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Good Friend
Justin was a good friend. When we were flying back in my Saturn from partying in the ‘Boro seven kinds of wasted, it was Justin who took a razor blade to his forehead to convince the cop pulling us over that I was rushing him to a hospital after a bottle crashing. He meant to cut himself only a little bit but apparently the forehead gives up blood rather easily to sharp razor blades. The officer turned on his siren and personally escorted us at 100 plus mph to the hospital. It was Justin who sided with me over his psychopathic ‘roid-freak cousin everybody called Duck, who had vowed to kill me for sleeping with his ex-girlfriend. There is not a sunset that my eyes take in that I am not in debt to him for that privilege. When his cousin tackled me outside of his ex’s apartment complex, it was Justin who drove his right fist repeatedly into his cousin’s right eardrum as both of Duck’s hands were digging into my face to gouge out my eyes. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still feel the shockwaves that traveled through Duck’s hands after Justin struck him and his grip went limp. When my acid trip took a turn for the worse after my girlfriend called me to tell me she was breaking up with me, it was Justin who eventually led me out of the surreal hell I was trapped inside of within my broken head after two and a half packs of Marlboro lights just as the sun began to rise. He was the one who called in sick to his job the day after and scraped up what was left of my soul, as we drifted aimlessly in his step dad’s boat, pretending to fish while smoking mid-grade the better part of the next day. After all was said and done, it was Justin who remained my friend after I became a Christian and quit drugs. I quickly became a pariah amongst my former stoner and druggie friends. When you no longer have five on a blunt but rather have the good news to share that “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them,” you aren’t quite part of the gang like you once were. Justin didn’t care though. He was raised by his agnostic father and devoutly Catholic mother up until he was thirteen when his mother had enough of his father’s womanizing and left. Arguments over God and heathens in the heart of African jungles who never will hear the name Jesus but are still going to hell was nothing to shun but rather was an opportunity for Justin to practice his innate gift as a quasi-brilliant sophist. Besides, now that I was sober, I was a bit tougher and more focused piece of iron for him to sharpen himself on. And now it was his girlfriend’s house on Isle of Hope that I was headed to this Friday night. As I pull into the driveway, Justin rocks back and forth in a rocking chair on the front porch smoking a cigarette, looking out to where there should be a screen door. Wearing a wife-beater with a pair of dirty socks accentuating his unshaven face, he looks every bit the 200 pounds of the poor man’s Tom Cruise that he is plus an extra foot or so. He actually went to the acting school in New York City that was on the old TV show “Fame.” His charisma tempered by his poor work ethic carried him along for about a year and a half and now he’s back in Savannah after picking up a robust cocaine habit. He’s been back in town for five months. I believe he’s still unemployed now, but we try not to discuss work if we don’t have to so I’m not sure. “Well, well… how is life treating my favorite pious half-ass Scotsman?” Justin says in his best Irish brogue as he rises from his seat. “Better I hope than it’s treating the patron saint of third generation wannabe-Irish reprobates.” “Glad to see your sass hasn’t lost its edge in my absence, fucker!” As Justin grunts “…ucker” he shoots in clinching me and the ever so slightly homoerotic male bonding ritual of wrestling commences. We grapple back and forth for a minute without the aid of fanfare nor shiny tights. Suddenly, I feel an opening. I quickly hook my left foot behind his right while shoving his right shoulder towards the ground at the same time, and he tumbles down. Trying to soften the impact, I guide him gently down to the ground to insure I imbed as few rocks as possible from the driveway into his backside. All in all, it was a rather dignified landing. Justin coughs while he brushes himself off as he reaches nonchalantly into his front pocket for a cowboy killer. “Tripping?!! I guess I should have suspected as much from a would-be kabuki actor playing a washed-up samurai. You must be still sore about the last match, huh? Of course you’re