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, ____, ( 21/10/01 anada455 ,
/ \ ,_____ (--|_\_,,_, _ _| _ __________ ,-.______ _,---._ __ _/ \
/ \+------ _| ) | |(_|(_|(_|_ .net------/ )----.-' `./-/ \
/ / ( |__, ( ( ,' `/ /|
\ / \ `-" \'\ / |
\ / "The Dark Ages" `. , \ \ / |
Y-------- ----------/`. ,'-`----Y |
/ by Pavement ( ; mEoW!@/| '
i________________________________________________| ,-. ,-'_______/ | /
| | | ( * | /
|____________________ Anada is cat-friendly! __) |__\ `.___________|/
`--' `--'
The following is very loosely based on a true story. Most everything
contained within actually happened to myself or someone I know, but not
always in exactly the same manner as I've described it. A few of the
characters are composites, and a couple are completely fictitious.
In other words, it's mostly bullshit.
Or is it?
I.
Our story begins on an August night in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
The city is the wealthiest in the state -- a tiny but elite suburb of
Detroit, populated by fabulously wealthy Auto Company executives and their
fabulously bored children.
Parked in the lot of a movie theater are Kelly, Taylor, Chris, Vito,
Shaun, and Evan. The sextet are enjoying the summer break between their
freshman and sophmore years of high school. Kelly and Taylor are two
bisexual girls dating each other; their fathers are General Motors
executives. Chris is two years away from an inheritance worth hundreds of
millions of dollars -- his dead father owned Dart Styrofoam, which holds a
virtual monopoly on Styrofoam cup production in the world. Vito's dad is a
gynecologist and Shaun's, an advertising executive. Evan is from Grand
Rapids, the "Second City" of Michigan; his father is a technician for AT&T,
which makes Evan, by far, the poorest in the group.
Shaun recently moved to Evan's home of Grand Rapids, and the two
quickly became best friends. Though they've known each other a scant three
weeks, Shaun invited Evan for a weekend out with his Motor City pals, which
we now return to.
The conversion van is sweltering, carelessly baking the occupants. A
Diet Coke can has been punctured with holes, and marijuana placed in the
center. The can passes from Kelly to Taylor. The pair kiss as they
"shotgun" the smoke from set of lungs to another. The can continues on to
Vito. He inhales deeply, exhales, then laughs. Then to Shaun, who takes a
toke, and pushes it towards Evan. Evan has never tried pot and though he's
hesitant to "smoke drugs," he is giddy with excitement at the prospect of
becoming one of the cool kids. His eyes focused on the white-and-red
colored tin, the holy can is given unto him.
Eyelids clamped shut, lungs on fire, brain addled with THC, he knows
he's found it. That final piece missing from the puzzle of his life has
been carefully wedged into place. The Evan of yesterday is gone forever,
replaced by a SOMEBODY.
II.
Two weeks have passed. Evan has returned home to Grand Rapids, where
he finds himself sitting in yet another parking lot with friends.
The sun's rays are infiltrating a hazy, clam-baked VW mini-bus. They
have smoked several bowls. Angie, a masculine redhead, is the unknowing
object of Evan's childish crush. The mini-bus's interior has been stripped
in typical white trash fashion, until nothing but the driver's seat remains.
After several cautious glances around the parking lot, Lars digs in
his pants pocket, and produces a cellophane cigarette wrapper. Inside are
four hits of acid.
"Well, this is it," he says with a tone of finality.
"Our first trip," says Tony.
Lars hands each of us a hit. We peer curiously at the tiny white
paper, then turn to look at each other. None of us have any idea what we're
about to experience. All we know is that a genie is about to be released
from his bottle and might not go back when we ask him to.
"You know what?" exclaims Angie, her gray eyes ablaze. "We're young;
we don't have jobs or worries yet; now's our time to have fun. I'm ready,
and I'm fuckin' excited!"
Their male pride not allowing them to be outdone in confidence by a
girl, the three steel themselves, and pop the paper onto their tongues.
"Well, come on, are you going to do it too, or what?" Lars asks
Angie, a tiny bit of mockery in his voice.
Angleís opens her mouth, slowly rolling her tongue out at us. Her
paper is almost dissolved.
"Way ahead of you guys," she laughs.
The foursome drive back to Lars's house. Everyone is starting to
feel something. Everyone except Evan.
"What the fuck is this bullshit? I can't believe I wasted 5 bucks on
this crap."
