As a wee lad, he was always getting into things. His parents and siblings tried to keep him in check but it was a constant struggle. If something could be found to mess with, he would mess with it, he would find a way.
In school he was, like me, a frequent member of detention hall, Junior High and High School's version of community service/jail, but being there only sharpened his skills at disruption and did not make him in the least bit any less incorrigible.
By seventeen, after foolishly being involved with a group of others in a spur-of-the-moment convenience store robbery, he found himself in a real jail, a juvenile facility, which changed him. When he was let out people that knew him saw that he had hardened and talked about it amongst themselves. Though he himself never talked about his experiences inside what happened in there had had an effect and it wasn't a good one. My sense was the experience had caused him to severely distort reality in order to cope.
Early adulthood found him struggling, but, as usual, he did so on the fringes of society, which was the only place he could ever fit in. He was destined to dwell there, it seemed, for there was no other setting in this world in which he could conceivably fit. Once an outsider, always an outsider.
I ran into him less and less as I turned from a teen into an adult. We had been frequent companions in our formative years for we had grown up only doors down from each other. I knew he had a turbulent home life and that his father and him clashed regularly (and mightily) but rarely was I a guest in his house, a place he tried to stay out of as much as possible.
After he turned say, maybe mid-twenties, I never saw him again but occasionally reports would surface from those in the old home town that he had been spotted.
I sometimes wonder about my neighbor, my childhood friend, how he's fairing, how his life has turned out. I wonder if he is even still alive for I do not know. His is a sad story, or at least it was. I hope he found happiness somewhere along the line.
Laughing about his latest escapade
Micki Spollen- Unsplash.com
There are people you know that are like this one, I'm sure of it. Trouble bound. Nothing you do can get them to avoid their destiny, even though you try, but you can't contain people, corral them, or keep them jailed. You can have an intervention if you want and maybe even try and forcibly re-educate them but with these kind it won't take. I know. I tried, as did many others. Even so, I knew with this one that I had a role to play in his life for I had a memory of me and him, one that went way back. We were pirates together in a past life off the coast of North Carolina in the late 1700’s and during a storm he was swept over the rail and drowned. I tried to save him, and came pretty close to doing so, but just couldn't get to him in time.
My job in this life was to see to it that he survived into his twenties, and this I accomplished. I acted as his guardian angel, perhaps one of many. I looked out for him, tried to keep him out of bigger trouble, counseled him at times, was there for him if he needed me and he knew that, I think, because he trusted me, trusted my view on things. I never chastised him or condemned his actions, only offered guidance. There was really no other way to reach him.
He was a fun fellow. A lot of people really dug him. He had a wild sense of humor and drew chicks with his good looks and daredevil undertones like moths to a flame.
I never told him that I knew him from before, he wouldn't have understood that, so I kept that to myself.
Better that way.