Jason 10 was gone.
I thought I had caught a break,
thought something good had finally happened, but just as soon as he had
arrived, he was gone leaving a deep, empty chasm in my chest. We had talked at length about what each of us
has wanted, sitting on a park bench for what felt like forever. He had brought so much light into my
existence and I wanted him to stick around – wanted him to be my boyfriend,
properly and completely.
Jason 10 did not concur. In truth, I’m not sure that even he himself
knew what he wanted. In retrospect, I’m
sure my pot smoking habit and stoner friends did nothing to increase my
standing as a potential partner. Wrongly, I thought he could have fixed all of
that – his presence could have changed me for the better, but it simply wasn’t
to be. In a matter of weeks, my hopes
had been raised and dashed expertly – a recurring pattern of my life that I was
becoming accustomed to.
With one last kiss, Jason 10
disappeared into his motorcycle helmet and sped out of my life for good,
leaving me dumbfounded, standing by the side of the road contemplating yet
another romantic failure. I stood there,
frozen staring at my shoes, an enormity of emotions overwhelming me, washing
over me like waves. I had lost another
one.
Straightening my shirt, I composed
myself and began a slow march back to my parked car. I knew exactly what I had to do. Inside my apartment, I sealed myself inside
my bathroom and slumped down against the back of the door like a broken toy. Loading my pipe, I smoked as much weed as I
could, alone, in silence.
I smoked until I could barely stand. I wished I’d never met Jason 10 – wished the
universe hadn’t gifted me something good only to take it away so quickly. If there was a God, he was laughing at me,
punishing me for thinking myself entitled to a happy relationship. So I decided to be miserable, and smoked some
more weed.
I smoked until the sun came up.
I smoked until my head hurt.
I smoked until I forgot.
***
Avery’s new home was filled with
light. As the matriarch of the residence
she had had borne the lion’s share of the domestic duties and transformed her
new house in just a couple of weeks.
Gone were the car parts and bottle caps that had littered the floor upon
our initial inspection. Bright and confident,
the new space symbolised new beginnings.
Avery soon filled the walls and fridges with drawings and photos of all
of us – a tiny gesture that reminded us we were family.
The Heidelberg House, so named for its
locality, soon became the central hub of the group’s activity with an unspoken
open door policy that guaranteed a warm welcome. With three bedrooms, a kitchen, living room
and front yard veranda, it was a far cry from my small apartment. Excited to have his first ‘live in
girlfriend’, the place soon became Mitch’s defacto home too, with Owen following
soon after. After facing homelessness
and the ravages of Nikki, he was glad to have a place to hang his hat.
Still enduring my nightmare job, the
Heidelberg House became the bar where everyone knew my name. I was always welcomed, any day of the week,
glad to avail myself of having all my friends in one place. Several times a week, I would enter through
the unlocked back door to find Mitch hunched over a board game and Owen
secreted away in his musky man cave. Avery,
ever the eccentric, could often be found lying spread eagle in the back yard
stealing a slice of silent contemplation.
Needless to say, the house quickly
became the new venue for our weed smoking, with Avery heartily partaking,
leaving my apartment unoccupied and blissfully tidy. Our sessions grew longer and more intense as
we began using a bong. A staple of
stoners worldwide, the bong changed everything.
So far we had used joints or smoked pipes. The bong represented full blown drug
paraphernalia with its clear plastic mouth guard and filthy bubbling
water. Delivering a hit not unlike a
small aircraft, the bong was a powerful new toy that sent our collective drug
use into overdrive.
“Mid-weeker!” Mitch would shout excitedly upon my arrival
at the house on a Tuesday night.
My stupid job had required me to work
weekends, leaving Tuesday and Wednesday as my days off. Relishing the rebellion of getting stoned in
the middle of the week, we smoked on the balcony, yelling at passers-by and
periodically fighting over the hammock Avery had installed.
On weekends our group swelled, readily
including Jesse and Amber, Avery’s friends Brandy and Cooper and the other
resident of the house, Zach.
Occupying the third bedroom, Zach was
tall and scruffy with looks that fell somewhere between goofy and
handsome. His laconic nature concealed a
subversive sense of humour and a sharp intellect. A student of agriculture, I admired Zach, but
soon became confused by his unpredictable behaviour. One moment pensive, the next ecstatic, he was
given to fits of emotion that left us all confused and unable to establish an
easy rapport. While the group gathered on
the veranda, he spent his time alone, ensconced in his room watching arthouse
films. Following a few bizarre
encounters with him, I discreetly enquired after his health. Avery informed me of his silent sickness - Zach
was an alcoholic.
I suppose it was no surprise – the
Heidelberg House had in fact become a vessel for the mentally ill. Whether formally diagnosed or not, all of us
struggled with our personal demons and used weed to mask the pain. Owen had emerged from his relationship with Nikki
a changed man, now sullen and defeated.
For weeks he moped about the house, unsure of how to embark upon the
next stage of his life.
Though outwardly gregarious, Avery
still experienced intense depression and anxiety. Working full time, she seemed to take on the
day to day responsibilities of running the house, not to mention three fully grown
men who required counselling and comfort.
Once more, Avery’s open and casual approach to mental health proved an
invaluable trait as she patiently cared for Mitch, Owen and even me. She always encouraged us to talk about our feelings;
no easy task for a bunch of thick headed manly men, and never failed to provide
rational and reasoned advice. I had come
to trust her implicitly.
Losing Jason 10 had been a body blow,
and in the weeks after I had become a truly miserable fuck, only taking
pleasure in getting stoned. Excluding
all other friends, I spent time with the group because they were the only ones
that could understand what I was feeling.