"Evan, why don't you shut the fuck up?"
"Okay, Jesus. I'm just not feeling anything, that's all."
"Well, just lie back and let it come to you."
"Okay."
An hour later...
"Godammit, I'm still not feelin' anything."
"Stop waiting for something to happen and just relax."
"Okay, but -- hey, is the ceiling supposed to be moving like that?"
"Yeah, it comes with the house."
So, the quartet spend the rest of the day watching lamps "wave" and
"melt." They listen to "The Wall" and "Revolution 9." They watch "Naked
Lunch." They do whatever their more experienced elders told them was
"trippy."
Physically and emotionally drained at the end of the day, dully
pained in his spine and teeth, Evan lies in bed and knows that NOTHING will
stand in the way of his doing this again very soon.
III.
When I was 19, I moved out of my Dad's apartment and into a place of
my own with Jared, who had the dual role of my co-worker and best friend.
Our apartment was huge and the first 3 months or so were relatively quiet.
I spent a lot of time reading, teaching myself Unix and fooling around with
my Playstation. We had a few friends over a couple times a week. It was
nice, wholesome fun.
The problem was that Jared soon became a full-blown pothead. I
smoked too much myself, but he was high more often than not and completely
crazy about his "little green buddhist friend." My roommate was very
generous, so I quickly became a huge stoner myself.
The conditions were ripe for disaster -- we were two party-loving
guys in their first apartment, who lived a block away from the night job all
their friends worked at and didn't care about anything other than the fun
they thought they were having.
We started having a few additional people over. Then a few more,
then a few more, until eventually we were throwing a party every night of
the week. Our apartment became known as THE party house and about 45 people
were there every night. I don't know why, but the neighbors never called in
a noise complaint. Maybe they were scared of us.
Through the keggers we threw, Jared and I met a multitude of new
people who didn't work with us. The never-ending party's sleaziness
increased exponentially. People we'd never seen before would be passed out
on the floor when we woke up. I discovered couples having sex in my bed on
multiple occasions. I lost my housekey and never bothered to get a new one,
because I knew someone would always be in the apartment to let me in. Jared
and I never paid for our drugs or alcohol since we were supplying the party
house and could easily guilt someone else into buying them. It was every
partier's dream.
IV.
A pastor's daughter named Joy was a major actor in the drama of our
apartment. The media and popular literature have stereotyped pastors'
daughters as rebelling against their repressive parents with wild,
fun-loving, oversexual behavior, all the while presenting a face of absolute
purity to Mommy and Daddy. From what I saw with Joy (the only pastor's
daughter I've ever known), the stereotype is all too accurate.
When under stress, Joy worked out obsessively. Since she had a
physically abusive boyfriend, her work out routines were interminable. As a
result, she had what can only be described as the most perfect body I've
ever seen; not an ounce of fat to be found anywhere on her body. I don't
mean that in the sense that she was anorexic; in fact, she had what a
Charles Atlas advertisement would describe as a "suit of rock hard muscle."
Unfortunately, she soon began to resemble a member of the Chinese Women's
Swimming team.
Even though her physical strength was such that she could've easily
beaten him senseless, her boyfriend constantly kicked the crap out of her.
When he hit her, those muscles she took such pride in turned to jelly. Any
good friend would've reported it to the police, but we didn't. I wish we
had.
Soon, Joy started doing some modeling at car shows throughout
Michigan. In a tiny bikini, she'd adorn the cars like a hood ornament or a
part of the scenery. She became a THING, reduced to a pair of boobs and a
pretty face.
And pretty she was. Fucking gorgeous is more like it. Everywhere I
went with her, the heads of men turned. Not just one or two, but almost
every head we passed. I took a secret pleasure in the fact that some of the
guys who saw us together assumed she was MY girlfriend.
Modeling at a car show in Detroit one day, she was approached by an
older man who claimed to be a golfer on the PGA tour. He told her she was
pretty, intelligent, poised, all the things she wanted to hear.
The two went on a date after the show. Apparently, it turned out to
be true -- the man was a professional golfer and as a result, a
multimillionaire. He offered that if she would move to Florida with him,
he'd take care of her for the rest of her life.
So she moved to Florida and I hear that she's happy, but we haven't
spoken at all since then. I assume her life has become an extension of her
"modeling" career -- an IT, a trophy wife for Mr. Golfer to travel the world
with, while she spends his money and lives life unfulfilled.
