So I was dressed to the 9… not exactly the 10, but a 9.5 at the least. Shimmering dark blue shirt, or should I say misty dark blue, fresh jeans, paint tattered Tims and the piece de la resistance. The vest. A loose fit black and grey vest of excellence par none. Front Black. Back Grey. It was a beauty. Little to say I was looking damn sexy. Damn sexy in deed. See I have gone to these measures 1) because I always wear my fucking new clothes to the bars the next night, I mean come on, I just bought them, 2) because the ladies were coming over and I wanted to push that line between stylishly metro and sensibly straight.
Anyway, as I said, the girls were coming over for a margarita night. No, not Franky and Denise. If it was them I wouldn’t be so fucking scared right now. It was the other girls. And hence being such my anxiety was through the fucking roof. Women, well except for Franky and Denise, terrified me a wee little bit. Not so much because… fuck who am I kidding, they terrify the shit out of me and I knew exactly why. See I fall in love with only the slightest of ease, but what at first feels like an exhilarating swan dive into cool lovely water sooner solidifies into rock solid concrete on which I snap my fucking neck. Ya I can’t say it's anyone’s fault in particular, but more so merely the culmination of forces and choices, choices and forces to which bore my present fear so. See, I had always found the unattainable the most alluring of all qualities in a women. Nothing could send my heart into a flurry faster than even the slightest note of rejections to come. Emotional torment was a game I guess I had grown quite fond of over the years. Not that I particularly enjoyed it, for nothing bears deeper than the anguish of a love not shared. Nonetheless, I sought after it so passionately as if my heart yearned for nothing more than its own demise.
I guess when you grow up thinking everybody hates you because… well you hate you, it can throw off any proper notion of where love is supposed to go. This my paradoxical self knew. I was a child born into nothing but compassion, but knew nothing other than self loathing. Taught to love as you are loved only to discover it is that much easier to hate. For there is nothing easier in this world than to hate yourself. Where no secret can be hidden, no sin ever too far to be forgotten. A cell locked from the inside where men take sanctuary in their own perdition. Ya this was gunna be a rough fucking night, because not only were Kristol and Olivia beautiful, but they were pretty damn good people to boot and I didn’t have a chance with either of them. This dead boy wasn’t quite ready die I guess, but he wasn’t quite ready to heal either.
And like that I had awoken. Yes I was on the floor, but good news I was only half naked this time. Yup still alone, but somewhat clothed to say the least. The doorbell rang… wait I don’t have a doorbell. I guess someone was knocking. Olivia and Kristol were back to pick up their blender and leftover tequila from the marg night before. We had had a good night. I smoked. Olivia even smoked a little too. But most of all we did what any Miami kid is obliged to do on days of the week ending in Y, we drank till we could barely stand, O’ could we still dance though. One would be surprised how much a lack of vertical stability and the absolution of social awareness can affect one’s dancing. I mean fucking forbid one is unfortunate enough to have any video evidence of such an occasion. Any occasion as a matter of fact. Ya see, nights out in Oxford were never really meant to reach sober eyes because honestly… well just trust me, shit can get regrettable.
BANG BANG. JoJo answer the door I yelled in a hungover sorta way. Fuck that really beats into one’s brain like a fucking jackhammer. BANG. Shit… BANG BANG fuck... I can barely move right now. It’s like there’s a miniature donkey skull fucking the back of my forehead. JOJO get the doorrrrr. Uhhhhhhhh. Vomit engaged. Oh shit thank god I made it to the toilet just in time. Ehhh what in the hell kinda blue shit did I ingest last night, I asked myself between spews of demonic liquids. While I was too busy purging myself of my own shame JoJo got the door in his briefs. As he answered the door he pumped each one of his oversized pecks up and down in rhythm to greet the gals as they entered our humble abode. God, JoJo you’re such a little douche Kristol says to him in the lovable way she says everything. I ain’t complaining Olivia followed up with quickly. O’ my god dude are you alright they asks me in almost perfect unison.