It wasn’t ordinary pain; it was different, more intense and inside my
head. My whole body ached with
desperation as every waking thought catalogued the many failures of my life, played
out in my mind’s eye like some terrible movie on a loop. Mitch, Avery and Owen were the only ones who
could console me – the only ones whose thoughts and emotions were as fucked up
as mine.
A schism in the group was formed out of
Amber’s desire to do something other than sit around getting stoned. In all fairness, she had a valid point. After a few months, the Heidelberg House had
become a reliable crutch, a routine that none of us were eager to break. Amber, supposedly a social butterfly, took it
upon herself to organise a night out for the group. It started off well enough, all of us
gathered round a large wooden table at a city bar with a nautical theme. After a few hours, the pub closed early and,
caught unaware, Amber was left without a backup plan.
“Where to next?” I asked Amber, fully
expecting her to guide us to another trendy establishment.
“I dunno – let’s just keep walking and
see if we find something we like”
And walk we did – for almost ninety
minutes, traversing the length of the entire city. Intransigent yet paralysed with indecision, Amber
stubbornly refused to accept any of my suggestions and our brilliant night out
turned into an aimless metropolitan death march.
“Ummm…Dude, do you know what the fuck
is happening?” asked Owen under his breath.
I shrugged my shoulders and kept
walking. The group’s restlessness had
turned to rage at a night wasted at the behest of Amber’s arrogance. As my feet grew sore I wondered if the group
and Jesse and Amber were simply too different to co-exist. Had they changed? Had we?
Perhaps we had outgrown them, or simply fallen out of love as sometimes
happens with people.
I pondered the same thoughts a few
weeks later as we attended an exhibition of Amber’s artwork. A red letter day
to be sure, she had rented out space at a small gallery and gathered friends
and family to admire her works. Excited
by the attention, Amber weaved her way through the crowd, bestowing her guests
with her beneficence. I arrived with Owen,
both of us resplendent in suit and tie. We slowly ambled about the gallery
feigning interest in her numerous self-portraits. The dubious merits of her artwork
notwithstanding, Amber’s behaviour seemed odd.
As Owen and I rubbed shoulders with her extended family, she appeared
cold, distant, barely speaking a word to either one of us. When Mitch arrived without formal attire, Amber
seemed embarrassed and refused to speak with him.
Personally, the only issue I had with
both Jesse and Amber was that I felt I couldn’t be honest with them. I could never tell them how difficult life
was for me, or truly convey the depth of the sadness I sometimes felt. Mitch had been my best friend since high
school and I could tell him anything. A
frank and consistent dialogue on mental health had fostered trust with Owen and
Avery who had thusly imprinted themselves upon my heart. The three of them had become the most
important people in my life and set a gold standard for friendship.
Though well meaning, Jesse proved
utterly useless as a confidant, offering me cheery refrains of “Hang in there”
and “You’ll be okay – just think positively”.
Arrogantly I wondered if my emotions were beyond Jesse’s comprehension. Perhaps he had never experienced any real
loss or despair. He had all but married
his very first girlfriend and together they lived a life that seemed cartoonish
and plastic when compared with mine. Amber
was no better, with a gaping hole in place of a brain; her thoughts were only
of herself.
“He just doesn’t get it” I lamented to
Avery one night at the Heidelberg House.
We talked quietly over mugs of
steaming tea following a visit from Jesse.
“Some days…I just feel like I wanna
die”
Avery wrapped her arms around me as I
stared into my tea.
I could never be ‘real’ with Jesse,
and though Amber had never personally wronged me I found her narcissism and
snobbish manner difficult to digest. Mitch
and Owen felt similarly obliged to ‘perform’ when they were both around and we
all began to sense a growing disapproval from Amber. The odd remark here, a snide comment
there. Miserable stoners were a million
miles removed from the emotional fakery and high society Amber aspired to.
Though he seemed to enjoy the stuff, Jesse
rarely smoked weed – forbidden to do so by Amber whose sense of moral
correctness prevailed. Before long the
two of them stopped visiting the house altogether.
Then one day, an announcement that
caught us all by surprise – Jesse and Amber were travelling to China. They would remain there for a year teaching
English to Chinese students.
“But by the time they get back, we’ll
all have new haircuts!” I protested upon hearing the news.
With work commitments preventing me
from attending their farewell party I never saw Jesse and Amber again. Their abrupt exit affected Mitch the most – hurt
that Jesse would so casually abandon their friendship. Outside of a couple of perfunctory emails
from Amber, the group never heard from them again. A year later, when Jesse and Amber were
married, Mitch, Owen, Avery and I were conspicuously absent from the guest
list.
The drama of Jesse and Amber’s
departure now subsided; Brandy and Cooper ably filled their empty seats as we
gathered for a smoke once more on the balcony.
Mitch and I stood side by side, smoking in silence. Jesse and Amber had embarked upon a fantastic
new chapter in their lives, a grand adventure.
I envied their pioneering spirit and the bravery required to make such a
change. I wondered how long I would live
my life like this. Unlucky in love,
earning enough money to pay off debts and stoned - always stoned. It had become my new normal. I had tried quitting before, even with some
success, but life’s little stresses left me desperate for the herb.
Behind me on the balcony I could hear
the low bubbling sound of the bong as Brandy and Cooper set up their portable
stereo, giggling loudly. This was my
life now – these good people and their weed.
All of them had become friends like no other, they liked me and made me
feel like I belonged, but I knew this unhealthy life could not last forever and
one day soon I would have to make a change.
I wanted something different for my life, a little bit of money perhaps
and a taste of some success. I wanted
something more.
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