That's the best scenario I could hope for. In all likelihood, he's
just some manipulative sicko who charmed a pretty girl into moving, far away
from where her friends and family could help her.
V.
A few weeks before Joy left for Florida, Jared and I closed down The
Party House for one night, in serious need of some peace and quiet. It was
not to be had, however, as we ended up getting invited to a party at someone
else's house.
When I arrived at the party, I ran into a guy named Mark, who I
hadn't seen for years. I'd never known Mark very well -- we had only been
casual acquaintances. Mark told me that he had come out of the closet
recently. A lot of beer and hours later, we ended up having consensual sex
in an unused section of the house.
The next day, I had a lot of thinking to do. I thought back to age
16, when I had bodybuilding magazines mixed in among the Playboys between my
mattresses. I thought about how I'd enjoyed having sex with Mark more than
I'd ever enjoyed having sex with a woman. I thought about his phone number
sitting on my dresser.
I called him and went over to his house, where we repeated the
escapade from the night before.
After we'd finished, I lay in bed with him, watching our cigarette
smoke swirl around the ceiling. We'd been chatting for a while, when he
suddenly told me that he downloaded a lot of porn. I admitted that I
downloaded some from time to time, too. Then, he says:
"But I think as long as they're 14 or older, it's okay."
I nearly swallowed my cigarette.
My heart pounding with fear, I jumped out of bed and staring
incredulouly at this twisted pedophile. After pausing long enough to tell
him what a disgusting piece of shit he was and that I DEFINITELY wasn't into
that sort of thing, I threw on my clothes, and literally sprinted to my car.
Obviously, I never spoke to him again.
My problem is that I have very little in common with any gay or bi
man I've ever met. I'm not fruity in any way; no one can ever "tell" when
they meet me. All of my friends are straight. I listen to RAP MUSIC, for
God's sake. I guess I'm just a straight guy who likes the same sex. Due to
my insecurity about it and the refusal of most of my friends to go to gay
bars, I've pretty much given up on it, for now. I hope to one day meet the
perfect man, but I couldn't ever stop dating women either, so that's what
I'm focusing on until I decide otherwise.
VI.
One day, Jared and I realized a kid named Ryan hadn't left for about
3 weeks. We had gone to high school with this guy, but didn't really know
him because he was 2 years younger than us and a high school dropout. In
retrospect, it's unbelievable that it took us 3 weeks to notice him camping
out at our house, but there were so many people in and out of the apartment
and we never paid attention.
An opportunity soon presented itself. We told Ryan to start paying a
third of the rent or get the hell out and never come back. He agreed with
the arrangement. This was a really bad decision on our part, as we soon
learned that Ryan had a highly successful "street pharmacy" business. He
started bringing a lot of hoody, violent people over and his customers were
always calling our house asking for him.
My Mom would sometimes pick me up to have lunch with her. I always
met her outside the apartment, so she couldn't see The Party going on
inside. One day, oblivious to her impending arrival, I sat on the coach,
happily hitting a bong. I heard a knock at the door, which I threw open,
thinking it was just another partyier coming over. What my Mom saw was a
chick doing a kegstand, a bunch of people in a circle around a homemade
hookah and a guy snorting Ritalin on my kitchen table. This happened around
noon on a Sunday. My Mom told me she was ashamed of me and stormed off.
I was ashamed of myself, too.
Following this incident, I climbed a mountain. At the summit was an
epiphany, which concerned me cleaning up the horrible state my life was in.
As my grimy fingers were pulling my body weight onto the summit, someone
handed me a Heineken, and I fell thousands of feet to the surface.
VII.
Amy is a woman whose features remind one of a pleasant summer day;
she is clean, fresh, and composed of slender, smooth, watercolored lines.
I stare into Amy's emerald eyes; I run my fingers through her blonde hair.
Her sheer femininity brightens my dark, masculine days. And then my
temporary romantic delusion is shattered with her asking:
"Got anymore coke," as we roll around in bed.
I met Amy while I was selling her a 10-strip of acid. We've been
going out for 6 months; we are in madly, ravenously in love. But, maybe, to
quote an early Detroit techno pioneer, "this is cocaine speaking."
The commencement of our coke habit coincided with the start of our
relationship. We're having the time of our lives: In the daytime, we make
Caligula shiver with our unheard of hedonism. At night, our vacuum-noses
sniff line after line of white powder.
