the martyr.

lemme set the mood. amazing love by pedro the lion playing in itunes. outside my window, fog tops the river mouth and the beach and the logs and boats, fishermen, foghorns, lighthouse calling and squinting to find their way. my pup is curled on the couch in a sliver of light coming through the window. no one in the office, people who've been crashing here are in the city, little brother doesn't work on weekends, john is in bed, always in bed, he'd sleep his whole life if i didn't wake him.

i rose too early, smoke, walk down the driveway in the fog, have a big glass of water to replace what the beer took, sit down. mix up some pedro, arcade fire, pinback, pinetop seven and put it on random. bookmarks > mike > inmate search output. nothing. last letter was in november and it was 3 sentences. "haven't forgotten about you, will write soon, i love you".

when i turned 19, i went to a bar, first time legally in august a few weeks after my birthday. my friend, c, hit it off with some guy and usually it's me who gets attention from men, so i just chatted with his creepy friend to let c have her fun. they invited us out to their boat to watch a movie and against better judgement we went. long story short, the creepy guy i was left to entertain ended up having his way with me on the deck, against my will. i was shocked, all fucked up, i kept it to myself and told c we should go, she wanted to stay so i sat in the cabin of the boat with this prick who just raped me. she gave them our numbers, still no objection from me. i just stood there, useless. we left. i told c that something had happened and i don't know what. i don't really even know if she gets it to this day.

dropped off at home, i get inside and call another friend and spill everything. he doesn't know how to deal with it and we end up hanging up, same with the next friend. then i call mike, this kid who just annoyed the hell out of me for the past year, i dunno why, but i choose him and tell him everything. we spent maybe 8 hours on the phone. he called everyday for the next eternity to see how i was. he was only 15.

he had his own shit to deal with, too. big shit, terrible shit i can't even fathom and we'd just stay up all night talking and leaning on each other and get sleepless goofiness and laugh our asses off as the sun rose. he was always there, when my ex beat me up, mike wanted to get some of his friends together and chase him across the country, asked him not to, my ex wasn't worth landing in jail. he would write beautiful notes and poetry and songs and under any circumstance make me laugh. he was fucking brilliant, i've never been so intimidated by anyone's genius, and he is a genius, invitations from mensa n' all.

then he got into heroin. he had a lot of pain. and a lot of money. i didn't like who he was on heroin and i told him that and he fucked off for 3 or 4 years and i didn't know where he was or if he was alive and i thought about him all the time, i just missed him and i looked for him, googled and asked around and shit. this past august my search results on google turned up an article about an atm robbery and some kid named mike doing 9 years. he'd poured his millions into heroin and had none left and hadda hit up some lady at the bank for a couple hundreds. nicely, i might add - and he didn't tell me that, the article did - made sure the woman was alright promised her everything was going to be fine and left her with some money so she wasn't completely fucked and told her he wouldn't harm her car and where he would leave it for her. i know, it doesn't make it ok, but it helps me justify the fact that i love him.

so. i write to him. i get letters back and i'm fucking ecstatic, hearing from him has made my decade, just knowing he's alright, like letting out a big phew. he sends 4 letters. then nothing.

i know what he's doing. he's sparing me. he's being a fucking martyr again and what the fuck can i do? nothing. i'm at a complete loss. i just miss my friend. i miss 'im. i just wanna hear him tell me how much he loves muenster cheese again. hear him giggle. listen to him sing along with honky's ladder by the afghan whigs.

i just wanna know him again.

posted by Courtney at 10:22 a.m.

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