One - The Morning After

Harry awoke to the rhythmic metallic banging inside his skull. His temples were throbbing to the beat of a surly inmate pounding the bars in an adjoining cell to get attention. Harry was far better dressed than the eleven other lost souls that surrounded him. He rubbed his temples with both hands, then moved to his forehead. For good measure, he rubbed his nose, hoping to channel the pain away from his cranium. The blow to the back of his neck yesterday had left him with cascading pain across his shoulders and back, and migraine-style headaches.

Harry straightened in his filthy bunk, pulled off the coarse gray wool blanket, and pushed himself up, swinging his legs over the edge. The stale smell of urine mixed with the sickly sweet smell of sweat and booze nearly made him gag. He held his breath, and then resumed breathing as shallowly as he could. He slipped off the bunk slowly, stretching to his full height. It seemed every muscle was reacting to the trauma to his neck, including his stomach and esophagus. Harry felt very queasy this morning, more than usual.

Harry needed a drink. Badly. And the moment he realized it, the need grew even more painful. It was much like that gash he got years ago. His eyes traced the scar on his right hand. He'd hardly felt it until he actually saw the blood and acknowledged the injury. At that moment, the pain seared him to the bone. Which confirmed that, without a doubt, ignorance was bliss.

As the fog lifted from his brain, he realized he was in a normal drunk tank, surrounded by a diverse variety of inmates. He should have been in a secluded cell, where cops were normally placed for their own protection. He would have felt humiliated if he weren’t so angry for being endangered in this way by his fellow officers. Harry hoped he hadn’t spoken out in his sleep.

God, he needed a drink.

Another rub on his temples, and his eyes to remove the last hazy remnants of his fitful sleep, and he surveyed his ragtag group of cellmates. Always the cop, he assessed the environment for risk factors before proceeding. His cellmates were a harmless-looking bunch of men who ranged in age from their late teens to early sixties. Their moods were, with the exception of the gentleman banging nearby, introspective and self-absorbed, frustrated, humiliated. Like Harry, a couple of the older gentlemen were in obvious pain and needed liquid fortification. One particularly well-dressed man had a pitted, red-nosed, sallow complexion, and his eyes had a distinctly yellowish tinge.