vassilis

I don't have many friends from my childhood. In fact, I can honestly say that my friend group now consists mostly of people from second year varsity - none of who I actually studied with. It doesn't bother me. I have a fantastic friend group who are the most brilliant and loving and ass kicking bunch of people you will ever meet. So the loss of most of my so called 'friends' during high school and first couple of university years doesn't bother me.

Of course, there are the few who I have known a really long time. One is currently being an ass doing deep sea diving overseas somewhere and only messages me when he gets depressed and misses home (Thanks Squid, if you ever read this - you are a bastard!).

The other is kind of the friend I only talk about every now and then because of his ongoing drug addiction. How have I managed to stay in contact with a hardcore druggy? Well, long story short: our younger brothers were childhood best friends and we both come from Catholic families. It is like a recipe for constant contact for our mothers. Especially as his mom is a single mom. Naturally his dad was a low life heroine addict.

So yeah, I don't even have a random nickname for him because in one of my pious moments I told him he was lower than dirt. I was a self-centered teenager at the time and thought I had all the answers. He did have the audacity to tell me how bad drugs are and to stay away from them.

So that is how we lost direct contact, but of course my mom kept me up to speed about his latest shenanigans or sobriety or rehab stay. Not necessarily in that order.

I guess the important background is that he was my first boy crush. I thought he could do no wrong and he lived up to my expectations when I was around him. Retrospectively, it was probably easy for him to do that because we live in different provinces. I guess I am the one person he couldn't disappoint until the abuse got too bad.

So flash forward to earlier this year when I found out unexpectedly that his mom was going to stay with us. I learnt that he had been admitted into a local rehab after severe heroine addiction. Of course I was supremely pissed off and argued vehemently that he would never do heroine. It didn't fit his personality nor what he had constantly said about his dad. Weird for me to have so much faith in a drug addict right? Especially one who visited rehab so frequently that he was unable to complete school in the usual duration. Actually, I don't even remember if he finished school.

In case you are wondering, my faith was not shattered. That is not the sad part of this story. He had been talking about getting clean (again) and his dealer found out. So being a good dealer, he started to mix heroine into the drugs my friend took in order to make the drugs more addictive.

He was coming clean, went to a couple of schools with the rehab center to talk to kids about addiction. Unsurprisingly he was really good at that. It made him feel good too. I am sure he got a few kids to stay in line, seeing as he practiced many anti-drug speeches to me and I never took the stuff. Of course he never knew what I eventually got addicted too, although his mom does.

He was becoming the arrogant, smug and always right bastard he was when we were younger. I was happy for him. Told his mom he should come to Durban and reduce his chance of a relapse.

On the 14th December, he went to go draw money from an ATM. It was late on a Saturday night, and I refuse to believe it was for drug money. I know it is a little naive of me, but hey, there are many reasons to go to an ATM on a Saturday night. While drawing money, he was hit over the head with a rock and robbed.

He was left lying in an increasing pool of blood until friends eventually found him. The extent of the damage was uncertain and he suffered many seizures and muscle spasms for the first couple of days. He is now in a coma. The prognosis is not good. He is most likely never going to wake up.

I think if he had OD'd or something like that I would of handled it better.

I know he wanted to be clean, and look after his mom and not be a disappointment. I also know that drugs were the only way he could feel confident enough to do that. He felt a heavy burden of responsibility from a young age, and no means to cope. He had a knack for choosing the kind of friends who abandon you when you need their support. Yeah, I am pissed off that he got to take the easy route while I soldiered on all because he said it was better.

He never knew that he made a positive difference in my life. I never found the time in my year to phone him up and give him the encouragement he probably needed to hear. My life continued, and now he won't know.

I kinda feel like we are living in an Offspring song, because if you had seen all of us 15 years ago there was a much prettier picture. Now we are all broken and scarred. Although my brother and I are considerably better off than the other two.

The hardest thing I have done recently was send him a message for his mom to read to him. How do you formulate into words the influence someone has had on your life in a text message to be read by a mom.

Each day that goes by, is another day closed to his mom pulling the plug.

Naturally, this is not the only thing I have had to deal with, but I think I have typed enough for one blog.

Photo from my 16th, before his major drug spiral. Also the last photo I have of us together.