A Growing Problem

I wake up, and for a moment I feel like a kid in a hotel room.  I have no idea where I am or how I got here.  Later, I'll realize that this isn?t what kids in hotel rooms feel like, because when kids feel this, they also feel like they should be home.  I think kids are the only ones who can really get that feeling, because kids are the only ones who really have homes.  Anyway, that's almost how I feel now.  Almost.

I'm on the couch at Nick's apartment, and that's about all I know.  I stand up and try to get to the bathroom, but my legs are too weak and I have to sit on the chair halfway there.  After a minute I try again, and this time I can walk all the way.

As I drink the obligatory glass of water, I search my brain for the memory of last night.  The hardest thing to do when you have a hangover, I think, is to remember things.  You can drive, and eat, and fill out forms, since those things are all external.  But when you're hung-over everything is going on inside your head, and so remembering things is twice as hard.  In any case, I know that I came to Nick's house in a car I borrowed from my father.  We went to a party in Nick's car; I got drunk.  Figuring that's enough to go on, I drink another glass of water, pick up my coat, and leave.

The sky is overcast, which is lucky for me, since I can't handle daylight on mornings like these.  But when I get to my father's car my luck runs out; I can't find my keys.  His keys.  I empty my pockets onto the hood: a lighter, my wallet, a receipt for a sub sandwich, a pack of Marlboro 27's, a pencil, and a dime.  No keys.  A thorough check back in the apartment turns up nothing.

I push Nick in the arm and say his name a little louder than either of us would like.  He wakes, and I ask him if he took my keys so that I couldn?t drive home, a fairly common practice among friends and drunks.  He denies it, then goes back to sleep.

Walking home, I consider my predicament.  I had to beg my father just to borrow the car; I can?t tell him that I lost his keys.  "I'll find the keys," I resolve, and just then a car pulls up behind me.  It's my friend Sasha.  She offers me a ride home.  I accept.

"So what now?" she asks, after I tell her everything.

"Now I'll get the spare keys, go back to the car, and drive back to the party.  It's the only place I went last night.  I think.  My keys are there."  I used to have a crush on Sasha.  I still do, actually.  She looks at me funny, like I'm a stranger.

"What?"  I ask.

"Nothing.  It?s just...you look...I dunno, older."

"What?"

"You look older.  I can't explain it."  She never was good at explaining herself.

"Don't say that.  Don't say I look older.  I don?t want to look older."  I mean it too.  "Fuck that, Sosh.  You start looking old and next thing you are old. I don't want to be old, with kids.  It's depressing, sitting there."

"All right, you don't look older,?"she says.

I continue.  "The world forgets about you, you know? At least now we feel like it matters.  But you get old, your kids don't care about you, your friends don't care.  Getting old means learning that everything you did meant shit to the world.  I don't want that."

"All right.  Jesus.  Sorry."  She really sounds sorry, too, which makes me feel like an asshole.

Sosh doesn't offer me a ride back.

I creep into the house, careful not to wake my father.  I can hear him snoring, even though his door is closed.  I silently sneak into the bathroom and get the extra set of keys out of the cabinet.  I have no idea why we keep the keys in the bathroom cabinet but that's where they are.  Keeping quiet, I get out of the bathroom and out of the house.  The whole time I hear my father snoring from a bedroom which to this day I have never entered.

This time I have to walk all the way back to my car at Nick's apartment.  The whole time I keep thinking about my conversation with Sasha, and how I fucked it up.  What's worse, she wasn't the first person that I've unleashed on lately.  It's a growing problem, and I want to stop doing it but...everyone I talk to is always going somewhere, in a way that I despise.  The only ones how aren't are the old people, who probably went somewhere long before I was born and have stayed there ever since.  And that's not what I want, but everywhere I look that's where people are going, so I end up going too.  And that's why I get angry with people like Sasha: I just want them to stop moving.

By the time I get there the clouds have parted and the sun beats down heavily, and my hangover is still killing me.  I climb in the car and find it's so blisteringly hot that I have to open the doors and let it cool for a minute.  Then, with the second set of borrowed keys, I get in and drive back to the party.

The apartment where I went to the party is nice.  It's in a little neighborhood in a good part of the city, right on the river.  I feel bad showing up, since I don?t know any of the guys that live here.  But I would feel worse without these keys, so I ring the doorbell.

A stubbly kid whose appearance puts my hangover to shame opens the door and says that he hasn't found any keys, but I can look around.  The apartment is littered with large white garbage bags overflowing with empty cans and bottles.  In the living room a couple kids that apparently were born on the couches there are watching a home movie.  I move past them and begin to search the apartment.

I check everywhere I can think of: the basement, the bedroom where I threw my coat, the kitchen, the fridge.  I check the bathroom, and one of the roommates stops me to ask why I'm looking in the cabinet.  "I have no idea what I did last night," I answer, and go back to searching.

I find nothing.  Lastly, I ask the guys in the living room to move so I can check the couches, but still come up empty-handed.  I put the cushions back on and fall back onto them, succumbing to the will of my battered head.  I watch what's on the TV; it's a tape of the party from last night.  I don't really know these guys, though, so I?m not in it.  I can only watch so much of people yelling and being drunk before I thank them and open the door to leave.  Just as I walk out the door, I hear one of them yell to me,

"Hey dude.  Is that you?"

I look on the screen and - sure enough - there I am, outside, being filmed through the window.  The image is dark, but I can see myself lit up by streetlights.  The camera zooms in on me a bit.  I have no recollection of ever being outside.

The real me sits down on the couch and watches more.  On screen, I stumble and sway as I make my way towards...where am I going?  It's obvious to me now that I had some destination in mind, but watching my drunken doppelganger I can only guess.  I fall, then stand up and walk towards the river.

"Where?s he going?" asks the cameraman, who probably never imagined that I would see this tape.

My image makes it to a lamppost, and I desperately lean on it for support.  The camera zooms in more, and as it does my filmed self reaches into my pocket and pulls something out.  Then, as hard as I can, I throw it into the river.  Even from this distance and through a pane of glass, the camera can hear me shout, "Fuck you!"  Then I fall to my knees and bury my head in my hands.  My body shakes.  The camera turns off.

The guys in the room avoid looking at me, so I thank them again and leave.  Outside, I walk to the lamppost and feel the grass where I now know I knelt the night before.  I touch the grass for the first, maybe the second time. If I hadn?t watched the tape I wouldn?t even know I was here. I walk back to the car, get in, and start it up.  As I drive home, I think about how I will explain all this to my father.

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