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If you have read my books, you may have noticed some mentions of a person named Nicky. You may have also noticed that my feelings towards her aren't exactly pleasant. That's the reason why I didn't have her number saved. And that is the only reason I picked up the phone when it rang in the early morning.
The sun was peeking through the blinds, making sure to keep my consciousness at a state of perpetual awakeness, so I didn't accidentally fall asleep again while ignoring my ringing phone. I sighed, deeply. I reached with one hand to find out whether Amy's side of the bed is occupied; it was not. After another sigh I reached with my other hand to find my phone on the bedside table. Ungluing one of my eyes open just a crack, I saw the unknown number, and was about to press the hang up button, when I had a sinking feeling that this might be important and changed my mind at the last second.
If I saw who it was, I would not have considered that. I immediately regretted my choice.
"Mm-hello?"
"Hi, David! Did I wake you up? Sorry!"
I sighed. "Yeah, it's... whatever. What is it?"
She does have one perk. She realizes that I hate her fucking guts, and after some time of growing pains and a harsh learning period (harsh for me, at least), she stopped trying to connect with me on a level she deems mutual, so she doesn't try to contact me herself. Except, well, now.
"It's John. He's... Well, he's having some troubles. Troubles isn't exactly the right word I guess, but he's having a hard time after, you know. The thing with Joy," her last words were whispered.
I knew what she meant. Joy was John's... roommate? Creation? A fuckroach sculpture in the shape of a Korean pornstar with a huge rack. I don't think they'd had sex, Joy finds the very idea gross and John denies it when asked, and he's not the person to lie about such things. He usually lies the other way around. The "thing" refers to when Joy threw John's stash down the toilet.
Ok, listen. I don't care what your opinion is about drugs. John says it's bullshit to be against them, that it's all prejudice and everyone does them, all the time. And when you think about it, it makes sense. My opinion is: what-the-fuck-ever man. We're all gonna die someday, and it's gotta be of something, so why not go out with a bang.
Except John. Not John. Why? Fuck you, that's why.
And, of course, after she threw it away, he could just go downtown, meet up with the biker guy that sells him the stuff down by the Christ's Rebellion motel, but lo and behold, after the stunt we pulled with the larvae, they weren't very keen on staying, so they rode and drove away. I don't blame them, I'd do the same thing.
So what, you might ask, [Undisclosed] is a shithole, there are probably another twenty meth dealers. But John only knew two, this biker and Casey Lester. And with presumably both of them out of the picture, he was going to have to look for a new one, but apparently it was taking longer than he'd anticipated, and with withdrawal crawling up at him and, I'd assume, his realization about the cost, he decided that with this fun new chapter behind us, he'd quit methamphetamine. He practically had a headstart now.
I didn't really realize what a meth addiction means. He never discussed his with me. I only found out after a while via witnessing a loss of a bet, seeing the prize in a ziploc baggie he awarded his opponent, and an awkward, quick and quiet conversation afterwards. I wasn't used to him not telling me something, I'm still not. This was something he was actually embarrassed about, and I didn't want to press further. It's a point of tension we don't speak about, one of many.
Another time I noticed is when I had to quiz him about something only he could know (to make sure he wasn't a doppelganger) and he told me about his stash, where he kept it (above the toilet). And, of course, the thing with Joy. He never smoked in front of me.
John is not a methhead. I guess I could say that better. He never seemed out of it, you could say. He's just as normal as normal a John can be. He always told me that he can quit whenever he wants, until he just stopped talking about for a while.
I was driving up to his house, his pitch black, two story house. Parking in front, I walked up to the back door, the flamethrowers were off.
The house was silent. I remembered the scene of one of the fuckroach swarms.
...a cascade of dried vomit running down the black sofa...
Rounding a corner, I peaked at the sofa. Empty. I certainly realized that that picture was fake. That's why I didn't sigh out of relief.
I walked up the stairs and walked into his bedroom. Well, he called it Where the Magic Happens because, technically, he didn't have a bed in here. His expensive king-sized mattress was lying on the floor, without a bedframe, because he doesn't understand what a bedframe is for. And, of course, he doesn't want to waste any precious money, as demonstrated by his excessive living room.
