Chapter 1, part 2 of 2.
***Warning. In this story there is use of drugs and slight descriptions of violence. But there is also love. Enjoy :D ***
Yeah. A good adventure I thought, as we were passing that beach. Finn never completely returned from that bad trip. From that moment on he wasn’t sure if other people could understand what he was saying, so he had to, very anxiously, explain exhaustingly everything he said. Or at least most of it. Now we were walking past that beach and heading to that girl’s house, were the party was. In this period of time I was having some troubles with myself on an emotional and psychological level. I was struggling to understand myself as a young man, a young adult now, fresh out to the world. My first identity crisis.
We arrived at the girl’s place. When we took the turn on the street where the house was, we saw a bunch of people spread out along the road for at least fifty meters. Were they our guys? We could see some familiar figures on the dim lit street. They seemed too many to be our guys. Who were the others? Why are they separated like this? Something had happened, I was sure of it. The vibrations were clear.
“Sup.” We greeted the two closest to us. Instead of an answer we got no recognition and all we heard was “Hey c’mon George, let me punch you?” What? Before I could even get a grip of the situation, George was bend in half and holding his stomach. Jack, the guy that hit him was a heavier than normal guy, at the moment completely and utterly wasted and seeming to have no understanding and not a single care about what was happening in this world.
Finn looked at me nervously. He understood what I had realized just now as well. That we were too loud, in a too quiet neighborhood, at 3 o’clock in the morning, in a town full of old people and he was carrying all the grass we had at this moment. So, he stayed behind with George and I went on with Jack. Jack was moving with a slopy but light walk and he seemed to be unable to control the movement of his head. It was following the rest of his movements and it seemed kinda wobbly, like those funk pop figurines. My presence seemed to make no difference to him. When I asked about what was going on, he only told me that he kissed Pauly. Damn.
We regrouped with the others a bit lower on the street. Now I could see them. They were our guys plus two others who we already knew from around here. The story so far was like this. Jack was hella drank and he kissed Pauly, probably a bit violently. The thing is that Pauly was a very close friend of Jim, one of our pals, and Don (who was not one of us) was in love with her since forever. Poor guy. You could see that something had crumbled inside him. Then a few steps away there was Matt and Nick. Matt was one of us and Nick was a guy we knew like Don. Some words were exchanged in a violent manner. Jim said to Jack something along the lines of “You bastard. You did a really stupid thing you know that? Stay back. Don’t come here”. To which Jack replied a bit confused “Leave me alone”. He wasn’t sure whether to be angry or not. He had no idea what was happening. Jim said “I am warning you back off” and as a response he got a big blot of spit across his face.
Naturally a brawl broke out. Finn and George had caught up with us now and Finn was getting more and more nervous. He told me he had to go. I understood. There was absolutely no reason for the cops to find the weed he had hidden in his pants. Not today thank you very much. He told me to call him when the spirits calm down. The others were trying to separate the guys that were now rolling on the street. Don was mumbling “Let him go dude… let him go” although it was unclear to whom he was talking. Or even if he wanted to be heard. No, he was in his own world trying to gather his pieces. Nick was like “Damn…those idiots” and did nothing. I wouldn’t blame him. He was a relatively small and round guy, no match for the other two who had descended in a beast state as prompted by the booze and their rage. George wanted no part in this now and I wanted a drink. Me and Matt separated the two of them fairly easily. We went on the corner of the pavement to try and calm things down. Of course, this did not happen. Instead some more harsh words were exchanged and then Jim hit Jack out of nowhere while the later was immobilized by Matt. That sneaky bastard. That would have infuriated me as well whether I was drunk or not. As a result, Jack took a bite out of Matt’s hand almost cutting a piece from the guy. A second brawl broke out this time between Matt and Jim against Jack. Don and Nick were already gone. Now me and George had to separate them. We did although at some point Jack tried to hit me but he didn’t succeed. He punched George though again, this time in the face. Poor man.
