Good Ol’ Days

The waitress asked if he was okay. She was only a few years older than the boys but seemed much more mature since she was no longer in college like them. She wore a sleeveless black polo with a silver name tag. Her name was Mandy. She knew their type; she was one of them not too long ago: obnoxious, rude, day drunk.

Joey was slumped in the chair, sleeping, his chin to his chest, his hands clasped atop his lap. He was baby-faced, with tanned skin that appeared youthful and smooth. Drool leaked from his dangling lower lip, wetting his ASU tank top. He’d been like that for several minutes and hadn’t even touched the vodka soda he’d ordered. 

Jon thwacked two knuckles against Joey’s chest, a brotherly gesture, and told Mandy that he was just tired, “He was up all night studying. Today was the last day of finals.” Jon had green almond-shaped eyes, black hair that was buzz cut, and high cheekbones that rounded out both sides of his face in a way that made him look jolly, but he was not. He was taller and thicker than Joey. His shoulders were broad, and he spoke to Mandy with the authority of someone who was not afraid to argue. 

“He can’t sleep here,” Mandy said with one hand holding a serving tray full of beverages. 

Jon was disgruntled, “Why not?”

“Yo, chill,” Ryan, another friend at the table, said, holding his hand out at Jon, “We’ll wake him up,” he nodded to Mandy. 

She brushed a strand of hair from her face and gave him a curt thank you before briskly moving on to her next table, but not before she shot an annoyed look at Jon. 

Ryan smirked at his friend, “You trying to get us kicked out of another restaurant? You ass.” 

“She wants to suck my penis,” Jon said.

“Bro, what? You must be more fucked up than Joey. Wake him up.” 

The two laughed. The shyest one of the group, Max, who was sitting next to Joey, shook his shoulder and stated the obvious: he was passed out. 

“It’s the pills,” Ryan said, “Y'all are taking too many of those pills.” 

Max faintly nodded in agreement, but Jon waived it off. He leaned toward Joey so that he was in striking distance and tapped his face to try to wake him up. One tap. Nothing. Two taps. Nothing. Third tap, this time, harder, and Joey startled awake. He inhaled sharply and craned his neck upright like he was lifting a heavy weight. His eyes were glassy and half shut, but he was conscious. 

“Drink some water, Joey,” Max said, sliding Joey’s ice water to him. Joey mumbled something, reached for the water, and knocked it over. Max hurried to turn the glass right side up, but it was already emptied; the ice was melting on the table. 

Joey spoke one word in slow motion, “Fuck.” 

Mandy walked up to the table with her manager. The men knew it was her manager because it said so on his name tag.

“Gentlemen,” the manager began, “Is everything alright over here?” 

Mandy scowled at Jon; Max was staring at the puddle of water on the table; Jon was laughing. 

Ryan responded, “Yea, we’re good; we just spilled some water.” 

“And your friend?” The manager titled his head to Joey, who had fallen back asleep. 

Jon shouted, “Wake up, Joe!”. The demand was loud enough to make someone from another table turn and look. Joey haphazardly lifted his head and offered a response, “I’m…a…way….k” But his eyes were still shut. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” 

“For what reason?” Jon fired back.

“Your friend is intoxicated.” 

“He’s not doing anything,” Jon said.

“This is a restaurant. He can’t sleep here.”

“It’s a fucking bar,” Jon said. 

“Dude, chill,” Ryan snapped his fingers at Jon, “We’ll go.” 

“Here’s your check,” Mandy said, placing it on the table in front of Max. 

“Can we have separate checks?” Max asked.

“I already separated them,” Mandy said. 

The men got their credit cards and put them in the black booklet with the check. Jon reached into Joey’s pocket to take out his wallet and access his card. Even though he hadn’t drunk his vodka soda, he’d still have to pay. 

***

Joey locked his door when he left his room because he lived with roommates who had stolen from him. It had become a habit, so even at night, when he was in his room, he’d lock it. The night after he’d nodded off at the restaurant, he and his friends went to a house party in Tempe. Joey’s girlfriend, Katie, texted him throughout the evening to see if he could meet her in Scottsdale, but he said he couldn’t get a ride. Jon and Joey took oxycontin at the house party and continued drinking. Ryan left first out of the group to try to smash a girl he’d been chasing. Max left second. He recalled that when he left, Joey and Jon were playing beer pong, and everything seemed normal; they were drinking, probably too much, but everyone was. He didn’t know Joey had taken more pills. 

Katie spoke with Joey at four in the morning. He was in his room, by himself. He slurred his words, she said, but she was drunk too, and it was so late, and it all seemed normal, so she wasn’t worried. He told her he loved her, and she said it back. He said love you more, and she said no, I love you more. Then, they went to sleep. 

