“You Have a Lot of Fun, Don’t You?”
When I returned to consciousness for the second time that evening, I was lying on my back on a baggage truck, which was moving. Men and women were crowding around, walking beside the truck, staring at me with curious eyes.
I sat up.
“Where are we?” I asked.
A little red-faced man in uniform answered my question.
“Just landing in Sausalito. Lay still. We’ll take you over to the hospital.”
I looked around.
“How long before this boat goes back to San Francisco?”
“Leaves right away.”
I slid off the truck and started back aboard the boat.
“I’m going with it,” I said.
Half an hour later, shivering and shaking in my wet clothes, keeping my mouth clamped tight so that my teeth wouldn’t sound like a dice-game, I climbed into a taxi at the Ferry Building and went to my flat.
There, I swallowed half a pint of whisky, rubbed myself with a coarse towel until my skin was sore, and, except for an enormous weariness and a worse headache, I felt almost human again.