John was lying in his bed, in a bundle with his blankets, facing away from me. It could've just been a dusty blond wig tossed on a pillow, but from the stench, I could tell it's him. I stepped in the room, gently knocking on the doorframe. He didn't react, asleep. I stepped over empty bottles and cans, over a pizza box, I walked towards the other side of the mattress. I could see his face. It sent a chill down my spine, vomit running- No. No vomit.
His eyes were underlined with dark circles, and while he didn't particularly care about his appearance, his stubble was much worse than regular. I refuse to call it a beard, because John would look stupid in a beard, so I decided that the scratchy hairbrush on his face didn't count as a beard. I was wrong in my assumption, he was not asleep, his eyes were open and staring off into the wall.
"Hey."
He looked up at me, no change in facial expression.
"Can I sit down with you?"
John in response shifted over towards the center of the mattress, and I sat down next to him.
There was a silence for a long time. It wasn't awkward, expectant, anything. I feel like silences are only awkward when you make them awkward, and with John, I never really felt awkward, mostly enraged or drunk. When we're alone together, I mean; if we're together somewhere, it's usually the opposite.
There wasn't much to say. The smell was... pretty bad. I don't think he pissed in a jug yet, but he might as well had, it felt like a sauna where they pour pure sweat over the hot rocks instead of water, while the NO SMOKING sign was used for fuel in the furnace as an act of symbolic rebellion of its perpetual inhabitants. The room was dim, the windows painted over as well. A glass next to the mattress was about third of the way full of ash and cigarette butts.
I looked at his face, finding that he was looking at the wall again.
People have a weird way of talking to each other. It has to follow a pattern. Someone's well-being is less important than the pattern. If you meet someone, you ask how they're doing, even though you don't care, and maybe they don't wanna tell you, because the answer is fine, no matter how they're actually doing. Because when you meet someone, the conversation should probably start on a positive note, not I'm doing badly, my dog is dead. If you meet someone and you can tell that the answer would be I'm feeling like shit, thanks for asking, you should ask Are you okay? instead. And, I'm sorry, what could you even answer to that.
John and I talked about that once and he declared that we stop following the pattern, as an experiment. It was actually pretty fun, back in high school, we'd have to find other ways to start a conversation. It was early on in our friendship, we were still in the computer class, and it brought us together much quicker than I'd presume normal people would do. That's because John always had something new to tell me about, ask me, discuss. It stopped being a rule because sometimes we just didn't talk because we didn't have anything to talk about, and after I knifed Billy, it was weird to talk about anything else. It kind of carried over to today, for efficiency reasons. We didn't even greet each other but that's mostly because it's usually an urgent situation (although that still falls under "efficiency reasons" ). That's why we sat in silence. We skipped that conversation because fuck, what was there to say? Are you okay? I already knew the answer, he certainly wasn't. I'm not here to ask questions. I'm here to help, even though I had no idea how to help him.
He still lay mostly motionless, blinking, looking at the wall and sometimes sniffling.
"Sorry about the smell." His voice was croaky, like he had a huge clump of phlegm in the back of his throat.
"It's fine. I usually smell worse."
He smiled softly and exhaled through his nose, and I felt like a weight has been lifted, if only a little bit. He started to get up, moving as if his joints and muscles were rusted and heavy.
"Hey, what, where are you going?"
"To open the window, it smells illegal in here."
"I'm doing it, stay put."
I stood up and opened a window. The room was a little more illuminated now, I could see his furniture and his TV and game consoles, clothes everywhere but the laundry basket. Specs of dust floated in the light. Opened the second window too, so I could get some air circulating and make the room breathable again.
"What are you doing here?"
Alright, we did sometimes follow the societal norms of conversation. Only to avoid talking about something else.
"What do think?"
