Fallen Friend

I don’t know what brought it on, but a very old friend of mine came into my head this morning. Johnny was my best friend during grade seven and eight when I was twelve and thirteen. My parents, quite rightly in hindsight, thought that he was a bad influence. I would sneak out at night with him riding our bikes around the streets and just generally get into no good.

The first time I got drunk was at his house during one of his older sister’s parties when I was thirteen. It was also the first time I had sex.

And this lead to the pattern of getting drunk and looking for a fuck that pervaded my life for many years to come.

But with Johnny, it was always a strange event in my life. I managed to get so drunk that at one point all memory fails and the next thing I can recall is him sucking me off. Now, we were more like kids just messing around than anything else, but things did change for us after that.

In grade eight, Johnny failed the year and was held back. And from that moment, we began the path towards becoming strangers to each other. Different grades, different friends, and different lives.

I would see Johnny around of course, but we didn’t hang out much. He had a girlfriend in high school and we were always cordial, but never anything outside of a good “hello”.

And then he shot himself.

I was sixteen when it happened. I found out at school that he had taken a handgun, put it to his temple and blasted his brains out. I was devastated, placing some of the blame on myself for leaving him behind. But as time progressed, what I came to wonder was whether there was the gay factor in any of this. The only thing that I can be sure of was that he was extremely unhappy. No one commits suicide without some profound feelings of desperation. But I will never know.

But I have often wondered what exactly was in his head at the time.

I went through some terrible times in my teens grappling with my sexuality. It was not easy and there was the requisite self loathing. But I never felt that the only solution was death. I wanted people to know that I was unhappy, but I manifested that through much more passive aggressive means than anything else. But if Johnny killed himself because of being gay, that is the worst possible outcome.

Much has changed for us since the late eighties, but these feelings are still around us in gay youth. I often forget what a small world it is to live in when you are younger. There is no escaping to a better city, there is no finding like friends at gay venues, there is still a hell of a lot of segregation, whether in a big city or a small country town.

Of course, the internet helps. This is an incredible medium for finding other people whose stories are similar enough to provide that glimpse of possibility in a better future for yourself. This medium can give hope.

But it came too late for Johnny.