Ch. 15
Months went by like seconds, and seconds like years. My moments were coming near to their end, or were they exactly? I guess that was always something of my choosing. I was in the small downstairs bathroom of my house. It was a better closet than a bathroom, but hell fucking fire could you hotbox the shit out of that mother fucker. Unfortunately smoking wasn’t the occasion I now found myself participating in. No, I wasn’t shitting or taking a piss either. This wasn’t the first time I had done this in here. Fuck, this wasn’t even close to the first time I had done this at all. I had been cutting long before I even found out I was sick. Much like the cancer that festered in my body, only finally coming to be in my dying, so to festered a sickness in my soul. God Bobby hated that I did this. Everyone I knew that happen to know about this lil addiction of mine hated it. Hated it because they couldn’t understand what an addiction it was, and why addicts pry the holy from their body for sake of some semblance of sanity. No one understood except Denise, for she too knew what one sometimes must do so that they… But anyway, it’s not like this just occurred overnight.
I had always been an emotional and rambunctious fucking kid. I had got it from my mother. O’ my mother. What a beautiful fucking lady! She was beautiful not only in the traditional sense, but she was beautiful because her care for others deeply knew no bounds. There was not a being on this little blue marble her heart did not cling and yearn for. If you ask me, that’s the thing about people that truly care for others, they rarely have enough energy or time to care for themselves. My mom was one such person. Loving so lovely with others, but striking so sharply at her own heart. So without contestment I was my mother’s child, but I was also my father’s son. My father. My greatest hero. My mother will always be my greatest friend and kindred soul, but my father… my father will ever be all that I aspire to. I am my mother, but I wish to be my father too. For father’s will ever be gods in the eyes of their sons and daughters. Gods whose children are ever inescapably lost in the shadow of their living wake. All I had hoped for was to be one such father, one such husband, one such man as he. Little did I know how much my dad, in turn, loved and admired me. That he thought me to be a man in my own right, loving and strong. Out of his shadow he called me to see my own light, but then again darkness can be more comforting sometimes than even sun’s warmth. Though I all too often thought myself lesser than the tall stature of my father’s character, I too was his son. A son of two beings. From a mother’s unending love, and a father’s eternal search for integrity, dignity, and excellence in all he did, was a child named me born. A perfect storm was I. A bleeding heart with a standard for achievement unattainably set. Between benefit unceasingly bequeathed and pain of passion was I born with equal parts of charity and self loathing.
As I laid deep into myself, my gaze never broke eye contact with that self in mirror’s reflection. I wanted myself to see into the eyes of the man who was doing this. I wanted him to see me as I… Fucking shit that hurts. God dammit! God Fucking Dammit!!!! Fuck I must of went deeper than usual on that one. You’d think I’d get use to that after 6 years of habitual self mutilation. But then again, I guess cutter’s wouldn’t cut if the pain wasn’t part of the experience. For we the hidden… we tragically trade pain for numbness. Blood and scars for a chance to finally breathe. And yup, there’s that blood I was just talking about. That red gold that makes all the pain go away. As so to the soul as so to the body. There is much relief to be found in making manifest one’s inner turmoil. O’ how far must one dig to win his parents love? His peers compassion? A girls heart? How far must I reach to grasp that which was always there?
I weep, but I know how much deeper were the tears of my father and mother if they were to ever see one weep such as I. Their beloved. Their first born. Their son. If only they could have solace in the fact that future, brighter, more hopeful days were to come for me, but even this was denied to them. Even if the groans of my trembling mind were to be eased in these moments I had left, my body would soon do that which my mind only dreamed in sick dreams. Annihilate. Vanquish that which is most precious in this existence. Life. O’ how I bore the scars of my humanity with aching heart. O’ how I murmured to be healed.
I was sitting now. In this worn out chair I sat. Thinking to myself. Smoking a bong. Thinking to myself. Staring aimlessly at my chromebook while scenes flickered on the tv behind it. I had a habit of making the living room into a makeshift study/smoke/bedroom. It’s not that I didn’t have a bedroom of my own, or a desk in said bedroom to which I could study at. But, as I have mentioned, I was scared of that room and the closets where demons only lie. I don’t know why, well not exactly at least, I feared those four walls and those closets. Those closets. One o’ so much more than the other. One heaven and one hell, as far as I was concerned. It was the coldness I feared most, the darkness, the silence and the tears. The yawning vacancy of murderous memories yet to come. The darkness. The chill. But I was in my living room now far enough away from all of that. I guess my living room was always more appealing because most of all Chancey, Clefus, and Bobby were usually there. I liked their constant company. I needed it. I so hated being alone, though loneliness seemed to love me dearly or so she would say.
