Y journal: Greg

Greg, whose name has been changed to protect the guilty, is the
oldest friend that I am currently in contact with. We met in the sixth
grade when we were both in track, from different schools. At Districts
that year, Greg beat a rich kid named Alex Casey who was thought to be
unbeatable. That warmed my heart. Well, it turns out Greg had a lot
more where that came from. In Junior High, he made such a name for
himself that he was expected to be the next track phenom. He broke
national records; he was the talk of our town. Well, Greg liked pot,
and though I didn't know it at the time, he liked heroin even more. To
make a long story short, Greg became a druggie and our town's biggest
drug dealer. In the meantime, he still managed to make a something of a
splash in high school track, breaking an olympic record in the 200
meter dash. But his career ended when he got in a fist fight with the
track coach. Well, Greg cleaned up and got a job as a janitor in
Ashland. We met here when I first arrived and our friendship had a
renaissance which drew us closer than we had ever really been in our
youth, though we had been somewhat close. I was amazed by the
sophistication that Greg had gained and is still gaining. He is
probably the most athletic person I know; pure genetic strength. He has
long brown hair and has since childhood. He's clean now, except for a
little herb and not all that much really. These days I'm more of a
pot-head than Greg. He's friendly but he has a certain measured
indifference about him. He'll offer food and he smokes me out but he
only gives so much. I think he has feeling of genuine friendship for
me. He must. Why should I doubt Greg after all the favors he's done for
me? He's gotten me all kinds of free Shakespeare tickets.
One of them was Titus Andronicus, which I saw with a friend named
Willy. Now I don't know how to describe Willy. He was a real friend and
you could say he taught me how to party. He's been described as the
"mountain king." He was one of the wildest kids at SOU when I arrived
during summer term. He was staying in the dorms and was enrolled in
classes he never went to. Life was one big party. Willy was rough, let
me tell you. He was fat, strong and usually unshaven. He had dark,
black hair and a great sense of humor. He liked life. He was a heavy
smoker, a heavy drinker and a heavy drug user. Somebody once told me
that Willy was one of the most dependable people in Ashland when it
came to drugs. He liked to try different things: LSD, Cocaine, he even
made absinthe. He offered to let me drink the absinthe and at the time
I didn't because it was home-made. I did the right thing for the wrong
reason. I'm sure Willy's absinthe was solid. But drugs are just mind
rot and the harder you get, the faster you kill yourself. Well, Willy
and I had a blast at "Titus Andronicus." That is one crazy play. Willy
slipped me a hard cider. He also did the driving because even though I
had a car, a prized posession in stoner circles, I was too paranoid to
drive at the time.