Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [18]
I wake up just a few hours later and I feel wrong. I’m not sure where or who or what I am. Bud is meowing up a storm. I look over the edge of the bed and am pleased to see I didn’t throw up on the floor in the middle of the night. I’m wearing all my clothes and the lights are on and something about my pants and the way they fit is off. I don’t need to look. I can feel it. I’ve pissed myself in my sleep. I’ve pissed myself and crapped myself.
I try to get up without sitting. I try to roll off the bed because I don’t want to sit in the crap in my pants. I roll off and stand. I’m half-drunk and half-hungover. My stomach is a pile of nausea and my head feels like it’s floating painfully a foot above my shoulders. I stumble to the shower and get in with my clothes on. I run the water hot and strip off my filthy pants and underwear. I push my clothes into a pile in a corner of the shower and clean myself in the scalding water. Then I turn the water to cold and stand in the icy blast as long as I can. Shivering badly from the booze and the cold, I towel off. Bud is still making a racket while I dress in clean jeans and a sweatshirt. The blankets on my bed are untouched, but the sheets are urine stained. I strip them off. I bundle the sheets into a black plastic garbage bag and stuff my dirty clothes on top. I pull on some sneakers and limp painfully downstairs to the street.
Outside I dump the bag of filth on the curb with the rest of the garbage. I stand hunched against the bright morning sun and the alien feel of my body. I look around and Jason is standing a few feet away, leaning against a wall mumbling to himself. And the shame I feel overwhelms me. I have no reason, no right, to do this to myself. Life has been good to me. Life has been good to me. I say it out loud:
—Life has been good to me.
I know it’s true, but I don’t believe it. I look at New York. I don’t want to be here anymore, in this city. I’m just tired of it, I’m tired of my life here. I want to go home, and I’m not sure how to do that.
I go to breakfast. I go to the diner and order bacon and eggs and lots of water and OJ. My kidney, the one still there, aches in a hot, swollen way, but I don’t know what to do about it. The missing kidney just hurts in an open wound sort of way. I woke too early and now I’m getting the best of both worlds: the nasty end of my drunk and the leading edge of the hangover. Nothing seems quite real; it’s all fogged over and I’m having trouble putting last night back together. My food comes and, as I eat, I try to figure it all out.
I panicked. I was very scared and wanted out of my apartment and I ran to Paul’s just a block away. I smoked a joint in the can with someone and at some point I just went ahead and had the first drink. But first I talked with Edwin. We talked about the job, but I also asked him a favor. Did I ask him for a loan? No. Did I ask for help finding another job? No. He’s doing something for me. I feel in the pockets of my jacket for clues and come up with Detective Roman’s card.
Did I call him last night after the cowboys left? Did I tell him about the note? Fuck, was the note still there this morning? I can’t remember. I’ll have to call him. Fuck, I’ll have to call him and tell him I can’t remember if I called him last night. That should do wonders for my credibility. Fuck it, I’m gonna call him, I’m gonna call him and tell him about the cowboys and the key and just get this the fuck over with. But first I’m gonna go home and feed Bud because I just realized that’s what the little shit was making all the noise about. On my way out I see a paper on the counter flipped open to the box scores. The Giants took another one from Colorado, and New York choked in extra innings. One back, three to go. And as sad as it sounds, that makes me feel better.
When I turn the corner onto my block, I freak out. Down the street, just past my door, two guys are fucking with Jason. The hangover is so bad, everything about my body feels detached and my brain has given the whole day a