The next morning I woke up to an inhuman howl and a thunderous crash from the living room. I heard billiard balls hitting the floor and rolling into the thin wall of my bedroom. There was another tremendous thud as the bumper pool table toppled from its edge and settled upside down on the floor, then there was another yell, like a moan of agony, unmistakably Buddy, before something made of glass shattered against the other side of my wall and made me fear that this rage was in some way directed at me. I laid in bed listening to him until I heard him stomp his way past my door and down the hallway, smash something heavy in the kitchen (it was the toaster), then slam his bedroom door with a final scream of frustration. I ventured out to assess the damage and just outside my door I ran into Caroline, whose face was bleary and red from crying.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you alright?”
“Take care of him,” she said, then she burst into tears and covered her face with her enormous hands. She said it again, this time muffled by the hands, then turned around and hurried away from me, into the living room and out the front door.
I went into the living room then to assess the damage. As expected, the bumper pool table was upside down, looking like an old fashioned candle-holder with its one leg as the candle, pointed up at the chandelier. Most of the balls were lined up against the wall to my room, and around them were shards of the cocaine mirror. The lamp was on the floor too with its shade off, the lightbulb still glowing a dusty yellow color. I picked up the lamp and set it back on its little plastic table next to a beer can with mold coming out of it and a cereal bowl filled with cigar tobacco and some sort of grease. The screw that held the shade in place was missing, so I just put the shade balanced on top and hoped that it wouldn’t fall off.
Picking up the bumper pool table was trickier. It was fairly large, heavy by my own standards, and if I put too much weight on its leg it might snap off from the base. I didn’t want Bobby to see it like that, though. It was worth the risk to try and put it back on its feet without any help, and luckily the leg held strong as I used all my strength the tip the thing onto its side and then back into an upright position.
Just as I was putting the last of the balls back onto the table, Buddy came walking in slow and zombie-like, and he sat down heavily onto the wooden stool near the fireplace. He looked at me setting the balls on the table but didn’t say anything. The silence was more than just awkward— it was thoroughly unsettling. I was worried that anything I might say would trigger some sort of violent outburst, but the silence made me so nervous I felt I needed to say something, anything, to break the tension.
“Everything okay?” I finally blurted out. I qualified this question by then saying, “It sounded like you were upset this morning,” which was the understatement of the century.
As I was speaking I absent-mindedly rolled a ball to the other side of the table. He watched it thud against a bumper then settle in the corner.
“I’m gonna kill Bobby,” he said, so steadily and gravely that I knew immediately it wasn’t a figure of speech.
With a sort of mock-incredulity, meant to mask my very real trepidation, I said, “You’re going to kill Bobby? What’d he do this time?”
“Stole my drugs.”
“And you’re sure it was Bobby?”
He ignored my question and said, “I have a gun in muh room. Pistol. When Bobby gets home I’m gonna to shoot‘m in his fuckin’ face.”
Christ Almighty, I thought. The fuck do I say to that?
“Please don’t kill him,” I said. “Pleease don’t kill him. I know he’s a piece of shit, but don’t kill him. As a favor for me, don’t. That would be a nightmare. And besides, you’ll be ruining your own life at the same time you’re ending his.”
Buddy was still staring at that same red ball that had settled in the corner. He said, “I’mma kill myself too, when I’m done. I’ll shoot Bobby in that snide lil face uh his, then I’ll put the barrel in my mouth and—” he used his middle and index fingers to pantomime the handgun pointing at the roof of his mouth— “click.” His thumb moved to indicate the hammer drop of the firing gun, but he didn’t move his head or do any cartoonish impressions of his brains flying out, he just withdrew the finger-barrel from his mouth with an inscrutable look on his face then placed his hands palms-down on the table.
He said, “Thank you, but I made up muh mind.”
