Thomas Simmons
The Great American Hangover

My dad's cousin owned a huge chunk of Mars land out in Montana, and when he found out I was a writer he offered me a trailer and as much time as I needed to finish a book idea I had about a transgendered rugby player who starts the first official transgendered rugby league. Or something like that; I forget what it was exactly-transgendered people and rugby were big back then, I guess. So I went up there with enough coffee and pasta and cereal and beer and booze to keep any man from having a straight shit ever again. No TV, no internet, just a basic computer with a basic word processor, a dozen pens, and a stack of three-subject notebooks. I got to work. And I was there when I got Mike's call during that time in my life when waking up before eleven was my greatest challenge, and I took the call without much courtesy.

"Hello."

"Hey!"

"Hey."

"Guess where I am!"

"What?"

"Guess where I am!"

There was a lot of noise in the background. Lots of people talking fast and kind of loud.

"No."

"Come on! Guess!"

"Fuck you."

"Guess!"

"Okay." Then I hung up. Not five minutes later he was calling me again.

"What, Mike."

"I'm up there! I'm in there!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm in it!"

I lifted my head a little. "In Montana? You're in Montana?"

"No! The tower!"

"What?"

"The-the South one? I think? I think it's the South one?" His voice turned away from the phone to seek out confirmation from someone around him. "Yeah. The South one. I'm in the South Tower, dude!"

I lowered my head. I rolled it on the back of my pillow so I could stare up at my oddly shaped ceiling and my wobbly ceiling fan. "I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious, Mike. I'm in Montana. Do you know what time it is in Montana? Three hours earlier than wherever it is you are, if you're still out on the East Coast." I looked over at my alarm clock. "Six fifteen, Mike." I wanted to keep going, but I was tired and my voice was losing strength.

He tried to start his next sentence with a W:
"Whu-hee-ha-"

I sighed, and then he blurted it.

"A plane, man! Two planes! Two planes hit the Towers! The World Trade Center!"

"Fuck you."

"I'm not shitting you."

"Fuck you."

"I'm not lying!"

"What are you doing in New York City?"

"I moved here. I'm a bike courier; I go to a bunch of crazy fucking buildings."

My head was aching.

"Fine, whatever, man. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center."

"You still don't believe me!"

"It doesn't matter. I'm playing along. You should be grateful. What floor are you on?"

"The thirty-fifth."

"What are you, in an office?"

"Yeah. Delivering a package."

"I got that part." I couldn't think of anything else to ask. I wanted to go back to bed.

"It's crazy in here. They told us not to leave the building. They're having us stay put."

"Who?"

"Police or something. I don't know. You can see us on tv ! We're watching ourselves on TV right now!"

"You're famous."

"Yeah. Immortalized! Go to any channel!"

"I don't have television."

"Oh." His voice lost some of its bounce. "Oh." That cog slowed him down.

"What's it look like."

"There's just this, this huge halo of smoke coming up."

"Not billowing?"

"Sure, billowing."

"Billowing's a good word."

"Yeah." He sounded distracted.

"Alright, well, listen. I'm gonna go back to sleep. Call me again when you're in Montana."

"Hey, wait, wait." He said it in that tone people use when they want to hold on to something but see it falling apart before their eyes.

"What."

"Just talk to me some more."

"All right." I lifted the blinds and saw the vast nothing start to achieve color. So much nothing. More nothing than I would see anywhere else. I rolled to my side and prepared to sit up. Then I sat up, and I told Mike that. "I'm sitting up," I said. Then I dragged my sheets off my legs and put my morning wood up into the elastic of my boxers and rotated my legs off the bed. "I'm getting off the bed." I planted my feet on the floor. "I'm awake. Let's talk."

"Cool, thanks."

It was too early to try and step over the shit on the floor, so I kicked out in front of me as I walked, clearing the path of potential obstacles.

"So you're gonna be famous, Mike."

"Oh, man. Oh, man. You have no idea. This is huge. It's all over the news."

"Where did the planes hit?"

"Higher up. Pretty high up. Like, we felt the impact, everyone was knocked off their feet, but we're pretty far away from the impact."

"When did they crash?"

"Pretty recently. Like fifteen minutes ago."

"Wow." I stood in front of the sink. "Now I'm getting a glass of water."

"You drink last night?"

"Yeah."

"You're writing a book, right?"

"Yeah. All part of the practice."

"That's so cool, Coop. I wish I knew more people doing the same thing."

"Hey, thanks. Well, I mean, it sounds like what you're doing is pretty remarkable."

"I just happened to be here, though."

"But think about it," I said, pouring coffee out of a mug and rinsing it a few times before filling it with water. "How many people our age are in the World Trade Center?"

He laughed. "That's a good point!"

"A lot of people we know dream of being in the World Trade Center at our age."

I gulped water down while he talked.

"You're right. I'm definitely the outlier here. Everyone's like, in their thirties. They're all wearing real nice clothes."

"Suits?"

"Some suits. But even those not in suits, they look good, too."

"What's it like in there?"

"Everyone's on the phone. Everyone ."

"Who're they talking to?"

"Their families and shit. Telling them everything's going to be okay."

I smiled. "And you're talking to me."

He laughed.

"You're the dregs."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"'Too old to be coddled, too young to be taken seriously.'"