They of course we’re referring to me in my desperate attempt to keep the wonderful blue liquid spewing out of my mouth from getting on the tile below. Though I was succeeding in preventing said blue vomit from reaching the floor, it seems some of it had come to flow quite freely down my fucking shirt. I’m gunna go upstairs now and attempt to regain the little dignity I have left I says half dazed to them. They both giggled. I see those jello shots from that party we stopped by at last night are coming back to haunt the fuck out of ya huh buddy, Olivia stated with complete joy. What house party I asked, not even having the strength or pride to look back. Exactly, Olivia says still giggling. At ah boy bro walk it off, JoJo says condescendingly in my direction. Poor baby, Kristol whimpered in such a way that I couldn’t tell if she was being sincere or joshing me like the rest of them. God do we love to give each other shit when we’re down. What an odd fucking way to say I love you, but hell we were all assholes like that.
As I waltz up my flight of stairs to a most shameful hangover blues the girls proceeded to grab their shit and head back home all while Joey bounced his pecs away. Hey ladies stick around and watch the show he says to them. You usually have to pay to get aroused like this, badda boom badda bang, he yells at them as he went into a full flex. Such a lil douche Kristol says to Olivia as she made her way out. Olivia, on the other hand, just giggled her cute little self right out the door, after giving JoJo a once over while she could. As I hit my bed in a flurry of dismay and painful lack of recollection I thought of those two beautiful girls leaving my house. When am I gunna meet one of those I asks myself in a whisper. When will I… God fucking dammit I half yelled, too exhausted to produce any authentic emotions at this moment, as I vomited a little on my bed. Isn’t that fucking great I proclaimed a little louder. What, did you puke on yourself again JoJo asks me from down the stairs. No, on the fucking bed this time I replied. Still got those nasty blue sheets on your bed he asks. Yup I says to him. Problem solved then he chuckled. I guess he had a point. Well fuck it I says. You truly are an animal he says to me, as I quickly proceed to fall asleep in the cesspool of a bed teeming with life of its own for sure by now.
Shit isn’t the tv man suppose to be here. God dammit. I better not have missed him. If there is one thing that’ll piss off a college kid more than dying, it was the fucking fact that his fat ass tv didn’t work. But then again, I did need a mixer for the rum Dick Fealey so graciously left at my house after last night’s shebackel. So off I was in the wild blue yonder. I intrusted the faithful Chancey with the domain of my house in case the priorly spoken of tv man decide to arrive. As I slid into my car and engaged my phone into waiting speakers, I carefully avoided setting it in the coffee filled cup holder whose contents had deformed from a previously icey state to a new gooey gel. Now don’t get me wrong, I hate this shit in my car as much as the next guy, but have you ever tried to get that shit out before? It's impossible. Better to let set till a later date.
So again I was off. Well I was off around the corner to the local drive thru beer garden. As I pulled in, I quickly changed my radio station from country to dub step. Nero’s Doomsday to be poignant. I did this namely because it was the cool black guy Timmy working the register right now and I didn’t want to come off as racist. Why the fuck did I do that? That was fucking racist in itself. My brother Z probably wouldn’t have liked that, but then again everything I did was racist or sexist to him, given I was a privileged white male. Hell he had a point, but thanks to his fierce criticism throughout the years I was trying to work on that shit. God I miss him. Can’t wait to see his ass when I go up to Connecticut to visit him. I don’t know. My head hurts. I pull up right next to Timmy and roll the window down. Now given this was the 2014 model of the Ford Fiesta, one would assume that rolling the windows up would not be too much of a fucking hassle. Well goddammit it was. See, despite its rather new condition the car is what most dealers would refer to as a stock car. AKA no amenities whatsoever. No CD player, No touchscreen or motorized anything. Just these fucking crank windows and an audio jack. But then again it was simple, and you come to love simple after a while.
