The Ride (Unfinished)
A short story I started. It's hard for me to write a lot at a time, so this is what I've gotten off a night of writing. It needs a bit of editing, but I enjoy the story. It's also based (loosely) off true events. No names have been changed just cos I don't want to. If you have a problem with your likeness being up here, tell me and I'll rename you.
The Ride
“…And they gave us seven days to renounce our wicked ways. Too late to make amends, ‘cause we both know how this ends,” were the first words I recall hearing after I came out of that god-awful acid trip of a box that people insist on calling American fast food. The pristine white walls alone were enough to make my head spin, but the food…oh, the supremely subpar quality of the greasy burgers has the capacity to fully incapacitate even the best of men. Since I was not the best of men (and a longtime vegetarian), the filthily clean place had its way with me and sent me reeling. It was worse than acid, this thing called reality, and I was lost in a trip that seemed like a mind-fuck that seemed like a trip for quite some time. But that’s not the point. The point is that the first coherent memory I had of that night (or plausibly ever) were those fucking words. I didn’t know where they came from at first—they could have dropped out of the fucking sky and I wouldn’t have realized it— but then it dawned on me that we were listening to music. We? Where the fuck did a ‘we’ come from? I was too busy stumbling around in the midnight parking lot of my own soul to notice anyone walking with me towards someone else’s black Honda Civic. So it was with great surprise, but without any disdain, that I realized the mass of living flesh to my left was in fact, my friend Adam. Adam? Who was Adam? I had stumbled upon this particular poor sack of a man when we were both fourteen; while he was busy stumbling into an eighteen-year-old. For no reason whatsoever, we stuck to each other as if we were in some shitty buddy movie; him the easily irritated, randomly violent, unintentionally comedic Jack Nicholson and I the nose-driven, shaggy, ‘cool dude’ Owen Wilson. But the fantastic thing about our friendship was that we saw through all that bullshit. We were two tiny, pathetic souls looking for some way to justify our existences, and we found that justification through each other. Adam: the man who received main-ual (en français) sex while five feet to the right of me on the very day we met. Adam: the man who told me that my first girlfriend was the most beautiful woman on the planet, then put his money where his mouth was soon to be. Adam, who cursed at me and nearly fought me the first time I smoked pot, but got fucked up with me every subsequent time. Five years ago, there were no signs leading us to best friendship, and there still weren’t any that night. The only signs we could see were the White Castle propaganda which was burned into our eyes and minds for the rest of eternity. Our eyes. Four eyes. Two people. Adam. Me. Thank god I’m with him, I remember thinking to myself. I’m sure as hell not going to drive anywhere.
“…We had one foot on the gas and one foot in the grave. Everyone was laughing when we said we had it made.” Right…there was still that fucking music. By then, we were already in the car, and I had realized that he had been walking on my left for a specific reason (that is, alleviating the burden of driving). Wait, shit. How could the music have been playing before we got into the car?
We sat in the car for a few minutes, letting Tomas Kalnoky’s voice bounce around in our skulls and trying to get our bearings. Looking around, we suddenly realized who we were and what we were doing again. Or at least, I did. I kept getting a creeping suspicion that Adam knew all along and he was feigning it to make me feel better. The near-silence was stifling. None of us could speak above the music we just weren’t capable. I wasn’t capable.
“So what are we doing tonight?” Adam asked, adding, “It’s only 10.” With one fell swoop, he broke the beautiful silence and shattered my thoughts as effectively as a bullet. That particular silence was replaced with a new, less comfortable one as I tried to come up with an answer. What were we going to do? I had no fucking clue, but I did know what I didn’t want to do. I was almost off my rocker from the fast-food run that seemed days ago; the night would not end well if any more shit like that was involved. Thankfully, Adam broke the awkward silence first, probing my thoughts for me.
“You want to get fucked up?
Yes. Yes I did want to get fucked up.
-blake
I can't even pretend that you are my friend
What has happened to you and I,
and don't say that I have changed, 'cause man, of course I have.
Are you far too depressed now even to answer the phone?
I guess you just want to
shave your head,
have a drink,
and be left alone.
(Is that too much to ask?
)
"Cato as a Pun", by Of Montreal
