From:
Aurelio Herrera-Babbit
Suburbs of Richmond, VA
March 13, 2021, 8:17 PM
To:
You
Location Unknown
I was parked outside a drug dealer’s basement.
Inside it was carpeted concrete. Two lazy boy recliners across from one couch, forming a loose triangle. Occasional footsteps echoing overhead. And the steady “BZZZZZZZ” of cicadas pulsing through the thin plaster walls. Their thrumming bodies wailed to be put out of their misery, wailed to be swallowed by the blazing balminess of death — anything to escape the lifeless frost of that early March evening.
It’s okay, I said to myself. If you pull your hoodie taut, no one will notice you’re here.
It’s okay, I repeated. Just give it 20 minutes. It’ll only be awkward for 20 minutes.
I turned off the engine of my mom’s weathered-down minivan and sat there for a second. The radio stopped playing and a new song began in my mind, one from childhood. I remembered listening to it in this same van—but in the car seat, drooling. The song continued as I thought back to having sex with my girlfriend in that same spot earlier today, drooling.
I was freezing over in the driver’s seat of that minivan, stuck thinking: 20 minutes, it’ll only be weird for 20 minutes. Then it’ll be like old times—laughing, talking shit, and not feeling bad about it because even if the songs were dumb, behind it all was true creation. You created them with me. Us. We made magic in the vacuum of my middle school bedroom. You’d watch me edit your tracks the way someone watches Mission Control. And you’d break out in dance every time I hit play and added something you liked. You reminded me of a hummingbird — always in motion, never still long enough to be caught looking too serious. Your smile was contagious; no one could stay mad at you. You lived to make others laugh to the point where I wondered if you had ever lived for yourself. Did everyone in school seeing you as a joke make you feel like one?
Either way, I saw you focused in the vacuum of my middle school bedroom. You cared about what you wrote down. You cared about how it sounded coming out of your mouth. You cared so much I often wondered if you’d really created anything before this. For those moments, I was the only person you created with. What does that mean for you and me? Does that make us parents? And if I haven’t played our music in the years since, does that make me a deadbeat? I think your honesty puts you in the role of mother. I loved your honesty; I’d often try to match it. Still, my honesty is shrouded in storytelling. You told truths fluently, like a child — or a trophy wife on acid.
So I sat in my mother’s minivan across the street from your basement, paralyzed. Trapped in a prison of muscle and bone, wondering how long it would take for flies to find my rotting carcass. It’s ironic; you probably thought I looked like a dead body when you came to greet me outside your door that day. When I saw yours on Snapchat — a flash of gray flesh thrown into a cheap wooden casket — I could tell you died like a baby. I could tell because I saw that baby in you long before anyone else did.
The first time I saw it was when we got high together, and you started sucking on your thumb like a nipple. Hugging your legs to your chest, tucking your chin between your knees. But an inkling of comfort wasn’t enough for you, was it? I know because you kept shifting, and sucking, and shifting, and sucking, and shifting and sucking that thumb. We were 15, and it was funny at first, until I wondered what you had been missing. What had been taken away from you, or what had simply stopped existing in your life? The same thoughts crowded my mind when the smell of you and your friends would stink up my room — weed and candy and d*ck-sweat. I knew none of your mothers bathed you. They didn’t call you home when it got too late. You were the oldest, like me, but nobody was yelling at you to do homework or look after your siblings. They’d given up on you. They’d given up when their breasts had no time for your teething and could be replaced with softer, kinder gums.
Maybe that’s why you played rougher than the other boys. Maybe that’s why your smile, your walk, your laugh, were crooked. Maybe the reason you’re not here, and your loser friends are, was because you didn’t have a choice. Maybe your mother was right to give up on you. Maybe you never stood a chance in the first place.
If I was your mother, it would’ve been one of your idiot friends instead. Maybe that would’ve forced you to change, to stop melting into sweaty couch cushions with those junkies, and to come hang out with me. Because I loved your laughs. I thought they sounded like hyenas. I thought I could somehow see it when you let one out. They moved, they shimmered, they were alive… too alive.
Too alive is terrible. Too alive is like knowing too much. Too alive is why you started taking. Not why you took, anyone can take. Too alive added the “ing.” It made no difference to me, at 14, watching you snort Xans off my desk, letting me hold your Glock 19. Once, you jokingly pointed it at my chest. Maybe that’s why when your friend accidentally shot himself in the face I didn’t feel bad. I asked you how dumb someone could be, and that was one of the few times you got upset with me — not upset, disappointed. Since that day, I got the sense you thought I was ignorant — well, of course I was. At least I chose to be. At least I had someone who taught me to choose. Why didn’t you?
It didn’t matter now… today was different; I hadn’t seen you in close to a year.
Twenty minutes, it’ll only suck for 20 minutes, then it’ll be just like the good ol’ days, laughing as you danced around, jumping back and forth like a kangaroo to our awful music.
***
I found you waiting for me outside the basement door. You greeted me with plasticity. I could tell you wanted — or maybe even needed — to be excited, but you couldn’t be. I could see the life in your eyes had been gone for too long. They often flickered when you got high, but now the spirit seemed snuffed out. I told myself it was nothing, but maybe you were on autopilot at that point—just waiting to see if you’d survive. The pills sparked the idea of suicide in you. I saw it. Your hyena giggles turned to grumbles, and your giddy excitement turned to self–loathing. I think the pills made you promise to kill yourself when sober, and the only way to stop that from happening was to get high again.
