This is a true story that I understand some people may not relate to, but not everything is cut-and-dry.
I started smoking weed during the summer between middle school and high school. The cool (looking back, totally obvious) place to go and find it was Nicholas Park, about 10 minutes walking distance from my old house. My nextdoor neighbor at the time, Marky, and I would do down there and be fake hoodlums; along the way I met many unsavory yet unconvincing characters that I will remit from describing here. The one who has remained somewhat important, however, is a ne'erdowell who was colloquially known as Crackhead Josh.
A lot of the people at the park didn't like him, and still, disregarding the tale I'm about to tell, I don't entirely understand why. From what I remember, he always has dank weed and gave people more than what they had paid for. He was a much more transparent weed guy than those other guys. Maybe that's what generated the animosity; or else it was something I was just not privy to.
About his moniker: I never gave two thoughts to it. I didn't understand real drugs, I still pretty much don't, and I think it was just spitefully derogatory. Did he do crack? I don't know. But he was nice and was into both cool underground hip hop and cool underground metal. He smoked me out many times. He fronted me weed when I didn't have cash. I trusted him.
One time at the end of the summer, I walked down to the park to get a 10-sack. He came by on his bike to get my money and said he'd be right back.
Like he always had been.
That was the last time I ever saw Crackhead Josh.
I sat there at the park table for hours, not accepting that he would do this to me. Part of my mind eve started to worry about him, like, did something happen on his bike ride? No way is he fucking me over for the only $10 I had...
Eventually I accepted the reality that I had been had, and by somebody I had befriended when no one would. As I walked home I was angry, but more than that I felt betrayed and hurt. I felt disillusioned.
Weed is that important to me.
A week or so later I was hanging out at Marky's house nextdoor to my own when there was a knock on the door, which another friend Allan answered instead of Marky for whatever reason. He came back to the room and said "Ian, that weird guy from the park is here, he says he wants to say sorry or something,"
and looking back I wish I had just gone downstairs.
Sometimes when I feel personally affronted like that, my heart dies and I become almost vindictively cold, and when I heard it was him, I could feel my face fold into a scowl and told Allan "tell him to go away. I don't want to hear from him or talk to him."
We went back to playing "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" or whatever the fuck we were doing and I didn't think anything more about it.
The next day at school there was hella traffic and it was because part of the road was sectioned off because somebody had gotten hit by a car on Winchester just in front of the school. This wasn't the first time this had happened; a kid got killed by an elderly guy who didn't understand brakes anymore I guess, and a similar thing happened to the older brother of a guy I used to know, who shall remain nameless because we're not really cool anymore. So although it always sucks to hear that someone has died, it was almost an expected explanation for the traffic when we learned it.
It wasn't until after school that I learned what you, the reader, may have already predicted: it was Crackhead Josh who had been hit, and it wasn't just a car, he got mowed down by a semi. Apparently he was riding his bike in the middle of Winchester, swerving in between lanes in black clothing and with no reflectors.
I didn't know how to feel and I still kinda don't know how to feel.
His death was not my fault. He's the one who fucked me over. I was his only friend. He made his own decisions and he is responsible for his own life.
I was his only friend. It was only $10.
To this day, some part of my mind still asks, "what if?" What if I had just gone to the door and heard his apology? What if he just wanted to make things right, and I told him no, and now he feels forever condemned? What if we had just smoked a bowl together and then he just went home?
What if?
Again, I know that his actions are his own and I'm not in the wrong about anything. He was a fucking crackhead and he stole my money.
But still,
Dead Hands Dig Deep....
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