When Jack awoke it was a little after sunrise. With some difficulty, he opened his eyes ever so slightly. His head exploded. Thudding hammer-blows ricocheted throughout his cranium before settling in and just behind his eyes. His mouth both tasted and felt like he had used it first to clean a rat cage, and then to partially consume the inhabitants, save for some bits of rat-hide which still adhered to his tongue. Waves of roiling nausea assaulted his abdomen. The bed listed and veered like a canoe in rough surf. He didn't feel too good.
He lay there motionless, eye tightly screwed shut, and catalogued his symptoms. After a minute he realized that he didn't have ebola (which had been his first guess) but was merely hung over. It was the hangover from Hell. It must have been one hell of a party. "Wait," he thought, "I don't go to parties." He sat up, eyes still shut, then lay right back down again when both the bed and his stomach made a strong sideways lurch. "I'll never do that again," he thought. Problem was, the bathroom was the next room over. To get there he had to get up first. Just what he loved to start his day, an insoluble problem.
After a few minutes, he knew he had to get up now. His bladder, full beyond capacity, had removed the element of choice from consideration. Slowly, like a large ship being warped to a dock, he began to raise himself. There were a few minor protests from stomach and bed, but before too long he was sitting. Then, with equal slowness, he raised himself to his feet. Listing first to right, then to left, he managed to shuffle into the bathroom.
Sometime later he was dressed and moving slowly and delicately around his living room. His head felt like it would explode if he moved it too vigorously. Despite the clutter, he could tell that things had been disturbed slightly. The usual stack of books and dry cleaning which resided in the armchair had been moved. There were two glasses with a residue of scotch in them. One had lipstick on it, a color Jack called to himself Hooker Hot Pink. So there had been a woman here last night. He searched his memory of last night, between the continuing hammer-blows. After awhile he did remember Sully's bar, and a barmaid, and, for some reason, Yonkers. "I'll remember more, later, when this hangover fades," he thought, "That is, if I am sure I want to remember."