Bedpan had just finished an overnight shift at the hospital when he found me. I was sprawled out on the couch.  My boots were still on, hat rested over my eyes.  An empty bottle of Evan Williams set on the floor next to me.  My .45 was disassembled neatly on the coffee table, eight Federal hollow points standing in a row beside it.

Bedpan popped open his phone and speed-dialed his roommate, Mr. Black.

“Who’s the scary looking guy with the gun sleeping in our living room?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, “Ask Willy Pete.”

Willy Pete played dumb, giving Bedpan a nervous jolt.  Bedpan is the poster-child for suburban white America.  Easy going.  Non-confrontational.  How he came to live with those two is beyond me.

I woke shortly after the awkward phone exchange.  My head must have swelled.  Morning sunlight made my eyes water.  A dull throb filled my skull.  My boots thumped the floor as I struggled to sit up, knocking over the empty liquor bottle.

“Hey man.  So, uh . . . what’s with the Glock?”

Bedpan tried to sound conversational.  Uncomfortable was more like it.

“Glock?” I asked.

I slid the pieces back together, chambered a round and eased the slide closed.  I thumbed the decocker and set the gun back on the table.  I squinted up at Bedpan as I squeezed rounds back into the magazine.

“It’s a Sig,” I told him.

Mr. Black and Willy Pete came home soon after.  They laughed at Bedpan’s expense while I put myself back together.  They explained the situation to him and Willy Pete fired up the percolator.  I poured coffee on my hangover.

. . .

It had been five days since I left her.  That headache was the best I’d felt since.

The night I left, I grabbed a handful of clothes, my pistol, and my laptop.  She thought I was bluffing until she saw me heading for the door.  From across the room I could see her eyes go wide.  Her anger dissolved into tears.

I didn’t slam a single door on my way out.

I bounced from couch to couch, trying not to overstay my welcome.  I had half a paycheck to my name.  My options were few and far between.  Mr. Black and I were barely on speaking terms at the time, but he loaned me his couch without hesitation.

It was Saturday morning.  Mr. Black shuffled around the apartment, gathering his bearings.  His band was shooting their first video that afternoon.  He invited me to join them.

It was already hot as Hell.  The video was being filmed in a small space with no air conditioning.  Packed full of sweating hardcore metal fans, the conditions sounded ideal for riding out a hangover.

I rode up separate.  Willy Pete and I made a quick beer run – he had no money – and I wedged my car into a corner of the gravel driveway.  The film crew arrived next, unpacking their gear, followed by several carloads of inky metal-heads.  Last but not least came a Hummer.  The driver and his friend produced a couple of assault rifles from the back seat.

There was a photo shoot first.  The band posed outside holding various weapons, all of them empty.  I stood by quietly with my .45 tucked discretely beneath my shirt.  I locked it in my trunk when we went inside.

The premise was to pack the space with people while the band played.  We thrashed violently, shoulder to shoulder.  The crew filmed the whole thing from every possible angle.  This went on for hours.  I sweat out toxins in the heat while everyone else drank.

During one take, someone tripped over the camera rigging.  The guy next to him stumbled and stepped on his shin.  I heard the crack over the amps.

I left shortly afterward.  The shoot continued, but I made a side trek to her house to collect my things.  We’d hardly spoken since the night I left.  I shoveled my belongings into my trunk as quickly as I could.

Back at Mr. Black’s apartment, I heaved a sigh of relief.  I took my boots off for the first time in two days.  Four years together, five days apart.  I felt hollow and awful and alone.  I lingered in the shower, letting water wash away tears and sweat and grief.

Willy Pete and I made a run to the liquor store.  I grabbed a liter of Wild Turkey and a sandwich, my first real meal all day.  With food in my stomach, I took a pull straight from the bottle.  Willy Pete followed suit.

The day was fading fast.  The windows dimmed, and I could barely see inside the apartment.  Mr. Black pulled me aside.

“Listen, I’ve got some bitches coming over.  If he gets fucked up and turns into an asshole, it’s on you.  Don’t call me looking for help.  He’s your responsibility.”

“I know . . . I’ve got it.”

