My eyes snap open before I feel the pain beginning to set in. Well, not exactly “snap open” but more like they drifted apart and I squint against the light shining from the bedroom window. It hurts to be awake and I try and crawl out of bed but there’s another body lying there next to me. I breathe deep and wonder just who the fuck it is this time and swing my legs over the side. The bed creaks and the sound it makes is like fingernails on a blackboard and it echoes in my ears like a gunshot. I close my eyes and sit on the edge of the bed wondering who set off the train wreck inside my head. I grab a pair of shorts and throw them on and let whoever it is sleeping next to me get their rest.
I stumble to the bathroom and piss a stream of yellow for what seems like hours all the while moaning inside my head about how good it feels to get that released from inside me. After I’m done, I look in the mirror to assess last night’s damage and I’m buoyed that it doesn’t look all that bad. Sure, my hair is tangled and has taken on a strange shape and my tongue is thick with leftover booze, tobacco and spit and seems not to want to let go off the roof of my mouth. My eyes look like they’ve cried a river of tears and are as bloodshot as I’ve ever seen them but all in all it’s nothing that some Listerine, toothpaste , Visine and a shower won’t cure. I tell myself, “I’ve been worse”
I make my way downstairs and almost trip on the shoes and other assorted pieces of clothing that look like they’ve been torn off in a frenzy of passion. I try and dance my way around them and almost fall but thank God for the handrail that keeps me from pitching down the last three or four steps and breaking something.
My cat gives me what can best be described as a dirty look as I make my way to the kitchen to make some much needed coffee. I open a can of wet food to give him to try and make the peace and the smell of it gets to me and I begin to dry heave over the kitchen sink . The feeling soon goes away and I wander into the living room where I’m greeted by over flowing ashtrays and half filled beer bottles with cigarette and God knows else floating inside of them.
I wonder how the fuck a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken AND some empty bags of Taco Bell made it into the house and are just sitting there on the coffee table. It looks as if the cat tore into at least one of them as there are chicken bones and sauce packets strewn around the room. After awhile, I give up. I figure it’s no use trying to remember. It is what is for now and maybe as the day wears on some snippets of the night before will fill themselves in. Yeah, right.
I look in my backyard and wonder why my car is parked sideways but I say to myself, “Hey, at least it’s there” and go about surveying the damage. I look at the fireplace and atop the mantle sits a pile of bills all wadded up in a little ball and some loose change. I unravel the ball and wonder how I made it out alive since I still have about thirteen dollars left to my name when I started out the night with about a hundred. I figure I’m not in the red just yet since the thirteen bucks is enough to maybe get a fresh pack of smokes and a six-pack of beer and payday is only a day or two away.
I see some CD’s tossed around and don’t for the life me recall putting on Don McClean’s American Pie but there it is staring me in the face. Good lord, I was probably singing the chorus to that tune, you know, the one that goes:
Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
And good old boys were drinkin’ whisky and rye
Singin’ “This will be the day that I die.”
Wow. That act again? It never fails. I get my load on and throw some old 60’s and 70’s tunes on and think I can sing with the best of them. I rationalize it the way I do with almost everything else. Hey, at least I wasn’t singing this shit in public.
Or was I?
I’ll call one my buddies later in the day and maybe he can help me fill in the missing pieces.
I let out a sigh and decide to let my company (whoever it is) get some much needed sleep. I can feel one of those nervous hangovers coming on where I seem to worry about everything under the sun. I wonder how long it will be before the fog will lift and I can make some sense of the night before.
God, I could use a drink…