Hey Timmyyyy! How are ya maaan, I asks him in an audacious tone of voice. Fucking lovely my brother! Fucking lovely, he says to me in that booming joyful voice of his. God he was always so happy. So content whether rain or shine. Will it be the usual, he asks me. You know it I says. I was always a creature of habit. Even the lazy sack of shits like me dedicate ourselves to something, even if it is on a subconscious level. Habits are important, even if you’re the only one that knows you do it. I won’t go into details, given that some of my habits are kinda weird. Well there not that terribly weird. Wait maybe they are. I don’t know. I guess I’m just easily embarrassed that’s all.
That’ll be $5.30 bud, he says to me as he bends his knees a little allowing our eyes to meet. Thanks Timmy, I says to him extending my cash outward through the window. No problem man, take it easy, he replies handing me my 20 cents in change. Will do man. Take it easy yourself, I return in like. Always do my good man. Always do, I hear as I drove off out through the exit to the street never to hear that joyful voice again. I was off, back to the town house and now, thank the sweet lord baby Jesus, I have cigs as well. Ahh life is in order again. It has gotten just that much fucking better. Ahhh. Marlboro Special Blend Reds. My favorite. It would be a curious thing to think maybe… just maybe, I could’ve at one point smoked enough of these bad boys to give my lungs cancer before my nuts would have. I wonder if that, if smoking was a form of suicide? I don’t think at least, but maybe smoking cigs was a sort of suicide for those who know the fleeting nature of their own lives. It’d have to be that or just pure fucking willful ignorance of one’s own finitude and how fucking terrible these things are for you. Maybe I should quit, I thought to myself… Fuck that shit I says to myself with an o’ so pleasurable laugh. I love these mother fuckers!! Any whoooo I wonder how Gladice’s plants are doing now? Maybe they’d go for a puff of my cancer, I thought continuing my dreadful laughter.
Lord Buddha, Buddha is it not just misty as fuck in here or what? God damn was it cloudy in there and I’m not just talking about the fog from the little J I intercepted from Chancey as I rolled into my living quarters. I’m talking like a metaphysical collection of spirits floating all around and abound us. It was as if all the energy in the universe took a little break for a moment and stilled their chaotic souls. Though I knew this made no sense, and probably sounded fucking stupid, but it fit the moment well enough. As my vision thickened and the tv lights flickered I was animated and compressed. Inverted and trampled on by old norse gods and hindu whispers. I can’t tell ya... but I was somewhere in the mystic. Gone to the winds of mars as I skated across red mountain tops. God damn was this some freaky weed. What is this shit, I asked Clefus pretending as if the weed had anything to do with my translucent state of mind. Its called Misty Mountain or some weird ass Frodo Baggins shit, he said half awake.
Shut the fuck up Clefus, Chancey says without even looking at the fucker. He has no idea what this shit is, we just found it crumpled up in a piece of tin foil we found on your bookcase over there with some candy. I just began to laugh. You got any of that candy left, I asks them, half hoping for both possible answers to the question to be true. Ya, they both says to me as they hand it over. It was one of those candy sticks that you dip into the sugary shit. You know what I’m talking about right? How much of this shit did you guys eat, I asks them. I don’t know, I had one pack to myself and God how many did you eat Clefus, Chancey asks him, half hazed. I don’t know like 4. Well probably 3 and a half because I had three and I think finished the one you left open, he says to me eyes now closed. Sorry bro I’ll buy you some more when I head over to Redox. Ya you won’t be able to find these there, I says to him in a laugh. What the fuck are you talking about asshole I buy these there all the time, he says to me, eyes now opening out of confusion. No, no you don’t Clefus, I says to him. You remember that synthetic psilocybin I bought for me and Chancey’s formal coming up in the next couple of months, I asks him, heavily implying the correlation between this question and what they had just consumed. Ya, you said it was some trippy shrooms stuff that they put into cannn…. He stopped mid sentence and looked like he was about to throw up. What the fuck did I just eat, he asks, half terrified. Chancey just started to lose his shit laughing. What the fuck are you laughing at jackass, you ate this shit too, he pronounced in a yell. Uh bud I don’t think he’s laughing at you, I says to Clefus. Then what the fuck is he laughing about, he asks me. Dude there was over an O in each of these bad boys, I says to him, as the room began to get fuzzy around me, even more so than before. I just ate a half a pack to sample them, and was going to let you two jokers have the other half when I got back, I says to him.
