Pensacola, Florida

Rick Ragazzi jerked awake. The noises outside the studio apartment and down below were familiar but that didn’t make them less annoying. He checked the glow-in-the-dark alarm clock on his bed stand. Sounded like Cousin Joey was pulling an all-nighter. He heard two different girls giggle, and Rick shook his head. Joey would never grow up. Sometimes Rick found it difficult to not agree with his uncle Vic who insisted his son would never learn obligation and responsibility until he “knocked up some girl.”

Amazingly so, “chasing skirts,” as Uncle Vic liked to call it, didn’t seem to affect Joey’s culinary talents. He’d sleep until noon, go work out and be at the restaurant at three ready to take on another dinner crowd. Of course, while Joey was sleeping until noon Rick would be up at the crack of dawn, waiting for deliveries from vendors, paying bills, stocking the shelves, changing out linens, juggling waitstaff schedules and today waiting for the repairman to change the refrigerator’s compressor. Somewhere in between he’d be cutting up vegetables, pounding out chicken and deveining shrimp. His poor hands already looked like a knife thrower’s clumsy apprentice.

For now he stretched back into the pillows. He had at least a couple more hours before he had to meet the first truck. Saturdays were long days. He’d need the extra sleep, if only Joey and his harem would keep it down. Rick pulled himself up and out of bed just enough to close the window. His knees suddenly went weak and he had to grab onto the windowsill. Something pounded in his head and he felt a chill sweep over him. That’s when he noticed he was soaking wet with sweat. He crawled back into bed, pulling the bedcovers up tight around him.

He wiped his forehead. It was hot. Now he realized his pillow was damp. Even his sheets were damp. He had a fever. This was crazy. He never got sick. Could have been something he had eaten, though his stomach didn’t hurt. He did have a backache and a headache, more like a dull throbbing inside his forehead. Maybe a twenty-four bug of some sort?

He closed his eyes and thought about waves crashing, the emerald-green waters and sugar-white sand of Pensacola Beach. He tried to think of the hot sun beating down on him instead of the heat that seeped out of his pores from somewhere inside him. He wanted to dream of cool breezes and riding the waves on a freshly waxed, fast board, curling his toes over the edge, hanging on and enjoying the roller-coaster ride. He was almost there, relaxed and enjoying, until he felt something running down the side of his face and continuing down his neck.

He reached to turn on the bedside lamp. This was crazy. He never got sick and yet he had a fever and now his nose was bleeding.