I Woke Next to the Corpse by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

The Morning After

Something awakened me from my pleasant reverie and I involuntarily opened my squinty eyes to the sun which was intruding upon them, reet uninvited, through the minimally draped, floor to ceiling windows which overlooked the East River. The drizzle of the last few days had ended.

Her back to me, I was lying next to Elsa on the hard floor. The only sound was the low muffled wadump-wadump-wadump of the turntable’s needle as it repeatedly went over the grooves which were supposed to send it a signal to retract and shut down. I was kind of groggy and didn’t want to move for fear of regurgitating the party grub I didn’t recall eating.

I touched Elsa, and found her to be as warm as my heater which was lying between us. Blah. The side effects from the mickey which had knocked me out reminded me of being hungover. I had an all over headache, my stomach was riding on seas that were a little rough, I was tired, and I couldn’t deal with the bright sunshine. My noodle was a bit wonky with creatures, presumably not of this earth, making their presences known whenever I closed my eyes. I really didn’t feel like I was completely here.

Unfair! I was living through the excruciating morning after without having retained any semblance of the fun from the night

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before. What happened to the dancing, the loud music and the laughs? It’s so weird. I guess the dosage level ingested really hit me. That Sambo bartender, imported for the party, must have kept feeling a need to do more, as I kept coming back for refills.

I heard a door close gently, as if it didn’t want to be heard.

It was mistaken, though appreciated; only calling attention to its existence through its much too obvious efforts to do otherwise. Sauntering through inconsequential irrelevance after inconsequential irrelevance, I found it personally amusing to know that I was not necessarily the last one to leave.

Ooops, I had a second thought about things, and decided that happiness is not always a warm gun. I sat up and picked it up, to see that Elsa was bleeding from the chest. A lot. I tried to shake her, but just got the limp flop of overcooked spaghetti. A stack of C-notes were staring at me from her far side by her feet. I counted out five large; enough to buy a Jake house, a sports car, and still have some poke left over for vacations. It was more tempting than Margie’s gams, and I also realized that if I took and got caught with it, it would be seen as tantamount to a confession. That thought lasted a fraction of a second, after which I picked it up, put it in my now fat wallet, and pocketed it with my warm gun.

I Woke Next to the Corpse