Death of a Rockstar

 About a month ago I got a rare call to my parents house from an old friend I have not seen in about four years. John is the kind of the live hard die young rocker type. But he never went far with his band, and drugs always seemed to overshadow his music. In the years since I last saw him he had some pretty serious drug addictions.

I never fully trusted him but we both liked drinking and had similar musical taste that found us playing the guitar together a few times. He seemed very lonely, bored and he said he was sober. I too didn’t have a lot of friends because I’d been gone since the start of college and most of my friends had moved away. So I would go to his house occasionaly(he lived with his father) and bring a six pack. We would shoot the shit and pound some beers. I wouldn’t go out with him because he had no money, no drivers liscence, no car, and no job. We would talk about old times and I would try to point him in the right direction.

John gradually started popping pills. He had prescriptions for a couple fairly powerful pills. Those became his currency for obtaining the pills he really wanted. I never gave him pills or money. What I did give him was transportation to trade his own pills. 

One day he was in an especially good mood. He had a great conversation with his longtime ex girlfriend, and he landed a job at a grocery store that was within walking distance. He wanted to celebrate. We decided to go camping on his mothers farm. We got food, beer, camping equipment and he had a nice variety of pills, some of which I took him to trade for just before camping.

At the campsite we drank quite a few beers and I remember him eating pills on a couple different occasions. I was a bit hung over in the morning. I looked out the tent to find he was still asleep by the fire. After picking up camp for a bit I went to wake him. He was dead. I checked his pulse, gave him a few breaths and called the police. 

I was interviewed by investigators and police who asked me what kind of pills and where he got them. I felt a bit responsible at that point. He would not have been dead if I dead not take him to get the pills. But then I thought of the different people he traded with, the doctor that prescribed him with more than he needed and the “friend” that sold him what I think was lethal Oxycotin. I wasn’t going to blame my self, what I did give him that nobody else did was friendship. 

The investigators searched the campsite and carried his body away. Now it was just me and a couple horses next to a pond in the middle of the field. It took me about half an hour to pick up the campsite and carry everything back to my car. As I put the last of our things in my car his father quickly drove up. He rushed towards me asking if I was ok, if I needed help packing, and to apologizing for the event. I hugged him and asked him how he was. I was a bit shocked by his calm nature. 

The father then took me to John’s grandparents house that was located at the entrance to the farm. John’s mother and grandparents where there. They acted the same as John’s father, very considerate and concerned about how I was handling the incident. They seemed to be the nicest people in the world but I thought to myself,”who gives a shit how I’m doing! your son was just put into a body bag!”

Two days later I went to the father’s house to return some of John’s things and to inquire about the funeral. There would be no funeral and he would be cremated. As I returned the items I asked the father about John’s dogs and I told him about how he had taught me some songs on the guitar. I wanted to get him talking, I was curious about his relationship with his son. Turns out he was quite the talker, as we stood in John’s bedroom all of the things inside it led him to telling me a great deal about his son. I think our conversation made us both feel a lot better.

Tags: beer, camping, colonopin, death, guitar, love, oxycontin, tuscaloosa, xanex