Wait have you been tripping this entire time, he asks me. Yup was just on Mars a minute ago, I says to him, as I leaned back in my slumping recliner. You were on Mars, he asks in dismay. Yup, Mars I says. And you only ate half a pack of this shit, he asks in deep breathes. Yup, just a half I says. And I ate three and a half of this shit, he says. Yup, yup you did, I says, closing my eyes with a smile as fat as the fucking sky on my face. Fuck me. Fuck me. He just kept repeating that for a minute. Don’t worry Clefus, I normally would be mad at you for eating this much drugs, but then again, hell I’ve never seen anybody eat this many drugs before, so heck I’ll call it square. Cig, Chancey asked, as he snapped out of his hysteria. Ya bud let’s give Clefus a second to ponder what he just got himself into, I says, as we both get up making our way to the front door. But I have work in a couple hours, Clefus yells with a soon following FUCK FUCK. Ya me too bud thats why I only ate a half a pack, I says.
Come on Chancey let's go watch the sun set, I says to him, pulling gently open the front door. I bet that’s gunna fuck my eyes in the best possible way, he says to me and to no one in particular. Ya, ya i bet it will bud, I says to him, cheerful as can fucking be. Can I at least come, Clefus murmurs as we exit the room. You don’t have to ask me for permission bud, but if I was you I would get your bearings on before you move from that couch. Fuck my ass is going to get fired, he says, in complete and utter lost swaying slightly from side to side. Come on Clefus, you do coke in the back room all the time. Since when did you give a shit about getting fired. Just sit back and enjoy yourself for a little bit before you even have to worry about that, I says, as he assumed a new form quite bizarrely entertaining to perceive. And that’s only when I can assume the mass of drugs previously consumed kicked in, because he went from frantic to dead silent after a quiet holy shit was uttered.
God knows what he was seeing. To be honest I was kinda of jealous. It’s not everyday you get to trip that hard on another man’s dime, but I loved him like a little brother and was more than happy to allot him the experience. Damn were his pupils the size of melons right now. God damn he has long left the world of man off to distant planes where consciousness runs in the rivers of the cosmos. What a lucky fucking bastard. God I love that little fucker. Don’t I just love him. We going to have that cig or what, Chancey mumbled to me. Ya man we are, I says to him. How are you doing by the way, I asks. Floating bud. Absolutely floating, he says to me. Ya bud me fucking too. Me mother fucking too, I says to him as we stroll out to over yonder streets of gold.
Up these crumbling stairs. Past the flag hanging gently in the shimmering of divinities blossoming overhead. Out into the sunset of the day. Me and Chancey didn’t say a word the entire time as the sun slipped from sight and the night came in as distant beings began to inhabit the sky above. We didn’t have to. The land and sky became one with us and we with each other. Hell of a drug shrooms are. They make the world a home and your home the world. Peace and love can be found in the presence of awe and wonder, sprouting up in every perception to come your way. Sprouting up and descending down as perceptions fade... as you too fade into that from which being springs... I wish it would never end. But those sober thoughts were not present in this moment. Only me, Chancey, and God the Father that enveloped us. Thank you Jesus for eternal moments like this.
