I'm naked and it's hot even though the ceiling fan is turning. I'm in bed. That's good. In bed sweating, and my mouth is parched like I had eaten a couple tablespoons of flour before I made my way here. The day's already warm and the sun is coming through the bedroom window where I hadn't bothered to pull the shade. I can see the neighbor on her back deck and wonder if she can see me. I'm sure she can't. It's too bright outside now, must be after ten already, and too dark in the bedroom.

If she could though, would she look? Even a furtive glance? Would she see the erection I have now? Would she stare?

I roll over to look at the alarm clock, not giving the neighbor a view of my bright white ass. 9:48. Close. It was going to be a hot day. I remember now coming into the bedroom before seven this morning. I swim through the fog in my mind. Yes, I had woken up, still clothed, I think, on the living room couch and made it in here before stripping off my clothes and flopping onto the bed, not even bothering to pull the covers back.

I'm wishing now I had taken a moment to pour a glass of ice water then. Maybe I had. I look at the nightstand again. No such luck.

I roll out of bed, almost stepping on the dog curled up at the side. He gives me a growl. Well, then don't sleep right there, I tell him and pad out to the kitchen.

I fill a glass with ice and watch my neighbor through the window above the sink. She's a fat, middle aged latina. Could she see me now? Would she know I was still erect with only a view of my bare chest? She doesn't look over. Does she know I'm at the window standing stark naked, drinking ice water? Assuredly not. It's a bright morning already. I go back to the living room to the couch. My phone is one the floor there along with the shorts I was wearing the night before. They are covered in blood. Instinctually, I reach up and touch the scab on my scalp at the hairline.

As if recalling a dream, I remember sitting here last night, trying to get the blood to stop. Head wounds bleed like crazy. How had I done it? Obviously I fell. Maybe hit it on the table? A chair? Probably a chair. I don't know why I think that, but it's probably the explanation. I've acquired a sort of sixth sense for what I've done during my black outs now. I can never reliably recall what happened, thus the term "black out".  However, I can this uneasy sense of what may have occurred, of what I'm afraid has occurred, and while not precise, seems to come in the ballpark of what happened.

I'm bothered by the fact that I may not have been alone last night, that someone was trying to convince me that things were more serious than I had thought, that I should go to the emergency room and get stitches. Three or four stitches, I remember them saying. It wasn't the neighbor lady to the south. I'm not sure her English is good enough that we could have had any sort of conversation. I'm worried for a moment that it may have been one of the two girls that live in the house to the north. I didn't know them well. I think they are lesbians. One is a short, squat butch girl. The other a tall, gorgeous redhead. My luck would have been that the redhead found me passed out on the front porch after falling and hitting my head on a step and then repaying her kindness at bringing me inside with trying to get her out of her clothes. No. didn't happen. Doesn't feel right. Then I realize it was me saying this to myself, saying to myself what my wife would say if she had been here. My late wife.

I pick up my phone. No new cracks. I open the messenger app, afraid of what I may see.

I sent messages last night.

Hello

Hi

You awake?

Three different messages to three different women. Only one had answered me back.

Am now. You okay?, asked the one that I asked if she were awake at 3 in the morning. Her reply came at 7 this morning. I was probably, thankfully, passed out again naked in the bedroom at that point. I'm hoping her husband didn't see the message or ask who was messaging her so late.

I drain my water glass again as I pad back into the kitchen. The fifth of Jack Daniels I had bought the day before is there three-quarters empty.That explains the bump on the head. And this thirst. I refill the glass at the sink. The neighbor has gone back inside. I drain the third glass of water and then throw the ice into the sink, walk to the freezer and refill it with ice, then pour half the remaining whiskey in. I tell myself that I have no place to be today, no one to see, nowhere to drive, before I put the glass to my lips and take a long swallow.