered in vomit. One of them goes through my wallet frantically, pulling out my fake IDs and holding them next to my face. “Which one is you?” he asks. I shake my head and pass out again.

I finally find a shiny latex catsuit, but as I pull it over my feet I notice a few stains near the ankles which very much resemble crusty jizz. I feel like I’m going to throw up and I start to panic.

“You’re not being honest with me, Julia. You’re throwing your whole life down the drain.” His words cut through me.

Your whole life down the drain, your whole life down the drain, your whole life down the drain.

So many people saw the attack, and yet I have no witnesses. I always heard about stuff like this happening to women who came forward. I just never thought it would happen to me.

We drive past a slowly sinking shrimping boat covered in broken furniture and garbage bags. “Wow, that’s so beautiful,” he says with a sigh. I glance back at the boat. “Yeah, I guess it is.” I notice the sunset behind it, the contrast of the water swallowing up the boat and how poetic it all is. “This little boat that worked so hard is gonna meet its fate, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” he says.

We purchase a Lincoln Town Car for fifteen hundred dollars from a neighbor who has fire ants crawling on his toes and blood leaking down his legs during the sale.

When a journalist asks, “What does RIP Julia Fox mean to you?,” I tell her, “This chapter of my life is over. She’s dead. It’s an ending but it’s really a new beginning.”

“With eyes like this and a name like Julia Fox, she’s going to be a movie star!”

and the moment I saw those lights and the cameras, a switch went off and I was Julia Motherfucking Fox. I was quick and witty. I was funny and charming. I was able to keep up with fucking Adam Sandler!

I decide that I’m going to do what the fuck I want. I’m tired of doing what I’m told.

Being sexy had been my identity for so long, and I was consumed by it. I’m unlearning all the brainwashing and learning to love myself for more than just the way I look.

I don’t want men to like me anymore. I’m over it. I’m reclaiming my body and rejecting the notion that I exist only to be visually pleasing.

They tell me I’m “a sex symbol for women,” which is the highest form of compliment one could ever hope to receive.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without the countless mistakes I made to get here. It’s okay to live with regret. It’s not okay to let it consume you.

Sometimes you have to say fuck it and throw your life down the drain just to see where you’ll come out on the other side. The most profound beauty emerges from the ashes of destruction.

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Everywhere I turn, I see girls dressed like me. It’s a far cry from the days when I was bullied and called “weirdo,” “freakazoid,” “white trash,” “prostitute,” or my favorite, “weird white girl with the fat ass.” I was ridiculed for being different and for doing whatever I had to do to survive. But now everyone is wearing latex.