Last weekend I went with some friends to a BBQ. While BBQ's usually raise my spirits, fill my belly, and intoxicate my soul, I came away with a rather sober feeling. I had begun to think about our confidence in our immortality and bright shiny futures juxtaposed to the paths our lives take.

The night started out like any other poorly written roadtrip movie where three friends from the past set out on an adventure. Whoo. We didn't even leave the school district , but we can forgive the three the short distance they went, right? All three were happy and excited to reminisce and laugh about the past and present. We even thought of crazy one-liners and theme songs for our roadtrip (can you tell we're geeks?). We ended the joke with we're on our way to Vegas in the small Toyota with my drainage bag flying out the window and a trail of dust rising in our path.

The party was typical...ribs, corn, beans, beer, whiskey, rum, tequila...It was fun. But the night ended abruptly when the Reason for the Story decided to steal another person's painpills. The girl just had dry sockets. Painfull. I'd be mad too. So after watching the Reason drift in and out of consciousness and wobble by himself at the other end of the lawn we decided to take Reason home before the girl in pain and the owner of the house deballed him. I don't want to see that. I'm getting squeamish in my old age.

We shoved our bloated bodies back into the small truck built only for english teacher, leftist bachelors, and headed off for the Reason's home. English teacher decided to confront him with me sitting in the middle. I've had dealings with defensive addicts before and was not too interested in uncontrolled outbursts anywhere near me. Amazingly it stayed fairly calm even if it was emotional. I kept a hand on both their legs in a small attempt to remind them that I was in the middle of all of this. I knew neither wanted to hurt anyone, but an extra reminder is always a good thing.

Reason made every attempt to make us believe his innocence, but he kept looking skeptically at me. Did I know he was shit? Yes, Reason. I do. These were only looks in our eyes and not the words said. The words we said were all words I had exchanged with another addict that I cared deeply about. English Teacher and I left Reason at his door step. We headed out.

Eng. Teacher didn't know how to read Reason. I told him that Reason was guilty. I had seen the behavior and heard the words tooooo many times to not be able to pick up on it. I'm not stupid. PA thought I was. Reason might think I'm gullible. I'm not. I'm just tired.

Eng Teacher was amazed that Reason "was afraid" of him. I almost snapped that it was intimidation not exactly fear. What'd he expect? We knew Reason since before he smoked pot or even had a drink of liquor. Those two boys had been friends since kindergarten. Seriously long time for anyone to see the path you either chose or gets chosen for you.

So here we are. The Aesopian morale to the story...I guess.
We all have potential to come up golden. You see it in the faces of children when they're posing for their school pics or just losing themselves in a game. The Promise just doesn't happen to some. This is what has happened to Reason (and a lot of others). I know some of you are thinking that it was his choice, some are thinking it's where he's supposed to be, and some are thinking that his problem is bigger than himself. I've known him for a long time and saw what propelled him into his future of herion dependency. I believe it's mostly out of his control. I didn't say completely.

It's sad to see the your life go sour and see that others who've known you during better more hopeful times notice the fall. It's even sadder when you see those people whom you thought were lifelong friends turn away because of heavy shit. I've been on both sides. Fuck, I sat in the middle of it Sat night. I sat in the middle of it when dealing with my family and PA. And I still feel like I'm sitting in the middle of it. Funny how life goes.