CHAPTER NINE

The following is an excerpt from the book Stream of Unconsciousness available on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble website.

“Good morning, Daddy,” came the sweet, singsong voice echoing through my aching head. “Mom says we’re late, but I wanted to kiss you goodbye.”

There she was. Seven-thirty a.m. and my beautiful Jennifer was standing in front of me in her neatly ironed school uniform. The sleeve of her shirt wore the signs of another breakfast I had missed. I could barely see through the slits that were my eyes, but from what I could tell it looked like she had eaten something with blueberry jam on it.

“Sorry if I woke you,” she said, concernedly.

We adored each other. She was my sweet innocent little girl and I was her lying alcoholic drug addict father, suffering from yet another horrendous hangover. I tried to respond to her with my been-awake-for-thirty-minutes voice.

“You didn’t wake me, sweetheart,” I managed to say over the intense pounding in my brain. “I was just resting, thinking about the day.” Yeah, sure, resting and thinking while snoring, with my eyes closed. “Have a great day Jennifer, I love you.”

“Love you, too, Dad,” she said, leaning down to give me a kiss. “See you later.”

From downstairs I heard the familiar morning screams from Nicholas, “COME ON JENNIFER! WE’RE LATE! LOVE YOU DAD, SEE YA”

I really hated when I had to yell back. It only served to amplify my pounding headache, “I LOVE YOU TOO NICHOLAS! HAVE FUN AT SCHOOL!”

What was that? Have fun at school? Obviously your mind is slower than ever this morning. Who the fuck has fun at school?

The front door slammed and they were off. Shit. It was 7:30 and I had been interrupted in the midst of some long overdue sleep. I had no idea what time I actually got to sleep. All I knew was that I could have easily slept until eleven or even noon, and quite frankly there were many times that I did. Today, though, I would not. There were a lot of things I had to do at work and there was no way I could blow it off.

In addition, aside from the normal vagaries of work, I planned to call my mother-in-law and put her on the spot to see if she had anything to do with the guy following me, so I definitely couldn’t go back to sleep. Damn, leading a double life replete with lies, drugs and people tailing me could be so inconvenient!

Time for the ceremonial first step out of bed — always a surprise what would happen. Would it be a mad dash to the toilet to throw up? Would I fall back into bed and rest my battered brain for a few more hours? Would earth’s gravitational pull deplete the blood from my head, causing me to lose balance and fall to my knees? Or, would I get up, go to the bathroom and perform standard early-morning bathroom procedures like any normal person?

After taking a few steps it became clear immediately that it was going to be a throwing up morning for me. I gathered my strength and ran to the toilet. The eight-yard toilet dash was completed in well under four seconds. Not a record, but at least I made it to the toilet. There had been more than a few mornings where I was not fortunate enough to make it to the finish line.

I reached the bowl and assumed the throw-up pose, which, after so much practice, I had perfected. It was a derivation of a yoga position I learned years ago before yoga began to interfere with my drug use. Kneeling down, with my butt resting on my ankles, I leaned forward in the direction of the bowl, my arms stretched forward, grasping the porcelain bowl much like a driver grips the steering wheel of a Greyhound Bus. It was usually at about this point where my stomach contents would come hurling out, and this morning was no different. Afterward, as usual, my stomach was quite relieved to rid itself of the toxic fluids, and, once the spasms and dry heaves ended, so was I.

Analyzing my stomach contents was another one of my interesting morning rituals. The various colors of alcohol that I poured into my system always came out in shades I never could have predicted. Today, the color de jour was a subtle shade of lime green.

Despite the lovely distraction of viewing bile, though, throwing up was nevertheless a traumatic event. After I finished, my stomach felt as though it had been beaten with a baseball bat. My eyes watered and they became even more bloodshot than before (and that’s saying something!).

After piecing myself together in the bathroom, I went into my closet to get dressed. There was always a level of nervous anticipation at this point of the day as I wondered how much coke, if any, was still left over from the night before. So much rode on this moment: the rest of the day could either be exhilarating or miserable, depending on what I found in my coke pocket……