A Lie, A Lie...

A week ago…

“You mother fucker. You bastard!”

Yells my nameless friend from my bathroom.

“Son of a bitch, why…?”

I can’t stop laughing.

I shove another gulp of beer down the hatch, and relax to the sounds of the Blue Oyster Cult and Johnny Cash. Its midweek and I didn’t want to be alone as usual, and I don’t drink by myself. The incense burn, the fan is on in my unusually warm house.

This friend of mine is the kind of friend who will always be there. In some form or another he’ll be around. He’s the guy people flock to. He’s for some reason got the same destructive habits I do. He’s hilarious but doesn’t really know it. He’s crazy but doesn’t admit it. A friend of mine and I worry about this guy, because there are times we think that he doesn’t realize what he’s got. I know what its like to lose something, and would hate for that to happen to anyone else.

The door opens and I say

“Did an Ant get you?”

He yells “Yeah man, what the fuck? I saw the little bastard too!”

I start laughing again.

“Why the fuck do they never get my legs? Or my arms? No! Not me man they go for either the cock or the balls!”

Beer goes up my nose.

“Right there, look…” He holds his hands in the air, in a display of what male genitalia might look like as if I wasn’t born male and could not understand the concept. His arm is arched like he is trying to shadow puppet a strange bird, fingers cupping nothing.

“Right fucking there where the base you know? Hits the shaft? By the hole!?!”

Its late, and because of his odd hours working for the City of Los Angeles he can stop by for a beer before I go to bed, and he goes home. Friends are funny that way, the way they make you laugh without trying, or the way they do things and say things that make you appreciate them, or the things around you. He’s one of several people who manage to make me laugh by being simply who they are.

Some days later…

“Aaaawe” yells a room full of people.

Some of them are laughing, maybe one is shaking there head, and another is feigning gagging sounds. We are looking at pictures of a trip they took to Mexico. These are the type of people who are close knit, and have formed a bond that you could not easily break, if you can at all.

Digital pictures on a television screen flash the rocks of a Mexican beach. A George W. Bush doll with an M-80 in his mouth, a friend who has fallen off a motorcycle, a group shot, beers in hand, hang-over’s, breakfasts,

“Change it dude, change this shit C’mon…” Says a friend of mine, while laughing.

But the screen doesn’t change. In the middle of all the nostalgia, and all the good times there is a picture of a perfectly formed log of shit.

No one wants to look, but no one is really turning away. My friend of many years is describing the majesty that is his bowel movement, and discussing how amazing it is that it starts in the hole of the toilet, and ends outside of the water at the very top without losing an ounce of girth at any one point.

Friday night

“Hump his leg”

Says my old school mate and very good friend who’s had maybe just a few too many beers. Her husband is passed out on the floor of my daughter’s room. I’m not one to host parties, but I decided to have some friends over to drink. I invited people who might not realize are the few people I can be myself around. I don’t need to talk, or to impress. I just host and offer and hope they have a good time.

Glenda has brought her own bottle of Vodka. Mikey has smoked himself a bit silly. Mari and crew are the class and life they always bring to the table. My co workers and I are the raunchy opposite to add balance.

“I dare you to hump Josh’s leg” says Mari who has absolutely no problem being outspoken, and I don’t know a single friend of mine who has met her tonight who doesn’t love her for it.

So, my good friend Robert is humping my leg, and I am not only embarrassed by the whole thing, but also thinking about how badly I’ll need a shower after this.

Ouija boards and truth or dare, as if we are in 8th grade again, and goofing off.

Saturday

Joy has been nice enough to take me out to a movie. I’m all low on funds and haven’t got a thing to do with myself. The night for most people would be seen as dull, but not me. Not in the slightest.

A movie with a friend who has been there for me when I needed a shoulder, or a phone call, or a lunch is just what I wanted right now. We head out to LAX. Driving down the 5 freeway takes us past Dodger Stadium, on our way to long beach and through Los Angeles I look out the window to see buildings and places I’ve passed a million times before.

Her friend needs a ride and a place to stay for the night. Born in London and living in Puerto Vallarta Mexico she has come to the states to purchase a camera. She is interesting and different. She and my friend here have traveled the world together and I am sitting at the coffee table and listening to stories from cruise ships, and a lizard shuffles in his tank behind me. It’s late, and I should head home.

Sunday

I’m watching my daughter lay on the ground hoping to be picked up, but we won’t. She is testing her boundaries and we are testing our wills against her many adorable faces. In a few short moments her grandmother will give in.

I am not used to this. I have been here many times but it’s all different. All wrong. I have spent so much time trying to work on myself, and change who I am, and get used to the life that changed on me that I am now a stranger amongst family.

It’s not the same, this person next to me who I had so much to say to before, and now I have nothing in common with. I’ve not got any words to say to her, though I would love it if I did. I slip and call her babe, when she isn’t my babe anymore. I want to tell what I’ve been doing and who I’ve been with but she doesn’t care, and I don’t want to know anyway.

I pick up my daughter and say goodbye to everyone.

I don’t belong here anymore.

I make the rounds, and I take Emma outside and tell her I will see her on Tuesday when I pick her up and take her to school. I grab her mothers arm and give it a squeeze and tell her it was good to see her. I lie.

Emma thinks she is going with me and wave’s bye to Momma. I give her a big kiss, and a hug, and another kiss.

One more,

Two more,

Emma cries.

I leave.

I’m 17 years old. I’m sitting on a bus with this beautiful friend of mine Vanessa. She doesn’t know I’ve got a crush on her. I ask her a question that is completely random. At 17 I am fond of random questions because I like to think, and be asked the same things. I ask her this…

“What if you woke up one day, and nothing in your life was true? Every one you know is a lie, and you are a lie, and nothing was what you thought it was?”

I didn’t think I would get the reaction that I did.

She cried.

I didn’t think something so weird and silly would get that reaction.

I didn’t think I was capable of such thought, or question.

I didn’t think that one day I would wake up and my life would be the lie.