Big Empty

Where the Sunbeams End: Chapter 20

Photo by Modesta Žemgulytė on Unsplash

I blame bipolar for the loss of a lot of friends. But maybe that’s not fair. Maybe I’m just not a great friend myself. It gets confusing. I don’t really know. I’m perhaps a bit too introspective. Too much of a loner. Now that I think about it, I haven’t lost friends, but we’ve just grown apart as they say. I hope you all know I love you, even though I may have gone down a path that you couldn’t follow. 

~~~

Adam certainly went down a path I couldn’t follow. 

We met working at the Home Depot. I think I was 25, he was 21 or something. At least 21, because he never asked me to buy him booze. 

Adam was tall and thin, not taller than me though, but probably around 6’2. When I met him he had dreadlocks growing down his back. 

It didn’t take long for us to make friends. Right away I knew he was a fellow pothead and he knew the same. And it wasn’t the dreadlocks that gave him away. You just know. An unspoken connection. 

One night after work we drove around and burned one down together. He asked if I’d like to maybe buy an ounce and sell some myself. I explained that I had never sold any and I didn’t really want to go down that road. He respected that. And I respected him for understanding. 

But it started to become a habit that after work I would swing over to his place. He lived with friends, all of them in their very early 20’s. I was the old head. 

I believe one of the friend’s mom or grandmother owned the house and so rent was sort of debatable for them. Just a few guys trying to figure out what was next. 

But figuring out what was next involved a lot of pot, it seemed. 

It was a big house though, off that side street when you go around the traffic circle in old town Winchester. 

I remember sitting on Adam’s bed upstairs and taking in my first dirty butthole as they called it. For these guys the flower had become a bore, they were turning weed into concentrated wax called dabs. A dirty butthole was when you smeared this concentrated wax around the rim of a bowl and then took a heated prong and pressed it to the wax, while pulling the smoke through the bong. I must admit it was a cleaner high, but I didn’t see the reason to go through all the trouble. The flower was fine for me. 

I believe that was the night she hugged me. 

I can’t remember her name. It’s sad. I remember her red hair. It wasn’t just a hug, but the look in her eyes and the gentle way she embraced me. As if she’d said ‘I love you.’

~~~

Could I leave Judith. No. But I think I wanted to at that moment. And those moments would continue to become more frequent. Mostly because I felt as if she wanted to leave me. 

Stuff had happened. Stuff being that Judith’s daughter Sierra was pregnant. This changed everything. 

If Judith had truly cared about her own kids she probably would have never given me a chance. I think she felt that she had failed as a mother, but she would do everything as a grandmother. 

First order of business was to get us out of Dad’s basement. I argued that we should keep working, save money, and when the time was right, buy our own home. Judith didn’t feel like we had time though. Her grandbaby would be here before long, we needed our own place now. 

Everything had become serious. Our robust and passionate sex life seemed to die overnight. Our relatively carefree life turned into a swirl of responsibility. Our relationship, a business deal. How would we pay for this, could we afford that? Worry and anxiety flooded Judith’s face daily. 

She had landed a good job working for Kraft Foods, a production plant making juice for kids. Capri Sun, Kool-Aid Jammers, the water enhancer called MIO, and Kool-Aid burst. I was proud of her, she worked hard to land that job, but everything had changed. 

Resentment began growing. She wanted me to apply to Kraft, but I wasn’t ready. There was a thorough drug test. Not just your typical mouth swab or piss test, but they chopped off a chunk of your hair and sent it off to a lab. I wasn’t ready. I’d developed a routine and I was worried that a sudden change may set me back. 

She would gripe about me staying out with Adam. Spending hard earned money on frivolous things like pot and beer was becoming a problem. It wasn’t excessive spending on my part, but she deemed it unnecessary. 

The real problem I think is that she realized she was married to a man-child. And maybe that’s all I’ll ever really be. She felt like she had to run the show, and I let her do it. 

The apartment was down Route 11, over the state-line into West Virginia. After turning down a few back roads there was our new home, squished into a small rectangle of two-bedroom apartments. 

That first week Judith was busy furnishing our place. We brought some stuff from Dad’s basement, but she wanted to make it in her image. We had a brand new couch, new pictures and art to hang on the walls, but I remember the shitty Walmart coffee and end tables most. 

She bought a can of spray paint. We had a few drinks and painted those tables red. Then we had sex. 

“You made me come! I love you.” 

“We’ll see if you feel that way in the morning,” I responded. 

“I think I know exactly what you mean,” said Judith with a satisfied smile. 

We woke up the next morning with headaches and the smell of spray paint stuck in our nostrils.

 ~~~

I think what struck me so much about that hug at Adam’s place was that it somehow made me realize the change around me. They say that change is the only constant, but how often do we truly feel that change happening?

I stopped going to Adam’s as much and I picked up another part-time job.

Adam threw his back out, missed a few days, and when he was at work he seemed super stoned. 

I didn’t think too much of it. Back pain is truly killer. But he ended up quitting his job at the Home Depot. I was sad to see him go, but thought we’d still hang out. But we didn’t. 

He called me one day, or maybe I called him. Yeah it was me calling, asking if he could spare 20 dollars. The conversation turned into a confession of sorts. 

“Look man, I’m actually hurting for money myself. It’s kinda been a little secret between me and a friend. We’ve been doing heroin.” 

He went on about how a deal had gone bad. They’d been robbed and he’d chased that nigger through fields and over fences. He explained that he never used that word, but this guy screwed us. 

I don’t think I had much to say. I knew he was gone. And I let him go. I said a short prayer after that phone call, but that’s the last time we talked for a long time.