fatter now that you’ve quit smoking, so I don’t know if I could pick you up and drop you on my knee anymore.” Justin smirks as he cups his face and lights his cigarette. He tries his damndest to bat away the barrage of small rocks I kick his way while he does his best Reclining Buddha. “I don’t imagine that it helps the matter that you shed 25 pounds of muscle in Manhattan either, eh? So how are you doing with that, bro?” I ask as I gesture with a quick two taps to my right nostril. “Alright… more or less, depending on how much money I have,” he grins. The wind seems to die suddenly in the middle of the air while the silence weighs uncomfortably on the both of us as we look across at each other, still trying to catch our breath. His eyes look like his money was enough, but I can’t tell for sure. The man enjoys a few too many vices for me to isolate what was dilating or reddening his eyes at whatever moment. I am fairly certain, however, that it is not just life my friend is high on. “Don’t worry, Ryan. I don’t go out of my way for that shit. If it’s around then… yeah, but otherwise I just drink and smoke a joint here and there.” He flashes a smile that infuses me with a hopeful yet hollow reassurance. I want to walk around his girlfriend’s house and behind the trees to make sure they aren’t just two dimensional cut out props, the kind used on a stage to reinforce the illusion of reality in order to pull the audience further into the story, so that they forget that it is after all just a bunch of actors on an elevated platform, reciting memorized lines written by someone else. It’s hard to tell when Justin’s lying. I don’t know if I believe him or not, but I want to. The front door opens and Lisa radiantly emerges with her usual subdued charm as indie rock pours out from inside. She’s wearing (I think) factory faded jeans with an attractive light pink shirt that looks like it probably came from one of the nicer department stores in the mall. Her short blond hair falls just beyond her ears catching stray rays of the setting sun which highlight her sharp features. She smiles as our eyes meet while she finishes putting on her last earring. “Hey Ryan! How long have you been here?” Lisa says as she walks towards me for an obligatory yet still heartfelt hug. “I just got here a second ago, Lisa. You’re doing well, I hope?” I say as I pat her back. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m doing well,” she says as her eyes lower ever so slightly as she steps back to where Justin is now standing. “Good. So… I understand you’re having a few friends over tonight for dinner and you need me to baby sit Justin for a while, huh? So what kinda pay does this job get?” I hate telling lame jokes like this. Its either something I genetically inherited or learned from my father. Either way, I can no more shake it than I can my pseudo Semitic looks. “Yeah… you kids need to get going and run before the adults get here, okay!” she says only half joking. Lisa is older than both Justin and me by a few years. She’s twenty-eight and we’re both twenty-three. “We’ll be gone in one second, baby. I just gotta shower real qu…” said Justin. “Justin! How long have you been sitting around the house doing nothing today? Have you talked to your dad again about working for him? You can’t just…” “Yeah Lisa, I’m going to an interview Monday, alright? Now let me shower and get out of here.” Justin escapes through the front door in the porch and reopens it a second later to playfully, yet forcefully, pelt Lisa with his dirty socks, which is met with justifiable shrieks of disgust. “So, Ryan, what do you boys have planned tonight?” “We were supposed to head to the beach and walk around after eating at The Crab Shack. That’s what I’m signing up for anyway.” “Don’t let Justin drink too much, please. Justin becomes a prick when he’s drunk and I don’t wanna put up with his shit when ya’ll come back tonight, okay?” she says as her eyes deepen. “Watch him.” “Yeah, alright. I’ll try my best to keep him in line.” We talk about how our jobs are going, what music she’s playing- Sebadoh’s “Smash Your Head On the Punk Rock”-, what food she’s preparing for her guest tonight, and other small talk to fill the seven or so minutes until Justin emerges looking closer to a working-class Tom Cruise whose off the dole now that he’s clean shaven, showered, and freshly re-socked. “You boys have fun, okay? Justin call me, okay?” “Yeah, yeah. Sure thing, baby. Bye.” As we head for Tybee, the sun splashes gold and pink across the clouds as it sets into the ocean. It’s a nice evening, and we drive