Redemption

I used to got this friend, and he was a real nutcase, but I loved him to death. Only person I ever really liked. He wasn’t always a nutcase, when I met him, dude was five, pretty normal, normal as any five-year-old could be — sure we was eating bugs in the yard, but both of us did that and didn’t think nothing of it, put ants whole in our mouth and chewed, ants pumping something webby, swallowed.

 

          We was both eating ants, but nobody liked me. I be too quiet for a boy. Eating ants when I supposed to be playing soccer. I be that weird boy eating ants alone until he moved in next door. We was five — both of us. And his parents worked a ton so when we got off the bus we would play, eat ants. We was both eating ants, but everybody liked him, he played soccer then he’d eat ants. Everybody liked him, and he liked me, and I liked him, so it just sort of ended up that way. I be a lonely kid until he came along.

 

          My friend, he got girlfriends, he got jobs, he got old, and we was in college on a rooftop. There’re no stairs leading up to it really. We go to Melissa’s off-campus place — cause her room’s on the sixth floor and her neighbors don’t care cause they don’t exist — and we put up this ladder. Nobody be around so nobody noticed. Her window’s got a little ledge just big enough for a ladder. So, Melissa’s boyfriend, who hates parties because he’s this insomniac afraid of heights, holds the ladder and waits for us to come down. If you want to get down just tug on the ladder a bit and he’ll hold it for you and help you back through the window. When the party’s over they jam the ladder back through the window so no one’ll know anyone was up there, aside ants eating left over pretzels.

 

          We was at one of these parties. My friend and me.

 

          And I don’t remember much, just the night sky flaring for help above us, the dark decapitated, us screaming, us laughing, throwing plastic cups off buildings, blasting music I never really liked but didn’t say nothing about. Even though this building had no railing none of us was stupid enough to fall off, though all of us was pretty dumb. I’m pretty dumb but that’s not the point.

 

          This party was going and going and we all started heading down the ladder and I headed down the ladder because my eyes was burning closed. I was tired of people but knew my friend wouldn’t be tired of people just yet. I didn’t really know nobody there even though I had gone to these things before and when I found him, there was this crowd around him and he was smiling. I ended up turning around. People freak me out, everybody except him really. So I took off when it looked like things were clearing out. Slipped down with the rest of the crowd. I be small and nobody ever sees me really. Anyway, me and my friend shared a dorm room, but he didn’t always come back at night so I didn’t find it weird when a day and a half passed and no sign of him.

 

          I called up Melissa when a week passed and still no sign. She wasn’t the first I called. I called girlfriends first. He got two, but they both said no sign, asked who I was again, and I said if they got any more information to call back. I never liked nobody but this friend so I hung up before they could say anything else. Not really knowing why, I got the idea to call Melissa, I didn’t really know her, but the last place I saw him was her building and I needed to know if he threw himself off the roof and I didn’t get the message.

She said she didn’t know nothing, asked her boyfriend if he’d seen my friend — this tall Latino dude on the soccer team — he said he couldn’t remember, but if I wanted to come over they could pull out the ladder and I could check. Melissa couldn’t check because she was off somewhere, wouldn’t be home for a while. He asked who I was and I hung up.

 

          The walk over was nail biting, if he wasn’t there I didn’t know what I’d do.

 

          If he wasn’t there I’d probably jump off the roof.

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          I climbed up the ladder, found him sitting and looking at the sun and the sky and everything and the universe in clouds and the rainbows of darkness when you looked at the sun. Turns out, he’d been up there for a week, starving, drinking, laying there. Didn’t call for help. Didn’t do nothing. Just laid on this roof with booze and the sunrise. Out there, in a light coat and shorts, covered in ant bites. I found him and he looked at me, told me he found God, told me to rejoice, and started crying.

 

          I looked at him funny.

 

          At first I thought it was booze or something.

 

          It ended up not being the booze or something.

 

          It ended up being that he didn’t drink anything for the past two and a half days.

 

          And that’s when I got concerned. Because when he stood up he couldn’t stand up, landed on his back, lips chapped to hell. He still be praising his God and I be worried that he’s going to die and leave me alone so I called 9-1-1, got the fire department to come help me get the fuck off this roof. There was ants everywhere and my friend didn’t look too good, Melissa was gone and her boyfriend was just sorry. It wasn’t nothing bad and he ended up back in our dorm before too long. Catch was, he was spouting all this religious stuff. My friend wasn’t never religious. His parents went to church and he would go once in a while, but I didn’t never cared so I never asked. Just ate ants alone those days.

          

          He came to our dorm, spouting something about celibacy, how he’d broken up with his girlfriends, couldn’t believe this adulterous life he’d been living up ‘til now. Started talking about ways to be redeemed. Worshipped the sunrise. He talked about it as a fire, claimed the lord granted him a gift to witness something so divine that morning; on that day he was saved and the sun was every color he had never seen. I didn’t say nothing much about it because he was really the only person I ever could stand and even three weeks of this couldn’t make me hate him, figured if I just played along everything be fine in the long run.

Nothing be fine in the long run.

