Re: Bad Week

I've been reading this a couple of times, Paul, and I still have no words. I went through a kind of similar situation many, many years ago, and every now and again, I wonder what I should have done differently, or if I would have or could have at the time. My heart goes out to you, and I pray that you find peace.

On Nov 10, 2010, at 4:50 PM, pcg wrote:

> I've had a bizarre week. This is part confessional, part therapy, and
> part explanation (not excuse) for my sharper-than-usual tongue these
> last few days.
> 
> Six or seven years ago, I started working at a print shop, and RC was
> the first friend I made there. He introduced himself by asking if I
> wanted to go a sneak-peek of the new Tim Burton film (must have been
> "Big Fish"), and we hit it off immediately. He was the sort of friend
> you don't need time to warm up to, the kind with whom you have a
> common language that revolves around beloved movies, music, books, and
> so on. I introduced him to "The Office" and The Swirling Eddies, and
> he introduced me to Geoge Romero and The Decemberists.
> 
> We worked together for a couple years, and became very close. My son
> and his daughter were born two weeks apart, and we had a joint baby
> shower. After I was laid off from another job and lost my apartment,
> at a very, very low point in my life, he let me -- no, he insisted --
> that I come live with him and his girlfriend. They'd just bought a
> house together, had some extra room, and most importantly, we'd get to
> hang out every day. We spent many a long, rowdy night there on the
> porch, smoking cigarettes, drinking white russians, arguing about
> movies and music and politics and God, and making each other laugh
> hysterically. He always called me "brother," and liked to say I was
> the brother he needed when he was a kid.
> 
> He drank too much, and so did I. Sometimes when he drank he'd get
> belligerent -- usually about benign things, but he was otherwise such
> a kind and generous guy that I never let it bother me. But one stupid
> night we got into a heated argument that ended up with me packing my
> meager belongings into my car and driving away, as he stood in street
> shouting at me from behind.
> 
> Over the next week or so, he called a few times, leaving voice
> messages apologizing for his behavior, swearing it was all water under
> the bridge, it would never happen again. But I was pissed, and I
> wasn't ready to let it go. The last voice mail I got from him was when
> his girlfriend left him. He left a message saying, "She left me, she
> took Lilly, and I need you to come over, man. I don't care about any
> of the other stuff. I just need my friend, man."  I didn't get the
> message until the next day, but I knew that if I called him back, it
> would mean going over there to console him, and I just wasn't ready
> for that.
> 
> He eventually stopped calling. I've thought about him a lot over the
> last two years, wanting to clear the air, get together for a drink,
> and go back to the way things were before that stupid goddamn fight.
> So the other night I tried to call, but his number wasn't working.
> He'd never been on Facebook or MySpace, but I thought I might be able
> to find him somewhere online, so I Googled his name. Instead of
> finding a phone number, I found his obituary.
> 
> Apparently he passed away, in a hospitable, in Davenport, IA a few
> months ago. The obit didn't mention how he died, and I was left
> stunned and confused. It had to be some kind of weird prank site,
> or...something. My first impulse was to contact his ex-girlfriend, as
> they had a daughter together, and she must know what happened. It took
> some sleuthing, but I was determined to solve this, and I finally
> found her online -- doing hardcore porn. You know, selling ten-minute
> clips of herself in various situations for ten bucks a pop. The
> pictures revealed that she was filming this stuff in the same house
> where we all lived together, which meant she must have kept the place.
> I was so weirded out by this development that I couldn't bring myself
> to contact her.
> 
> Finally, I tracked down another friend of RC's, and got a little
> closure. Deprived of his daughter, and anguished over what his ex was
> getting up to, he drank himself into a coma, where he lingered for a
> while before his organs started shutting down, and he slipped away at
> the ripe old age of 33.
> 
> I've been kinda drifting around in an emotional fog for the last few
> days. I didn't break down emotionally until last night, when it all
> finally became real. It's such a stupid, pointless waste. I've never
> lost a friend who was that close.
> 
> I've been having nightmares about him. Last night we were in an empty
> cafe in the middle of nowhere, and I was surprised to find him there.
> He wanted to hang out, and I told him I couldn't, but said he should
> come over sometime. He started crying and telling me he couldn't
> leave, because there was nothing outside, and when I looked out the
> windows, there was nothing but pitch black emptiness, and then I
> looked back, and he was dead. I woke up creeped out, and couldn't
> shake it.  It's been a strange week.
> 
> Anyway, the guilt and dissonance will pass, I know. But the world is a
> poorer place now, and I'm a poorer man. I have to believe that God was
> watching me back then, using various people and circumstances to guide
> my steps, and to keep me from going down the same path RC walked. I
> miss him now. It seems stupid, since we hadn't talked for a couple
> years, but he never felt that far away, and I always knew we'd patch
> things up.
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/2vccdcr
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> -- 
> -pcg
>  [email protected]
> 
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