Sound and Fury
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by the secret police. He felt bad.
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Rather than suffer the unending procession of cretins, fools and charlatans last night with a clear head, I drank myself silly. It was probably for the best, as the party was decidedly lame. I spent most of the night standing around with my dick in hand and feeling like a complete idiot. Because, of course, IAMANIDIOT. If there’s anything to be learned from my past few years in New York, it’s that you should always make nice with the bartender, so as to secure a free drink or two, and you should never give a lame party a second chance. Cut your losses and run, run, run away.
There were some oldies who wanted us to dance with them. I was like, not. Then we listened to the bartender bitch about various things for half an hour or so. I think it’s a fucking requirement that you have to be pissed off about something if you want to make it as a bartender. I’ve never met one who thinks the world is fine just the way it is. But we did get a couple free drinks. Then, after standing around for ages we finally homed in on a hot Indian girl and her not-so-hot friend with the frizzy mop hair. Now, as a serious connoisseur of pussy, it’s a personal goal of mine to plumb an Indian chick someday. I’ve had several close calls in my life but I’ve yet to gain access to quality Indian pink. The girls, however, were just posing. They droned on and on about nothing important.
We sat for a while on one of the sofas and chatted with this girl Leslie had danced with at the last of these parties, which, incidentally, also would have been a complete waste of time had we not found out about the loft parties in Brooklyn. She was, I believe, half-Black, clad only in a peach thong and matching skimpy top. The girl was rolling on ecstasy and on the hunt for cocaine. She told us, all too casually, that her boyfriend is some sort of high-priced whore. I turned my head a little and raised the too-much-information eyebrow at no one in particular. After listening to us critique the party the girl made a rather sporting effort to introduce us to some other people.
A little while later I was standing, bored, in the far back room of the bar, a clandestine speakeasy smoking section where various topless girls were making out as guys stood around and watched, having this conversation with a guy who recognized me from the last party. Leslie appeared with some nice trim in tow. The girl was tall, I believe five-foot-eleven and perhaps six-two in heels, fresh-faced, blonde, equipped with pouty lips and topped with a beret. I told her tall girls can’t fuck. “No! Sex is my specialty,” she bubbled. The young cockslayer went on to mention that she had entertained three gentlemen just this week, in fact. I excused myself to go take a piss.
Later on, head spinning, I found myself in a cab with Leslie on the way to an after party. When we arrived the fare was three dollars and seventy cents, which I made an even five. As Leslie and I entered the overbright lobby of yet another charmless New York apartment building, the guy who invited us showed up with his two girls, both short sluts in black dresses, one with dark hair and the other dyed blonde. One of them was constantly laughing but I never really did have a good and proper look at her, or at anyone really. I wonder what was so fucking funny?
We were greeted at the door by the host and his clearly irritated yet slightly hot girlfriend. We were the only guests aside from the other guy and his little harem. It’s a testament to how drunk I was that the proffered Bud Light tasted almost agreeable to me. We plopped onto the bed with the harem while the host, way over on the couch against the back wall of this studio apartment, did something to his girlfriend that caused her to moan. The laughing girl’s head fell into my lap. Leslie and I felt laughing girl’s breasts over her dress and Leslie pulled the fabric down a bit to suck on a nipple.
After I rose to relieve myself, Leslie and the laughing girl had apparently exchanged some sharp words, because when I returned from the bathroom laughing girl was propped on the edge of the bed, no longer giggling. I asked what was going on. Leslie instructed me to ignore the girl. Further prodding on my part revealed that laughing girl had turned up her nose and said “I don’t wanna do anything with that guy,” or something similar, in reference to me. It hardly mattered, since the other harem girl seemed quite willing to play, but this incident killed what little mood there was. As if to confirm the lameness of the proceedings, the host’s girlfriend, still ensconced on the couch across the room, implored us to get naked. Leslie started to suck my cock but by then I was so numb it was as if my penis was just some flap of dead skin hanging between my legs. Feeling a bit queasy, I briefly contemplated running to the bathroom to be sick, but thought better of it. And then, in what was almost a relief, the host kicked all of us out.
When we got home I could have sworn I went straight to bed and passed out. Yet I awoke this morning and in the bleary-eyed consternation of my hangover discovered that I had somehow brutalized one of our potted plants. Even more disturbing, Leslie’s fancy thong had been completely ripped apart and Leslie lay not in bed with me but out on the couch. Neither of us could remember what happened.
And this is how I was reminded of that most famous literary hangover of all time.
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