Blackout
Hello, my name is Albert. Im an alcoholic.
Just like a well-thrown boomerang, a chorus of Hello Albert came back right on cue.
It was Alberts first AA meeting. He tried not to smile at the fact that the people sounded like they were reading a prayer from a hymnal at church. Then again, he was in a church.
They were all worms. Thats all. A group of worms sitting in the dead, bloated belly of a church trying to find sustenance and strength so that they could go on living.
Albert could have been shy if he really cared about the people there or what they thought. But he didnt, and so he wasnt.
Its probably pretty useless to try and figure out why I started drinking. Albert began to tell his story. Hell, I dont even know if I know why I did. A few months ago I began to have blackouts though. I began waking up in strange places, knowing that I had done things I shouldnt have, and yet I still have no idea what happened.
The self-titled leader threw her two cents in. Thats why were here Albert. Blackouts can be serious, and can be a sign that a person has a problem with alcohol.
He looked at her for a second before finishing. She had said that her name was Jessica, but she didnt look like a Jessica; she looked too old to be a Jessica. She was in her mid-forties, with a rather thin, frail build. She was still pretty in the face and had straight brown hair that made her look rather plain and unassuming. He had caught a sliver of a glance into her eyes though before he could look down, and he could tell that she had a history.
Thats what made me realize that I need to stop drinking, continued Albert. I dont want to be doing things that I cant remember.
Albert wasnt amazed that the meeting was boring, dull, and lifeless. Once again, a very fitting thing to do in the sanctuary of the local Episcopal church.
He wondered to himself how this was supposed to keep people from drinking. Hell, this would almost be a good excuse to get fucked up.
Albert glanced at his watch. It was 8:54 PM. He began to get restless and fidgety the way he imagined Cinderella probably did as midnight approached.
Thankfully, the meeting didnt go all the way until 9:00. In an effort to try and remain truly anonymous he passed up offers to sit and chat with strangers afterwards and headed straight to his car.
He passed through a cloud as he walked out the front door. It was a sign that addicts will always be addicts. They might not drink, but they have their replacement addictions.
It reminded him of the cigarettes in his own pocket and how he really wanted one, and so he did.
Time seemed to slow down for a second as he took the first drag. The cars on the street looked like a freeze-frame from a video. The kids playing basketball in the parking lot couldve been an image on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
There was something soothing about smoke. The way, if he stopped to ponder it, that it whirled and swirled around and down his throat like water getting flushed down a toilet. Maybe there really was some calming effect that being addicted to nicotine and getting a dose of it had. Or maybe it was just the subliminal knowledge that he still had a crutch, and he still had at least one self-destructive habit.
If only he really did only have a single one.
The watch on Alberts wrist beeped as he was pulling out of the church parking lot, signaling that the hour of 9:00 had come.
He needed to get home.
When he told the anonymous people about his experiences with blackouts, he didnt tell them everything. Yes, he had been having regular blackouts when he got drunk but he hadnt had a drink in two weeks and he was still having them every night.
Sometimes he would wake up and find clues as to how the previous night had gone. An ATM receipt, a book of matches, a phone number scribbled on a scrap of paper, or a fresh cut on his arm. They were all pieces of a puzzle, or perhaps puzzles.
An annoying electronic buzzing filled the air, like a squadron of digital mosquitoes reenacting the Battle Of Britain. He rolled over and turned off his alarm. It was 7:00 AM.
Albert was at home, in bed, and it was morning. Once again, he had no memory of what happened after 9:00 the night before. Although he was disoriented, as he always was in the morning, he surveyed his bedroom.
Everything seemed to be in its place even though he was still wearing his clothes from the night before. He checked his pocket and discovered he had eleven less cigarettes than when he had left the AA meeting. Most people probably wouldnt notice things like that, but Albert was getting a little used to it.
Albert climbed out of bed and a pain shot through his side. He lifted his shirt and saw a dark purple bruise, the size of a fist. He got to the bathroom and stopped dead in his tracks.
There was a bloody shirt in his bathtub.
Careful examination of the shirt made him realize that the shirt didnt belong to him. It was an extra large, used to be green, and had a logo for a local club on it.