with my car’s windows down. The air has a near electric quality to it, invigorating us as we roll down the highway. Justin and I reminisce, laughing and smiling as old memories and friends come back to life in our stories of yesterday. Certain details are embellished and others deliberately left out to craft a more favorable account of our semi-nonfiction lives. We graciously allow each other almost all the liberties the other thinks necessary unless one reaches too far. Then chops are tenderly busted. The Crab Shack is as I remembered it: fried mediocrity with Christmas lights, strewn out everywhere, and Jimmy Buffett droning on and on till you just wanna raze the whole damn tourist trap to the ground. Still, as far as tourist traps go it has a certain charm that only increases the more one drinks. As such, the charm increased a good deal for Justin over the course of the night. We arrive at the beach and walk out past the pier to the north side of the beach. The moon is nowhere to be found so a nice canopy of stars hangs above us. Justin burns a joint he brought for this purposely secluded occasion, and we sit in silence as the waves crash around us in the roaring darkness. “You know, Ryan, I’ve been thinking lately about the whole life after death thing recently. It just seems strange to me.” “What do you mean, man?” “Well, I guess it’s the whole idea of continuing forever after you die, you know? I don’t like it.” “Do you mean the thought of someone going to hell to be…” “No, no. It’s not that. Heaven or hell, it doesn’t matter. Just the idea of always being… remaining forever,” he says then pulls slowly from the joint illuminating his face. “It’s… horrible man. I just want to no longer exist when I die and that be it.” “You’re telling me that you wouldn’t want to rejoin loved ones or be in the presence of an all loving God in heaven forever, Justin?” “Yeah. And it’s not that I want to die, exactly. I just wish sometimes,” he sighs and then flicks what’s left of the roach into the darkness, “that I’d never been born. Like that Queen song says.” What the hell does someone say to that? Really. What in the hell should someone say to something like that? I never bought a stupid WWJD bracelet, but I don’t imagine it would do me much of any good here anyway. “You know… Justin… I don’t think we can even begin to think… uhh… what life would be like in heaven. I mean… someone who has eaten spam their whole life has no concept of what a filet mignon steak tastes like, right? Well…” “No,” he says quietly but under great conviction. “I want an end. Extinction. The candle is blown out forever and that’s fucking it. To hell with spam or steak, I’m tired of fucking eating, man.” God. I want one of his cigarettes now. Some Bible verse about looking into the glass dimly keeps wanting to pop up in my head, but I let it pass as the wind blows the heavy moment out into the depths of the ocean as the waves continue to crash around us. After a while, we continue back to the strip where most of the quaint bars are located at Tybee. The sound of Sublime’s “Same in the End” brings us inside the Scandals bar. The bar is fairly empty and has a charming dinginess to it with the salty ocean air intermingling with the smell of cigarette smoke and beer. There’s a pool table and only a handful of people due in part to early fall not being the most happening time for the beach. It’s just as well. I like it when establishments aren’t crowded because it makes me feel like I own the place. “Are you sure you don’t want anything, Ryan.” Justin asks as he starts to head to the bar. “Yeah man. I’m good, thanks.” I do drink. I just can’t do it around Justin. After one beer he brings another before I’m finished with the first then another, repeating the process, adding shots and his special blend of relentless peer pressure and nagging. Simply put the man does not facilitate moderation. Best to stay at zero because the fight to stay at only one or two drinks is a pyrrhic victory at best. With Justin going to the bar, my focus goes across the bar to a woman dancing more than a little drunkenly on the dance floor. Her sense of rhythm is rough to put it charitably, but her enthusiasm is almost contagious. Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy” comes on the jukebox and I soon find myself dancing alongside her. She is probably in her early 20s. Bleach blond hair falls over a face I can’t quite discern in the lighting, though she looks attractive from what I can tell, and she carries a little extra weight in the right places. Other than when she steps on my feet, I guess I’m having a good time. She starts to run her hands through my hair and chest as she looks drunkenly into my eyes. She is pretty. Very wasted, but pretty. Before my conscience has the chance to weigh the morality of what would have passed as risqué in the ‘50s norms of our culture, Justin arrives back with a boilermaker in hand to tag out with me. Sitting down, I notice a guy sitting on a stool with his head hung low across the dance floor from me. To say that he looks beaten down is akin to saying that road kill looks wounded. This man is crushed. There is a shamanic belief in many animistic cultures that holds that a person has many souls. Some govern personality, some vitality, some spirit (as in school spirit, fighting spirit, or teen spirit), and others do this or that. They think a man can loose some or most his souls and become a kind of zombie, where he is sort of conscious, breathing, and living, but not really living. Just existing. This man with his head in his hands on the stool was rather convincing evidence for this metaphysical theory. The shell of his body is here but his souls seem to be far away. Next to him there is an angry man standing with arms crossed who appears more and more angry the more I study him. He looks back and forth at Justin and the girl, who are now grinding on the dance floor, then to me over and over again. After a tense minute, he walks straight over to me with his hands welded to his side. “Hey!” he says over the loud music. “Hey, what’s up, man! You doing all right tonight?” I reply. “No. No, I’m not,” he says with grave seriousness. “You see that guy over there sitting down where I was standing?” “Yeah.” “That’s my friend and the girl you were dancing with and your friend is now rubbing his dick all over is his fiancé.” “Ohhh… Dude, I had no idea. I wouldn’t have…” “Yeah. Just tell your friend,” he says and then angrily resumes his post. Justin, taking a break from dancing, sits down next to me. Drunken carousing is a good bit of what he lives for, and right now he is swimming most comfortably in his element. Of course I don’t condone this. But I am no sermonizer either, despite being a Christian. I’ve told him it’s reprehensible to run around on Lisa. I have. It really leaves me at a loss, though. Where does one divide the line between morality and loyalty? I hate how he puts me in this situation again and again. “Justin.” “Yeah, budd?.” “That dude over there with the crossed arms told me that the chick we were dancing with is engaged to the man over there on the stool with his head hung low.” “Really?” “Really.” “Huh,” Justin says considerately as he thinks over the matter. “Fuck him and his friend. I guess he needs to stop being such a pussy and take his girl back like a fucking man.” Justin stands up abruptly and walks back to the dance floor. The drunken girl stumbles his way as seductively as she can, and they’re dancing/dry humping again. Within a minute, he’s making out with her as they drunkenly grope each other. I look away from the dance scene to see what kind of video games in the corner they have to eat my quarters and distract my conscience. Hmmm… Ms. Pac-Man?! Yes. I rummage through my jeans and find an appropriate offering and gratefully plunk it into the slot. Letting my mind zen out to the flashing pixels and droning of waka-waka-waka, I notice in my peripheral the angry man heading over to Justin. With Justin’s back to him, he raises up a cue stick in an instant, and then breaks it across the back of his head in one smooth motion. Justin falls to the ground as the angry man repeatedly brings down what’s left of the stick on top of him. As I take all of this in, the thickest part of the cue stick reflects against the wall, offering itself at my feet. I pick up close to two feet of good solid wooden club without really registering the decision to do so, as someone in a dream might. Calmly, I walk across the room and watch myself slam the club violently against the justified man’s head. I listen to him scream as he falls over clutching his head, and then I rapidly strike him again and again until he’s silently lying in a pool of his and Justin’s mixed blood. Picking Justin off the ground, I place his left arm around my shoulder and we trudge towards the door unhindered by the bewildered small bar staff and the other two conscious yet near hysterical patrons. As I lay him inside the passenger seat, I hear Justin tell me that I’m a “good friend.” I return to my body once again, throw up, and we drive off into the long night.
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