Rob: One of my best friends, Rob, died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine. There was no sign of it being a suicide, but he was never one for showing his emotions, let alone announcing them in a letter ante-mortem. I knew that he was depressed, he was kicked off and out from his school and baseball team, and his parents cut him off financially and emotionally, from what he told me in his last weeks and days.
Matt: I went to Galveston for Spring Break, while there I met up with a friend, Matt, who I first met through Rob, and normally only see when one or the other was high. Matt and I go to "The Spot" to grab something to eat. While there, Matt shows me the last text message he ever received from Rob, "i just got 4 grams". Matt has always been closer to Rob, there was a serious love between friends there that I’ve never seen before. Matt took Rob’s death much harder than me. He self medicates with various substances to escape what he feels. I see in Matt the same, if not greater intelligence that I have. It hurts me to the core to see him doing to himself what led Rob to his death. I feel obligated as a friend of Matt and Rob to be there for him, and try to get him out of the cycle and circles that he’s in. I know Matt wants to do better for himself, and that is something that he really has to want before he can achieve it. But if he stays in this city he’s bound to go back into the lifestyle he wants to get out of.
Jonathan: I’ve been friends with Jonathan since I went to his birthday party in kindergarden. We were both social misfits in a class of only 38 people at its most populous. We still have the same sense of humor, and some similar interests. Every band performance of his that I miss, I feel as though I’m ruining a friendship that I will never have again.
Javier: Third grade was when I began to be friends with Javier. He was cool, fun and also Mexican. Which was (and still is) a rarity in Galveston Catholic School. He left GCS for a new charter school at the end of 5th grade, then transferred to public school after a year or so. In my 8th grade year, I decided to go to public school, since the local Catholic high school wasn’t really the sort of place that I wanted to go to. During lunch on my first day of Weis Middle School, I saw Javier with some other guys. I was ecstatic to see an old friend in the new environment. When I came up to his table he greeted me, but told me that I had to sit somewhere else and began, with his other friends, to insult me. I walked away and didn’t talk to him for the rest of the year.
Freshman year of high school, I go into my Computer Maintenence class and see Javier. He greets me and talks as though last year never existed. I played along and put aside what he did before. We were best of friends for most of high school. He went into BESTT (my high school’s tutoring program), and I did too. In our senior year, I was over at his house, playing PS2 or watching a movie, when he gets a call from some friends. He says that he’s going to a party, I ask if I can go along. He replies, "Are you serious?…no." He leaves and I drive around the island for an hour or so. I decide that he is no different that he was 8th grade, and I no longer want to associate with him. I call up Rob that night and we go to Hastings to check out the tech magazines. I tell him about what happened earlier and he tells me "Don’t worry about Javier, he’s a waste of human. He’s horrible at baseball and he’s an idiot too." I laugh and agree.
I’m still avoiding Javier. I make a point to not to answer his calls, and pick places to go that I know he wouldn’t visit.
Bryant: Introduction to Electrical Engineering my freshman year in High School was when I first met Bryant. He’s a cool guy in my view. He was into computers, and a bit of an anime nerd back in the day. Not to the point of fanaticism, but he was knowledgeable on DBZ and Cowboy Bebop. We have the same sense of humor, same quickness with a joke and eerily similar trains of thought on almost any subject. I am more than proud to say that he is the best kind of friend a person can have, and I’m happy to know him.
Earlier this year. Bryant did a little myspace prank where he announced that he was married to a new girlfriend, Athena. I knew that it was a joke because he never told me. When I asked him about it, he said "I didn’t want to tell everyone because you know how Galveston works", to which I responded "But, I’m above that", and he replied "Yeah, it was a joke." I finally met his new girlfriend in June, and I really didn’t take a shine to her. I made an abortion joke with Bryant, and she didn’t like it. Later I made an atheistic joke, with Bryant high fiving me. She was not amused. I told Bryant with her present, "Don’t let her tell you what to think." or something like that. She was visibly offended. I didn’t mean to hurt her, I just blurted recklessly what was on my head.
I later realized why I was such a bastard to her. She is, in my view, an embodiment of Galveston: attractive, controlling and not very intellectual (I know that it’s extremely arrogant and presumptuous to say that). I don’t like that Bryant is with her because she is what is trapping him on this island. Bryant is very intelligent, he could of more than excelled at Ball High’s AP program. If some of the folks I saw in AP programs are now at state universities, he is more than mentally qualified for strenuous higher education. I know not everyone is meant to get a bachelor’s or higher, but not everyone is as intelligent as he is.
Now, Bryant is working at the oil refinery in Texas City, earning a good sum of money. But I feel as though he is avoiding me due to what I said in front of Athena. If that is the case I will openly and whole-heartedly apologize to him for what I said.
General: There were people that I grew up with in Galveston that I see on occasion on my return visits. Most of them neutral, but some I feel awkward about. Mainly for the reasons of them not changing at all and falling into the cycle that will eventually trap them forever on the island, or that they had some animosity against me and act not to notice me while walking with friends. I don’t mind it, but it’s that sort of events that make me want to leave this city and go to some place that I don’t have to tailor my trips. I like the idea that home is where the hate is, for the reason that if someone dislikes me, I’ve been there long enough to bother someone, and therefore have been there long enough to make true friends. But with the friends I’ve had slowly fading away, I’d rather just stay far from everyone and actively rot what I have left.
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