And then we make love. What a wonderful feeling -- our bodies taut
and powerful from the cocaine, all night long we exist in a perpetual state
of bliss.
I made up the parts about us being in and making love.
Truth be told, we are a pair of pathetic, I hesitate to use the word
"junkies," but there it is, drawn together by our mutual desperation.
We rarely have sex, since the coke has made it so hard for me to "get
it up." Somebody get Bob Dole on line one.
Neither of us enjoy the animalistic fucking we sometimes subject
ourselves to, but late night infomercials lose their appeal over the long-
term.
I look Amy in the eyes. Those deep, green eyes. Those Wide Sargasso
Seas. I see emptiness. And I might as well be looking in the mirror.
"Amy."
Amy, Annoyed: "Whaaat?"
Amy, pleading little girl voice, meant to be irresistible: "Evan, you
dooo have some coke, right?"
Why is this so hard for me to say? Just get it out, Evan; now or
never, man. Say it, godammit! Alright, fine:
"Yeah, but I was thinking, maybe we should stop this shit."
She looks at me, speechless. In my imagination, my eyes are telling
her I'm serious.
Her lips curl up into an evil, revealing giggle.
"You fucking loser." And then, in disbelief: "Evan -- Jesus Christ."
She won't even dignify me with a complete sentence and just shakes her head
with an unforgiving smile.
And then giggles mutate into outright laughter. She's laughing at
me, mocking everything I thought our relationship stood for. "How could you
ever think I could love YOU?" is what I hear in the laughter.
My dream world is irreparably and finally shattered. So is my heart.
I hear the engine of her Toyota turning over. I peel back the
curtains and stare. Her middle finger extended, Amy takes off into the
milky night, never to return.
I've cried little in my life, but as I collapse onto the couch,
desolation spreading through my body like a virus, I make up for lost time.
VIII.
"All these silly games that's played by the women. I'm only happy
when I'm going up in 'em" comes the voice of Ice Cube through my stereo
speaker.
I've been on a sexual bender for quite a while. Amy really fucked
with my head. I haven't stopped doing coke -- quite the contrary, I'm doing
it now more than ever.
I've dropped all my old friends. Their replacements are shallow
ex-cheerleaders who are perpetually "busy" and men whose distaste for
"geeks" is only matched by their hatred of women. Had we gone to high
school together, these girls would've laughed at me; the guys would've just
silently kicked my ass. Somehow, I have them all fooled into thinking I
wasn't a heavy metal t-shirt wearing, addicted to BBSing, full-fledged DORK
in high school.
I go out to the booty-shaking clubs and have mindless, degrading sex
with any woman that'll talk to me.
It's 11:30 PM. The walls of The Grotto nightclub are pulsating with
life. The neon lights, cigarette smoke and alcohol have become my life.
I let the incessant wave of Top 40 music wash over me.
"...let me in now, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, let me in now..."
From the opposite side of the dancefloor, I see her. Her bleached
hair, her constricting black skirt. Her overdone makeup. Her belly button,
which is pierced.
"...and Paperboy is the magician, if I was a vacuum, I'd be..."
All of these girls think they're on MTV. In their world, every
female is a seductive vamp and every male an Abercrombie & Fitch clad, take-
charge man. As I finish my cigarette and gulp the remains of my Labatt's, I
watch the unnamed woman bump and grind her way into my sex drive.
"...she ain't nothin' but a hoochie mama, hood rat, hood rat,
hoochie..."
Her forehead is glistening with sweat. My heart should be pounding
at this point, but my alcohol-drenched brain won't permit it. She's drunk
as fuck. No, that's not right -- I want to use proper club parlance here --
she's driz-zunk as fiz-zuck. Much better.
"WHAT'S UP!" She slurs in my direction.
"WHAT'S UP!" I yell over the music, trying to sound excited.
"...jig on the cover of Fortune, 5 double oh, here's my phone number,
your man..."
I start freaking her. I give a perfunctory grind of my crotch every
so often, while her ass gyrates further and further into me.
My mind wanders. I considered myself "enlightened" as a kid. I
believed in equal rights and freedom from the herd mentality. I believed in
an enriching life. And right now, I believe that I'm dressed in the same
shiny club clothes as everyone else in The Grotto, freaking a girl I don't
respect, for no other reason than getting her into bed.
How did this happen? How did I become the asshole I always hated?
