Day Four

by: A.C. Cash

According to experts, it takes approximately seventy-two hours for the human body to fully detoxify from alcohol intoxication. The italicization is based on a conclusion I arrived at long ago; credentials hold far less weight than personal experience. There are those who study a realm, and then there are others who enter it. I find that the two are mutually exclusive.

As for me, I am the latter and my cloak of firsthand expertise weighs a ton.

On the other side of the inebriation coin are the first seventy-two hours into a bender and what comes next: Day Four. The deteriorative state of one’s body and mind upon the day that follows being intoxicated for three in a row isn’t regularly discussed among the so-called experts, but I know it well. By day four, every mental photograph in the album becomes a blur of hurt. 

It hurts from the end of my hair strands to the tips of my toenails, and the only pain worse is the sting of knowing that I alone can prevent it from happening to me, yet I consciously choose not to. There is no magic pill, no lifestyle guru, no twelve-step meeting, no sacred prayer to the saint of the holiest honor, nor stellar force of invisible light that's strong enough to fix me.

And it’s my fault.

My young son startles me. He asks if I’ll take him to the park.

Silently, I stare at my reflection in the tall and slender mirror that’s hanging on my bedroom wall. 

I contemplate how I might explain to the small boy—in a way he’ll understand—that I’m in no condition to drive. 

I have no words to give him. So, I begin dancing slowly and seductively.

I  pull off my hooded sweatshirt, then my pants.

I mimic Iggy Pop’s dance moves from 1978.

“Mom, please let’s go to the park now.”