I wake up and stumble to the bathroom and halfway through my shower I decide that I can't leave the house today because I'm in so weak a state. I linger in the shower because the white noise of the water on the belgian tile and my skin makes it easy to forget myself. My head hurts. I shut off the water and make it--I don't know how--over the lip where the glass door meets the ground. I look into the mirror any my nose-hair is surprisingly long but I don't have any scissors or a razor in the bathroom. I've got a day and a half of growth on my face and neck. I think 'I'm hungover.' I can't remember any of last night at all. I don't care. I don't care.
I decide that I am hungover. I fix myself a drink and get back in bed naked and wet. I turn on the television to have some noise. I notice my telephone on the bedside and pick it up to call Rita to tell her that I'm not going to be in today but can't find the strength, and I couldn't deal with her shit anyway and so I send her a text message and shut my phone off and throw it across the room without aim. It plunks into something in a screech of static that drowns out the television for a moment and I start to cry.
Between heartfelt sobs I finish the drink in a few hungry gulps, gagging a few times, but I get it down and slam the glass on the bedside with a gasping sigh.
The television cycles itself through the channels but doesn't find anything. Sit-com reruns are on. Old Charlie Rose, for some reason. A fashion magnate.
I get up, mostly to refill my glass. The kitchen is cold, and I'm reminded of my nakedness. Thankfully theres an old Dartmouth sweatshirt rolled into a navy and lavender ball near the sink but when I pick it up and put it on its inexplicably cold and wet and provides nothing. My flaccid penis flaps around in a manicured bed of velvety black pubic hair at my crotch as I stand up and walk to the liquor cabinet in the living room, after getting the ice cubes into the glass. I suddenly have to pee very bad. I pick a bottle at random from the already open chestnut cabinet and fill the glass halfway. It's amber.
I set the glass on the counter near the sink and plop down on the toilet and break down into heavy sobs in the release of urination. When I'm finished I'm completely empty and go back to the drink.
The bedroom's dark when I get back--not how I left it--but I leave them off anyway. I set down my drink on the bureau and take off the college sweater and drop it on the ground by my side. In between dashes to the drink for a sip I find and slip on a white pair of underwear.
I sit back down, or roll into a ball on the bed or chuch over the the desk and hunch in the leather high-back. As the television cycles I finish my drink and put some thought to what exactly is bothering me so much today. Some of the nausea and all of the throbbing subside and the roof of my mouth begins to throb as I edge my way into drunk. My eyelids tend toward being closed and my limbs grow heavy and I close my eyelids and try to, but can't fall back asleep. The television stops cycling and I open my eyes to a silent image of a small pale white boy covering his ears, eyes closed, shaking his head. The sun is rising. Almost as soon as I open my eyes the speakers click on with a droning, ear-splitting siren.