Fuck, Chancey says to me. As he moves to hit me on the chest I suddenly return from one hell of an astral fucking trance. Ya brother, brother. What’s on your mind, I asks him. Clefus man, he says. O’ ya that fuckers got to go to work. Fuck I have to go to work, I says, as I look down at my phone… In like… Shit, I says playfully. What, that soon, asks Chancey. Well I hope that fuckers coming down at least a little. Either that or he’s got 25 mins to figure out some way to sober up, I says to him. As we both decide to go in and see what little we could do to assist him in maintaining his job, we returned down malicious stairs and emerged to a seemingly empty house. As we silently walked around, we began to notice something. Is it clean in here, Chancey asks me perplexed as fuck. I think… I think it is… I says to him in shared perplexion. Did that mother fucker clean up the downstairs while we were out there, I asks, kinda lost in the newly found visibility of my floor and counter spaces. Clefus, we half yelled not quite simultaneously with one another. Clefus, we began again, as all of a sudden he triumphantly birthed himself from out of the downstairs bathroom. I could barely believe it. He was clean shaven and all ready in uniform to go to work. What the fuck, Chancey admistly says through the air of utter surprise that now surrounded us. What the fuck is right, I says with his tonal sentiment completely shared. Ya, I not only cleaned this place while you two fuckers were outside bein’ unproductive pieces of shit, but I am also showered, dressed, and ready for work, he says confidently. Man, Clefus I gotta hand it to you, I says. You really know how to handle your shit. I thought you were a little fucked. Ya I know and it doesn’t hurt that I read online if you snort enough addy and coke that it will offset the more stupefying of this shit’s effects, he says, unashamed. Ahhhh, Chancey says. Ahhh, I says in suite. And here I thought you were a miracle worker. Naw man, he says to me with a devilish smile. I just had a little bit of coke left and I know where you keep your addy. So ya see you guys later, he says, with a laugh as he quickly makes his way out the door. It took a second for me to process all that, given I was still tripping sack, but Chancey chimed in verbally with exactly what I was thinking mentally. Dude, he just lifted so many drugs off you tonight, he says to me with that trippy laugh he’d had all night. That fucker, I says to the world around me. That little asian fucker.
As the drugs finally left my system, another day was abound and ready to befall upon us. Also, given that I missed my shift once again, and opted for more enjoyable things, that can only mean one thing. TIME TO LIGHT UP. Ahh. Nothing soothes the worries of the soul like a little bit of self inflicted cancer. The cancer you choose is always sweeter than the cancer that chooses you. As I finished up my cig and returned back into my house I began to smile at the shit I saw. There I amongst a big ass fucking tv, some pizza rolls, and my endless stacks of books. I was home and I was smiling. This smile quickly ceased as something peculiar started to ignite across one of my extremities. My arm was fucking itching under my flannel shirt. God damn was it itching. I softly rubbed my forearm specifically in hopes it would calm my agitation. Fuck, I whispered, as an itch turned into pain. It hurt pretty fucking bad too. You think I’d be numb to this by now, but I dare not complain. For no one to blame, but myself for this was my pain.
I’m a fucking idiot, I thought to myself half downtrodden. But I did always have a way of doing this to myself, you know, fucking myself over. I could be a real prick to myself when I wanted too. I did my best to hide it, but they all knew what I had done. It’s the only time I didn’t have my sleeves pushed up, but even though they all knew, it was better than making them look at it. It was better for them to know only the winkling suspicion than to see the harsh reality. Cutting myself was never my favorite past time, but… but… but hell I had Chancey, Clefus, and Polly with me now. We were all sitting now astutely facing the tv. While I was tucked away in a book or two somewhere between reading Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death and Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Clefus, Chancey, and Polly were engrossed with a twisted documentary on urban legends on Netflix. I had a way of zoning in and out of multiple projects. ADD is a son of bitch, but it has its moments. FUCKING SHIT. I bit into my finger nail bed. I neurotically bite my nails and every once in awhile, when I stop paying attention, I end up biting a little too deep. Fuck that hurts like a son of bitch. Fuck, I says, as pain now emanated from the tip of my index finger all the way through my forearm. Hazardous is the soul who fashions his body to reflect the turmoil not spoken. You ok, Polly asked me. Ya man just bit to much of my fingernail off that’s all. Huh pussy, he says to me. Go fuck yourself you little stoner ass fuck, I says in a laugh back to him. Ew nice vocabulary there bud, he says back. Ya I know right, I learned it from your mother, I says to him. Ew now you’re ragging on my moms, he says to me very classy like.
