Pacifica

One eye was closed against the glare of harsh sunlight and I wondered why. I looked around me and it was clear I was not in the Sunset but had woken up at my friend's apartment in Pac Heights with a high rent hangover. It was another Saturday morning where the prior night's events had gone from ill remembered meetings to ill considered choices. There had been a fight over a cab but neither myself nor my friend lying next to me in bed could determine who caused it. What's more, she recalled shrill fighting words in the wee hours that eminated from down the hall. The whole thing was a little hazy and we figured out in due course that it was just Friday night taking it's toll on another relationship. This particular one between our other friends: her roomate down the hall and his girlfriend. Fighting is what they do. If they did not have that then they would not have much, it seems to me. At least that's the public face of the thing. Closed doors obscure the whispered words and light touches.
Then there were the feet, shod in black Chuck Taylors and attached to legs that mockingly disappeared under a blanket on the living room couch. No idea who the feet and legs and Chucks belonged to. It was a moment of dysclarity, like many very early on a Saturday morning when you're not quite drunk but certainly not sober. I was in search of the bathroom and stumbled on this mystery along the way.
"Who slept on the couch?" I asked while there were people awake to ask. No one knew. The door was locked though and everyone seemed confused. The high level of vibration was made worse by Round Two between Ben and Amanda as Ben's car had evidently been unceremoniously carted off to the impound lot. The door to the bedroom was open a quarter of the way and they had moved into the hallway. We tragically now had front row's.
"I told you not to park there!" he hollared at an agitated Amanda who should have been tapping her foot but probably feared a resultant escalation. The rest of the dicussion faded into the background as I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against my eyelids.
"We need to get out here" I said to my friend who then rolled out of bed and fell to the floor grasping for pieces of clothing. All of this in one seamless move. An althlete, I thought. No doubt about it. Clearly she was on the same page.
Car keys, glasses...where are the glasses? Mantle. Living Room. Wallet. Car Keys. Right, no left pocket.
Staggering out into the sun of sometime past noon we found my un-towed car and lit the engine and pointed the front end West. Then South.
We needed a cure for this thing, as both of us were staggering in place and hoping to hold on to some semblance of conciousness for the ride to Pacifica. They had food there that would sooth. There was sand and breeze heavy with ocean. Somehow the amplitude and frequency of the waters neutralizes or maybe meshes with whatever is going on in the sour stomach and makes that seem normal, natural, OK.