Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

All past history and bullshit aside however, I was glad to get a random visit from James. I had bought him a giant sombrero during my trip to Mexico over Christmas and he thanked me by bringing over a case of Lone Star beer, assuring me that its high-dollar shit up at St. John’s. We got drunk and talked about nothing and everything, just having a good time. I introduced him to Jenifer (she was working) with pride when we went to the Tomato at my insistence for free beer and pizza. There’s not much else to report really because we got obnoxiously drunk. They were envious of my house and I wished we were able to stay in better contact when he left but long distance friendships must progress. Still it felt like one of my brothers had visited for a day and left, so I was slightly depressed to see them go.

Oh, some gossip: James’s sister Maureen is pregnant and had to come home from her first year at college. Life is weird but I instinctively know she will make a good mother and a routine of childcare discipline will benefit her. I sympathize with her upcoming ordeal though. Despite my fleeting dreams of boyhood romance I would like to send a note of encouragement since she’ll have to face hostile familial Catholicism over this, but I’m probably not even supposed to be privy to the secret at all. So Maureen, here is a subconscious mental well wishing aimed at you and your child. Be good and be strong, I’m thinking of you.

Tonight a bunch of us watched Jane’s Addiction’s “Gift” while tripping on acid. I viewed it with a skepticism—usually reserved for alchemy—in a packed living room of people, all of us watching it for the first time. It was a creepy and oddly romantic movie crammed with lots of badass music. Just us, Perry, Casey and the ultimate rundown of the heroin lifestyle encompassing all its death spanning love. Maybe it was the acid but the movie really moved me and now I want to try smack more than ever. Isn’t that stupid? To be influenced by imagery and music so much, just like the evil government said I would be. Maybe organized government is my friend after all.

Yeah right.

Nope, I now know that I’ve pretty much been lied to and fed misinformation about every drug I’ve ever tried. Usually my virginal nervousness turns to disappointment because for some reason the amount of pleasure I equate with the evil addictive quotient just isn’t there for me. And I don’t think I’m special either. In a way it’s good because I want my experimentation with everything I can get my hands on (excluding sniffing paint and PCP, nasty business) to only be a temporary experimentation. A series of experiences I can look back on and say “I did that” or at least use my exploration as a reference for unwritten characters in a bad after-school special or something.

Heroin is sort of a last refuge, a final drug with the highest ante of all. One last thing to try before I move on to more worldly jobs and sensual pleasures on the physical plane. Somehow I still suspect bitter disappointment from Ms. Morphine but then again I never have thought that the deep ennui I am experiencing could ever be relieved through chemistry, prescribed or otherwise.

But tonight, watching the shocking realism of true love and a reminder of drug-addled despair akin to Drugstore Cowboy, I think I’ve been given a subtle reminder to check myself. A warning I somehow know that if I ignore, I’ll face undesirable consequences later. The music and poetry of the world is alive, but very often dirty. To truly create, I fear I will have to roll around in the corruption of life and get an honest sense of despair that a simple visit to hell could never convey, although Dante’s trip proved inspirational enough for him. People had more time on their hands back then to analyze and write volumes about the experiences in their dreams too. Doesn’t it seem as if the theologians that are most concerned with the good of the afterlife are also unnaturally captivated by the bad of the here and now?

I’m scared. While things are clear to me on acid tonight I can already see I will alienate my family. Too many regrets are coming up. I’m scared mom, I know you’ll never understand. I’m scared Jenifer, nothing I gain in wisdom will be worth losing you. I’m scared Sam, you have already embarked on this different sort of road trip, a ride much more important than you will ever know. Dammit! I may be lacking inner peace but at least most of the time I’m comfortable. God forgive me for the things that will happen. God please forgive me for making them necessary.

I just found out that Jim is moving out of our miniature Monticello after this semester and I’m kind of sad about it, even though I suspected it might happen sometime soon. I just have this sense of an overall tiredness seeping into all of our bones and a general melancholy emanating from Jim because of different things going on in his life. He’s a notorious class skipper, which leads to the eventual disappointing low grades and having to drop half his classes. It’s also pretty damn hard to motivate yourself to do boring school stuff in our house with all these distractions. Jim’s tired of being poor, tired of being hassled by his girlfriend Simone continuously, and lamentably even I get on his case about stupid shit like all his dirty dishes or other stuff only bitches like to nag about, so I’ll bet he’s tired of that too. I guess he just senses it is time to try and move on and who can blame him?

We’ve all been doing more coke, yet slowly excluding each other’s company when we do it. Jim will stay away and I’ll use the excuse of having an early class to not participate. Drug-related relationships are getting more complex and weird around our house. So in a way, even though I’m sad to hear Jim is leaving I know it’s better for him to move back to San Antonio and get his head straight. I’ll miss that bastard though. Jim’s been like a brother to me sometimes and I’ve learned a lot by imitating his casualness. My old friend James gave me the basic Bachelor degree training in slacking off but Jim helped complete my Masters.

We’re all run down and tired from school. The rest of the world looks upon college life and sees it with rose-colored glasses slightly tinted green with envy, but the actuality of doing it daily and living hand to mouth is hard. Up North where animosity gets hidden behind thickly insulated walls during a majority of the colder months, people can drive around the cities and view their ghettos with some semblance of detachment, but Texas is a nearly year long festering stewpot of aggravation. It’s getting hotter and it’s going to keep getting hotter, fuses are getting shorter and the mundane tasks of living are seemingly unbearable sometimes. Often it’s so tempting to just say, “Fuck it!” and do my own thing. I’ve got spring fever to the Nth degree.

I hope Dan and Jay are cool about Jen staying with me at the house most of the time. She’s become a fifth roommate and now when people speak about one of us, our names are invariably lumped together. Sam and Jenifer or Jenifer and Sam, the name mentioned first usually denoting whom the speaker originally intended to talk about. I like the sound of it though. Sam and Jenifer. Jenifer and Sam. Pretty nice.

Our old friend Kirk is probably going to take over Jim’s room so we won’t have to worry about extra rent, not that it would be too big of a problem. I think Kirk is cool even though he’s older (about 27 or so?) and he was there with Jim and me in the dorms and he already knows Dan and Jenifer from drinking together at the Tomato and hanging around our house. Kirk always says he wasn’t much of a pot smoker until he started hanging around Jim and me. Since I (positively!) credit Jim with helping teach me about the joys of being most mellow, he can blame Jim. Kirk likes to party too much and will do any drug put in front of him but he’s also established a set of unflinching priorities and responsibilities that keep him on track, plus I already know I can live with him.