As we sat in this shanty town(house) we had created. Among stacks of books and polar pops long finished, we sat content. But then again we were usually high out of our fucking minds, so contentment is usually where we found our stay. As they murdered one another in COD I sat astute to my reading and writing. More staring than anything else. But for fucksake I was trying. Hey Bobby you wanna smoke a da bong, Clefus asks with a funny accent, as Bobby entered the room. Fuck you, says Bobby in return. I didn’t think so. Just figured I’d ask, Clefus says, as he goes to take a fat rip out of his more than impressive smoke reseptacle. I just shook my head and laughed. What company I had to engage with in these last days.
So I was walking ya see, well more like a slow jog. I was late… well almost late to my lunch with Dr. Luther. See Dr. Luther, as I had mentioned before, was one of my favorite professor I have ever had, probably the #1. He was teaching the Contemporary Democratic Theory seminar this semester that I rarely attended, but for whatever fucking reason the dude liked me. I pulled the same shit in his Philosophy of Law class and he still put up with it. I guess it helped that for all the hours I missed in class I made up in showing up to office hours. God we would sit in his office for elongated stretches of time just shooting the shit, talking philosophy, and discussing the local aesthetic qualities of the female population here at Miami. Every once in awhile he would go on one of his tirades about how fucked up this school is. That if this university needs anything it isn’t an expansion of the business school, it’s a local AA meeting daily and a rehab facility. I couldn’t agree more. But most of all he understood because, like I mentioned, he knew. He knew I was dying. He knew about the cancer, and the cutting, and the drugs. To say it short, he knew it all.
Honest I don’t really remember how we learned so much about each other. I guess when you spend enough time with someone, and all you do is talk to each other, little by little your whole self comes out. You start sharing things you normally don’t. Saying things you usually keep to yourself. Like when he told me after watching his brother-in-law go through something similar to what I was going through that he couldn’t imagine what it was actually like… to acquire such intimacy with death. But even if it was outside the reach of his imagination, even if he didn’t fully understand, he wanted me to know that he believed in me. That no amount of suffering, no amount of physical decay could degrade me as long I believed. Believed in myself like he believed in me. That even if there is no God, no salvation to come, that there will always be a soul inside that which is human. Something beyond the promises of immortality that need not fear. I don’t know if I completely understood what he meant by all that, especially because he was far too analytical in thought to ascribe to any such spiritual musings himself. But it was nice to hear him say it. Maybe it was his own odd secular way of telling me he believed that my life, our lives… they weren’t meaningless. Even if neither he nor I understood what was meant in such utterances made, I did know this. I knew he cared.
Dr. Luther understood a lot more than he’d like to lay claim to, but I’m ok with humble sympathies. I am because, the thing about sympathy is, when it’s traced with a humble heart it gets about as close to empathy as one possibly can. I was so tired of the opposite from people who confused their sympathies with true empathy, like they knew exactly what I was fucking going through. Well fuck them, because they fucking don’t, and they should go fuck themselves for encroaching on my suffering like it’s common knowledge to their happy little pedestrian college lives. O’ really you’re never going to have a family? O’ really you’re never going to have a real vocation that you love? O’ ya you’ll never find love? Well fuck you because you have a 100% better shot at all those things than me, only if you would stop wasting your GODDAMN lives drinking and fucking people you don’t care about… God I’m sorry, I get a little angry when I think about it sometimes. Sorry that was too harsh.
Anyway, I was meeting Dr. Luther for lunch to discuss the weekly papers I haven’t turned in, but mainly it was an excuse for us to hang out and talk. We decided on Sushi Nara, which had the best sushi in town, and I had just arrived, thank ya baby Jesus. He was waiting out front. We had one of our normally entertaining conversations over some sushi rolls and miso soup. And as I went on one of my explosions about how amazing Cornel West is, he just sat there listening while shaking his head. After I finished my little tirade his only response was the snarky remark that if only I would dedicate as much time to his class as I did to Dr. West, maybe I wouldn’t be on the edge of failing his class. Bastard spoke the truth. I never had a problem reading, shit I was practically doing it most of my day when I wasn’t writing. It was just school work that faced me with the precarious syndrome of procrastination. We talked some more about religion, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger among others and then headed out. He told me he was gunna kick my ass if I died on him before the semester ends, and that if he saw any more cut marks he was just gunna knee me in the balls. I just laughed. We both did. God did I love Dr. Luther. I just wish he knew how much I thought of him. How much I had appreciated all that he had done. He was what teachers should be like. Mentors. Friends. Companions on this road to self discovery we call, or at least try to call, education. For students need to know that they can trust their teachers. They need to know that they care. Dr. Luther was one such teacher, for in him trust and care lay abundantly. My teacher. My friend.
