My Uh...friend

Growing up there are people you meet that change your life. Some people make acquaintances with work-mates; and others make acquaintances with cellmates. Depending on the disposition that you, in the steady clamor of growing up, have made for yourself; there are many different circumstances under which you will interface with others and possibly make friends. If you, hypothetically, asked someone to describe any person who had changed their life the first thing that they would, most likely, think of would be someone who couldn't be forgotten. When I think of someone who couldn't be forgotten there would have to be something a little more unsettling about it.

        Say I knew somebody when I was young and we were good buddies. We made fun of the same people, we laughed about the same weird ramble, we took turns passing each other out when we got bored. We began to grow up and started playing a little music together and it turned out that we could be really loud and make it whatever we wanted to.

We knew a whole bunch of people in middle school because the town we grew up in was so small. The little gangs of people had their cliques and their groupie friends and the social sectarians played their homecoming games and bought mums for their little girlfriends. We liked punk, we couldn't help it; it started out so harmless, so mainstream. It was loud, blasphemous and abhorrent rock and roll and the further back you got, the better the sound would get.

        The battle lines were drawn and everybody knew where they stood in the social scene and everyone was happy that way. High school rolled around and partying was a blur of "let's try this" and "I wonder what this does". Despite the personal moral degradation I experienced due to the support of the local DARE institution, I pressed on knowing that what they taught us was not the whole story.

Things were looking up and I was learning all about the capabilities of the human mind when what could possibly be dubbed as "a lysergic antidote for reality" intervened. My Friend, who won't be mentioned for the sake of his scholars' reputation, had taken of the substance as well; not a first for either of us. "Hey what are you going to do with the rest of that?" he asked obsequiously. "I actually was thinking about eating the rest of it myself." I said feeling a twinge of absolution. Not feeling too far away from things, considering the dose I'd already taken. After popping the green sweet tart, on which it had been placed, into my mouth I then slumped in the chair to wait for the fireworks. Half of our crew, in which My Friend was part of, decided to hit the streets; maybe, "Hit up the glass at Nixon's house" was their explanation. The Friend, upon leaving, looks directly in my face and states profoundly "later bro." Followed by a brief pause, exhale and in conjunction with cockily raised eyebrows he prays aloud "hope you don't regret it." I laughed a little uneasy after he said that. I thought about that a lot more than I should have and it was only being provoked by the previous dosage of the lysergic. I then spent the rest of the night in horror as I witnessed something that could only be described as bad television reception. I ended up walking home in the snow, which I think took something close to several hours. It was a ¼ mile walk. Without the happy thought of being in my house, in my bed, I would've begun to cry. I knew everything was going to be all right.

I'm honestly never going to forget my friend. It's not a positive recollection, but outstandingly the traumatic experiences leave far deeper footprints than the happy ones. Amazingly, in the disarray of unique circumstances in my life I came to meet My Friend. This is a person who, for reasons he will never understand, has changed my life as I have his in ignorance. Hope he doesn't regret it.