Stirred on the couch, not even 7am. Someone aiming a blowtorch through the bay window of Garvey’s living room. Debris and detritus on the coffee table, something humming behind my eyes. It was hot as shit in that room. I threw aside the blanket and sat up, sat in the dark half-dark a minute. Looked across at the other couch and saw Louis curled up. What time would he have gone to bed?
Last night was the same story. I stuck to the hard lemonades but these boys love their sniff. Eyes soaring wide like savannah, teeth on the gnash. Last thing I remember was them comparing Springsteen albums like it was a boxing weigh-in. Crashed out nice and smart, dead to the world.
And then I wake up and the world is dead to me. Roll a cigarette, make a coffee, go outside to smoke and drink on the silent street. I had a crazy idea to walk down to the beach. It was beach weather after all. But what the shit would I do at the beach? Then a line from Mad Men began to rattle around my bonce like a fly trying to find an open window: I better go and learn a bunch of people’s names before I fire them. Pretty soon that particular fly found its way out and I started having big dreams of stories I could tell that would wake the world up.
The cigarette went right to my head, broke out in sweats, more sweats. Had to put out a hand to the wall to steady myself. A hangover like this is a real meal, it’s a goddamn recipe of pining, restlessness, yearning, nostalgia, melancholy, and depression. One minute you’re feeling good in your soft melancholy, yearning happily and then BAM, restlessness, depression. Nothing takes hold.
In Russian they call that Toska. Some chap told me that in the beer garden down in the Big Smoke, said it was an untranslatable word. Well if he was here now I’d tell him we do have a word for it in English: it’s hangover.
Checked my phone. Still not 7. I spent a whole while trying to work out when the rest of the troops would rise from their foxholes and what the hell I could do in the meantime. I docked out the cigarette half-done, poured the coffee down the drain and went inside to get dressed.
Popped down to Bernie’s for a fat breakfast, tried to find the right music to soothe my restless head. No dice. Got the text from Garvey: where you at? Good question my man, good question. Finished up the beans and the bacon, paid Bernie and took a walk with the grease seeping through my sweat-coated skin. Odd feeling, walking when you aren’t sure where to go. Maybe like me you know where you wanna go but you’re sure it isn’t the right thing to do.
I checked the time. Maybe she’d be up by now.
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Cover Image: Megan Carty Art