You never know
You never know
You just never know
A friend of mine killed himself a while back
Had a wife and kid, a good job (professor at a good university) and one day he dropped a letter in the mail and then he went out back, out to the parking lot and killed himself
Couple days later, his wife gets the letter and has to read it
I knew the guy for years
Years and years and years
And he was on and off depressed and so was I and we would talk about it
He lived in the burbs and he would come into Chicago and we’d have a few and basically compare depressions
In that weirdly competitive “I’m more fucked up than you” kinda way
And after I heard he was gone, I would take long walks, as I do, and I would compare myself to him, or my situation to his, or my outlook to his, or my chances to his
Or my whatever to his whatever
I never arrived at any particular conclusions and after a few months, I kinda forgot about it and I only think of him a few times a month now but when I do, it kinda stops me in the middle of whatever it is I’m doing
Yesterday, I was in class, at the dry erase board looking like a goof, trying to muddle my way through “rising action” and how it fits in with “character,” blah blah blah, all that hifalutin crap, and I remembered him
No particular context, just him sitting on my couch back in college
And I froze
Completely blanked
The good thing about me is I spend an inordinate amount of time telling students my brain is basically dog food at this point (which it is), and so it’s no big thing for me to just shrug and smile and ask “What the hell was I just talking bout?”
Which I did and someone reminded me and we were back on the road to Story Knowledge haha
After class, I texted his wife but I haven’t heard back
Another friend of mine went into a convenience store for a six pack and got shot in the back
Some stupid fucking robbery gone wrong, to hear the cops tell it
Shot in the back and he didn’t make it, he died in the ambulance
This was a long time ago, over thirty years ago
I went to the funeral and at the wake, a bunch of us kinda gathered in a circle and it turned out we all had flasks going
And so we all got pretty fucked up and then decided to get a few hotel rooms so we drank until the sun came up
The guy was like a hundred percent Italian and so his mom had us over the next morning for a brunch thing and there were a buncha tables in her basement and each table had pictures of him, personal objects, bric a brac, etc
My table had his junior prom picture and a bowling trophy from before I knew him
And he was always up for some bowling and beer, that was never a thing he’d turn down
Some aunts and uncles and cousins tried to get the mom to say a few words at the brunch but she wouldn’t/couldn’t so she didn’t
I don’t remember the food other than there were boxes of Italian bakery cookies on this long side table. That’s all I remember about the food. Those white bakery boxes
And then my brother would get these just plain old shitty jobs every summer instead of working at my dad’s place
Like my brother would rather sell knives door to door
Always pissed my dad off even though he would never come right out and say it
You could just tell by how my dad clenched his jaw at the dinner table whenever Glen complained about how hard the job was haha
Then my dad would go to the rec room and chain smoke haha
But then so one summer, Glen was working at a gas station in Blue Island and as he was closing some night, someone robbed him at gunpoint
Took whatever cash was in the drawer, a few hundred, thereabouts
But something in Glen snapped and he chased the guy down the street
The guy was running with a little bag of cash and a gun with Glen was right behind him
And my brother did cross country and track (I did not haha) so the getaway wasn’t smooth
The guy turned around, fired a few shots, and whether or not it’s true, Glen swears he felt one of the bullets whip past the side of his head, like right past an ear
He stopped chasing at that point
Every once in a while, we have a good laugh about that, Glen and I
I got mugged on like 111th once, but it was no big deal, they just beat the ever-lovin’ shit outta me and took whatever few dollars I had
But then one night, Glen took a bunch of pills and chased ‘em with half a bottle of Jack, and his roommate came home a few days early and if he hadn’t done that, then …
Then who knows
Who the fuck knows
He’s fine now, or at least better or at least hanging in there, and I think a lot of what that was was him just having a really fucked up time after his divorce
Which, you know, can’t fault him for that
He and I would talk about … “it” … when I’d take him to his therapist appointments (the thought of driving gave him the heebie-jeebies there for a bit), and then on the way home, we’d stop and I’d get a bottle and he’d get … lemonade usually or orange pop cos he never outgrew the orange pop thing
Then I’d drop him off at home, and we’d sit for a bit, just sit there and there wasn’t a whole lotta talking
I don’t remember much talking
Just silence, just kinda sitting there
Not much to say, really, when you think about it