Almost immediately after posting about my friendship with my friend (unnamed, but known to the few of you who do read this blog), something horrible shifted in our relationship.
Wednesday night, I visited him (with some leftovers from dinner with my bff) to celebrate news I'd gotten about my academic career and perhaps play a little pool. He was strangely AWOL when I got there, so I called, left the food on the doorknob, went in the pool hall for a drink, and went about my business. He called a half hour later, asking if I still wanted to hang out. I was just at a bar down the road talking to friends, so I went back.
This was the moment he became a monster.
I walked in and noticed he was either high or drunk, two bad signs considering his mental health state. On Monday, He had asked to read a conference paper I was presenting on Saturday in order to help me prepare. Flattered, I obliged. When I got his substance induced feedback, the flattery was over. He was offended by the subject matter (how authors in the past stereotyped mixed race characters..though I focus on authors who dismiss these stereotypes as bullshit), and told me the paper was garbage, he thought I was smarter, I'll never get out of UMASS because I don't believe in myself (and I write like that, lol), etc. I just looked at him like he was crazy, thanked him for his feedback, and said "let's go play pool".
That was awkward but at least we got a game in. At the Billiards hall, however, there was another young man of color, openly gay, who I began a conversation with. My friend moved in and out of it, an became irritated and walked back home. I met back up with him trying to decide if I should hang a bit longer or head on; I was worried (and tipsy at this point) so I just lay down. He went out to smoke a cigarette and began yelling at nothing across the river in his backyard for about 7 minutes. He said there were demons at one point; at another he said there was a local derelict in the woods he curses at. I dunno.
He came back in and lay in his bed and, after going in a homophobic rant about the guy at the bar, asked me if I'd ever thought about killing anyone. I said yes and left for home. I wasn't sober and I definitely just hauled ass out of there, trying to process everything. I found myself upset to tears and that I'd left my hat (he'll claim things that people leave or give him and pass them to the next person) so I went back. He was upset because I didn't call first; irritated (because I rarely call first) I said at the moment I couldn't do the attitude and he didn't deserve that courtesy.
This is where the barrage of verbal abuse commences.
He asked me why I even knew his name.
He accused me of being angry with him for not being intimate with me (read my last fucking blog, lol)
He told me I was shit to him and he didn't owe me anything. He "paid his debt" to me for helping him transition after being in a behavioral health facility for a week and without income or food for the past few weeks.
He told me he hated me and wanted me to "skip rocks".
Etc
Etc
When I asked him, calmly, why he would say things like this, he'd just repeat them. I'm not sure if it was the liquor or the psychosis talking, but I was more worried than offended (but still very offended and heartbroken that someone I loved would say these things to me). I got angry. I wanted to burst a window or throw a glass ...anything. Instead, I walked around his tiny apartment, grabbed the things I'd lent him while he was in the hospital, a cigarette I'd bought him, extra frozen produce I'd shared, threw them in a bag he'd handed me, and threw the full bag across his kitchen floor. That was our friendship--a cluster of small sacrifices, often one-sided, that I saw as an extension of myself to someone I wanted to be well but he, as someone who often and continues to have things handed to him, could never appreciate or even understand what selfless love, in the AGAPE sense, means.
I left, again, determined not to see him. But, again, something didn't sit right with me. I got some distance and I called him, to see what the issue was, and we spoke for 30 minutes. He was an emotional mess and I was concerned that he'd take drugs again so, in my PJs, and with a change of clothes and a half bottle of milk (for cereal), I went back. He was calmer while I was there, though still under whatever he was under. We cooked eggs and pancakes. I had my cereal and made some earplugs, and managed to go to sleep while he blasted Korn for two hours. Later that morning I showered at his place, a lottabit shell-shocked by everything. But he was better, back to himself. He reread my paper, asking questions this time, and wished me well on my trip. I went home and cried and slept until I drove to the airport, heartbroken and extremely confused.
Saturday....
I got back to Amherst at 7ish and met with our shared friend for coffee. I was curious to if she'd talked to him and found out about a karaoke event at a local bar. Loving karaoke, we went. He showed an hour later, had been drinking but still approachable. We had a great time singing, dancing and laughing at one another. His mood progressively darkened through the night. I'd offered to drop him and our other friend off. Upon dropping off our girl friend, he began getting irritated at my car radio and pulling at it, and cursing her for her family's faith and nationhood. Luckily, she just left, but I got stuck with the monster.
He continued ranting and said that if I didn't agree with him then fuck me. I kept asking him why on earth did the conversation (extremely hateful) even matter so much to him?
Scroll up to the insults hurled at me on Wednesday night X 12.
He begged me to go away and forget him, promised that he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me.
I snapped, after weathering the verbal abuse not once but twice. Drunk, he'd placed his belongings on the ground next to his door when he was cursing me. I grabbed his phone and threw it against his apartment building, I took his car keys and chucked then into the parking lot in the dark, and then I punched and slapped him --a few times -- in the face while cursing him for being a dick and using me, knocking him into his bushes
I didn't even recognize myself at that moment and I didn't know I could be driven that far into anger. Of course, at that moment in his head he finally got to become a victim so he rubbed it in, calling me psycho and running from me in all of his 6"4 300lb frame. I tried to apologize, but I left, my last words--forever--being I love you (to which he replied "fuck you").
While I was on the road, feeling emotionally 10lbs lighter, he called claiming to have left his keys in the car. Done with this I reminded him of what had in fact happened to his keys and that this was a "him" problem. He wanted me to go home, and I was now parking at my complex. He went on and on throwing every sympathy move at me (my mother curses me out, my brother is dead, we're friends right?, I need to go to church tomorrow, etc). I told him to call one of his coke whores to let him sleep over, or break the damn window if he wouldn't look for the keys himself. I told him I was over him AND his mother, and that he needed to forgive his brother and let him rest.
I drove back and parked far away from his door scooped up the keys from the gravel and threw them in his face. Turning and leaving for good. Silent.
I told our friend what happened, so I could officially announce my estrangement and I called his father to let him know I was still worried and I tried. As I said in my last blog, part of loving a friend is knowing when to walk away, knowing when you're a hindrance as opposed to a help, and knowing when to pursue your own happiness. Being around him once made me very happy, but everything has its season.