I took another swig . . .

I woke up on the couch with a searing headache.  My boots were still on.  My shirt lay across the room.  The bottle of Wild Turkey sat on the coffee table, nearly empty.  My left brow was tender to the touch.  My hands ached, my fingers hurt to move.

My memory was completely blank.

One look in the bathroom mirror spoke volumes.  My left eyebrow was swollen.  Blood had glued the gash shut.  It caked in my eyebrow and down the side of my face.  My cheeks were sunken and unshaven, my eyes jaundiced and bloodshot.  The night came back to me in fragments.

I looked like ten miles of rough road.  I felt worse.

Willy Pete was standing in the hall when I opened the bathroom door.  He looked like I felt, minus the blood.  He was holding his head in his hand, and he squinted at me for a moment before his face twisted in surprise.

“What the fuck happened to your face!?”

“You did,” I croaked.

My voice was so whiskey-scarred I could barely speak.  Dirty grey light filtered into the kitchen through a make-shift American flag curtain.   I choked down two aspirin, desperate to alleviate the pain in my head.

I heard the toilet flush and Willy Pete came shuffling in behind me.  I leaned against the counter, chugging water from a coffee mug.

“How’s the head?” I asked.

“Not good.  I feel like someone hit me with a two-by-four.  I can’t remember a fucking thing.  The inside of my cheek is shredded.”

Willy Pete tried to pry open his mouth to show me the extent of the damage.  I could see nothing in the dim light.  I held up my right hand in response, flexing my fingers slowly.  It was going to be a bad day of picking up the pieces.

. . .

We primed ourselves the night before with ephedrine, caffeine, and whiskey.  It was a twenty minute walk to the first bar.  The night was young and the bar was dead.  We lingered for a while, nursing beers.

We debated the second round.  Willy Pete made the executive decision to hike to the bar where he worked.  It was several miles away, and neither of us had money for a cab.  We ordered shots for the road and headed out.

“We are too white to go that way,” I observed, pointing toward the port.  Willy Pete laughed.

We were on the edge of the ghetto.  Going around would mean a lot of extra walking.  We cut through the park instead, shaving time and distance off our trip.

Our destination was at the end of a street full of sport-bikes and neon bars.  The bouncers waved Willy Pete and me inside without a cover and we elbowed through the crowd.  The front bar was jammed up.  A cover band played downstairs.  We headed for the service end of the bar.  Willy Pete introduced me to the manager.

I didn’t pay for a single drink the rest of the night.

Things began to blur.  I throttled back my consumption, ordering water to chase down more go-pills.  This was not a night for chasing tail.  Willy Pete tried anyway.  He told girls that I had just broken up with my girlfriend, and made repeated attempts to get me to show off my tattoos.  I refused.

By two AM I stood alone at the back of the bar.  Then I lost Willy Pete.

I took a lap through the bar.  Then another.  He wasn’t outside smoking.  He wasn’t anywhere.  One of the bouncers approached me.  He looked like Duke Nukem, right down to the buzz cut.  He stood half a foot taller than me, and probably 60 lbs heavier.  He informed me that Willy Pete had to leave.

“Do me a favor.  Get him out of here . . .”

“No problem,” I said.  ”Thanks.”

I flashed him a thumbs-up, my face twisting into a frustrated sneer.  He just nodded at me and climbed back onto his perch above the crowd.  I searched the bar high-and-low again, with no luck.  He wasn’t answering his phone.  None of the bartenders had seen him.

I tracked down the manager.  He explained that Willy Pete had been mouthing off to the wait staff.  He made some rude comments to one of the waitresses.  Her boyfriend – Duke – was not happy.

I was on the verge of abandoning him when some awful part of my brain kicked in.  No matter what kind of trouble Willy Pete found himself in, I never left him behind.  I had to find him before someone called the cops.

Willy Pete had outstanding warrants for his arrest.

I knew it was only a matter of time.  I knew all along.  I pulled out my phone and thumbed Mr. Black a message: EMERG.  In the back of my head, I thought of his warning.

Don’t call me looking for help.  He’s your responsibility.

. . .