My reservations will just have to wait, because my penis and the
copious amounts of alcohol I've imbibed are telling me to take her home and
get my freak on.
"...people say 'you look like MC Hammer on crack, Humpty'..."
We leave the club. We hop into my piece of shit car, which she eyes
suspiciously -- what kind of "player" would drive something like this?
Where's my system to thump out the latest Booty Bass CD? Where's my Lexus
with the Gold Daytons? Perversely, she looks displeased with my lack of
consumerist trappings. I'm missing the ubiquitous accessories in the
universe of misogynistic bar assholes, but she must not care enough to say
anything.
On the journey to my apartment, I playfully tease her about this or
that; she tells me I'd better be quiet, unless I want to face the wrath of
the abominable "Tickle Monster."
That's just right harmless flirting, innit, guv'nor?
Quite right, Jeeves. The last two paragraphs never happened. In
reality, we parlayed in the mindless mode that only reveals itself under the
influence of alcohol. I shamelessly groped her breasts, but hell, we were
both inebriated and she laughed through the whole thing.
We pull into my driveway and get out of the car. Rain is pouring out
of the sky. If this were a date, I'd open the door for her. But this a one
night stand and I'll be damned if she gets an ounce of respect from me.
I realize I still don't know her name.
We go inside and I turn on some music. I give her my name and she
tells me her name is Christina. We both know what we're there for and don't
waste time with further formalities.
IX.
It's 12 hours later. Christina has long since been dropped off at
her house, never to be seen again. I'm sitting on my couch, watching Ron
Popeil demonstrate his latest creation to a captive and paid audience.
"Wow! And you're saying that this thing can make Turkey Jerky, Ron?"
"That's right, Suzanne! Moms love it and it's so easy that an infant
can operate it! In fact, I'd like to invite my precious six-month old
grandson up here to try it out. Where are you, Philip?"
"Ron, you remember when you said you'd put Philip IN the food
dehydrator if he didn't stop crying?"
"Yeah, I -- uh, folks, we're gonna have to cut to commercial -- "
I push the power button on the remote control, take off my white Game
hat and begin to page through my photo album. There we are - a group of
glorious, alienated dorks. They just weren't cool enough for me. I'm
popular now and don't need them. But for some reason, I feel a yearning to
call Tony, who was my best friend before my metamorphosis.
After digging through a packed closet, I find his number written on
the back of a grocery store receipt. I press and depress the buttons on my
phone in slow motion. What will I say? How will I explain to him why, when
"why" is buried deep in my sub-conscious?
"Hello?"
It's the first time I've heard Tony's voice in over two years.
"Uh, hi dude."
"Is this Evan?!"
"Yeah."
"I can't fuckin' believe it! What's up, man?"
"Not much. How's it goin'?"
"Good. Shit, I haven't talked to you for years!"
"I know."
"So whattaya been up to?"
"Well, I met a bunch of new people. I drink a lot and smoke a lot of
pot. And some other things."
"Like what other things?"
"Just some other things."
"Okay, that's cool. So, you wanna hang out, dude? Maybe get some
coffee or something?"
"Sure. How 'bout Kava House?"
"Alright, cool, is 4 o'clock good?"
"Yeah, that's straight. I'll see ya there."
Later that day, I venture into Kava House. There's Tony, calmly
waiting in the corner. I sit down and force a smile. I wouldn't blame him
for not taking me back as a friend -- after all, I dropped him mercilessly.
Thankfully, he's a better man than I am.
We catch up on old times. He tells me his band is playing lots of
shows in the Detroit area and have recorded several demos. He's gone back
to college to complete his Psychology degree and is dating a girl named
Jasmine. He produces a picture from his wallet. I'm impressed -- she's a
gorgeous brunette.
Then he asks me what I'VE been doing.
"Well, I party a lot, and uh, go out to the bar a lot, and uh -- "
Tony's eyebrow is raised, waiting for me to get to what I've REALLY
been doing.
" -- Well, um, that's it, Tony."
"Oh. Well, that's cool" he says with a nervous laugh.
Amazingly, our friendship is reinstated. Over the next few days, I
call the rest of my old friends. They all willingly and happily take me
back. I'd forgotten what fun life was.
I'd known for a long time that I needed to quit coke, but needed some
true friends to confirm it. Through a long journey of sleepless, sweaty
nights and disappointing slip-ups, I finally exorcise the demon.
