Jeremy is an old friend of mine. He
likes to get stoned and
he likes
to jack off. Sometimes he
likes both at the same
time.
There is no way
to tell whether he is
listening to me
when I talk. He looks the
same, leaned over and looking
at my feet, nodding his
head, but usually he is
just
remembering
something.
But he never says
what it is
he is thinking about.
Instead, he asks if
I want to get high,
and usually I do, especially
if I'm with him.
One night when I was
crashing with him I
woke up and the air smelled
sick. I sat up and my crotch was
wet.
I had pissed myself and the carpet. What
the fuck? I said. I haven't
pissed the bed since I was 4.
It hasn't happened again, but then,
I haven't slept at Jeremy's house
since.
He didn't say anything
about it. I don't know if he
noticed the smell or the stain or not. He
doesn't
seem
to notice much at all, so
I'm probably
safe.
There are only one or
two people who have known
him very long. I'm one. Josh is
the other one I know of. Those
two go
way back, I think, like high
school. From what I pick
up from Josh, Jeremy's life
was much
more
gripping when
he was younger.
He was real popular, and maybe even handsome,
and he left his apartment - or his parents'
house - a lot more often
than he
does now. He got a lot of
sex when
he was younger. Now he
is not exactly old, but
he feels old. And there
is not much that keeps his
life interesting. I've looked around
his home. No books, no music.
The television set, which is black and white and
gets bad reception, only goes
on when Jeremy is
smoking weed.
There is one more thing
about Jeremy
I think
you should know.
A couple years ago the three of us were
sitting in his room getting stoned
and it was real hot shit man yeah and
both Jeremy's and Josh's eyes were so
red it was cracking me up and
then my eyes were red and they
had a pretty fucking good laugh at me. It was
pretty funny, I have to
admit. After we stopped
laughing, about ten minutes went by.
We just
sat there, looking at each other's feet.
I got up then to turn on
the television, and while
I was there, on the
other side
of the room, I heard
Josh say something,
quietly.
He said "Jeremy, I
love you man. I really do."
Then I heard somebody
moving and then I heard
Josh make a sound like pain.
I turned around and
Jeremy was beating the holy
shit out of Josh, who had
already fallen down to the
floor and Jeremy was bending
down over him and punching him
in the face. Then he stood up
and kicked him in the gut
a bunch of times. I though
maybe he would do some permanent
damage, or even kill him.
After a while, I guess Josh
passed out, because he stopped
moving, and Jeremy took Josh's wallet
out of his pants, grabbed the money out,
and went to the
window
and threw the wallet far
away. Later, both me and
Jeremy
went to sleep.
When I woke up, I sat there
looking around the room until
Jeremy woke up.
When Jeremy woke up, he
moved over to Josh and shook
him. He woke up pretty fast.
"Josh, man. Fuck. Jeezus man you got
jacked. Fucked you up, dude."
Josh sat up and winced, fell back down. He
got pretty fucked up, I guess.
"Dude, do you want, like, an ambulence or a doctor or something?"
"Naw, man, I can't afford that sheeit. D'you have any bud?"
"Yeah man, I got some bud."
Then they got stoned together and
I sat there and watched them. I didn't say anything.
Josh had trouble breathing in, getting
the full hit. He kept coughing
it out, and then he'd wince or cry
and he'd grab his gut. He ran some
tap water over an old shirt
and wiped some of the blood off his
face. Then he left to take the
bus home.
Jeremy said goodbye to him
and then walked back over to where
I was, on the other side of the
apartment. Then he said to me:
"I love that guy, man. My best friend. Sheeit,
man, we been through so much together."
Back.