The Morning After

It was a typical Tuesday morning and I stumbled out of bed and promptly started nursing the latest hangover I had to add to the collection of blurry memories and headaches that I had been experiencing a lot lately. I didn’t know what I was running from or waiting for but at least the nausea and pain in where I think my liver once was let me know I was still alive. Great. I spent way too much money last night and the cigarette hanging out of the side of my mouth reminds me how much I must smell like the floor of a bar. Just another day in paradise.

I eventually found my sunglasses which had secured themselves to my coffee table with the cunning use of spilled beer and whiskey. I never could stop at one. I dragged my ass to the fridge seeking anything cold and sweet. Sadly, all the cola that I did have was in glasses scattered around the room and they were all mixed with some sort of booze or cigarette butts…not my idea of a wholesome breakfast. I headed out of my hole-in-the-wall motel and went to find somewhere to eat something.

I walked into a restaurant where the ting of the bell above the door woke the ‘chef’ and the waitress that were leaning on the wall between the kitchen and the fine dining area. I glanced up and caught a glimpse of him wiping the left-overs of a head cold off his moustache. He looked roughly as excited about life as I was. I found myself wondering about the people that came into this establishment and imagined that the beer must be great because no one in their right mind would come here for the food unless they were very brave, very stupid or very desperate. ‘Mary Lou’ grabbed a tattered menu and showed me to a booth by the window. ‘Lovely’, I thought to myself. ‘Now I can watch society’s reject bin roll by while I cut into my carefully-prepared nondescript lump of grease’.

  I was the only one there so I couldn’t imagine why she looked confused when scanning the tables to find somewhere to seat me. I ordered coffee…the only thing I thought may be cockroach-free. The scent of it coming out of the percolator was a welcome smell to mask the cold, stale stench of wood polish and broken dreams. ‘Mary Lou’ came back with my coffee. I think I was wrong about the cockroaches. She was clearly air-headed but while rambling off the specials of the day, she shot a look at my hands and blinked nervously. When I woke up I had been to hungover to notice the blood clumped beneath my finger nails…´I guess that explains the body in the bathroom’, I thought to myself. I really should lay off the booze…