My "cool" friends from the not so distant past? The loose as a goose
former cheerleaders? They don't miss me. In fact, I end up receiving only
a single, worried phone call from the Abercrombie crowd.
"Hey, what up, E-dogg?! Hey, I ain't you at the club the last couple
weeks. There's mad bitches and -- "
I coldly inform him that I won't be going anymore. Damn, that feels
good.
"What, but why? Are you pussing out on me?" he asks.
And then I hang up the phone. I don't need friends like that. To
them, I fulfill the role of infinitely replaceable drinking buddy and
nothing more.
They never call back.
I never look back.
X.
I manage to stay clear of drugs, other than an occasional drink and
joint.
I swear off sex for a while, but within two months, the urge to hump
becomes too much to bear and I begin to bitch to my friends about needing to
find a woman.
My days of promiscuity and dickheaded-ness have destroyed my
know-how. I can think of no other way to approach a potential mate than as
an asshole, and that's not what I want to be anymore.
Finally, I convince one of my friends to hook me up with a blind
date. When I meet her at the restaurant, I know I'm fucked. This girl is
light years out my league, and as I later find out, way too nice to be
dating a former asshole.
But I decide to go for it anyway. I try my hardest to be myself and
not use any cheesy bar lines. I'm heartened when, at the end of the date,
she says she'd like to see me again. I give her a quick peck on the lips
when she leaves. My old self would've never called her again if we didn't
fuck on the first date. I'm proud of myself and know I've matured.
Things don't work well with Jessica; we date only a few weeks and
then break up.
XI.
ring
ring
ring
I stumble out of bed and pick up the phone. It's Tony.
"Evan, you know what time it is?"
I'm yawning, disoriented. The synapses in my brain finally make the
needed connections and I gaze at the clock through blurry eyes.
"Oh shit, 2 o'clock."
"Yeah. You mind if me, Jasmine and her friend Zoe come over?"
"Sure, bring 'em on over."
"Alright, but hey --"
His voice falls to a whisper.
"What?"
"Listen, Zoe is Gillian Anderson's sister, but DO NOT ask her about
it, or else she'll NEVER shut up."
"She's seriously Gillian Anderson's sister?"
"Yeah, for real."
"Well, you realize what my next question will be then?"
"No, she's not really that hot. And she's only like 16 or
something."
"Oh. Well, come on over."
I hang up the phone. I can't resist the urge to preen my feathers in
the mirror a little bit. I don't think I've seen "The X-Files" more than a
couple times (because I've always thought it pretty stupid) -- and she IS
only 16, but well -- Ahem.
As they walk in, I immediately notice Zoe's extraordinary resemblance
to Gillian Anderson. She manages to simultaneously look like a spoiled
little rich girl.
After a couple hours of meaningless chatter, we go to Blockbuster to
rent a few movies. I receive the familiar thumbs down on my ideas to rent
"Fear of a Black Hat" and "Don't Be a Menace To South Central While Drinking
Your Juice In The Hood."
Eventually, we come across "The X-Files Movie."
Jasmine to Zoe (with a chuckle): Hey Zoe, how 'bout we rent THAT one?
You've never seen it before, right?
Zoe: Ha ha. You know, I am SO FUCKING SICK of people thinking I'm
some sort of celebrity -- I was just in ONE EPISODE for God's sake. I mean,
boys just won't stop calling me, I'm just a normal person who WANTS HER LIFE
BACK!!!!
Maybe I missed it when she was mobbed for her autograph as we walked
inside.
I feel an urge to retch coming on. How sad it must be to live your
life in the shadow of your sibling, to have nothing else to talk about but
someone else's accomplishments, to BIRG -- bask in reflected glory.
Evan: So, um, you sure you guys don't want to see "Don't Be a Menace
to South --
The others: No!
I don't recall which movies we ended up picking up, but as we brought
them to the counter, I realized that maybe Zoe had a point:
Video Store Guy: Hey, you look a lot like that chick from --
Zoe (pissed off): Okay, NUMBER ONE, I'm...
I'll just stop there.
Tony broke up with Jasmine a few weeks later, so I never got the
chance to hang out with Zoe Anderson again. Maybe there IS a God.
XII.
I've been friends with Mike longer than almost anyone. He's not the
brightest guy in the world, but he's a good friend. He's also one of the
biggest potheads I know, which is quite an accomplishment, since the
majority of my friends are huge potheads in their own right.
