Lost Boys

The train of thought that took me to Alex and B: I was listening to “Drugs” off of Talking Heads’ Fear of Music and made me think of Jimson Weed. That’s odd in itself as there are so many other drugs to go to first, but in the sort of half sleepy state I was in, I was thinking that the song did a good job of conveying the sometimes startling come on of some drugs, and from what I hear, the mighty and dangerous Jimson Weed has a serious come on. I’ve never partaken and the only person I know about that has is Alex.

Alex and B were a pair of brothers who lived a couple of apartments down from me in Chico. They were from Bremerton, the town of my birth, and they looked nothing alike. Alex sort of looked like a young Kurt Cobain, lost eyes, longish blond hair. B (or Brian) had short hair, a much darker complexion and always wore a baseball cap. Their behaviors matched their appearances in a way that was almost comical, that in some of my stonier moments made me wonder if they weren’t picked out by sitcom casting.

B was into watching some sports, drinking some beer, smoking some weed. He was loose and comfortable with the ladies, loose and comfortable with everyone. He would have been a great example of a nice, basketball playing, frat guy had he been in a frat.

Alex seemed a little uncomfortable being Alex. Also sweet, but seemed to hide behind whatever crazy amounts of inebriation that he could find. Painfully shy in some ways, when he stood next to B’s comfortable social interactions it made that stand out even more; something I’m sure Alex could feel in an almost physical way.

All done up on something, Alex and a friend of his visiting from out of town had bought a beef tongue at the Safeway, drew a face on it and nailed into a patch of grass that divided two sides of the apartment’s parking lot. There was also a sign that said something like, “Beware of Doctor something or other!” But the “something or other” was a name. Anyway, the point of that story, much like the original act itself, is questionable.

During spring break that year, when nearly the whole of a college town evaporates, I was alone in the apartment. Alex was also still in town and came over one night to sit and smoke on the patio, drink ourselves silly. At some point Alex went over the Drunk County line and into All Kindsa Fucked Up Land. He looked at me with clouded eyes that begged understanding. “You know what I’m talking about,” he slurred. I told him that unfortunately I did not know what he was talking about. He then began a rant that had the same amount of coherency as I do medical training; none. I tried hard, head full of Henry Weinhard’s, to make out at least a couple of key words, but language for him had moved onto some sort of freeform jazz babble performance. He stood silent and swaying for a second, again giving me look that seemed to plead for me to get what he was saying, before he took a header into the wooden planter box that held Amy Lou’s precious Iris’. I picked him up, made sure his head wasn’t bleeding, and carried him back home where I put him in a chair. Realizing there was a chance of him John Bonhaming himself to death, I then moved him facedown on the couch and went back home.

There was also the drunken mountain bike trip he took with my neighbor Rob. Rob called me and asked if I could drive out to Bidwell Park and pick up Alex as he’d crashed his bike. I drove out to the more remote and unpaved portion of the park to find Alex leaning against a fence with a windbreaker draped over most of his shirtless torso. I checked to see if he was okay, he removed the windbreaker to show a number of road rash patches, a nice divot of flesh missing from his side, and what appeared to my non medical trained ass as a broken collarbone. We got him loaded into the car and I headed down from the park and over to the clinic when in a hysterical panic he made me promise not to take him to the clinic. “We’ll just go home and put hydrogen peroxide on everything,” he said all wide eyed and shaky voiced. Trying to remain patient and calm, I let him know that hydrogen peroxide wasn’t going to reset that bump on his shoulder that was most likely a piece of broken bone. The more I insisted on taking him for medical assistance, the more wild and panicked he became. I decided to calm him down and take him home where B and his friends could help me talk him into going to the clinic. He eventually did and came back to my place later, complete with reset collarbone and opiate glazed eyes, and apologized for bleeding in my Honda.

I left Chico after a year of formidable debauchery and lost track of both Alex and B. I’m sure B’s out there in the world doing it fine and easy as always. I hope Alex is out there doing okay. I hope he made it through rough patches to find that sweet and funny man that he was.