Untitled (Non-Fiction)

“You want to hear about me? You sick bastard.” That was my initial reaction when I heard what he needed. I called him sick, but I understand the interest. His memories of me are fond, but he knows a lot has changed. I’m still the same frivolous guy he knew me to be, but life has a way of edifying those who need it most. Don’t get me wrong; I still enjoy an obscene amount of lewd humor: Cock jokes, weed stories, and jokes about homosexuality are my go-to jokes to laugh off most situations. I remain the motherfucker that will take the joke entirely too far, just to get a rise out of most, and a laugh out of those who are like me.  This story is for them. The coterie of folks who have wallowed in a self-created hell, and found their way out of it.

Middle school was a good time for me. The ephemeral era of happiness and innocence. Well, as innocent as a thirteen year old boy balls deep in puberty can be. Life at home was a circus. My dad, “Harpo,” as my siblings and closest friends called him, was a wreck. He was abusive, and he seemed to be above such normalcies as keeping a job. I didn’t give a shit back then. As long as I had my two best friends, I was content.

We used to do all sorts of ludicrous shit. We would meet at five in the morning just to loiter and wreak havoc on unsuspecting people’s property. We shoplifted, ruined our respective kitchens, picked on kids junior in age, and held contests to see who could stay awake the latest. In retrospect, I would say we were explorers; exploring the ostensible feeling of being invincible and misunderstood. At any rate I was happy, and that’s all that mattered, but after two short years everything changed.

Harpo lost another job and decided to move the family to another state. I have five siblings, and each of us felt like we were in the prime of our lives. We didn’t recognize it back then, but the move was the first of many fissures in our family’s livelihood. I coped as best I could. I met some new little shits, but none quite like the ones I left. Social media was a mere reverie back then, most people were exploiting aol trial discs just to check their emails. Keeping in touch wasn’t a click away, so my best friends and I lost touch. I wish we had been better at communicating; I could have used them when my mother died.

About five years after I moved my mother died of asphyxiation. She had an epileptic seizure and died in her sleep. If the move was a fissure, then this was a goddamn catastrophic, apocalyptic, devastation. My mom’s death engulfed my family like a plague out of the bible. The void left in my sisters compelled them to become amative, and they all went off to form families of their own. One of my brothers turned to meth, and he still isn’t the same. My other brother assimilated the qualities of a rogue, and went down his own lonely path. I was 15 at the time, and in the subsequent years the borderlines of morality became mere suggestion.

I developed an alcohol addiction at the healthy age of 17. By 19, I was snorting blow, chewing ‘shrooms, and kissing Maryjane in the mouth as often as I could. When I was “sober” I was munching prescription pain killers like they were skittles, and I would wash them down with any liquor I could get my hands on. I lived that life, and it was awful.

One time I gave this asshole 90 bucks to score 16 grams of mushrooms, and he decided to use the money to go on a nice coke binge. He prevented the incoming ass kicking by giving me the rattiest looking ‘shrooms I have ever laid eyes on. I shouldn’t have taken them, but when you’re dying of thirst, toilet water begins to look like it came from a glacier. I took the ‘shrooms with one of my favorite drug buddies. We took eight grams a piece and experienced six hours of pure torture. The trip was a nightmare. Our most sinister nightmares manifested right before our eyes, and tormented us for the entire time. Up until that point mushrooms were my favorite drug. I loved the euphoria, but this trip still haunts me like a specter with a vendetta. I never took mushrooms again.

Drugs and crime go together like love and marriage. Between the ages of 17 and 23 I racked up warrants like it was my job. I was bouncing around from place to place, because nothing is steady in the lifestyle I was living. I bounced so often that eventually there was nowhere to land. I had no home, no friends, and seemingly no future. Being homeless was about as scary as the dark trip I had on the shitty ‘shrooms. I wandered around aimlessly reflecting on my life, and one night I drifted into a school. Someone must have seen me trespassing because it didn’t take long for the police to flag me down. They asked me for my name, and I gave it to them. When they ran it in their database they found my pile of warrants. At least I would have somewhere to sleep.

I spent 45 days in jail. I kept to myself, mostly, but I witnessed other hapless bozos get the shit kicked out of them on a regular basis. Jail is where I met Vlad. He was this large Russian body builder who was a lot wiser than I. When you’re in jail and going through withdrawals you talk just to feel sane. I ended up telling Vlad my life story, and do you want to know what this Russian wizard told me?

“Your definition of family is fucked. The pricks you dope with aren’t family, and if your relatives dope with you, then they ain’t family either. You choose your family, you scrawny American fuck.” Thanks Vlad.

For some reason those words stuck. When I was released I reached out to one of my sisters. She said she would take me in as long as I found a job and enrolled into college. I took her up on the offer immediately. I found work, and I started going to school for accounting. Not too long after that I met the girl of my dreams in a sandwich shop. She took to me right away, and I have a feeling she saw everything there is to know about me in one look; she saw it all and still accepted me.

I began to spend every day with her until nothing else mattered. I didn’t think about drugs or my past; all of my focus went into being happy with her. I like to say I have an addictive nature, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing; it’s human nature. I channeled my addiction through her, and eventually I married her.  

So that’s where I’m at today, happy, married, and sober. The sick bastard who needs a non-fiction story for his Creative Writing final is going to have one helluva time sorting this out, but I’m happy to be in touch with an old friend.