The Jaws Of Life, by Rosicky Jones

A friend of mine passed away a couple of weeks ago.  He was a great guy, he had a wife, a cute little son, a couple of dogs, he loved the Jersey Shore, and he would routinely save me from driving drunk.  I would be in the driver’s seat, but he would grab the steering wheel from the passenger’s seat while I texted girls, saving me from driving drunk.  Most of you are rolling your eyes, but we were never pulled over. Thus, it is clear that our method worked. Sure, he probably should have driven, but he couldn’t drive a stick.

Deaths like my friend’s usually make people say things like “there is so much I still have to do” or “his death motivated me to live my life to the fullest,”  I don’t feel like that.  My friend’s death was very sad – sad for his selfish friends who miss his company, sad for his young family, but mostly sad for him.

My buddy was the same guy to everyone – always a cartoonish do-gooder who could be coaxed into some stupid hijinks.  There is something to be said about someone who lived such a consistently consistent life.  I envy his reputation, because I feel that 20 people would describe me in 20 different ways.

I get along with most people and can ingratiate myself within most groups.  I used to think that that was a skill, and part of my character, not the whole of it.

But I’m starting to worry.

Last night, my friend Phil (not dead) and I were walking around the ‘Ville and we got lost.  We left a bar that wouldn’t show NBA games because they were legally obligated to run a live stream of The Derby horses eating grass and visiting Barbaro’s grave.  We came upon a bunch of sketchy-looking black guys who were smoking a blunt in the back of what we found out was an afterhours bar. (Hence, the sketchiness.) I assumed that a group of young black guys would know where I could drink and watch basketball. It was a stretch, I know – but they invited us inside.  The bar wasn’t “open” yet, but they let us drink and wild out.  Phil didn’t really say much, he hates sports and blunts, but I was completely at home. At least that version of me was.

A couple of days earlier I met up with my geek friends to discuss the life and times of Normal Mailer.  The only reason I began attending these stupid meetings was because I wanted to make little emo babies with this cute emo girl.  The cute female emo, or femo, did not take to any of my advances… I think it’s because I told her I hated clove cigarettes – but I still go to the meetings.  We meet once a month, drink lots of green tea, lament big business, and talk literature.  Everyone is really nice to me – but they have no clue that I hate green tea, that I secretly love my gas guzzling SUV, and that I went to business school and love corporate monoliths – and these are people I see more often than family.

As is the case with most of my crises, Pinky showed up – usually he is the cause of the turmoil, but in this case he was here to help.  We met up in Chicago last week – he was in Chicago for a couple of days and I was doing fuck all, so we grabbed drinks and dinner at a Japanese steakhouse.

Side Note:  The sushi-eating dynamic is amazing to me.  I hate using chopsticks, but I make sure to avoid American silverware at all costs.  I feel like using chopsticks will endear me to the sushi chef; even though he is no more Japanese than I am Arabic.   I also feel an incredible amount of shame every time I fail to grasp that fucking udon noodle with my chopsticks – as if I was disgracing someone’s honor.  I don’t think Japanese patrons feel as much pressure using forks at Denny’s, for example, as I feel at Chan’s Garden.  I’m fairly pragmatic; I fully concede that Japanese cars and electronics and martial artists and origamists and karaokists surpass their U.S. equivalents – so why can’t we decide that we’ve won the utensil race and move on.

Pinky greeted me with five minutes of laughing and pointing at my bruised face and fucked up jaw (more on that later).  And before he showed any concern over my face, he used it as a punch line to flirt with our waitress – he got her number and promised to repay my patience with naked pictures of our waitress (he did later that night).  I then listened to him bemoan the fact that he has a girlfriend while he texted her sweet nothings.  Since I was drunk and hopped up on pain meds I went buzz kill on him and brought up my buddy’s funeral.  We began talking about how we would like to be remembered.  Pinky doesn’t want to be buried, he wants to be propped up in front of his window and decompose slowly to freak out his neighbors.  He says that his “burial” method will allow him to create memories long after he’s died.

He promised me that he would make sure I would be properly eulogized.  He would posthumously thank me for lending him my piss for work-related drug tests and he promised he would take care of my wife for me.  Pinky’s outlook on life is original and genuine – sometimes caustic, but genuine.  He told me that since I was a nobody I could be whoever I wanted, that my lot was pathetic, but admirably pathetic – he also told me to forget about the stupid eulogies, since one the benefits of death is that I didn’t have to listen to them.

And then there’s the big one. I’ve spent the past two weeks in a haze, thanks to an almost-broken jaw. Take it from me – getting popped in the face hurts like a mutha.  It hurts even more when the girl you would have used the injuries to impress just watched you get whomped, and heard you make dolphin noises as you cried and spit blood.  The punch wasn’t my fault; I am non-confrontational, as Ling Lui, my manicurist, will attest. I made the mistake of walking in between two gentlemen – one wearing a TapOut shirt and the other, a bedazzled Affliction shirt.  The fashion equivalent of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I was partially at fault though – I chose to be at that bar and I chose to be drunk.  I wanted to do things that I don’t normally do; and a late night hospital visit and an almost-broken jaw was the side effect.  I can accept the side effects, when they remain on the periphery.  But some side effects fester and develop into a full blown disorder.  My new disorder is a lack of identity, and not the traditional dissociative identity disorder, because I am fully aware of my condition.  I went out with this biker chick, in a backwards ass Michigan town, and into a bar full of people who thought I was gay because my clothes were ironed.  I pretended to like motorcycles and guns and Kid Rock and I was gifted with a mouth full of fist.

I loved my buddy and am sad that he has been relegated to memory.  But I loved how he was remembered. Which made me wonder how will I be remembered? Basketball-lover? Norman Mailer-discusser? Taker of punches?

I like my life – I’m just not sure of the memories I’m leaving.   I routinely mention having an open bar at my funeral – and I am dead serious about that.  But I don’t want my drunken funeral guests to feel like they are celebrating a stranger.

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