Page 6 of Whistle

“Where am I?” I asked, fear spiking my blood. It was a nice reprieve from the alcohol.

“You don’t know?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

“California.”

Thank God it wasn’t Mexico. Those jails were hard to get out of.

“How long have I been here?”

“Twelve hours.”

“And he’s still drunk. Maybe we should take him to the ER.”

I glanced toward the other officer standing in the cell.

“No,” I refused. “Just let me sleep it off.”

The officer holding my arm tugged me around. “Let’s go.”

I stumbled over my feet and then gagged, sagging almost to my knees.

The cop let me droop, letting go of my arm and skittering back to avoid the spray.

I swallowed it down and breathed through my nose, trying to stop the spinning of the room. After it became clear I wasn’t gonna puke again, the cop guided me across the hall to an empty, clean cell.

I collapsed on the cot, the hinges squeaking and my knotted hair falling over my face.

“If you’re gonna puke again, use this.” The officer set a plastic bucket near my head.

Not bothering to lift my head or clear my hair away, I asked, “What did I do?”

“You don’t remember?”

A vivid image of fire flashed behind my eyelids, and my stomach clenched. Grabbing the bucket, I started puking again, my entire body straining as it turned itself inside out.

“Sober up,” the officer called, locking me in the cage. “Then we’ll talk.”

___________

This one time, I watched a cow give birth. Actually, I hid my eyes the entire time because the little I saw at the beginning made me lightheaded and mildly traumatized. Anyway, about thirty minutes after the calf was born, it stood up and started to walk. It was wobbly and clumsy, tripping over its own legs and stumbling around.

That’s what I felt like right now.

The inside of my mouth was filled with cotton, so dry that it hurt to swallow. My head felt split open, so intense that even my hair hurt.

My throat was on fire, stomach achy from all the vomiting I had done. I didn’t know how long I’d slept off the alcohol or even what day it was, but the second I was coherent enough, I was escorted into an interrogation room with dim lighting and cobwebs in every corner. The room was cold, making my arms prickle with goose bumps as I sat in the folding metal chair at a table that looked like it belonged at a yard sale.

Sniffing, I stared down at my hands in my lap, noting the chipped nail polish and knuckles speckled with dried blood. Tilting my head, I tried to remember what happened but was distracted by the bonfire scent of my hair.

The door opened, and a man dressed in slacks and plain button-up shirt walked in with a folder under one arm and a bottle of water in his hand. He uncapped the bottle and set it in front of me before sitting on the other side of the table.

“You allergic to aspirin?”

“No.”

The sound of pills shaking in a bottle filled the room, and then a couple white pills were deposited beside the water.

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