BooksBarbecue
Back At Dawn
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

A dry, ticklish sensation spread behind my face and all ten fingers tingled. I was finally able to smile. As I had guessed, Jeff was now standing beside Frank talking to one of the other girls. He had always had a way with women. I turned to the dance floor. Several girls danced in groups and clusters of men were scattered around them. I looked back and forth from the floor to the table. My first crossroad. I could do the responsible thing and go back to the table, drink for free and leave at a decent time to get an early start in the morning, or I could stay right where I was and dance. I glanced between the two a final time, then turned towards the smoky dance floor and bobbed my head to the music.

three

1

I OPENED MY EYES to a pounding headache, throbbing bladder, a hazy recollection of the night before. I remembered walking to the dance floor, remembered dancing. Everything after was a blur. A slight whisper of anger, of frustration and sadness. Did I dream it?

The apartment was silent. The air was cool and gray and shapeless; watery sunlight broke through the two treated windows and threw jagged shadows across the floor. Friday morning, slightly after ten. I was crazed with thirst but hurt too badly to move. It took five minutes of deep breathing to finally gather the strength to nudge the covers aside. I hobbled to the bathroom and downed three Advil with sink water before crawling back beneath the blankets. I shivered violently though I wasn’t cold. I lay there twenty minutes feeling sorry for myself. I tried fighting down the inevitable vomit but it was futile. I made a mad dash to the toilet, vomiting first the water and then only air and the occasional string of bile. I couldn’t stop shivering.

I flushed the toilet with my cheek against the seat and stood with a helpless sigh. I took three more Advil. The water sloshed in my stomach as I walked back to the bedroom. I hoped I could keep it down this time. I curled into a ball and buried my head beneath the pillow. I closed my eyes. When I next reopened them the clock on the wall read two. I rolled to my side and looked at the slivers of light coming in the room where the blinds pulled away from the nearest window, beside which hung a painting of a man and a boy climbing into a small boat with a pole and tackle box in each hand, both smiling, the dawn of a new day, the surface of the lake a calming sheet of glass. On the adjacent wall hung a second painting, this of a white-haired old man with his hand pressed to the side of his unshaven and deeply wrinkled face, hard eyes staring out at the world contemptuous of everything they saw.