I’ve a close friend, one that swirls violently in and out of my life. He is not soothed by any worldly endeavor, aside from the slow combing way alcohol can work a man. In conversation, he presses his intellect downward, and on purpose, leaning on colloquialisms in his effort to rationalize his sanity and keep time with the locals. I’m not sure anyone is actually listening to him, as much as they hear his voice; gradual bass with little inflection which, if attempted, would reveal at least a hint of excited-to-be-there.
He’s living a dream come true, despite however horrible the onlooker may deem it, and, therefore, it makes sense that he isn’t looking to be saved. He eats pills for anxiety. He eats pills for pain, when the orange bottle finds his hands, however infrequently. He eats food, too, but his hunger will fluctuate depending on his seismic mood. Some days his throat is silent of word, clogged with dry lettuce and stale pita bread; he’s a sudden vegan—downtrodden, slightly beat. Other times I’ll speak with him (and in these times, getting a word in is difficult), despite his angry eating of flesh. The deep fry of chicken, and au jus over understanding in those moments. He can’t read any of my signs—I’m in need of friendship—of the things we herald as the hallmarks of friendship: an ear, or soft, empathetic eyes. Instead, he is busy stuffing his face, fat with the pink, long dead pain of a calf. “Veal,” he’ll say, like a braggart, as if you’re somehow financially unable to order anything decadent for yourself.
Much as I care for him, there is little use in jamming the lever on the tracks, hoping to derail his path; magenta into rose, rose into dangerous red. I know he suffers, but there is little I can do in the face of his laughter; his orations, only steps from the bar room door, and those proclamations that there is no real purpose for anything, that life is nothing more than a frameless moving picture—and the ramblings of someone that, under any other circumstance, I would consider a mad man. Except that he is my friend, much as he is a fiend.
He’s promised a great deal to a great many people—some promises are for a dinner a week out, others are witnessed vows in the summertime madness of things we just seem to do in our thirties. I’d advise you not to be off-put by any of those promises because, surprisingly, they’ve all been kept thus far. His devotion to seeing things through is remarkable, despite the consequence that may be lockstep with those choices. Because, after all, what is consequence when you’ve already forced your soul through the proverbial meat grinder well ahead of time, in the off chance something goes wrong? He’s prepared.
He’s a liar.
He’s a dreamer, and a fairly steady hand when it comes to world building.
I wish I had his ability, to lie and bend not only my own imagination, but the excited dreams of everybody around me. People are drawn to him—I’ve seen it first hand, as if behind his eyes—they marvel in the character he’s created. I’m not sure they’d care if they knew the entire thing had been masterfully designed solely for them, but it has been. Still, life seems so fun in his mind, and in his company, so grand and bright—but that’s the way people describe fireworks, and little more.
He’s going to burst eventually—maybe we’ll see blood—except that I figure it more likely he’ll spew a rainbow of truth that every eye can read, from the things he wrote and later hoped to trash in hard drives, to the finger-painting he’ll leave across skyways on his way back home.