The next thing I remember is waking up on the couch with a raging headache and a mouth so dry it felt like my throat was permanently sealed shut. At first I couldn’t figure out where I was. Then I remembered Keri and her amazing skin, the hair that smelled like coconut, and assumed she had vacated the premises now that her paid work was done. I was so hungover I could barely summon the strength to hold my head in my hands. Naturally, I started in on the typical morning routine of self-hatred, wondering how I could have blown half my severance pay on a singles cruise where I didn’t meet anyone, or how the $80,000 in my 401(k) had cashed out to $41,000 after taxes and penalties. I spent fifteen years saving that money one paycheck at a time and in six months had blazed through more than half of it. All while not finding the time for a single job interview.
So there I was, head in my hands, wallowing in hangover depression, when I heard someone approaching. I looked up and saw Keri standing there with a Bloody Mary in one hand and a joint in the other. She had changed into a pink spandex T-shirt and a black tennis skirt and did not look like a woman who had matched me drink for drink all night long.
“You look like you could use some breakfast,” she said. “I’ve got just the thing to fix you up.”
I couldn’t understand why she was still in the club or why she was bothering to dote on me. Most of the women I meet can’t get away fast enough. I wondered if she’d been slipped a morning bonus.
“Where’s Jimmy?” I croaked.
“He left around four. Krystal drove him home. I think he drank a whole bottle of Jameson.”
This information confused me, so instead of saying anything else I took the drink from her and knocked back a couple of swallows. It tasted strongly of lemon. I love the taste of lemon and in seconds the glue in my head began to loosen.
“Do you smoke?” she asked, pushing the joint toward me.
“Not very often.”
“The Bloody Mary will help, but weed is the real hangover cure. Smoke this and you’ll glide right out of here.”
For a moment I just stared at her. Finally, I said, “You’re a lifesaver, Keri.”
“You remember my name?”
“Sure. You spelled it for me, remember?”
“In here I normally go by Kat. I don’t like giving out my real name, for obvious reasons, but I know Jimmy is cool and you seemed like a nice guy.”
“You were pretty cool yourself,” I said. “I had a really great time last night.”
“So did I,” she said, smiling, her eyes shrinking to slits.
I wasn’t sure what to say next. The club was empty and dimly lit and we seemed to be the only two people there. I didn’t know what arrangement Jimmy had made with her or how long she was expected to keep me company.
“So if Jimmy is gone, I guess I should call a cab? I’m sure you want to get home.”
Her smile vanished.
“A cab?”
“I don’t want to be presumptuous and expect you to—”
“After going on half the night about wasting your savings, now you want to call a cab instead of asking me to drive you?”
I didn’t remember whining to her about money. I couldn’t believe I had whined to her about money.
“You’re right. Sorry. I would love for you to drive me.”
“Me, too,” she said. “But not to Jimmy’s. Not yet. Maybe you don’t remember, but you owe me one, mister.”
Again I had the feeling I was asleep, like this whole scene was some kind of high-concept wet dream. Exactly how much cash, I wondered, had Jimmy given her?
“By the way,” she said and winked at me. “I don’t even drive to work.”
“What? Then how will we—”
“Lyft,” she said. “It’s so much safer with a job like this.”
Imagine how futuristic that will sound to the people who survive all this: Arranging rideshare through an app on your smartphone!
Anyway, I smiled and was reaching for her hand when the lights went out. There were no windows in the building and we were thrown into the blackest possible darkness.
“Shit,” she said. “I don’t like this.”
By now you know the drill. I reached for my phone, to use it as a flashlight, and it wouldn’t turn on. Neither would Keri’s. Panic quickly ensued and I took her hand in mine.
“You brought me that joint, right? You must have a lighter.”
“I do!” she said.
After she found it in her purse, I took the lighter and produced a flame.
“I’ll hold this and you lead us out of here.”
A few minutes later we reached the rear exit and pushed the door open. By then our pupils must have been huge because we could barely open our eyes. Even so, I knew something was wrong. Really wrong. Cinnamon is just off the George Bush Turnpike, where the roar of traffic is constant, but instead of cars and trucks going by we didn’t hear anything except the distant sound of people shouting and dogs barking. The quiet was so formidable it was like someone had unplugged us from reality.
“What the fuck?” said Keri.
That was when I happened to look up and see the new star in the sky. I didn’t think much of it at first. About three seconds later, we heard the first of many massive explosions to the south. We didn’t know yet what had happened. To us it looked like the beginning of a war.
The way Keri screamed then was something I’ll never forget. I thought she would rip her vocal cords to shreds. I thought she might go into cardiac arrest. But she didn’t.
All the really bad stuff came later.
I was still holding Keri, staring at rising clouds of smoke, when the back door of the club opened and the night manager stumbled out. He saw us standing there and approached quickly.
“Hey, buddy,” he said. “I think you’ve—”
Then he stopped and looked around, as if he’d walked straight into a wall of silence.
“What the fuck?”
I don’t know if the guy was still drunk or high from the night before, but he kept turning around, clockwise, saying “What the fuck? What the fuck?” until he nearly fell over. This was so unexpected and ridiculous-looking that in spite of everything I started to laugh.
“Holy shit!” the guy said. “What happened? Do y’all know what happened?”
“It was already like this when we came outside,” Keri said.
The manager didn’t seem to hear. Instead he ran toward a lonesome red Buick in the adjacent parking lot and climbed into it.
Keri and I watched as he sat in his car, unmoving for a period of seconds, before he climbed out again.
“It won’t start!”
“Look around, man. There aren’t any cars running anywhere.”
“What are y’all going to do?” the manager asked.
It was a fair question. Whatever was happening was major and awful and I was a couple of hundred miles from home. I had no particular place to go, other than Jimmy’s, which was several miles north. And I didn’t remember how to get there.
“Do you live nearby?” I asked Keri.
“Not too far,” she said. “Down the turnpike that way.”
“I don’t want to be presumptuous, but—”
“You can come. Although it’ll take forever to walk there.”
“I guess I better head home myself,” said the manager. “My wife is with the kid and she’s probably worried sick.”
Neither of us knew what time it was, and Keri didn’t know in miles how far away she lived. I would say the walk took about three hours. It might have been faster if not for pedestrians everywhere, streaming out of their cars, out of stores and office buildings, out of their houses. You don’t know the look of real fear until you’ve seen it in the eyes of ten thousand people wondering if the country is being attacked, or if the world is about to end.