I look up from a book toward the fountain of a cherub spitting water I wouldn’t dare drink. Two women on a bench in the shade of a maple. One is short, both are brunette. The tall one calls her friend bro with excitement in her voice like I haven’t heard in so long. They remind me of Jack and myself when we were young. We shared an apartment. Life was a bonfire.
Unlike now, back then there were no lines on my face as we signed our names to the lease. We passed our days in parks smoking cigarettes laughing like she cackles now. We roared with delight when we thought of what was on its way. These women are us back then. Brash. I see him in her cocky smile.
I remember, we were convinced that life wouldn’t grind us down to dirt and dust like it did the others, childhood friends lost to burdens neither of us wanted. We were certain that age and death and mortgage payments were trifles for others. Those born with no sense of humor and a taste for bowing down. They never got a chance to start.
Hubris made us think we were better.
We were the same.
Before we met I often wondered, Why does it matter if you step out of line, if you move too quick for others to keep up? Jack was the proof that I wasn’t alone. He and I were antisocial with a smile. Winking while holding fast to our mantras of don’t go to college or get a real job, do different than your parents did before you, not better.
Everyone needs a best friend.
The tall one wildly waves her arms in the air as she speaks, and all of a sudden I see Jack’s quirks. She gives advice in a cloud of smoke with the air of never being burned, of not losing the one person in the world that makes you feel it’s finally in color. Before Jack, my life had the air of an attic.
Above me squirrels run along branches as I wonder, Will these two lose touch? Jack and I grew apart like all things do. He gave himself up to something bigger. Not a god but a drug. Or any and all he could get into his veins. The quicker the better was the pace that he moved at.
If he was looking to forget or remember, I can’t recall.
But for me, sitting here, I’d like to bring them all back. The days and weeks and months that we passed carving lines in our faces with laughter. It’s what you look back on and think with a smile those were the best years of my life. And some nights, as they rolled by in front of me, I sensed they were. That it couldn’t last forever. In my gut I knew we were fated to lose.
Oh well, fuck him babe, you’re better than that, you’re beautiful dude one says to the other. I peek from the book I pretend to read. She waves her cigarette in the air as she speaks, pausing to take long drags, exhaling sharply. Her face is a mess of emotion. Jack had all the same passion.
I wish I hadn’t lost him so soon.
But still, I’m happy he didn’t make it, I’m ecstatic he doesn’t have to know what it’s like to lose the faith as your hair turns gray, your skin starts to sag, and the brain between your ears turns to mush. He’ll never have to know how loud the sound of death can get.
He took a shortcut.
He cheated the reaper tattooed on his chest.
No surprise.
Because Jack was never going to succumb. All of his days were according to his gospel, so why wouldn’t death have to kneel? And when he drank that concoction he was laughing at all of us. He raised his middle finger in the air one final time, at life as much as it was at me.
He chose to lie down in a battle none of us win.
And by punching his own clock he showed me a weakness I didn’t know he had. Before the drugs he was the first to say face your demons. And anyone that didn’t he looked down on. I owe him for saving me. I repaid him by pretending I was blind.
In the end he couldn’t swallow his own medicine.
In the end he went out like a hypocrite.
I’m sorry old pal, it’s the truth.
While admitting I’m mad he left me alone, the two women get up from the bench. Long strides on tanned legs carry them off to their futures. I’ll never get over how the world feels empty now that Jack’s gone. When you ended your life you took all of my hope. I lie on the bench staring up at the sky, using the book for a pillow. The clouds part. I’m able to see the sun. 
Steve Anwyll is the author of Welfare (Tyrant Books). He lives in Montreal.
Illustration: Steve Anwyll