 

          Redemption, he was always spouting stuff about redemption — how he needed to be redeemed — and his sins or whatever was too much for just praying, which he did all the time now. Mumbling out another one of his long prayers on his bed, he jumped down, started walking to the door. Thinking about his stuff recently I decided to up and follow him wherever he be going. But he didn’t go far. Just grabbed his shoes, opened the drawer we keep all our bath stuff in, took out all the razor blades. My friend threw down his shoes and sat himself down on the floor; I stood above him and watched.

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          He couldn’t get them to stick right at first. But mumbled another prayer and never got angry. I always got surprised that he didn’t get angry no more. He used to get real angry, but he was my only friend. Then the blades stuck in the shoe and he put the shoes on his feet, gritted his teeth, grinned, but he was my friend so I didn’t say nothing and just thought that even though the dude was clearly mental he was my only friend and this isn’t exactly going to kill him.

​

          He be playing soccer on razor blades, but didn’t go to parties no more.

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          Eventually I got used to cleaning the bloodstains cause at some point they was always bleeding and a brown floor ain’t nothing to get angry about. I got a peek at his foot one time, an ant bed with white and yellow stuff crawling out. Webbing. Feet webbed with pus or infection or something bad. I turned away, pretended I didn’t see nothing cause I knew this would all get blamed on me and not stopping him from going mental.

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          But I’m telling you, this dude was literally the only person on the planet I even sort of liked. Just ended up that way.

 

          So I let this keep on for a couple weeks. Guy goes on and on about how it isn’t enough. And one night it was raining and the power went out in the middle of his prayer, he started shouting about how this was all a sign or something. The Lord took away his light, his light was freedom, the light was all he had left, and I started wondering what the fuck happened on that roof in the middle of the night, but he keeps going. The light with poly-something colors all burning and bleeding in one great heap on top of the other and becoming the pure one, a being devoid of all sin — light is a being devoid of all sin. Dude could’ve started a cult and I would’ve joined to stay buddies with him. My friend took the power outage as a sign. He was still impure or whatever.

 

          I personally don’t think nothing is pure or impure, it just is and it can’t help being what it is. But I’m also the guy who let this happen and the guy who can’t live after and I’m also pretty dumb, but that’s not the point. Point is, after doing all this, after the storm ends, he goes out and buys toilet bowl cleaner.

 

          Power was on the next day and I’m a wreck just watching this in the corner because he’s saying he needs a witness and he knew I don’t got nowhere else to be. This and he was sort of my church but not really, he was just my only friend. And I be this ant in the corner trapped between jaws and teeth and tongue, crying and shaking. I don’t know why I be crying and shaking, just was because the toilet bowl cleaner was rising out of bags and the floor was all bags. He grabbed a bottle, got it open, held his left eye apart, poured the whole thing into his eye. We sat for a minute waiting. I was all tears, no movement, and his eye-whites was going bloody.

I thought about stopping him and knew I couldn’t. He was bigger than me, maybe I just really wanted to see what would happen to the soccer player, my only friend, when he put toilet bowl cleaner into his eyes. A science experiment. Maybe I’m the mental one here or maybe we both are, but I really just couldn’t do nothing. I was shaking and crying and watching. My friend worshiped light after all. And the red in his eyes was bright as a light.

 

          He does this with all of it. When he couldn’t see no more he started feeling around for it. Eyes three colors of burning webby light. Green and blue and red. Bleeding on the inside and outside, dark eyes rusted green and blue. Feeling and pouring until his face was covered, he breathed in a ton, the floor was covered in blood from his feet and toilet bowl cleaner. He itched and he screamed about how his Lord had found him, how he found purpose.

 

          My friend’s passed out on empty bottles and I pulled out my phone, dropped it a ton cause my hands was shaking and I be on the ground beside his body wondering who I call first, poison control or 9-1-1. I didn’t know the number for poison control so I tried to ring up 9-1-1 but my hands was shaking so bad. I stood up, pulled out a cup, filled it with water from our sink, splashed over half the cup, pried an eye covered in blood and now this yellow stuff open, shake over the water, try again for 9-1-1. I was shaking and talking and pouring water into his eyes and felt like throwing up ants. Something was crawling around in my throat.

I’m pretty dumb but I figured water would probably help.

 

          Eventually people came.

 

          Eventually I was in an ambulance.

 

          Eventually I was in a hallway in a hospital, talking to this policeman who looked at me like I got all the guilt on me. I got a ton a guilt and he knew about it. He wanted to know why I didn’t stop him and I say it’s like that night I left when he was surrounded by people and looking all happy. He wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t know how to stop him.

 

          Kill me for it, I didn’t know how to stop him.

 

          I never saw my friend after that again.

 

          If I did I’d probably join the cult or jump off a roof.

 

          Think they got him shut up in the looney ward or something. Heard from Melissa that he just started screaming about the light, how he was redeemed and the light was covering him in this radiant holy stuff and he was finally once and for all pure. So the doctors got a little freaked and moved him down there. Also heard from Melissa he’s friends with this dude who thinks he’s got ants crawling all over him all the time.

 

          I wonder if they patched up his feet. It would’ve been nice if they patched up his feet. Least they could do is fix his feet.

So I don’t eat ants no more, but I don’t sleep no more either. Me and Melissa’s boyfriend do double duty on that ladder now. If someone does fling themselves off the roof, it’ll be better than what happened to him.

 

          But I still needs to be redeemed.

 

          My sins be too much for praying and I just don’t know what to do about it.