[rico]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Jesus. ****ing. Christ. That was, literally, the most terrifying thing I've ever read.

Is that response in regards to the first paragraph that was quoted, like in a sarcastic way? Or was it directed to the story that followed regarding my friend?

I've read enough of your posts on here and I'm assuming your response was serious and directed towards the story about my friend. And with that said, it was terrifying. I was scared shitless of the guy...and your toughest of "tough-guys" or people who just don't seem to have to "cooth" to interact socially respectable and appropriately with the average person in every day social situations, were not "tough-guys" or lacking cooth (sp?) when in the presence of this guy in his final two years of life. And he wasn't a physically imposing figure. In fact, he was pretty small. What made this guy so scary was the vibe that he gave off that he wasn't full of shit when he made threats or said he was going to do something. I think most people knew that if he were to say, "I'm going to kill that guy," it didn't mean, "boy, I'm pissed at that guy," but it literally meant that he wanted to kill the person. People generally caught on to the legitimacy of his threats/proposals.

Obviously, I think that's why a lot of people began avoiding him. Nobody wants to be around someone who they think is capable of snapping and hurting or even killing them. It was such a difficult situation for me. For one, I don't like giving up on people...if I become friends with someone, I try to be as loyal and as devoted as possible. Secondly, I felt a bit pressured to be his friend by my best friend (who would consider this guy to be his best friend for they grew up together). He knew, probably to a greater extent than me what was going on with him and it bugged him that he wasn't able to be there for him. Hell, now that I think about it...maybe he caught on to it more quickly than everyone else, which may have been a factor that influenced him to move to Colorado...because he knew how terrifying things could ultimately end up being for him if he stayed around. I'll have to ask him about that in Vegas next month....that conversation may not go well.

It was a total "between a rock and a hard place" situation for me...especially when it got to the point where this guy and I were actually friends opposed to simply sharing a mutual friend. With me being one of the two people in the area to willingly affiliate themselves with him, he became that much more dependent on us.

And he had his redeeming qualities. He was extremely stubborn, which was frustrating in many situations, but added value to his friendship, for he was stubbornly loyal and would do ANYTHING to help you if you needed it, even if it may have potentially severely inconvenienced him.. You could seriously count on him to be there for you through any difficult situation and could trust him in terms of not making moves on a girl you were seeing, sticking up for you if someone is speaking negatively about you behind your back (and inadvertently scaring them in the process), etc. Those characteristics of unconditional loyalty and accountability with his friends seemed to be part of his personal "code," something he followed until he ceased to maintain his own existence.

And as I mentioned in the story, his father owned the suit store in the community and he always wore apparel from the store...even prior to developing Schizophrenia. The girls were crazy about him when he was a Freshman and Sophomore because he was real cool and always dressed real nice. He would wear a nice suit just to go to class. He would RUN 10 miles in dress clothes. However, in the last 2 years, he changed his selection to the trench-coat looking apparel from his father's store (topped off with a brown Sublime cap that didn't match the black trench coats he would generally wear). What in the hell is up with crazy, homicidal people developing an affinity for trench-coats?

When I google links to the story, I always see his mugshot that they used in the newspaper when this all went down (that was presumably taken when he wrecked his car), which provokes an array of feelings for me. He appeared angry as hell in that picture and appeared that way a lot those last two years, which sucked because he used to be notorious for how frequently he smiled and how happy and cool he was. The last two years, if he was smiling, it was usually an indicator that he was manic and was laughing about something connected to his inner delusions. So that smile went from being one of the positive things that defined him to something indicative of his inner demons. Sad.

One thing that I haven't been able to shake since this happened was how I (and others) felt after it happened. I am going to feel awful admitting this and to be honest, I don't know if I have ever admitted to anyone with an exception of my roommates/close friends on drunken nights who secretly felt the same way. But when he was gone, I was sad. We all were sad. It was a horrific situation. But along with the sadness, there was a simultaneous, conflicting, deep-seeded feeling of...UGH.....relief....? And I hate putting it that way and maybe there's a better way of putting it because it's not like he did it and I was like, "oh, I'm so relieved that he's finally gone." I was genuinely heartbroken about it. However, I was sick as hell of being scared every day when he was around, which was all the time. I mean, the dude almost freaking killed me in that car crash. And I was scared of him or at least of what I thought he was potentially capable of for a year a half before the crash even took place.

Put it this way, before it happened, I was a month or two from graduating college and moving back home. I think I was more excited about moving home to be away from him than I was anything else that people are normally excited about such as; attaining my degree, entering the "real world," etc. Deep down, being his friend was exhausting due to the excessive negative baggage that came along with it. I didn't want him to do what he did (ESPECIALLY to his stepmom). I didn't want him to die or commit suicide, but I was surely counting the days to when I didn't have to deal with him anymore. I really wish that he would have graduated with me and that he was still alive today and that I could still maintain friendship with him, but only really have to deal with him whenever I came back up for a visit. I have no idea what he'd be doing or where he'd be now if that were the case, but it's such a shame that he had to take another life along with his own.

To this day, I have never met anyone tougher than this guy....this guy had a physical pain tolerance that exceeding what I even thought was possible. I just wish the internal pain tolerance matched that.