Not high school, but close. We hung out in the same group of friends freshman year at the local technical college. He was a very free spirited guy, with all sorts of wild tattoos and piercings, like a few others in the group. He even got some sort of genital piercing that I declined to see when he was showing it off after he got it. He was also fairly antiestablishment, an atheist who I think leaned politicaly towards anarchism.
Unlike the rest of the group though, he was way into drugs. There were a few who dabbled in marijuana and probably one dedicated stoner, but nothing like this. This guy was snorting lines of cocaine off the bathroom sink between classes, and always finding new pills try. Aside from that he was a very personable guy who had interesting perspectives to include in our conversations about anything and everything. Even when he wasn’t all there, at worst he was still decent company, so everyone just let it go. We’d all expressed our concerns at one point, and there wasn’t any point in continuing to bring it up. We were a very diverse group and most of us had some things we tolerated but didn’t agree with in each other.
For Christmas that year I bought a cheap little gift for each person in the group. Most were silly, but I got him a pill organizer. He excitedly began to brainstorm organizational ideas on how to use it, going on about uppers and downers and more terminology I can’t recall. I told him something along the lines of knowing he wasn’t going to stop experimenting, but I hoped it would help him stay safe. He hugged me and said it was one of the most thoughtful gifts he’d ever gotten.
At the end of the school year we largely all ended up going different ways and I lost track of him. Many years later, I heard from a friend I had kept in touch with that they had run into him. I’d feared he’d end up in jail or dead, but he was doing well, if in an unexpected way. Still had kept the crazy piercings, but was otherwise a button down, white collar guy. He had a wife and kids, lived in a suburban home, and worked as a manager at some office business. He was even a deacon at his church. He was healthy, happy, and proud to be many years clean of drugs. I’m glad he kept enough of the rebel spirit to keep the piercings, and I’m more glad he was off the drugs.
Not high school, but close. We hung out in the same group of friends freshman year at the local technical college. He was a very free spirited guy, with all sorts of wild tattoos and piercings, like a few others in the group. He even got some sort of genital piercing that I declined to see when he was showing it off after he got it. He was also fairly antiestablishment, an atheist who I think leaned politicaly towards anarchism.
Unlike the rest of the group though, he was way into drugs. There were a few who dabbled in marijuana and probably one dedicated stoner, but nothing like this. This guy was snorting lines of cocaine off the bathroom sink between classes, and always finding new pills try. Aside from that he was a very personable guy who had interesting perspectives to include in our conversations about anything and everything. Even when he wasn’t all there, at worst he was still decent company, so everyone just let it go. We’d all expressed our concerns at one point, and there wasn’t any point in continuing to bring it up. We were a very diverse group and most of us had some things we tolerated but didn’t agree with in each other.
For Christmas that year I bought a cheap little gift for each person in the group. Most were silly, but I got him a pill organizer. He excitedly began to brainstorm organizational ideas on how to use it, going on about uppers and downers and more terminology I can’t recall. I told him something along the lines of knowing he wasn’t going to stop experimenting, but I hoped it would help him stay safe. He hugged me and said it was one of the most thoughtful gifts he’d ever gotten.
At the end of the school year we largely all ended up going different ways and I lost track of him. Many years later, I heard from a friend I had kept in touch with that they had run into him. I’d feared he’d end up in jail or dead, but he was doing well, if in an unexpected way. Still had kept the crazy piercings, but was otherwise a button down, white collar guy. He had a wife and kids, lived in a suburban home, and worked as a manager at some office business. He was even a deacon at his church. He was healthy, happy, and proud to be many years clean of drugs. I’m glad he kept enough of the rebel spirit to keep the piercings, and I’m more glad he was off the drugs.