This Time of Year...

This time of the year makes me think about somebody. A man I used to call friend. He's gone now. His body is still around, but the person I owed loyality to by virtue of the label "friend" is no more.

This friend and I came to Lincoln together. All of our friends from high school stayed in Omaha. It was just us. During that awkward phase of college he was a godsend. I don't know where I would have been if he hadn't gone to lunch with me or smoked on the front steps of Able when I was bored. We had each other's back until we could establish where we wanted to go in college. He was a distinct character in one of the most formative years of my life.

After our freshman year, he decided he wasn't feeling comfortable at the university. He decided to transfer to another college a few hours from here. The rumor mill said it was for a girl, he said he wanted smaller classes. I had faith in him. He was my friend. So I wished him luck and said goodbye. After that we lost contact.

Then midway through first semester, second year, I got a surprise phone call from him. He was in town. He didn't want to go back to his college yet. He wanted to shoot the shit. We caught up on old times. He seemed like the man who watched my back not even six months earlier. He informed me that the next semester he was coming back to the university.

He was going to live off campus, free books, good parking pass, and grocery money on a weekly basis. He would have what I wanted. He would became the first of our friends to move out of their parents' house.

I said goodbye and went to bed. I was glad I would have my friend back again. We were supposed to have good times together. We were supposed to live it up.

He moved in, I helped. We discussed the upcoming year and the adventures we would have. School was starting in a week and the times we would have would be remembered forever.

The next day the slide began...

He let a friend from his frat move in. I was glad for him at first. Living alone can be depressing and company can make life more livable. Things were positive. They got jobs together, they went to classes together, and they partyed together. Things seemed to be looking up for my friend.

Then he missed class. He said he slept in, but I know the truth. He was playing on his computer until six in the morning, at which point he crashed. He woke up the next day at eight. I asked him how classes went and he told me. We both shrugged it off as no big deal.

Then one class became two, then two became five. Then the biggest mistake happened: my friend and his roommate went to a party...

...on the east coast.

I had been invited but declined. I had too many things in town that needed to be looked after. My affairs were not in order and I wanted to do homework. Thank god I didn't go on that trip.

Three weeks later I got a phone call from his mom. She didn't know where he was, she hadn't heard from him in weeks. Not a phone call, not an email, not a text message, letter or carrier pigeon. She was scared. A friend of hers tried to stop by the apartment and saw his car there. The police went inside and couldn't find anything. I told his mom he was in another time zone and that was all I knew. She thanked me and promptly hung up.

I don't know what happened on that trip, but when my friend came back, I was shocked to find he was no longer my friend. He was a body. He didn't care about anything anymore. I asked him what happened and why he didn't make some effort to at least inform people that cared about him what his status was.

What happened? The car broke down and his roommate didn't care enough to fix the vehicle. He fucked around as long as he could. Why didn't he tell anyone where he was? "I didn't think about it."

That's when I knew my friend was dead. He didn't care about school, which had long since passed him by. He didn't care about work, which had long since fired him, and he didn't care about friends, who had long since forgotten him.

He lived in Lincoln the rest of the semester. I use the term lived in a very liberal sense. His diet consisted of fast food and caffiene. He days were no longer seperated. He awoke whenever. He got on his computer and played for as long as he could, fighting ogres or robots. After twelve, sixteen or even twenty six hours of this he would fall asleep and repeat the process for three more months.

The last time I saw him I almost cried. His aparment was a swamp. Anything that could hold garbage did hold garbage. The kitchen trash had overflown with empty beer bottles, discarded cigarettes packs and moldy taco bell. The only clan part was the area the refrigerter door needed to swing open. The only thing in there was Mountain Dew.

As I proceeded deeper into the swamp the trash only piled higher. Old compter boxes, cigarette butts and Taco Bell wrappers replaced the carpet. The coffee table's surface was nothing but beer bottles. I tried to start a conversation with him, but anything we could talk about was quickly snuffed out when he had to fight some monster on his computer.

I left, but I didn't say goodbye. Not this time. He wasn't my friend anymore. He was a bum. He let his life slip out of his fingers and the man I called friend died with it. Now he was a rotting piece of garbage, surrounded by pieces of garbage. A living, breathing part of the landfill he had made of his life and apartment.

He joined the service, but I haven't talked to him since. I don't know if he has changed or if he is the same person I left behind in that dump. Whatever he is now, I know one thing for sure: he is no longer the friend he used to be. That man is dead, and a part of my ever dimming past. I wish I could see my friend again and thank him for his help, but that's impossible now. He passed away and didn't even get a proper burial.