Campfire Story

Whenever I black out, the initial shock of coming to blocks my memory. But I always get flashbacks of the previous night. They come in quick snippets, images that slap me in the face and taunt me. Sometimes it requires detective work, with evidence around me. It was in my hair.
    "Oh, sick! Someone threw up on me!"
Allie's laughter was loud enough to provoke exasperated stares from anybody close enough to watch us.
    "You don't remember yacking your brains out?" Allie threw her head back and her laugh came from a deep place, right in her belly. I never threw up. Even after drinking a handle of vodka one time. I always just sleep it off. Hangovers never help me grasp the gravity of any situation. I ignored my puking escapade.
    "Did you hook up with Marshall?" I asked with an urgency.
    "Oh hell no!" Allie winced,
    "He completely ignored me. Unbelievable. After last weekend, when you wouldn't have believed all the shit that he was telling me. It's not like he should have been embarassed. I am so much better looking than him." That part was probably true, but Allie had terrible taste in guys. A moment of comfortable silence passed, and was cut short by realizing we were still at a police station. An officer walked out. His eyes looked familiar. I think I remember them, concerned, staring down at me. He was wearing running shoes, which looked weird with the rest of his clothes.
    "You two are going to have to stay here until you can get a sober driver to pick you up."
Now I remembered. The side of his shoe made a more comfortable pillow than the sidewalk. I rolled onto a bed of wet grass. I did puke. Right on his shoes. 

                        

    Suddenly I could feel my face turning red as my eyes grew wide. The tall officer stared down at me, but I couldn't make myself snag his graphic eye contact. I wanted to apologize, but not bringing the topic up sounded better. I figured I'd ride out the whole "I don't remember anything skit" for as long as I could. Allie is the one who taught me how to milk things for their worth, so I was just following in her amazing guiding abilities. What a crock, we've found our way into a jail cell.
    I wanted to apologize, but I shrugged my body back to the cold wall and stayed silent instead. I kept my eyes closed and Allie and the officer spoke. He finally agreed to her calling Jesse. I kept my head against the wall and drifted away.
    Inside my head the techno music was loud and the flashing neon lights were bright. I could hear Marshall talking bad about Allie and I to his college buddies while I stood at the bar, ordering another pretty blue drink. I wasn't sure if this vision was a figment of my imagination, if I was dreaming or if my mind was creating a fake scene to try to remember what happened, based off of the small amount of facts that I had obtained from Allie. Either way, I was confused and kept my eyes closed, desperately preying that I would have a knight in shining armor rescuing me from jail when I opened them.
    It seems like hours later when Allie was back at my side. It had only been minutes though, and there was no knight.
   "Any luck?" I mumbled as I slowly opened my eyes.
   "I left him a voice mail. So, keep your fingers crossed," Allie crossed her arms over her chest and lied her head back. She let out another deep sigh before closing her eyes. It wasn't long before we were somewhere far away, yet again.

     I thought about the last time I had ended up in a jail cell for public drunkenness, or more accurately, aggravated assault.  I had been at this sleazy dive where a guy I had been sleeping with worked, and after telling me his "other girl" was knocked up, I got completely maudlin and whiskey wasted.  By the time the bouncer drove me home, I was puking out the window with tears streaming down my face.  I walked into the house and my mom started yelling at me to be quiet for christ sakes, we have neighbors.  I slapped her and her boyfriend pinned me against a wall.  I grabbed a seven day candle, smashed it over his head, and was hiding in the bushes when the cops got there.  But that I remembered.  What the hell did I do last night?  Since there was no bail it couldn't be that bad but I had the sneaking suspicion that the other events of the night were.