"Yeah. Fuck. Fuck! I should've just joined the Army if I knew this was going to happen."

"Join after this. Quit that courier shit." My stomach felt like rot. My mouth salivated for all the wrong reasons, and I spat into my sink. I didn't really know Mike too well. We got drunk together from time to time before we'd left for school. Then again, that was my relationship with most people. I guess I'm pretty good at making people feel okay, so I don't really need to know someone well for them to come looking for me.

The more I talked with him, the more his voice sounded like something gushing, like a geyser, or a spring, a waterfall. Not misty though, not misty like a geyser or a spring or a waterfall. Maybe like a brook. But brooks don't gush, they babble. So somewhere in between. A gushing geyser-like brook.

"Do you want to tell me everything's going to be okay?"

"Not really."

"Do you want to tell me that you love me?"

He laughed. "I don't know, man, I don't know." He sounded plaintive. His speech decelerated on the second I don't know.

"Okay. To be safe then: Mike, I love you and care about you. You're going to be okay. You're going to get out of this okay."

He laughed again.

"So there you have it."

"Thanks, Coop." Then he guffawed or something, it was really unnatural. It might have been another exclamation. "I really appreciate it."

I didn't have anything more to say at this point. It was a terrible feeling. He started again.

"So do you believe this is happening?"

"Sure."

"You really should. You're really going to feel like an asshole later, when you find out."

"I might." I cleared my throat and rubbed my eyes. "Are you facing the other tower?"

"Yeah."

"You should look into the other one. Wave."

"That's a good idea."

"Great way to meet chicks."

"I'm walking over there right now, to the windows." I could hear him.

"What do you see?"

"Hold on. Wait. Yeah, you can sort of see people out there. Not too clearly."

"Wave."

"I am."

"Is anyone waving back?"

"I can't tell. Hi! Hello!" I heard him shout out to who knows who and who could hear him. "It's not working. I don't think they can see me."

"Bummer. It was worth a shot."

"I wish I had a drink right now."

"I'll have one for you."

"Thanks."

I found the uncapped bottle of gin and raised it.

"Here's to you, Mike."

The heat of the liquor started in on me, soothing the feelings I was trying hard not to have. Soothed everything in me. Gin's always been my favorite drink. I couldn't help feeling upbeat.

"I think I'll have another."

"I wish I was drunk. Or high. Anything other than sober!"

"Sober's never too great." I was up to my third swig. "I am going to get drunk, Mike."

"Maybe I'll get drunk off your voice. Vocal osmosis!"

"I'll talk extra loud." On came fog.

"When I get out of here I'm joining the Army."

"Do it. I wish I had the balls to do it."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I think everyone I know would hate me if I did."

"Why?"

"They want me to do something more fulfilling with my life. They want me to invest in hedge funds."

"You should do what you want."

"But then they'd cry."

"That sucks."

"They cried when I left home. They cry over me any chance they get." I remembered myself. "But how's it going over there?"

"Good. Someone's talking about evacuating. Walking down the stairs."

"I think that's a good idea."

"Hold on."

With my head turned from the phone, I yawned. On my bed rested War and Peace , the book I had finished and set aside last night before I had started drinking. While Mike was silent, and I was silent, I looked at the book and wondered whether I should tell him that I had finished War and Peace , whether this would interest him, whether he would have appreciation for that kind of thing. Before I could come to a decision he interrupted me with an exclamation about how they were evacuating and how he couldn't believe what was going on.

"Yeah, it's wild, Mike," I said, stretching, "but I think I'm going back to bed. As important as this all is, I can't do much else at this point other than take a plane out to New York City and crash that one, too."

"Okay." He got over it. "Okay."

"Maybe you should call your parents?"

"They wouldn't know I'm here. I wouldn't want to worry them."

"Have they called you?"

"Yeah." Which meant they had, and he hadn't picked up. I didn't ask.

"Well-" I rubbed the nape of my neck, "-just hold tight, and I'll talk to you again soon, okay?"

"Okay. Yeah."

"Take it easy, Mike."

"Bye, Coop."

I ended the call before he could say goodbye again. I fell onto the bed and pushed my head into the pillow. After a while, I realized I needed to pee, and seriously considered just going right where I lay. It seemed too much to move. There was the alcohol, and the weight of the silence in the room, and all that empty space outside the house, pressing me in. I don't know if I believed it then. I chose to go back to sleep and accept whatever I woke up to as reality.

I dreamed I had my one and only love in my arms and she told me everything I honestly thought about Mike so I wouldn't feel bad thinking it myself.

"He's just so needy, you know? No real drive."

"Like most everyone else."

"Yeah, but he needs to cling onto someone else to find validation. He's too weak to function without someone to fawn over."

"Yeah, like most everyone else."

"But he's bad at hiding it." And she looked at me the only way that has ever melted my heart, her eyes and eyebrows raised expectantly to my chin and nose, and I took the arm wrapped around her shoulders and pressed her body against mine and said,

"Yeah, you're right, I guess."

I told myself that the world could not exist before eleven, that everything before eleven had to be taken as a dream.

_ _

Thomas Simmons currently lives in Chicago. His debut short story collection, Ways I Could Be Living, is under contract with Pen & Anvil Press.

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