Part 33: ”my friends are becoming my family”
By: George Rivera
Tags: Autobiography, Friends, Family

Part 33: ”my friends are becoming my family”

My friends have become the most important people in my life. I begin to spend a lot of time with them. At the same time, I’m making some new acquaintances at school. I’m not quite sure if I’m trying to replace my family with my friends but I’m certainly content with the dynamic that’s going on at the time.

Jerry is in jail and it’s really trash. I can’t believe even to this day that he ended up going to jail. I can still remember the first time Ray and I went to visit him after he turned himself in. It is the worst I’ve ever seen him look. Jerry was skinny, his hair was messed up, and he was sloppy. That visit was really really tough. Being that he was in a county jail he couldn’t receive packages, he didn’t like the food, and services were limited. All that played a large part in the way he was looking. This is a young man who’s been an athlete our whole friendship and to see him looking like that was rough. Especially for Ray who was devastated. Once the visit was over Ray began to cry uncontrollably and I had to console him and calm him down.

Ray however, at the same time is beginning to change. Rather he’s been changing but now it’s more apparent. He is getting high more than normal and it’s not just weed. Everyone’s beginning to notice he’s becoming a bit unhinged. Ray always did things a little different, but he’s starting to worrying me more then he had before. Corey and Calvin are noticing also but I don’t think they see it as being that big of a deal yet. They think it’s just Ray being Ray and he’s being just a little extra now.

At school, things are going good. I am meeting some cool people, artsy types who are a little different than me but we have a common goal to become filmmakers. I noticed the ones I connect with easiest were the ones who had gotten into it a little bit late, like me. And for the first time in an academic setting I am viewed as an outsider, because I’m the science guy that wants to be an artist. So I feel there is a lot for me to prove. I’m being challenged by them and feel they don’t think I belong. Most of the time my assignments aren’t for grades exactly but to show my classmates I’m as artistic as they are and I can do this too.

I keep in contact with Jerry pretty regularly through letters. I let him know everything that’s going on in the neighborhood, with our friends, and with me. I actually enjoy communicating with him this way. It reminded me of a few years prior when I couldn’t afford to pay my cell phone bill and Bunny and I would write letters to each other. I always knew that when people are in jail contact is important. Letting Jerry know he wasn’t forgotten was important to me.

All of my activities are centered around my friends. Cory and I play paintball and football pretty regularly. Cory meanwhile is starting his clothing line and things are looking up. I swear to you he was ahead of his time. To this day I have never thrown out a piece of his clothing. They are collector’s items to me. We would even turn visiting Jerry in jail into something fun. $50 round-trips upstate. We would meet up at Columbus Circle in Manhattan and take a bus to whatever jail he was, spend eight hours cheering him up, and head back home. We were all really a family. A family I created this time.

With any family there is always tragedy. I will not say which one of my friends, but one of them tells the rest of us that he is sick. We are all stunned. Everyone goes silent. We look at each other waiting for someone to react. I sit on the ground and put my head down and close my eyes. I am in disbelief. He comes over to me and hugs me and tells me that he’ll be all right but I don’t believe him.

I don’t know what to do once I leave that apartment. I am in shock, scared, and worried. That night I’m in bed talking to Bunny. I have no intention of telling her but the weight is too heavy and I can’t keep it in. But I feel that I can’t tell her about my friend since I have not been honest with her about myself. I have been open with her about my feelings but never why I feel how I feel. I have been miss leading her our whole friendship. How could I tell her such a personal scary piece of information about someone else but she doesn’t know the truth about me. So at that moment, I let her know I have something to tell her that is going to shock her, but first, she has to know about me.