At noon the next day, Katie and Jon banged on Joey’s door, begging him to let them in. Joey’s roommates stood behind them in the hallway, groggy with hangovers, paralyzed by the reality of the situation. Jon yelled at the top of his lungs. The veins in his neck were like fat worms, and his face was beet red. He began pounding on the door. Katie was crying. Jon stepped backward, moved Katie out of the way, and knocked the door down with three kicks. He rushed to the bed, and Katie was right behind him. Joey’s body was pale white. His lips were cracked and dry. He was cold to the touch. Jon tried to shake him awake. Katie screamed as tears streamed down her cheeks. One of the roommates shouted to call the police: Joey was dead. 

***

Jon had casually started seeing his girlfriend, Karen, right before Joey’s overdose, and his vulnerability, caused by the event, brought them closer. She would comfort him during the early morning hours of the night when he was drunk, and it was only them, and he would break down and cry. She’d hold him, rubbing his back, running her finger through his hair like he was her pet until he fell asleep. She was the only one who saw this side of Jon. He did not like crying because he thought showing emotions was a sign of weakness. His family’s response to hearing that one of his good friends died reinforced this belief; his father told him that dying is what friends do, “Everyone eventually dies on you, son. That’s the reality of it.”

After Joey’s death, Jon declared he was done taking pills, but his drinking increased, and he often blacked out and was aggressive. It continued like this for many months. Then, without any explanation, Jon quit drinking, dedicated himself to a five-day-a-week gym routine, and preached a healthy lifestyle. Though this benefited him, it ended up straining his relationship with Karen, who still wanted to party in moderation. Jon could not do anything in moderation; he was all or nothing. 

Max, Ryan, and Jon did their best to stay close that year; however, they all dealt with grief differently. Max subconsciously distanced himself from the group. The death of his friend made him seek out an entirely new social circle, and he made friends with classmates in his astronomy class. The fact that Ryan and Jon called him gay for choosing to stare through a telescope at night rather than hang out was confirmation that he should get new friends. But when Jon went through his exercise phase, Max and he hung out more; they worked out together. Ryan joined them sometimes as well, but for the most part, he was much more concerned with climbing the social hierarchy of their fraternity. Each boy found their own way to forget that something was missing. 

It was at the homecoming party that Jon began drinking again. He started a fight with a guy from a rival fraternity, and because he’d been in the gym for the last several months, he was able to inflict significant damage before Ryan, Max, and others pulled him off the sorry bastard. Despite the violence, the three boys were happy and hadn’t felt that close in many months. There was something they enjoyed about having this type of Jon back, something familiar and normal.

The three of them started to hang out more as the anniversary of Joey’s death approached. They drank, played video games, watched Entourage, smoked weed, partied, and occasionally took pills. Ryan and Max didn’t know that Jon was taking them more frequently. No one did.

On the night of Joey’s anniversary, Jon got in a fight with Karen, who had found a bottle of prescription pills in his room. He was blacked out, and she told him she was worried he would hurt himself. The choice of words triggered him. 

Jon grabbed a pistol he used when he went shooting in the desert and put the loaded gun to his head. He yelled at Karen, spewing vile, selfish, insane things, “You think I give a shit about you or anyone else? D'you think any of this shit matters? None of it matters,” He shouted at her with the gun to his temple, “You think I’m hurting myself?” He laughed like a villain, “Nothing can hurt me. I’m already dead.” And he shot himself. 

***

Dr. Lisa Tong is currently serving thirty years to life in prison. Several years after Joey’s death, she was convicted of murder for recklessly prescribing drugs. She allegedly prescribed Joey nearly two hundred 30-milligram doses of Oxycodone just a week before his death, and he was not her only patient; eleven others also died under her care. Before handing her his sentencing, the judge stated that Tong was a person who didn’t seem to care about the lives of her patients; instead, she appeared more concerned with amassing several million dollars by dangerously distributing controlled substances in an assembly line fashion. 

Ryan texted Max a news article about the sentencing. It was the first time they’d communicated in over a year. Max read the article and felt his eyes fill with tears, but he didn’t actually cry. The deaths of his friends seemed much further away than they were because so much of his life had changed since then; he’d graduated, moved out of state, and found a partner he was now living with, who had only heard anecdotes about his college days. He told his partner he’d lost friends to pills, but he didn’t share just how close of friends they were or the specifics of Jon’s death. Seeing the text from Ryan pulled him back to a time and place that he was passed. He didn’t want to go back.

He responded to the text, “That’s crazy.”

Ryan quickly wrote back, “I know, right? Bitch gets what she deserves lol Doesn’t change anything though.”

Max gave the message a thumbs up. They haven’t talked to each other since.