To Greg, With Love

NOTE: This is a short/long (:P) prose piece I wrote inspired by a dream. It was kind of emotional for me to write and it took me a little longer than expected. ENJOY!

Greg and I had been best mates since we were little shits, walking around with our hands in our diapers. We've been through chicks and kegs together, we've seen each other through bloody fist fights with our drunken fathers, and we've lived on the loaded Memphis streets together with nothing but the shirts on our backs. I don't even remember how we landed in Memphis is the first place. We just ended up there together. Some days were good, others were bad. Greg always knew how to give me a right slap in the face when I thought I had given up and, in all honesty, he kept me alive through some of the roughest years of my life.

I had better luck scoring the drugs. And he had better luck scoring the chicks. I guess it was something about his posture or the way he wore those damned Catholic Martyr tattoos. I swear, he would open his mouth and he'd send those poor girls into a hormonal frenzy. I felt sorry for the females that had the unhealthy privilege of ever knowing Greg at all. He and I, we were both users. But we got our highs from different places. I preferred cocaine. He preferred sex.

We were a strange combination of best mates. I was a gay addict, he was that smokey sort of sex fiend. But somewhere between my rotten, drug-filled lows and his quick-paced streaks of one night stands, we met our routine together. It was Monday through Sunday and all of the haziness in between. I don't really remember any significant milestones that took place during our time together nor do I remember any bridges crossed. That is until February 19th, 2007 when everything changed.

We had stayed in late that day, both droned from hangovers. I remember the smell of the mist in the air like something had died and left behind particles of its own rotting perspiration. We took a walk to the 7 Eleven on Cleveland. The traffic was pretty heavy and it was absurdly cold. I had a strange feeling that something extraordinary was going to happen that day but I convinced myself that there was still a few drops of paranoia left in my veins from the night before. It wasn't long before a mixture of cold air and the sound of mud splashing around my shoes left me with an inevitable urge to take a piss. I turned the corner to a dead-end alleyway and Greg waited on the main by the Midtown Cafe.

I was minding my business and facing the wall when I took an abrupt hit in my mid-back. I remember cracking my forehead on the wall in front of me and trying to turn around. But before I could move I felt a kick to the back of my knees and then I was on the ground. Someone pulled off my shoes and I could hear the word 'faggot' called out from behind a breathy voice. Whoever it was began bashing me repeatedly in the head with my own shoes until my head and everything else was centered on the concrete floor. I must have made a sound of distress because I could make out Greg calling my name in the background. By then all I could see was the blurry green dumpster in front of me and I could smell the blood tricking down my face and the urine just underneath me. Then for a few seconds everything stopped.

I could hear Greg's voice close to where I was positioned, telling my attacker to bounce. The reply was some sort of 'faggot-lover' remark. I could tell they were locals by the accent. My head was still buzzing over the fits of yelling and then I could distinguish a few punching sounds. I made myself roll over despite the pain so that I could see what exactly was going on. I saw Greg surrounded by two darker men. They were wearing hoods and I don't remember faces. They moved so unusually slow that they became something other than human to me.

I watched helplessly as Greg attempted to push them off in his defense. He made a successful shove to the guy on his left. But he then took a harsh blow in the stomach from the guy to his right. I remember the sound he made as the breath was knocked out of him. I almost felt it, too. One of the bastards grabbed Greg around his back and locked down his arms. They moved him near a drainage pipe down the way. The other guy held on to the back of Greg's head by his hair and began slamming his face into the metal pipe. He must have done this at least eight or nine times before I noticed Greg had stopped fighting back. He wasn't moving at all. I wanted to vomit right then and there. And I did.

Everything was getting out of hand, a fact that those two men quickly took notice to. They stopped to look at Greg and let him fall to the ground. I grit my teeth as they searched his pockets for a trace of a wallet or cash. I weakly told them to fuck off. After they took what they wanted to they decided to make a run for it, but not before one of them gave me a final kick in the chest and to the back of my head. I felt myself go numb for a few seconds, everywhere. And my eyes felt as though they were trying to escape from my skull. I only lost myself to self pity and pain for a short bit before remembering that Greg was still lying by that drainage pipe up the way.

I forced myself to make a pathetic crawl towards him. It felt like it took an eternity to find myself at the end of that drainage pipe. He was face-down on the concrete in a puddle of red water. I pulled what I could of his torso up and into my lap. His face was unrecognizable and covered with a thick layer of blood. His ears were bleeding, I think, and in my state of dumb confusion I cupped my hands over them as if I thought it would help. I was crying uncontrollably at that point and I wanted to say something to him but I couldn't even open my mouth to speak at first. He was shaking and his eyes were glazed over, searching the alleyway walls for nothing. I told him that he would be okay and that I was sorry.

After that I must have fallen asleep or fallen unconscious. When I came to, there was a small crowd of scattered strangers down by the Midtown Cafe. There were heavy sirens in the background. Greg wasn't there. Three men were crouched around me shining lights in my face and probing me with stethoscopes and other tools. I remember one of them asking me, "Where are your shoes?" He almost said it with a joking smirk on his face. I wanted to reply with, "Where is my friend?" but I couldn't say anything. I looked past the paramedics to see a stretcher being pushed into it. It was carrying a mass and was covered with a white sheet. I vomited again.

I went back to our old building and stayed there for another month or so. But something about that quiet was unsettling. I wasn't used to hearing my own thoughts without being interrupted by the giggles of strange women coming from Greg's room every night. I got high pretty often those nights but nothing could make me forget how alone I was in that old, rusted building. It wasn't long before I packed up my things, and a few of Greg's, and decided to move back home.

Cape Elizabeth was the same as I had remembered. It still hosts that salty smell and sounds of those old church bells. I visited my mother and she invited me to stay as long as I needed to. I found myself in rehab. And I fell in love with a businessman from Boston. We're moving in together in a few weeks. Life is getting easier and I'm still doing a little soul searching here and there. I'm finishing up a novel, an autobiography of sorts. It's about my hardships I faced growing up, my experience with drugs, my scarce experiences with romance, the friends I once had, the events that took place on February 19th, 2007, and how I ended up where I am today.

The dedication will read, "To Greg, With Love."