Forgotten Notes
Yesterday, I was reminded that I am a writer. I come to this page often to read others’ words, but It’s been over a year since I’ve posted anything myself here. Even longer since I’ve posted anywhere else. Except my iPhone notes apparently. I discovered that four days before my friend Zach passed, I wrote this piece about my friend Mike. It got lost in a long collection of notes that I’ve written since about my friendship with Zach. I got choked up realizing that I wrote this piece about our friend Mike just days before he was gone. Someday I’ll share some of the notes I wrote about Zach, but for now, here’s what I wrote about my friend Mike.
10/10/2021
My friend Mike had a breathalyzer in his car two years before he could drink legally. I met him when I was 21 and he was 19. We drank bottle upon bottle of Skol vodka, chased by cases of Natural Light, and smoked cigarettes like we weren’t afraid of how they’d make us look when we were old. We were barely adults and my friend Mike said all the time that he’d never see past 33. His Jesus complex didn’t stop there. With the breathalyzer and the poorly formed jailhouse tattoos, Mike walked this earth like he was untouchable, unshakable, unbendable, unbreakable.
The first time I got to see Mike as a normal, fallible human was a couple of years after we met when he overdosed on water. A toothache — that was his demise. He was too proud to see the dentist, too stubborn to admit defeat. He swallowed aspirin after aspirin, chased by vodka and copious amounts of water. So much water that he drowned himself internally. I was 23 years old, he was 21. After we knew that he would live and he started to recover, he begged to be wheeled out to the parking lot for a smoke. I can see him clear as day in that hospital gown, with his IV fluids in tow, smoking camels, and laughing at the stories we all would tell about him someday.
Mike. Michael. Michael Michael Motorcycle. He smelled like cigarettes and mouthwash. He gave the world’s best hugs. He ate mayo and Cheeto sandwiches. He was everyone’s best and worst friend. I’ve never known anyone else so beloved. I wonder how he might have faired if he’d only cared for himself a fraction of the amount that he gave to everyone else.
When word of his passing got out, so many people from our past emerged to tell stories about the kind of friend he’d been, the way he’d supported and loved them when no one else did. He was the sweetest and most gentle jerk. I’ve never known anyone else who could say such offensive things and still be so loved. He certainly would have never survived cancel culture. It brings me great pleasure to know that there is a corner of the Twittersphere where his offensive humor remains.
RIP, Doodle. I hope they serve corn dogs wherever you are.
