Further Lamentations
That’s just the thing, then, with sorrow, and living with it like it’s an old friend. And it is. The sadness can surface at any time, crumpling you momentarily. It doesn’t matter if it was an inconvenient moment for a shot in the heart: the blows come when you least expect them, and sometimes when you do.
It’s not often when your entire relationship with a person is all-encompassed by a knowledge, present from the first moment, that he is going to die.
That’s how it was here. It was not a place I wanted to be in, and nor did he. I can tell you that being witness to the madness of methamphetamine is beyond your most macabre inventions about it. Marko was the first man down in that circle caught in meth’s trap. It came and went like wildfire through him, less than a year from trying it until dying. I was so shell-shocked and naïve about meth that I promised Marko I would ‘be there’ for his friend, who was also ill.
They all fall down. Where the hell do I go from here? When I went to see Bobby, to tell him his best friend had overdosed and died, he had been in prison on minor possession charges for a few months, and was clean, sober, sparkling with hope. He spoke valiantly of opening a ministry in Marko’s name, to reach out to the tweaked out, used up masses. I thought I could save the world and dreamed it with him. Our terrible story could inspire others to get help. We could fix everything, we could put it back together, and God would bless us.
It’s too nightmarish and too personal right now to go into the strange sorrow of meth’s descent, and into the hundreds of hours spent searching for resources, for a rehab or program or bed or shrink who could help him. The cycle was endless, at its’ beginning, filled with hope, then swiftly filled in with defeat, psychotic frustration and disappointment, shame, terror of cameras and charts. Suffice it to say, during that part of the struggle and maybe all of it, Bobby lived in hell. The Crystal Inferno would make Dante’s seem like a sitcom.
I was so filled with joy and hope to hear that Bobby was better, about half a year or so after he left. It was news I got a lot, in between. And every time I hoped.
Two handsome, bright, beautiful, boys, best friends, partners in crime, brothers. Both gone. All I can feel now, despite the heartaches and hell this special and loving friendship brought, is these were all innocent people. From the day Marko introduced Bobby to me years ago, all I ever saw in between relapses was this person looking for help in the yellow pages, willing to try anything at all again to get better. Filling up with hope if he went a couple weeks or months.
I feel like poor Bobby was just dropped into a cruel video game. Here, try thirty years of torture, and see how you won’t ever make it. I always used the word ‘elegant’ to describe Bobby, from the start. It was a little poetic for a roughneck east coaster, but it was absolutely true. A polite, bright, gorgeous young man with a quick wit and the same longing for understanding as every other human being. Even when he was most broken, I could depend on his love. He loved me unconditionally, his brother’s wife, and helped me when I was most emptied of everything. He was there for me when I was emotionally bankrupt, with nothing to offer. He said he would walk a thousand miles for me. He nearly did, to visit me last summer, three beautiful days that we spent listening to Johnny Cash and watching Simpsons and even going to church. How I hoped there that he was freed! He was so filled with light and a potentiality of happiness.
Not that long ago, Bobby had sent me an email. It said simply: “Woman, sometimes I wonder what I would have done without you. much love, B.”
But what am I going to do without you? It isn’t fair.
In case any of you underestimate this methamphetamine shit, or think all addicts are just weak people, you should know that three from that circle died. Bobby took the longest. Three totally different demographics, three totally different, promising lives.
Bobby is survived by many who loved him, several girlfriends who will never get over their scars, childhood friends, family. He loved doing special things for people, giving them a small gift that he knew they would find special, a small trinket of some magic weight. His quick smile or intense stare let you know he was with you in the moment. You knew he wouldn’t let anyone hurt you. He stood up for you.
Where do I go from here? I don’t know. I’m less and less sure of the ways in which I used to make sense of the world. I feel like everything is a cruel joke, and that’s a far cry from the stance I had not long ago that refused defeat: my last art show, which Bobby paid a surprise visit from the east coast to see my book launch- proclaimed in huge paint “if this heart is gonna break it’s gonna take a lot to break it.’
Thing is, it was then, already broken. And I think me thinking I had a hold of it, that I could stay together after witnessing Marko’s descent and then the loss, after witnessing the descent of Bobby and the pending loss, that the work I’d done to conquer my own demons and habits and failures, that the mistakes and tragedies I’d witnessed or been a part of had made me stronger: I think it was delusional to think I could keep it together. I feel Bobby’s life was a cruel joke on an innocent man and it touched me irrevocably, but was that all he was here for, to touch a handful of people? What about the things HE wanted? It makes me angry at God, not a place I can afford to be right now, honestly.
How the fuck am I supposed to keep on accepting the things I cannot change? All I’ve got left of that part of my life is a bunch of ‘therapeutic’ paintings, a few love letters, a few photographs. I don’t even have my husband’s ashes. Nothing.
So what happens now? Those of you who know, know. There’s the odd lucky one like one friend I won’t name. After losing everything- her business, her truck, her health, her esteem, her looks- she did spend two years of torture cleaning up and is healthy now, doing baby steps to put her life together. Sadly, three of her best friends are dead. Her ‘triumph’ feels like garbage. Is there life after meth? Some- not much.
Feel free to contact the writer to share your story, inspiration, or outrage. If you’ve found any helpful resources or inspiration through methamphetamine, I’d love to share them with others.