In times of extreme need, kids from the suburbs will occasionally go
down to "da hood" to buy drugs, but they never SELL drugs in the hood. Some
things just aren't done.
Mike was too dumb to realize this.
He took 2 ounces of dank down to the worst neighborhood in the city,
Burton Heights, and proceeded to ask group of homeboys he came across if
they wanted to buy some weed. Amazingly, he'd actually sold a little bit,
when he suddenly felt a handgun pushed into his back and was mugged for his
weed, money, pager, and cell phone. The two kindly Gangsta Disciples then
beat the shit out of him.
An intelligent person would've learned his lesson from this, but this
is Mike we're talking about here.
A year later, Mike calls me:
"Dude, you'll never guess what happened!"
"What?" I ask.
"Me and Caleb were in Grand Haven [shitty resort town on Lake
Michigan] late at night and we decided to break into a store. We were
driving off with the shit when the fucking pigs caught us, and my mom just
bailed me out. I have to go to court next week and I'm facing more than a
year in jail."
"Jesus, so what did you steal from the place, anyway?"
"A few pairs of sunglasses and a whole bunch of candy."
Mike has been in jail several times since. I could go on and on
about his stupidity.
One time we were hanging out and he walked out of the bathroom, one
pant leg completely soaked.
"Mike, what happened, dude?"
"Huh? What're you talkin' about?"
I pointed to his pant leg.
"Oh shit! I forgot to unzip my pants!"
Despite the constant comic relief, I made a decision long ago not to
hang out with him anymore. He might be in jail, he might be dead, but
whatever situation he's in, he's most certainly stoned out of his gourd.
XIII.
It's Summer 2000. I've become best friends with Nicole, one of my
fellow supervisors at work. She has two kids and owns a house in a bad part
of town. The drawback of her slight "ghetto" streak is more than made up
for, by the fact that she is one of the most genuinely nice people I've met
in a long time.
My old friend Shaun, who you met at the beginning of this file, has
moved back from Detroit after years away. I introduce the two and the
strength of his friendship with Nicole begins to rival even my own.
We're at her house everyday and become inseparable. I meet all of
the homeboys in the neighborhood. We're always sitting on her stoop late
into the night, drinking ourselves silly and having a rollicking good time.
It soon becomes clear that our drinking is a problem. Nicole has a
collection of Alize bottles that reach almost up to the ceiling. What's
worse, she's turned me onto Alize, and the stuff is quite expensive -- $25 a
fifth which, due to the pathetically low alcohol content, is just enough to
get me drunk. I start buying a bottle of it every night of the week.
We visited Cedar Point near the end of the summer. Naturally, we
were heavily buzzing when we went. Drunkenness and speeding along at 93 MPH
on the world's fastest and tallest rollercoaster don't mix.
Oh, one of our mutual friends ended up snorting coke with Kid Rock
and fucking him. There's something she'll be proud to tell the 13 kids
she's destined to have.
I wish I could write more about last summer, but most of it is lost
in an alcoholic haze. What I do remember isn't very exciting.
XIV.
At the end of the summer, I said goodbye to all my friends and
boarded a plane bound for Honolulu, Hawaii. I planned on never coming back;
just living and working out there and meeting new, non-druggy friends.
My adventures in the Aloha State are a t-file in themselves and this
one is getting longer than it needs to be, so let's fast forward to a year
later, when I've been driven back to Michigan by the astronomically high
prices and culture shock of Hawaii.
I knew I was being unrealistic, but I held onto the dream of things
being different when I returned. Nothing has changed: the very day I step
off the plane, I'm flooded with invitations to go out to the bar. That was
four months ago. You should know me well enough by now to fill in the rest
of the file yourself.
XV.
Dear Kitty,
I think I long ago reached the point where "sowing my wild oats"
became a lifestyle. Even after writing this file and seeing the sad state
of my life in print, I can't seem to stop. I don't ask for sympathy,
because I don't deserve any. I know that I've brought this all on myself.
But I've managed to slow down a little. If I wasn't talking about
myself, I'd find it funny that smoking weed 3 times a week and going out to
the bar four nights out of seven is my definition of "slowing down."
As much as I've tried to fight it, you can officially add me to the
long list of ANADA staffers that are fucked up and depressed.
So where do I go from here?
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`-.^.-' (c) 2001 Anada e'zine by Pavement `-.^.-'
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