I force open my eyes enough of a slit to admit light. The shades are up, I neglected to pull them last night, the sun blasts through the windows, through my encrusted eyelids right through the retina into the back of my brain. Jesus that hurts, I’m a pathetic ball of pain this morning. I broke my newly self-imposed rule last night and went bar-hopping, that much I remember, but subsequent events are vague, to put it mildly. They’re so damn vague they’re a blank page. Getting drunk and hitting on women I’ve never met, whose sexual history is suspect at best, could and has turned out to be detrimental to my health. The last time I ventured out like that, two weeks ago Saturday night, I got the shit kicked out of me. Had to show up in court that Monday morning with a butterfly bandage over my right eye, my face an unsightly mass of lumps, bruises and contusions. My client, a devout pacifist, freaked; I was forced to ask for a continuance. Fred Hite, one of my partners, took her over, mollified her, but the incident didn’t make me any new friends in or out of court.