Now the group was broken up. Only me George and Jack remained with the last one having short manic episodes in intervals of seconds “I’ll kill them…those fuckers…I’ll call them to come here now…Bastards” and then his attention would fly to something else only to return in the same manner as before. The only thing that existed in between this man’s ears was emptiness. You couldn’t talk, you couldn’t reason with him even in the drunk sense. He had gone completely of the rail.
At this point I called Finn. “Yeah I can still hear the bastard…No I won’t come now call me later.”. Right. Why didn’t I leave this man and go, just as the others did? I had no desire to deal with a madman at 3 o’clock in the morning. You see, the reason for me not leaving him in his fate was something else besides friendship. Friendship tends to collapse, at least momentarily, in situations like these. No, I was in love with that deranged fool. That so out of control drunkard that was now trying to rip out some metal bars of the street and screaming like a demon. I could see what was going on inside him. I could see he was in a great deal of emotional pain. And it pained me greatly as well. I could see the feelings of worthlessness and failure beating him up. He was torturing himself for some reason I think I could understand but wasn’t able to admit even to myself. That was because he himself was ashamed for whatever he was feeling right now. He was blocking his feelings from himself and that was what was causing that internal clash. How peculiar. I could feel what he was feeling. It is true that love opens a door of genuine understanding that connects you with the other person. An understanding beyond words. A silent most sincere understanding. Now his neck was red, veins all popped out and his face was frozen with intensity. And he was screaming.
George was shocked. “Damn… Alcohol doesn’t do this…why did you let him take drugs? That’s where this is coming from.” He was right. About a week ago he had his first encounter with MDMA. He wanted to do this with me and Finn and I wanted him to do it with us…mostly in hopes of something happening between us. No luck of course. It appears the amphetamines had woken up this lurking despair inside him. Now he stood up and approached the big green street trash bins and pushed them down the road. That was too far. Luckily at this hour there were hardly any cars driving by. Otherwise a really bad accident would have happened. Me George and a cashier from a kiosk near us put the bins back in their place. We thanked him and apologized in an awkward manner. He said nothing. He only looked at us baffled and maybe disappointed. In the meantime, Jack had crossed the road and went on the beach. Thank God at least no one would hear us there and no one would get hurt.
Things started to calm down now. He knew he had pushed it too far and that thought helped ground him in this reality. I could see parts of him coming back, though he was still throwing fits of rage. At one point he pushed George on the rocks but he wasn’t hurt. He also tried to punch me again but didn’t succeed “Jesus Christ man! Get a hold of yourself”. He shook me off but he did hear me. Sometime later Finn arrived and we smoked a joint. We deserved at least that after dealing with this madness. At some point Jack took his clothes off in a last burst of energy. When this cooled off, he hugged me saying something along the lines of how good of a friend I was to him. When he broke off, I could see through his boxers that he had a boner. But that was it for the day. No one was in any kind of flirting mood after all this. We finished the joint and we each returned to our places. What were Jack and George thinking when they were alone, I wonder? How did they feel? That would be interesting to know.
Why am I saying all this? As I said I was struggling with my identity at that time. The events that followed the next days led me to make a decision that would have a tremendous impact on the course of my life. That decision was the first consciously planted seed of goodness that sprung into a huge strong tree, from which the fruits I still enjoy to this day. And I will be enjoying them for as long as I choose to. It was a tree that touched a vein of the world. So naturally its fruits were divine.
