I hate The Platform. I hate the offices and stores there. I’ve lived beside it for three years, and I hate it more each day. I stay in Oak Lawn—close to The Platform—because that’s where the highest paying clients are. I took the CTA back to my motel room today after meeting a client from downtown. My car was having trouble with the battery. I need to get it changed soon. An old black man on the bus sat on the seat across from me. He wore an Air Force cap and an old-looking leather jacket. He leans over to me and looks down at my shoes. 

“Shit,” he says, “why you taking the train when you got shoes like those? Don’t you got money for a car.”

“Broke down,” I answer.

“Back when we used to have more gas cars around, we didn’t use to have so many problems. If you bought a shitty car, of course you’d have problems. But not as many. I’m a janitor for a university so I don’t get too much money. At least, not enough for a car. But I don’t do too bad for myself. You know how you keep your money these days? You buy land. It’s the same as it was before.”

“Hard to do in Oak Lawn.”

“Ain’t that where The Platform is.”

I nod my head.

“Shit, outer level or inner level?”

“Outer.”

“I used to live around that area too. Till motherfuckers priced me the fuck out. You know what’s really going on at The Platform, right? All the companies that own it are part of the war on that middle class. They’re trying to ruin that whole place. You ever wonder why there’s so much crime down there? It wasn’t like that when I was little. Used to be nice. But then suddenly, all these new drugs start flooding in. Every gangbanger has all the fancy new energy weapons. All this military shit in the hands of these crazy young monkeys. You know how they got those? They didn’t buy them or steal them. Someone is giving them out like candy on Halloween.”

“You mean the companies? I mean, it’s weird how they’d just give something out for free like that..”

“Oh no, it’s not weird at all. They got a reason. You can buy property for cheap in a neighborhood where no one wants to live because every young gangster wannabe has a new toy every weak that can fry your eyeballs out. Same shit that happened in the 80s. Reagan and crack, you know.”

He began to laugh as if I knew who that was. I smiled and nodded. I think he’s mostly right. He wasn’t the first person to tell me that. The Platform is trying to price us out and replace us with gangbangers. And when the gangbangers get to be too much for business, they kill them and buy the land. And The Platform just spreads like a weed in the garden till the roots run too deep to pull out. At least, I think that’s what it’s like. I never garden.

When I get home, Naomi video calls me. 

“Stella! I haven’t seen you in a while,” she says. “Why haven’t you called?”

“Oh, I’ve just been busy I guess. I mean, you know what it’s like around The Platform.”

“You don’t need to do that kind of work anymore. You know that, Stella?”

“Yeah, if I cared about that, I wouldn’t be out here in the first place, would I?’

“That’s true. That’s true.”

“You coming to Tammy’s wedding?”

“Tammy’s getting married?”

“I didn’t hear about that.”

“You never call. Anyways, you coming?”

“Tell her sorry, but I can’t. How’d she find someone anyways? Wasn’t she always fucking nasty?”

“Well, she got herself someone. See, Tammy’s smart with money, and remember, she never showed her face in any of her videos. That’s how she got away with it. See that’s all you need to do, Stella. Just wear a mask and do nasty shit on video. You don’t even need to fuck. Some guys out here are gonna pay you to just talk to them live.”

“Well, here’s the difference between me and you and the others. I don’t have to pay tax. My shit’s cash only. You can’t do that online.”

“I mean, that’s true. But really, how much more do you make out on the streets? Not worth it in my book. Maybe, some motherfucker might stab or shoot you. A lot of the guys who go out to meet you aren’t normal. What you’re doing isn’t normal anymore.”

She’s right. What I do isn’t normal. I thought about selling nudes a few years ago, but that never seemed like work to me. The Platform is shitty, but I don’t feel like leaving. I have no one else to go to. If I got stabbed out here, no one would care. Maybe, that wouldn’t even be so bad compared to living here.