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I left the house shortly after that. I sent messages to Bobby, Joe, and Marv to inform them of the situation. Joe sent an email to the landlord letting him know that that Buddy had become dangerous and someone would need to interfere before anyone got hurt. It turned out Mr. Braddon was two steps ahead of us. A few days earlier he’d approached Buddy to discuss unpaid rent, and Buddy not only refused to pay but made some sort of vague threat that referenced the gun. Mr. Braddon sent Joe an email back informing him that Buddy was already set to be evicted within 48 hours for unpaid rent and violating the terms of his lease. I was glad that Buddy would soon be gone, but was terrified that he would blame us, and possibly me specifically, for his eviction, and if he stayed as unhinged as he’d been earlier that day he might come back with the gun and kill every one of us for betraying him. I sent Mr. Braddon an email expressing this concern:
Mr. Braddon,
Joe told me that he talked to you about Buddy and that you are planning on having him evicted. I just want to ask that I get a heads up beforehand, because I don’t want to be around when/if that happens. I also think any attempt at eviction should be done with a police officer on hand and without any pretense that our complaints have been the cause. I will not be able to sleep at night if Buddy is walking around Charleston thinking we all went behind his back to get him evicted. He seems like a highly volatile person and he has made allusions to a gun. I want to make sure all of this is handled in a way that isn’t going to endanger anyone. I’m very disturbed at the moment, and I will not feel safe in this house if we can’t find a way to resolve this delicately.
—Ian
A few hours later l was on Hunter’s couch and my phone buzzed. It was Mr. B's response:
Don’t worry. It will be by the book without involving you in any way.
I can’t say that it made me feel much better. I was picturing Mr. Braddon showing up with a cop and an eviction notice, then Buddy greasing them both with the pistol before turning it on me. I’d try to reason with him, to guilt him into sparing me, but he was too far gone to care.
Hunter offered to let me spend the night on his couch, to wait things out at his place until all the Buddy drama was over and done with. I probably should have agreed, but I rarely slept out and I thought Buddy might find my absence suspicious. If he got arrested before seeing me again, he’d have every reason to think I’d ratted on him for the whole “kill Bobby” thing. I also just wanted to be there to help ensure he didn’t actually kill Bobby. Bobby’s response to my warning had been flippant and dismissive. “I’d like to see that piece of shit come at me,” he’d written, which didn’t inspire much confidence in his survival skills. Even if Buddy cooled off, Bobby might do something to provoke him and wind up getting shot in the face anyway.
It also didn’t help that Bobby really had stolen Buddy’s drugs. He had gotten home from AC’s (a bar on King Street) the night before with two friends with him, Donny and Snell. They’d found Buddy passed out on the living room couch with the mirror in his and a Ziplock bag of drugs on the pool table. In the bag was an eighth of weed, a couple grams of cocaine, and about fifteen Kathies. Bobby took the bag upstairs, and together the three of them had smoked all the weed and done all the cocaine. Nobody did any of the Katharax, but Bobby kept those too because he knew he could sell them to freshmen for at least five dollars a piece.
I suspected that Bobby had stolen the stuff, but I didn’t know for sure until I got home and he offered to smoke me out with the remaining pinch of weed, which he proudly explained had been Buddy’s. Even though I knew Buddy had no business doing all those drugs by himself— it was evident he had in six days done at least five grams of cocaine and more than thirty Kathies— I was also irritated that Bobby would do something like that solely out of greed. Stealing was stealing, even if you were stealing from an addict, and I was also concerned that Buddy’s Katharax withdrawals could get dangerous if he didn’t have any way of getting more and weening himself off. He had averaged roughly five a day over the last six days, meaning he had already developed a tremendous tolerance. He had probably started with one or two, then two or three, then four or five, then five or six. It was impossible to start out with such a high intake, because for the average person even just three Kathies with a few beers can be fatal. In any case, if he had done thirty by himself then it was a certainty that he was now heavily addicted and would be going through serious withdrawals. I told Bobby that the ethical thing to do would be to return a few of the Kathies. He could do it anonymously, and, sure, he would be out of some easy money, but that would be better than letting his roommate die painfully from withdrawals.
To my surprise, Bobby agreed without much of a fuss. He went into a drawer in his desk and pulled out the Ziplock bag. He gave it to me without taking any of the remaining pills for himself, and all he said was to make sure Buddy didn’t know it was him.
As I walked to Buddy’s room to give him what was left of his stash, it occurred to me that I might be making a grave mistake by giving this addict a bag of pills. Not only would I be enabling him, but I might also give him the impression that I had been the one that stole his drugs in the first place, not Bobby. On the other hand, this gesture could be the olive branch to keep myself from getting greased when he finally went postal, and if he was passed out on Kathies for the next 24 hours then he wouldn’t be in any shape to be shooting me or anyone else. So as I walked up to his door I decided I would tell him I found the bag on the floor near the living room couch, that I had no idea who looted it or left it there, but in any case here it is, I figured you’d want what’s left.
TO BE CONTINUED
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter10
Chapter 11
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Why I'm Writing/ Recap of first 11 chapters
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Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
