The shortest month part 2

Apparently I am not going to able to sleep until I do this, so here it goes.

We left the dentist's office to meet my uncle who was waiting with the car outside. The threat of rain had turned in to just that. We made it home and my mom gave me a pill for the pain while my uncle mixed up some homeopathic concoction for me. He gave me a cup with a red liquid in it "This will keep the swelling down, don't worry it is not clove oil or anything (just rent the damn movie)." I just smirked, drank it down and went upstairs to sleep.

I heard a ringing sound in my dream, but I had no idea from where it was coming from. Slowly I opened my eyes and could see that it was coming from the cheap plastic phone on the floor next to my bed. I picked it up and said "hello". On the other end was my friend David.

"Hey, Alec it's David."

"Hey man, sorry I got my wisdom teeth yanked today. I am still a bit foggy from whatever they gave me for the pain."

His voice did not sound like the happy pseudo hippy that he was.

"Um, yeah that sucks man, but I have some bad news."

"Uh, okay. What's up."

"It's Sean, he, he was in a wreck earlier."

"Well is he okay. He's not in the hospital or anything is he?"

"No, he's um, he's dead."

At this point the world stopped. I still remember the way the room looked, smelled, and felt. I can still hear David's voice on the other end of the phone. It is like I took a snapshot of everything around me.

I managed to gain some sort of composure and asked him how it happened.

"He was driving down East Ponce and got sideswiped by someone. I am not sure on the details since I just found out."

I was wide awake by now and starting to lose my mind a little.

All I could think to say was "What happens now?"

"Not sure. I am still losing it over here with Eric. Once we know something we will give you a call. We gotta call some other people though."

"Oh, yeah. Me too." and we both hung up the phone.

I sat up in bed and absentmindedly pounded my head against the wall behind me. This could not be real. My best friend is not fucking dead. I hit my head harder and harder thinking that whatever this was, it was still a dream or nightmare. I managed to fight back an uncontrolable sobbing long enough to make some phone calls.

Later on that day I found out where the service would be. I don't really remember what happend from then until I went to the service on Thursday.

The only thing that really sticks out in my mind from the service was standing outside the church before hand. All of his friends gatherd around and all anyone could say to me was "So, how are your wisdom teeth?" I guess no one really wanted to say what they really felt until later.

That was when most of us went over to a park by my house.

Before I get in to that I guess I should talk about the man himself. Sean was the type of guy that no matter what you did, you always had a good time. He taught me a lot in the four years that I knew him. We had met in the parking lot of a Taco Bell a few years before and we instantly hit it off.

One of the things he showed me was the joys of VW ownership. Together we turned my 83 VW Rabbit from mild mannered economy car in to a small euro racer that would eat a Mustang five liter alive (back in 1992 that was important to me). He also showed me ,on a road trip to get fireworks, that a fuel line on a 63 VW Bug can be fixed with a plastic drinking straw and a paperclip.

But I think my favorite tale of ours was told in the park that day.

We had been all smoking up in the park talking about the weird shit Sean used to do when his cousin Eric mentioned "the show".

Sean and I had gone to see some punks bands play near GA State in downtown Atlanta. In proper punk rock form we had chugged a couple of quarts of Mickey's before we went in. During the show, which was in some old ass warehouse, we drank even more and had reached complete and total ugh (the final of several stages of drunkeness). This made the pit a lot more fun for us.

After the show we, and some other random people, were hanging out, shooting the shit, and trying find good places to puke. This is when Sean reared up and shouted "Fuck this shit! We are going to DC right now. I want to pull up to the Capitol building, play some Dead Kennedy's, dance on the steps, and then whip out my dick and piss all over the front door!" I being his loyal cohort said "Fuck yeah!" and fell over in some bushes.

He picked me up and we were off, stumbling through downtown trying to remember where we parked the car. After a while we had given up on ever finding the car and found ourlselves lost in downtown. We had made our way to what we thought was the right place that would lead us home, but instead ended up on the GA Capitol steps. I still think that he planned it that way, but one will never know. Since we knew that we would never make it to DC, the two of us decided that this was as good as any place.

So we drunkenly danced up the steps, well, more stumbled and fell up the steps. We got to the top and both of us whipped em out and pissed all over the front door. The only thing we missed was having some tunes to back us up. Afterwards we ran from the State Patrol that happened to be stationed at the State Capitol, but I think they just wanted us off the property because they gave up chase after two blocks.

Eventually we did find the car. After all a Super Beetle painted up like the Rastafarian flag is kind of hard to miss.

We all like to think that people go to a better place when they die. I hope Sean is in one now, but mainly, I just miss my friend.

Oddly enough I kept thinking about Hunter S Thompson and a line from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Since he too is not with us anymore (Committed suicide on Sunday) I thought this fit.

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.