Now I was… wait where am I again I look around in all directions. Let’s see I’m in my car… ok. I’m on the highway… ya. I look around a couple more times to get my bearings straight. O’ that’s right I was on my way to Lexington, KY to visit one of my best friends. He was just as close to me as Ethan, Chancey, and others that I love that you have met so far. Matt Maney was his name and he was a man in his own right if he was anyone. Brilliant mind. Short attention span. What a combination to be found in my friend Matt. He was truly a jack of all trades intellectually speaking, for ADD and a brilliant mind rarely have time for merely one subject of inquiry, but despite that he was a caring soul. One that God never left from his love though thoughts of such a being danced to an unlikely tune of disbelief in his head. He cared for me deeply and had been there for me more times than I can count. I had my suspicions that he might even know my little deadly secret. He was too analytical in his intuition to let the scent of my passing pass him by, but he never brought it up so neither did I. Maybe he knew a righteous death was all that I sought and not one of pity from my friends. But that probably sounds stupid. It does doesn’t it? I don’t know. But anyway, I was almost to his apartment and I can’t wait to see him, but then it happened.
I don’t know if it was the adderall and lack of sleep or the real McCoy were talking about, but something came over me in that moment 15 miles outside of Lexington. As I was driving o’ so nervously in my lil fiesta, I hit the shuffle play on my playlist and that fucking song came on. Just as I was thinking of my commitment to solitude in death that damn mother fucking song has to come on. I’m not cursing because I dislike the fucking song ya sees, but it just wasn’t right that it came on right as I was thinking such thoughts. Able by Needtobreathe comes on as I glide across pavement. What the fuck? Why sweet baby Jesus? Why I ask do you wash me in such water. As the chords struck and the vocals creeped gently in, God touched me… spiritually speaking of course, but touch me he did. My weeping ensued as my body ignited in spirit’s fire. Acceptance flowed with my tears as time collapsed upon me. My cup was poured out at the feet of mankind as divination took hold. I weeped. I weeped. I weeped. God damn did I fucking start crying like a little bitch as the eclipse of God was overcome for third eyes wonder. Then boom it was gone.
What the fucking shit is this. Did God penetrate my soul or did lil green men penetrate my butthole? THE FUCK AM I DOING IN LEXINGTON. What happened to the whole 15 miles out bullshit. I shit you not. I had literally just elapsed 15 miles and 30 minutes worth of driving in what felt like moments. WHAT THE FUCK. I’m down with Jesus believe me or not, but this shit was a little much. What the FUCK FUCK FUCKING SHIT just MOTHER FUCKING happened??? This is either a profound religious experience, my sickness/drug abuse kicking in, or it’s that X files, Ancient Aliens shit I saw on History channel. Ah what passes for history these days is astounding by the way. Especially when you are raised all over the country, it really gives the full spectrum of educational institutes across the board. Take aways: Jesus was American. The Founding Fathers were saints that fought for liberty and freedom for all those white enough to claim it, but felt really bad about owning slaves. 11 months out of the year is dedicated to WASP ass history, while the remainder is partially covered by the “confusing” and “long since” plight of the African American citizen. But fuck me here I go on a rant again. Divine visions to pissing on the ignorance of a nation. Sounds about right.
Hello my good sir, can I interest you in a blowjob, an ominous voice said through the crack in my window… O’ thank Buddha, Buddha it was only Matt. God Dammit Matt I thought you were about to rape me, I says to him. Naw man that’d cost you extra, he replies, a little too collected in his response. God damn did that one get me laughing. I was just glad to see the mother fucker. His twisted sense of humor was always just a plus to the package that was Matt Maney. He was the entrepreneurial type. I mean it doesn’t hurt when you come from wealth to pursue whatever your heart desires, but then again that’s kinda Matt’s M.O. He follows his heart. And though money was an undeniable facet of his life, such monetary presence did nothing to weigh down his caring soul or loving heart. He gave so freely of himself it was shocking to see. I wish more people with money were like Matt. Maybe we’d live in a better world. Where fiscal worth didn’t equate to the spiritual significance that is a human being in dignity. Matt had a way to do that. Making you feel dignified... at least that’s all I felt as I now entered his apartment.
Sure we hit up all the local bars that surrounded UK. We even visited my coveted TWO KEEEYYYYSSS. Ah what a hell of a Bar. That and Rosebuds were probably my favorite in that city. Hell, while we were at this one bar there was even a band playing Zep and Hendrix, and surprisingly doing the masters justice in their renditions. But though the weekend was a blast by all accords, it wasn’t the bars or the beautiful southern bells that made joy come upon my constitution. It was Matt. Spending time with him never felt wasted. He was too interesting. Too brilliant. Too important for boredom to ever creep into one’s mind while standing near him. As I drove back my humanity drove back with me, because I knew Matt cared about me and I cared about him. Another brother the frat graced me with, but a brother comes not just from man. Only through the grace of God can fraternity spring. Praise be to the fucking Lord for such bonds between wayward souls. Thank God for Matt. If only he knew how much a blessing he was from the Lord. If only he would let it be born more fully in him and the world would mold to his heart. At least I think God would do that for him. But then again who knows the mind of God, the fuck anyway.