All around me is dark, but for some light filtering through the light fixture in the suspended ceiling. I wake knowing I should get more sleep, that I’ve only had a few hours rest, but can’t remember why. Then, in quick flashes, the previous night materializes.
The crowd at the bar, the overwhelming noise, the streets I didn’t recognize, the police lights flashing behind me, unable to dial the phone at the station, my parents finally picking me up; violent bursts of memories until I was back, staring at the ceiling in the dark.
Rolling over, I drag my right arm out from under the pillow. Something catches, the hairs on my wrist are pulled and I wince. In the dark, I can’t tell what it is. I flip on the light, squinting against the brightness. The fresh hangover flares and I take a look. A rubber-band is twisted there.
It’s rolled down to my fingers. I open and close my hand, feeling the slight tension. My groggy neurons fumble over one another trying to organize and tell me where it came from. They fail.
I wasn’t wearing it at the night’s onset. I know that. I don’t remember it being there while I ordered drinks. But there it is, resisting my fingers.
I pull it back onto my wrist and stretch for my cell phone. I had called my ex when I was finally home. She was uninterested and understandably upset for being called at such a ridiculous hour.
Then I had called my girlfriend, seeking solace maybe, in a state of drunken idiocy. She was reassuring. I can’t remember what she said, but she was reassuring. Neither call was made on my cell phone. After a glance at it in my hand, I remember why.
The plastic casing is scratched and gouged and dirty and cracked. Where the plastic keypad used to be, there are button-shaped holes down to the metal sensors. They look like a key had been used to try and dial in the buttons’ absence.
In a blink I see what seems like a memory, but with the fog of a dream. I reach down, pick up a few pieces of my phone that litter the sidewalk and keep walking down a street I don’t know in a crooked and halted path.
I shake it off and set the phone back on the table, sitting up slowly. The room wobbles on a far-off axis as I step off the bed. The throb at the back of my head is nothing against the disgust that settles heavy in the pit of my stomach.
The loss of control—the forfeiture of it—makes the bad taste in my mouth worse. Images of what may have happened or could have happened haunt me for weeks afterward.
I ordered a new casing for my cell phone and a new set of buttons. I was back at school within a few days and the memories of the night were already taking on a hint of humor. The disgust started to fade and the events blurred, but the rubber-band remained.
When the original band broke, I replaced it. I went through dozens. A little more than six months after that night, I had my first alcoholic beverage. It tasted terrible.
For some years since, the band reminded me of my complete lack of control. In all other aspects I had always tried to control as much of a situation as possible, but that night I failed on every level. I used it as a crutch and reminder.
I stopped wearing it almost a year ago. It’s been replaced by Her. I imagine the disgust I felt—and still feel in waves and flashes—reflected back at me in Her eyes.
If I lose control again I won’t be able to take care of Her if necessary, be there for Her. My mind swims with reactions She may have. It’s far more powerful than a thin band of elastic.