The next day went as expected. All of us were hungover each for their own reason. I insisted that me and Jack go for a walk to talk about the events of last night. I wanted to talk to him before the others did. I don’t remember what was said exactly. I only remember patting him in the back while we were seating on the wave breaker and he pressed his head on my shoulder. The he lifted it up. “are we gay?” he asked baffled. A mix of emotions zapped me in a flash. I did feel that he had a gay part in him so, after this I felt like I had hopes to realize my dream of love. I said something along the lines of “What does it matter” or “No one can define you but yourself”. I didn’t feel the need to make any suggestions at this point. I only wanted to know if I had hopes. After that it was only a matter of him falling in love with me, which was the fun part. Or at least that was what I thought at the time. Now I just wanted to make him feel good about himself. Help him heal from last night’s events. Later on, we were leaving and we were about to part ways when we stumbled upon a friend of ours. We chatted a bit with her but we had to leave. At this point Jack hugged me out of the blue really tight. I was surprised as he rarely expressed himself like this especially after choosing to be vulnerable and let his emotions out. I could feel his ‘thank you’. I did make him feel good after all. And that made me feel good as well.
Later that night we gathered at Fred’s place. He had left early the other night so, he did not know what had happened. Tyler wasn’t even there yesterday. He had spent the night in a hotel with his girlfriend. Everyone that night gave a cold shoulder to Jack. Jim and Matt were nowhere to be seen. He claimed to have no recollection of last’s night’s events. It really was like the man was possessed by a demon. Don’t temper with the chemistry of your body. It will drive you mad if you can’t handle it. But none of us including me seemed to understand this. So naturally we kept going.
A few days later I saw Jack and Pauly hanging out by themselves, talking. And a few days later they were a couple. Damn. It didn’t hurt as much as I expected though. Probably I was in denial. I thought they wouldn’t be together for long, that they were unfit for each other. I was only half right. They were totally unfit for each other but their relationship lasted for four years on and off. It has been toxic some times. Maybe even a bit violent as rumor has it. Madness. They drove away from each other only to be reunited by their insecurities and the safety of the known. Why do I say this? Why not by their faith to love, by their faith to themselves to make it work? Maybe it was so, the first time they broke up and got together again. Maybe even the second. Hardly the third. And definitely not the fourth. By that point it was a parody. It is hard to move on in the drug culture.
That December when they first got together, we went to party to Jack’s place. For four consecutive days. The booze and the weed were endless. The second day we did MDMA again. We tried to find LSD but we had no luck there. Plus, Finn was not so eager to return to acid after his last bad trip. So, we settled for MDMA. And there we were at some point in the night mostly naked. Me and Jack talking frantic gibberish about feelings as prompted by the drug. There was a feeling of loving the whole world along with a wondrous sense of touch. At some point he leaned in and kissed me. The emotions I felt were inexplicable. I felt it coming just a few fragments of a second before it did. Or at least hoped so much for it to happen, that it did. I just couldn’t believe it that it finally happened. I tried to kiss him back but he had already pulled away. “Are we gay?” he said to himself. “Why did you try to kiss me back?”. “I…I didn’t…”. Boom. Second wave of shock. Come on what did you expect…He left quickly and went to join the others in the living room. I waited for a bit alone in the other room. Hoping that he’d come back, close the door behind him and stay with me. But no. Of course not. I was feeling both happy and sad at the same time. I went to join the others. We never ever talked about this and that was the last thing that happened between us. I was amazed by myself about how easily I could pretend that it never happened. That everything was ok. Even under the influence of a drug that magnifies your feelings tenfold if not more.
Now a few months later I am faced with a dilemma. What should I do? Should I keep trying to win him over despite him being happy in the relationship he already is? Should I insist? Or should I accept reality as it is and let him live his life and simply wish he is happy?
I chose what I already felt but barely understood. I chose love. In the truest sense. I chose to wish them good. The moment I chose that I felt…relieved. And I smiled. The Gods smiled as well and thus the slag of darkness began to break apart. Later I had many chances to manipulate their relationship. It took quite some effort not to do so. I had to remind myself the love I was serving. Let it come naturally if it even is to come. Do good, genuine good and you’ll be blessed. And so, it did. That was the grand decision of my life. To accept reality as it is, to let go but still harbor love in my heart. I didn’t know it then but that was the choice that changed my life. Love. Always choose love. You’ll never regret it. There was only one very hopeful question arising now. What happens next?