Alberts mind was racing a million miles an hour, as was his pulse, while he tried to remember anything that might have happened the ten hours previous. His mind was shooting blanks.
He went to the kitchen to get a garbage bag to put the shirt in and noticed a key card for a hotel room on the countertop. It was still in the little sleeve that they give you that they write the room number on, and it said Holiday Inn Express, room 214.
As Albert picked the card up, he caught a fleeting glimmer of a memory. Not really of a place or a scene, but of a feeling. It was more like a sharp, overpowering feeling of betrayal.
After taking care of the shirt in the bathtub and changing his clothes, Albert left his apartment and headed towards the Holiday Inn. Even though he didnt know if he would want to see what was there, he needed to try and remember.
He went into the hotel through one of the side doors that only people with key cards can enter through, hoping that no one would see him in case something happened that he didnt want to be associated with.
Albert counted the numbers on the doors. The beating of his heart got faster with every door he passed. He began to get a strange sensation of déjà vu and grinned slightly as he thought, Someones changed something in The Matrix.
Suddenly, he was standing in front of the door. He was a contestant on a strange game show, and had no idea what awaited him behind door 214.
Sweat was pouring from his forehead like water over Niagra Falls, and his hands were shaking as he put the card in the slot, and quickly pulled it out. The little light flashed green, and he heard the door unlock.
Albert tried to take a deep breath, but inhaled air that was stale, hot, and rancid.
Suddenly, Albert wasnt in his body any more. The light coming in through the window vanished and it was night. He was standing in the corner of the room and saw two people in the bed together. He didnt recognize, but when he saw the woman he again felt a mad rush of betrayal.
This was his fiancé, but she wasnt in bed with him.
Just like a scene change in a movie, he was standing in the hotel lobby, asking for an extra room key. She had used a credit card with both of their names on it to pay for the room, so his name was on it too. The woman behind the counter gave him the key without a second thought.
He was back in his corner of the hotel room, watching them in the bed as he walked in.
The next minute was a blur of light, dark, emotion, and pain. He had no more control over his actions than a person caught in whitewater rapids after a sudden summer storm. All he could do was do with the flow.
Everything that was happening seemed so surreal. The fact that it had taken him months to remember that he was engaged. How he was having blackouts whether he drank or not. That he was just now beginning to realize how long he had been trying to find out what his fiancé was up to.
That surrealism snapped like a rubber band as soon as the police knocked on the door.
Someone in a neighboring room had heard the screams and the breaking lamps, which had been used to crush the skulls of Alberts beloved and her lover. The police stood outside the door just long enough for Albert to hide in the closet.
When the officers saw the bodies on the bed, they drew their guns. Albert had once chance to get away, and he took it.
Even though he wasnt big or strong, Albert surprised one of the officers enough to be able to know him down and take his gun. Before he could even think, both of them had been shot.
Another squad was pulling into the parking lot as Albert was running to his car. Apparently, running to his car was a bit of a giveaway that he was the bad guy.
The police went after him.
Albert tried everything he could think of to try and get the police off his tail, but it wasnt working. In fact, he now had four cars behind him.
The futility of his attempting to escape began to sink in. Theres really nothing left to do, thought Albert.
His foot began to ease off the accelerator as he closed his eyes and began taking slow, deep breaths. Gently, as if picking up a newborn baby, he lifted the pistol off his lap and put the barrel in his mouth.
Time slowed down again as Albert tasted the cold, black metal and gunpowder residue in his mouth.
The sirens behind him were now long, howling screams; more like whale calls than the electronic, screaming auctioneer that they normally sounded like. The thudding of the cracks in the pavement went from machine gun speed, to a steady beat like a drum in a marching band.
All the fear, all the cares, and all the pain drained from Albert like water down a bathtub drain. It was true, his life did flash before his eyes.
Then the gun flashed in his mouth.
A nurse ran to the bedside of a patient named Albert Mulrooney. The alarms were going off on the equipment that he was hooked up to, indicating his heart had stopped.
Albert had been in the intensive care unit for over three months, ever since he had taken a bullet in the head while trying to run from the police. Somehow, he hung on that long, only to fade away with no warning.