Can’t say I was happy you tore the dresser out of the wall either. It was a conversation piece. Or to quote a famous filmic philosopher, it really tied the room together. So, yeah, during your freak-out you trashed my dresser and my apartment, but stealing my camera hurt. That was low. That was personal.

You’re lucky I’m a forgiving person and lucky I remain a true friend. All I’ve ever wanted is to help you.

When I put the rock-star photo inside your snazzy leather jacket, I found a prescription bottle. I couldn’t tell what the prescription was for. The label was ripped off and I couldn’t open it and look inside while we were talking, not that I would’ve known what I was looking at. I’m guessing it was Percocet or maybe even oxycodone. Whatever it was couldn’t have been good for your heart or your sleeping problems. I know you were in tremendous back pain, and I don’t blame you if you were self-medicating. I’m guessing you didn’t have good health insurance or any health insurance at that point.

You weren’t moving so well, and you were pallid, drained, and slurring even before we drank at my place. It took a lot for me to come up to you after your Antigone show and I was truly happy to be hanging out with you again. But, if I can be frank, I was also scared by your battered and compromised condition, especially on the second night of your visit. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended your problems weren’t that bad and would handle themselves.

I also probably should’ve been up front earlier about my having seen you play with most of your other bands along with my seeing you—from a remove—at your various places of employment. I worried it would’ve made me sound like a stalker. And I wasn’t. I let you be, and I was genuinely working up the courage to say hey again, and I fooled myself into thinking I was there for you as a kind of invisible safety net, or something, should you need it. Man, ain’t we a pair?

Maybe if we’d talked occasionally after some of your shows and slowly rebuilt trust instead of our bingeing on a two-day hangout/bender, the implosion in my apartment wouldn’t have happened. It makes sense now. There was so much pressure, how could our reunion not have collapsed ruinously?