Day Forty-nine - True belief

I almost did this narrative a disservice by nearly neglecting to mention someobe very important I met that same school year. After yesterday's post, I was about to write about two other people I met that year and made friends with, and then move on from that. nd then I remembered this very specific person. Again, odds of him ever reading this are slim to none, but be that as it may I am just going to call him by an alias - let's call him 'James'.

And the curious thing was that me and him weren't exactly friends that year, nor were we actually very friendly. 'James' was very much a loner, or he'd hang out with another weird kid - we'd nickname him 'Weasel'. But he'd mosty hang alone from everyone else, apart from anyone else. On ocasion we'd talk, and I'd come to learn that he liked metal as well, though he didn't know much outside the most commercial stuff. But after I left school by the end of the year, we'd start talking more outside school, and during the summer of '94 a friendship started to coalesce. Again, he was someonw who imbibed a lot from my knowledge of metal, and as he started to venture into bands that even I'd never listened to, that helped fuel a healthy competition between us to see who would acummulate more records and go to more gigs. It went from a rather casual thing to a friendship that has lasted for over thirty years now, and though nowadays we rarely get in touch with one another, there is still that lingering friendship. We had some ups and downs through the years - 'James' is a very volatile and borderline violent guy, easily irascible - and there were a couple of instances here and there where things were a bit touch and go between us, as I recall it we might not have even said word one to one another for a couple of years, but we always found our way back to each other. We had some pretty good times together - our 'James' was a barely functioning alcoholic by his late teens, and though I also liked to drink myself, I could never hope to keep up with him - and neither did I ever want to. I know that by his later adult life he changed quite a bit - he had a kid back in 2010, if I remember correctly, and the last time I saw him he imparted the news that there was another one on the way. I even met the mother to be - a different girl from the one I knew had a child with him - and I saw a different 'James' then. Calmer, more at ease with life. As a teen and then as an adult he had that sort of unbridled and directionless rage that could never seem to be harnessed in any other way other than self destruction. But I'm glad he found that one thing he could focus on.

I truly am happy for him, and a big part of me misses him. Maybe one of these days I'll give him a ring.