I came as soon as I could and helped pack up the things he cared about into a duffel bag. So I got my last call from Paul asking me for help getting out of town. And Paul caught one bit of luck in not getting HIV himself. They had no plans of fixing their own lives, but they still supported his decision. It surprised me that they were glad to see him try and clean up. He stopped hitting the snooze button and quietly asked everyone to leave. Paul hit bottom when he started sharing needles with people who were HIV positive. Paul hit bottom when he started injecting. Paul hit bottom when his friends stole his parents’ identities and racked up massive debt in their names. Paul hit bottom when he got his stuff back, but blew most of his money on meth while celebrating. Paul hit bottom when his friends stole all his stuff. One thing I learned from all of it is that as long as you’re living you can keep finding another bottom. Maybe I should’ve been more proactive, but I was more interested in living life and enjoying the days as they went by than hang out in the darkness. I followed the advice of others and kept my distance, watching Paul hit bottom after bottom from afar. Once in a while the Old Paul was still there, but it was fainter, an echo. I’d just drop in for the occasional visit every few months and never give my real name to his friends. Since none of this was what was even on my radar as being something I would consider fun we weren’t the best of friends at this time. That meant Paul paid for his drugs with his own money that he had earned by coding for hours at a time as high as he could be.

One thing they all said about Paul though was that he was the Good One. As a bonus, they always seemed to have a scheme of some sort: identities to hijack and stolen credit cards to max out.

They also had very gray complexions and the creepiest glares I’ve ever seen. Paul never did smell like garbage, but his friends who were addicted sure did. Many of my friends tried meth just for a brief bit until they realized that they didn’t really need to clean their rooms at 4 am or stay up for 3 days straight and just who were these people who were crashing on their couch? They smelled like garbage. The clever solution many found was crystal meth. This all happened in San Francisco in the 90s and the young and the brilliant people like Paul were concerned about getting more hours in the day to work on their dotcoms and go to more parties. He was surrounded by piles of stuff everywhere I could see. I let it go even though I doubted his way was working all that well. He said he could handle it, he had his own way. When Paul got better he would refuse to talk about his mute sessions. One time after a session of looking through his DVDs and pretending to talk about movies he said, “I’m not going to get up for a while.” “A while? An hour or so?” “Long enough.”Īnd I’d try telling jokes or talking about things I liked or even bouncing popcorn off his forehead one time, but nothing worked. The responses were grunts or the occasional word. I’d swing by his apartment and he’d let me in, or maybe a roommate did, and then I’d talk next to him for an hour or so. Sometimes there was a slight gap you could coax into a minor opening, but usually it would clamp shut right in front of you. The times when Paul would just turn off to the outside world. Can you get up to to open the door when I get there?” “I…” “Good” “So how are you feeling tonight?” “…” “Paul?” “…yeah?” “You been taking anything?” “…” “Goddammit. It was an uncanny ability if you could try to classify it as some sort of a skill. This is for him.Ĭertainly the thing that Paul was really good at was shutting people out when times got rough. I still miss Paul even though it’s been over 10 years since we last hung out. He wasn’t the easiest guy to know, but at his best he could make me laugh and think about all sorts of new ideas for hours on end. After a long battle he chose to fight alone, he took his own life. He fought his depression several times over a couple decades. Lucky for me it was a phase that I was able to put behind myself with a conscious effort. What I was was stuck in a depression that was eating me alive even as I found it to be so comfy in its absoluteness. Was I the only one who felt this way? The only one who would have such feelings? What can I say, I was a teenager and I thought I was unique. I’ve stared at sharp objects behind fences and wondered what would happen if I were to jump on them and end it all. So you want to kill yourself? Is that why you’re here? OK, well, I’m sorry you feel that way, I know it can all feel horribly, tremendously wrong.

Easy ways to kill yourself