The alarm clock blared from across the room and Philip got up without opening his eyes, turned the goddamned thing off and collapsed back onto the bed. Then he realized he was still drunk. It was one of those pleasant post-drinking mornings where he didn’t wake up directly into a hang over, but rather that blissful middle ground where the tiredness of a late night out carousing with friends and not-friends was gone, yet the bleary minded bravado and casual sense of indestructibility remained, a calm, warm glow cast on the morning.
He stretched and felt a button pop on his shirt. Stirred by the sudden sensation, he looked down and discovered that he was still in the clothes he’d left the house in the morning previously. Putting his head back on the bed, he stopped and took stock of his situation. Clothes still on—whatever. When did he get home? Does it matter? Everything seems ok. His wallet and phone are still in his pockets, so that’s two out of three. Not bad. He is just going to assume his keys are in the right spot for now. No use worrying. His mouth tastes like complete shit, but that was easy enough to fix. He needed a glass of water or five. Again, easy fix. Surprisingly, it looked like he managed to escape last night completely unscathed and without making a complete ass of himself. Relieved he sighed and rolled over on his side.
“Oh,” he said. Where there should have been only rumpled sheets and sunlight giving way eventually to window, there was someone’s back, a back he didn’t recognize. He struggled to focus his eyes to see if this person was breathing—he hoped that it was—but could not. He leaned in gently so as not to wake this person, smelled perfume, recognized that this was either a woman or a long-haired dude with chick hips who smelled pretty fucking good, and then saw breathing. He was pleased that so soon after waking he had accomplished so much. He figured he’d just leave this probably-woman where she was and deal with the rest of it later.
In the bathroom he stared at himself for a while in the mirror, checking to see if there were any new mystery wounds. Thankfully, this time, there was nothing. His eyes were bloodshot and encircled by darkness. He accidentally stabbed himself in the gum while brushing his teeth. In the medicine cabinet he had some prescription painkillers which, though they were a bad idea, he didn’t hesitate to liberate from their amber plastic prison. They would be of great help later in the day when the hang over set in. Although blessed with a euphoric, drunken morning, that would not last. Next came the tiredness and the sickness, and with those came the shades of the night prior. And when the shadows crawled over the memories of the night before, Philip couldn’t help but think and imagine the worst of what might have happened. Had he said something to someone that they might not have deserved? When did he leave the bar and with whom and under what circumstances? Had he made an ass of himself? Had he been a lascivious creep? Had he done and said and thought and acted on things he would never do sober? In his imagination he had done all of these things and worse. And when his friends started to wake up and call and tell him things like, “You were amazing last night,” and “Who were those girls you were talking to?” and “Dude, where did you go?” and he couldn’t remember any of it, that is when The Shame set in. But there were ways to deal with The Shame. For one, he could start drinking again right now before the hang over came on. Alternatively, he could do as he was doing and cut the edge with drugs designed to ease physical pain in the injured. But the real varsity way of dealing with it was to start off the day with drugs and end the day fucked out of his head on booze, at home, alone. And so, that seemed to him to be a pretty fucking good idea. He straightened his shirt and put the bottle of pills in his pocket for later.
Coffee spread its black influence through Philip’s blood and he told his computer to turn itself on and display the weather. The kitchen was tidy still and he found his keys in the sink—three out of three, awesome—but he had no idea why they were there. The cold female voice told me that the 5 boroughs would likely be drenched in rain all day and asked if he would like to call a car to get to work.
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday, Apr…”
“Yeah yeah yeah.” Fuck, he thought. I cannot fucking handle going to work today. “Send my boss a voicemail, record on three.”
“Three, two, one…” and the computer emitted a tone.
“Hey Steven, it’s Philip,” he said at no one in particular, affecting the most authentic sounding sick-voice he could muster this early in the day. “I’m feeling a little under the weather today, so I think I’m going to stay home. I’ll be on my phone if you need me. Bye.” And then to the computer, “Ok, kill it.”
He sat at his kitchen table, holding the cup of coffee in his hands, allowing the warmth to spread through his hands and into his wrists. He was starting to feel a different kind of lightness in his head, but couldn’t tell if that was the caffeine, tiredness, or the drugs kicking in. Probably the last, but either of the first two were ok too. He sat in silence for a moment and then told the computer to turn on some music, but nothing too loud. The computer settled on some piano music he couldn’t place, but he liked how soft and repetitive it was. It sounded like a rainy day feels, appropriate for this sort of gray morning with his head swimming and life out of focus. His body swayed slightly. Jolts of electricity made his hands twitch.
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