I was surrounded in crumbs, the sun coming up, the flesh of my mouth roof peeling from the heat of hot pizza. It was the end to my day, the kind that makes Sunday feel like Monday, the kind that reminds you that you're old. Probably a good thing. It was her 21st birthday, although you'd swear she'd turned it long ago. A 21st birthday means a night of free drinking means a night of keeping up. Never What are you having but What are we having. Pours and rocks and shots and spills and a sticky hand. When a bar closed it only meant we had to find one that was open, we had to get a couple bottles to keep in our jackets. A party is a good excuse for anything and it often is. I, for one, decided to go back in time to when I never did these types of things and do them. For one night only I was barely legal, I was unbeatable unstoppable unsinkable, I was unaware that there was anything known as a tomorrow. And turned around and in the dark and left alone I was overcome with a hunger so deep and dire I had no choice but to walk the mile to the 24-hour convenience store for rations, which I made as the day dawned and ate on my bed as it stared me square in my distorted face. Overfull, sauce-burned, flakes of pepper on my sheets, I could fend off sleep no more. And in the fraction of a second before I succumbed I knew that in fact another day was coming, that it was already here, and that I was missing it. And what a depressing thought that is to have as you begin to dream. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.
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