***
Waking up sucks. Why is it still so dark? Ow. Why does my head hurt so much? Why is this awful taste in my mouth? Why is my mouth so dry?
Wait. Where am I? This is not my room. Why am I on the floor? Whose floor is this?
Hold on. Why is the room spinning? I'm not moving. Why is the room moving?
Oh my God. I'm going to throw up. Who put this trash can next to me? Who cares? I'd better use it now.
***
Oh, thank God. I feel so much better now. Not great, but better.
Man, I wonder whose trash can I just threw up in. Because this is definitely not my room. How did I end up here?
What the hell happened?
***
Bits and pieces.
Lemon kiss. With tongue.
Live band playing in the next room. Do I want to dance? Sure.
Walking. Stumbling. Tripping. Falling. Nope. I can't dance.
Barb, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spill that on you.
Time to call it a night? Fuck off, Morris. I'm just getting started.
We're leaving? Already? But we just got here. What do you mean we've been here for two and a half hours? That's impossible.
Shut up. No, we're not leaving. You're leaving. Asshole.
Last call? Hell yeah, Barb, I want a beer. Hell no, Jill, I don't need a glass of water.
Barb, where are you going? I thought we were getting along so well.
Jill, where's Barb going? Why is she with that guy?
Jill? Jill! Where are you going? Please! Don't leave me here by myself!
***
Holy shit. If I told Morris to leave, and if Barb and Jill deserted me…then where the hell am I now?
Oh my God. I'm in someone's bedroom. There's someone in the bed. Asleep. Breathing. Snoring. Who is it?
I'm too scared to look.
What should I do? Should I pray?
Oh God, I'm so sorry I did this. Please, please, let me be safe in some normal person's bedroom. Please don't let me be in, like, Hannibal Lecter's house or something.
Wait. Simon. Be reasonable. Your head was on a pillow. Would a psycho have bothered to put a pillow under your head and a trash can next to you? No. You're safe.
You have to be safe.
You have to get home!
Where's a clock? There's one! 5:08 A.M. Maybe I can get home before anyone wakes up. There's still time!
But how am I going to get home when I don't even know where I am?
Call a cab! No. That wouldn't work. I would need to be able to tell the cab where to pick me up.
Take a bus! There's still some money left over from last night. Isn't there?
Oh God. No money. My wallet is empty. This is insane. How could I possibly have spent that much last night?
Think, Simon, think.
All I can think is, who is asleep in that bed?
But I'm too scared to look.
But I have to look.
I'm creeping over to the bed, ever so quietly…
Creeping…
Creeping…
Looking…
Looking…
***
"Wake up. Wake up!"
"What…what? Oh, you're alive. Good morning, Simon."
"The hell it is. What the hell am I doing here?"
"What are you doing here? Well, the way I see it, you didn't have any other place to go last night. Whether you knew it or not, I was keeping an eye on you all night at the bar. I saw you end up alone and I felt kind of bad for you, so I brought you back here and looked after you. After all, you getting drunk last night was partially my fault."
"What? No it wasn't. Getting drunk last night was entirely my fault. I was acting just plain…out of control. Wow…I probably would have been really screwed if you hadn't looked out for me. So, I guess, thanks for giving me a place to crash last night. And, by the way, I'm sorry. I threw up in your garbage can."
"Yeah, I know; I had never seen someone puke as much as you did last night."
"No, I meant this morning."
"Damn!"
"Listen, you've already done a lot, but would it be possible for you to do me one more huge, giant favor?"
"What's that, Simon?"
"Could you possibly take me home? Like, right now?"
"Sure. Let's go."
***
As a principle, Simon hated mornings: morning breath, foggy-headedness, the god-awful sound of that alarm, wanting just five, ten, fifteen minutes more of sleep. But this, by far, had to be the worst morning he had ever had. Waking up on someone else's bedroom floor, vomiting, with a pounding headache to boot? Certainly this must be the downside of drinking that he had been cautioned about so often.
Still, things could have turned out so much worse. He had had a blast last night, as far as he could remember. He had been kindly taken in and taken care of when the night had ended. And now, there was still an outside chance that he could get home and sneak in the house without anyone noticing him.
Yup, things could definitely be worse.
***
"Turn left here."
"OK."
"So, um, what do you recommend for a hangover?"
"Ah. I get asked that a lot. The best things you can do are just to rest and drink lots of water. I don't recommend taking aspirin or anything like that, because it does long-term liver damage if you take that stuff after drinking. Also if you can get any food to stay down, try eating fruit. Fruit is usually pretty good at absorbing any alcohol that's left in your stomach."
"I don't think there's anything left in my stomach."
"Heh, you're probably right."
"So, what exactly happened after Barb and Jill left me? Because that's the last thing I remember."
"Hey, I'm not surprised that's the last thing you remember. After your 'girlfriends' left you, you crawled into an empty booth and passed out. Spike, the bouncer, was about to call campus police and have them take you away, but I stopped him."
"Wow. Thanks. I can't imagine how badly my parents would have freaked out if they had had to pick me up from jail."
"Exactly, and then if the police and your parents found out where you got drunk, the bar would have gotten shut down and lost its license. Spike's not exactly the brightest bulb."
"Turn right here, and my house is three blocks down on the right. Actually, why don't you just stop here and I'll walk the rest of the way? That way no one will hear a car engine or a car door, you know? Hopefully I can sneak into the house and not wake anyone up."
"Good luck with that. Hey, Simon, before you go, why don't you take one of my business cards."
"What for?"
"Well, I like you, and I remember when I was your age how hard it used to be to get alcohol. So, I'm just saying, if you ever want me to, you know, hook you up with anything, just give me a call, OK? Later…."
Without waiting to see Simon's reaction, Jack sped down the street, toward the rising sun, in his convertible.