I sat down again, and John shimmied closer to me again, pressing his thigh to the side of mine. I lay my hand on his upper arm. It was weird, touching John. Usually it's me who needs consolation and I'm not a touchy-feely person. But John is. So here I am, running my thumb back and forth on his arm over the blanket, trying to be supportive. It was decidedly not awkward, I didn't make it awkward, this is not awkward. I'm a fucking terrible friend.
He was warm. That was good, it grounded me in the fact he only looked like a corpse.
"Nicky called me. Apparently you didn't pick up her phone. Couldn't believe I picked up and you didn't didn't, so she was worried." Yeah, she was.
John closed his eyes. "Thanks."
"No problem."
The silence wasn't as... silent, as before, there were sounds of birds chirping and a car driving a street over, a dog bark, flowing in through the window.
I lifted my hand and brushed my fingers through his hair. It was pretty gross, greasy and tangled, but it made John happy, at least he looked like it did. I'm not going to say he melted, he looked more like a pool float you opened the valve of and watched as it slowly deflated, including a drawn out nose exhale to complete the comparison. Resting my hand on the side on his jaw would be weird. So I didn't do it.
He blinked again and slowly starting shifting. He sat up, now right next to me, facing the opposite direction. He slipped closer, lowered his head on my shoulder and snaked his left arm around my torso. He was heavy, much heavier than I'm used to. Makes sense, considering I'm only used to Amy, who is about half a foot shorter than me and about a third of my weight.
I whispered, "It's okay. It's gonna be okay." My hand found the hair on his nape, gently rubbing circles into his skin.
He started sobbing.
I didn't really know Casey Lester. I know he was in high school with us, a bit younger. I don't really know if John knew him better, the only thing I know is that he was the one who brought meth to a party John attended once, and John, smelling adventure, decided to try it for the first time.
Now I learned one new thing about Casey, and that is the fact that he exceeded Nicky on my fuck-you list.
I locked my phone and put it in my pocket.
John's backyard was strangely empty. Of course there was overgrown grass and patches where grass was missing completely, pools of mud finally drying out after the flood. No shed, but a fire pit who was certainly not city approved and a spot along the fence reserved for pissing for party guests. He talked about getting some bushes planted in front of it, so he could be inclusive and the ladies could pee outside as well, how considerate. It was missing something though.
Sitting on the porch, it felt weird to let my arm dangle without my hand stroking fur. After Molly died, Amy rejected any ideas of new dogs because she felt like getting a "replacement dog" would be disrespectful, and I can see her logic. Diogee was a weird little thing. Before we realized that's he's not real, I sometimes wondered what possessed John to make him get a Yorkshire terrier of all breeds but in hindsight, he didn't really have a choice I guess. The backyard was too empty nonetheless.
I turned around to see John descending the staircase, a towel in hand, drying his hair. He had a t-shirt with the logo of Three Arm Sally messily painted on with bleach (courtesy of Nicky) and sweatpants, probably the last relatively clean thing in his closet. He tossed the towel on the sofa and sat down next to me on the threshold, lighting a cigarette.
I said, "We should get a dog again."
He looked over the backyard, my previous thought process running through his head as well.
"Yeah, you're right."
I was searching up how people overcome an addiction to meth right before he came downstairs on my phone. I wasn't very happy about what I found. I was boiling with rage, actually. I was this close to fucking losing it and... well, I'm unsure what I'd do. But I was very close to it.
John's wet head settled down on my shoulder and I instinctively put my arm around him. This was instinctive because I have a girlfriend, not because I have built an instinct to hugging any of my male friends, and anyone other than her for that matter. After I realized that, I felt weird, so I removed it from his side, but then I became worried that he'd he insulted or something, so I put my arm around his shoulders as a compromise. He probably wouldn't be insulted. He's a much more understanding person than anyone I have ever met, except maybe Amy. The only people who could stand me would need an open mind, and a lot of patience. Because I'm a disaster.
"I'm gonna kill Casey Lester." Saying something like this casually makes you feel powerful. And even more if you know you're being a hundred percent serious, and you know the people around you know it too.
"He's already dead. Got caught selling and was killed in jail, in a fight I think," John said, taking a drag.
Well.
I guess that's settled.