You Live Once

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I have never awakened easily. I have always had a sneaking envy for those people who seem to be able to bound out of bed, functioning perfectly. I have to use two alarm clocks on work mornings.

The prolonged hammering at my door finally awakened me. I groped blindly for my bathrobe, and shouldered into it as I walked heavily, still drugged with sleep, from the bedroom of my apartment out through the living room to the front door.

I knew that it was a Sunday morning in May, and knew that I had a truly sickening headache, far out of proportion to the drinking I had done on Saturday night — two cocktails before dinner and two widely spaced highballs afterward. I wondered if I had been poisoned by something I had eaten. The headache seemed focused over my right ear in a tender area as big as an apple. My hangover headaches are aches that go straight through. And why the sore spot?

I opened my front door and squinted at the two men standing on the shallow front stoop in the bright morning sunshine. One was in uniform and one was not. Their prowl car stood where I usually park my car. I remembered where my car was.

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