The Fate Chronicles

In the time between then and now I wonder what would be different if I just hadn’t done it.

It’s easy to say, but not as easy to do. I’ve decided to start making molehills out of Mountains. Okay, I shouldn’t say DECIDED, because I have always done that. Don’t sweat the small stuff right? Well I don’t even sweat the big stuff either. Really, what’s the point? A situation presents itself, you make a big or small deal about it, and either way it will blow over, and all will be said and done.

I am Jack’s scattered memories.

I am recalling in particular my Ryan days. There’s a poem earlier on in my diary that was written for him, describes a bit of the relationship that never was. I was madly in love with him, part of me still believes I was the only person he had ever loved, he just couldn’t bring himself to tell me because I was different from the girls he usually dated….the LGL syndrome.

Back in those days it was me, Ryan, and Pat against the world. Pat was a very unique man. I want to say he was in his early thirties, severely disabled…in the way of his eyesight and dilapitating diseases that coursed through his body. A freak in every sense of the word. His skin looked like he had been severely burnt, when he took off his shirt, he described the scars that spanned his chest and belly as the ‘roadmap’ of his life. His face was asymmetrical, lopsided, and might have been handsome at one time. His eyes…behind his one inch thick glasses were sunken in to his skull, his hair, a shaggy mullet…his clothes, thrift store quality, punctuated by a mesh baseball cap. He weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet. He was slowly dying. He wasn’t supposed to live to be ten.

He was my best friend.

Pat was an amazing onion. Peel away the layers and you could talk to him for hours on end and never once be bored. Pat came to us while Ryan and I were ‘together’. He had started working at Wendy’s with us as the fry boy, and the whole crew had immediately started making fun of him. Whispers behind his back, jokes being made by the staff. On his first day he worked that fry machine so hard I thought he might become one with it. On his way home that night he looked up at Ryan and I, we were having a conversation by the Frosty machine, and said. ‘Everyone is ugly here, it ain’t just me.’

It was then that we decided we wanted to get to know him better. That, and because he always had a never ending supply of Mary Jane…you know, for medicinal purposes. He lived in a run down apartment in Cedar Knolls, which, if you know anything about these parts, was no place for…well…anyone to be. I was in my ‘tough as nails’ stage. I wasn’t afraid of the big bad neighborhood. I’d normally walk around by myself at night to the store to pick up muchies or what not. It seemed to work. I think people thought if there was a girl brave enough to walk around alone like that, there was a reason, and she shouldn’t be messed with. That store was about a half mile from his apartment…that store started closing earlier and earlier…they were sick of getting robbed.

I was the only one with a car at the time. I would pick Ryan up from his rich mansion in Prior Lake and drive him to the lowly of lows. Pat’s studio apartment being smaller than Ryan’s walk in closet. For some reason it fit us, we would all sit around and shoot the shit, drink beer, smoke up, and relax. It was like home. Me, Ryan, Pat…and Casey, Pat’s wife.

Oh yeah, Pat was married. It really isn’t that surprising after you meet him. He truly is an amazing man. Casey was interesting. Hard core in every sense of the word. Didn’t take crap from nobody, and she generally cared for Pat. I liked her. She also brought to the table the last element of this lil’ unfolding story….her brother Tony. Yes, Tony Olson…

All of us, together, thick as theives we were….Alison and Chad must have come in a bit later, but that’s another story all together.

Me, Ryan, Pat, Casey, and Tony…

The base of this story’s ‘Mountain’.

To be continued…