God I loved Polly just like the rest of them. He was the stoner of stoners, but most importantly he was my roomy sophomore year. He had been in the pledge class right after mine, and we decided to room together in Flower Hall to stay as close as possible to the frat house, as if it were are own personal mecca of boos and slutes. Now it may sound trivial to say that he was my roommate, but it means a lot to the two of us. God was I gunna miss him. If only he knew that I really did care for him as a brother, for that’s what he was to me. A friend I could trust and someone who always saw happiness in me, even when I was sadder than all get out. God I’m gunna miss him. There’s a lot I could tell you about Polly, but that seems a little pointless because you really just had to meet the mother fucker. He was really one of a kind. A weirdo, a jokester, a nutball, and I loved him for all of it. God I’m gunna miss him. You gunna pass that, Polly barked at me, or are you just gunna chief away all my weed. I passed it to him with a distant smile. My phone quickly buzzed a moment later. I looked at it through hazy eyes. It was Polly. I guess he wanted to text me. I was about to give him shit for being sketchy as fuck, but then I read it.
Are you alright bud. I worry about you sometimes. If you ever need to talk or just shoot the shit you know I’m here for you roomy.
I looked up and smiled at him, as I said thanks in silence. He knew that I appreciated his gesture. He knew I knew how sincere he was with it. It didn’t matter that it was in a text because he might as well have said to me face to face. Polly had a way of texting me when he didn’t want to make a scene about something. I had my suspicions that he might know that I was dy… No he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. No. No.
They all had left now. Well except Chancey, who was playing COD baked out of his mind in the living room. I don’t know where JoJo is. Probably at the bars or fucking something. I had moved to the back patio to be by myself for a moment. For a brief second I thought to ask Chancey to come out and dispel my solitude, but then it came upon me. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew this wasn’t a good feeling I was having. For to my utter dismay I could not tell if it was hysteria or total calm. Thrown between tumultuous times and still waters, I sit and I shake. I shake, but I sit still. I sit and I wait. For something new. That might make me new. I hope and doubt and search for more in this life. What could they all think of me? My friends. My family. Am I fool or something else. I know not the answers to such questions. But I’d be a liar to say I didn’t care about what they had to say. What they had to say about me. I care a lot. I cared a fucking lot. Between calamity and grace, I cared. But I felt just the opposite right now on my back patio as even the Sun hid its face from me as it rose off on the horizon. I sat there for what felt like hours intermixed with days. I just kept feeling that same feeling over and over again. I felt liked no one cared. No one cared about me. Nobody but my cigarette burning away, and even that was sickly working its way to burn at the interior between my two fingers to which held it now. I wish I had… never mind. Shit I have been out here for hours. Fuck I’m late for class.
By this point in the semester I had already dropped Formal Logic, Community Health Perspectives, and some Poly sci class. Now all that was left was my capstone, What is Philosophy?, with Dr. Pascal and my seminar, Democratic Theory, with Dr. Luther. I was late to the later of the two. After running a block and a half I realized I was going to be too late to even care. Dr. Luther will either be disappointed yet again with me or not surprised in the least. Fuck I don’t want to let him down. He cared about me. He worried that I wasn’t ok and I really wasn’t. I wasn’t ok, but he didn’t have to know that. He knew I loved his class. He knew he was my favorite teacher. But then again if I wasn’t there I wasn’t well, and that was sure to ignite his concern. All he wanted was for me to do well. All he wanted was for me not to give up. He knew I was dying because, deep down, he knew he was dying too. Maybe not from cancer, but he understood the finitude of the human predicament. He knew cancer lay inside us all. That we men are fated for death. He knew this, and he but imagined what it was like for me, just some kid, to have that harsh reality thrown on myself with no avail. He knew death’s blatant secret we like to hide, and it made him o’ so attuned to my struggles. Fuck it might as well miss it. Not that it matters. Not that it matters one fucking bit. Dr. Luther will just have to… will just have to…