You led me inside with a half-smile. The basement was a bitter cold, the only sign of life being a steady “BZZZZZZZ” of cicadas from outside the plaster thin walls. Two of your friends were slouched on the couch smoking a blunt. They looked about ten percent there, but that was nothing new. I always thought they looked like whole roasted pigs. Cracked and toasty blood-orange skin slowly curling off their bodies. Toothless mouths slightly agape, hot breath smelling of death lolling out, and their blank eyes, beady and shrunken into their faces like two raisins pressed into white bread.You had to go get something, so I was left alone with them. Them — who didn’t (or couldn’t) acknowledge me. It was completely silent as I set up my mic stand, audio interface, and computer on the floor. I pulled up FL Studios and readied a project. All I needed to know was what beat you wanted, but of course, you weren’t there. You left me alone with those friends. Those friends who didn’t care to look at me, but knew who I was. Those friends who’d been there since I’d known you. Those friends who never left your side. They were always there, suckling on your open sores for spare blood.
I had hoped they wouldn’t be. I had told myself today was different, that after so long you’d finally distanced yourself, I was excited even, but who was I kidding? They were drowning you. Maybe some deep part of yourself was frantic for help. Maybe that’s why you called me over after all that time, enticing me on the phone that it would just be me and you working. Maybe you wanted to see if anyone cared enough to save you. But I didn’t, did I? I was just thinking about your boy to the right, thinking about how he dated my girlfriend in the sixth grade, thinking about his thick, slobbering tongue sliding down her throat.
I looked at him and wished his dad would’ve worn a condom.
It’s fine, I say to myself. He’s a f*cking loser. Both of them were. Maybe you were too.
I mean, you were a suburban public school drug dealer. Okay, you weren’t the white trash kid who makes hyper-pop and sells eighths for seven bucks. You were a level above that. Connects in the street. You could get someone meth, probably… maybe. I’d known you since we were 13 or so. You might’ve remembered me then, but probably not. Everybody wanted to be your friend in those days. You could get someone a Juul within the hour (stealing them in bulk from the rich white girls and selling them new ones within the month) or smoke them out with just a water bottle. Many a first-hand-job experience was facilitated by your connection, even the first time my girlfriend spoke to me (though she doesn’t remember); She came up and asked if I made music with you. I said “Yeah,” stood there awkwardly, then watched her walk away.
The point is that everybody wanted to be your friend in middle school, especially the rich white kids. They saw you as entertainment. You were funny — a party trick. One time, after rubbing basketballs with alcohol, setting them on fire and throwing them in people’s yards, we crowded around as you called your mom. You immediately cursed at her, and she responded with even more hostility. Then you guys were violently cursing each other out in Arabic for no apparent reason. Everyone was in awe as you hung up, laughed and said, “That’s my mom!” I don’t know if I thought twice about it either, but I do know I was glad you were there that night. I felt like a party trick too, a failed, boring one at that. So it was comforting to know you could handle the weight of attention unlike me. Now I wonder if you really just knew no other way to live.
After about twenty minutes of awkward silence with your friends, you finally slunk back down the basement stairs, blaming the interruption on your sibling and their need for rest. I tried getting you to put on the studio headphones, but you ignored me, handing me the blunt from your boy instead. I took a hit and passed it back, but you shook your head, saying you couldn’t — you were on house arrest and hadn’t gotten high in almost a year. You told me things were going well. You’d stopped selling, started working with your dad, and were even heading out in a few days for a big work trip. You’d be gone a week, taking your dad’s box truck full of equipment up north. I should’ve been happy for you, but I wasn’t; because you looked sick. The life in you was gone. You didn’t laugh. Your smiles were forced. But, as always, I assumed you’d get better. I assumed you were just depressed because you’d been stuck in one place for so long. I assumed you’d get over it.
We sat and continued to talk. I don’t know about what. It wasn’t like old times. It was boring.
I repeatedly asked if we could make music. You would say, “Let me check,” go upstairs, come back down, and say we had to be quiet for a little longer. After an hour, you finally broke it to me that we couldn’t record at all. I said it was fine… and it really was fine. We just needed to warm up to each other after so long, I told myself.
So, you helped me pack up. I had brought you a full mic setup: stand, audio interface, speakers, and laptop. It looked like a lot, and I guess you felt bad because you took out a $10 bill. Of course, I refused; it felt unnecessary. But you insisted, looking at me sharply and saying, “C’mon, take it.”
On the surface, it was a simple, polite gesture, but your eyes said more. They were angry, almost seething.
I’m sorry for wasting your time.
I’ll never forget the look in your eyes when you handed me that $10. They cried out to me. They begged for forgiveness. They were full of self-hatred.
I’m sorry for wasting your time, they said.
I’m sorry for the way that I am, they said.
I don’t know why I’m like this, they said.
Why didn’t I tell you that you hadn’t wasted my time? That I was just happy to see you? I clearly saw the pain in your eyes—why didn’t I give you a f*cking hug?
You used to say you loved me. You used to say that we were brothers. I’d always laugh it off and not say anything back. Now it was my turn to finally tell you I loved you too. My turn to explain that the only reason I hadn’t said it back was that I was afraid you didn’t mean it. You were giving me a chance. Maybe you were even hoping I’d save you…
Today I realize you may have been saying goodbye.
I couldn’t see it in the moment. At least your friends had an excuse to be self-absorbed — they were high. I just was.
I took the money and left. You never made it home from that work trip. You overdosed. Seventeen.
I always imagined you died in the passenger seat of your dad’s box truck, curled up from the cold, knees to your chest, sucking your thumb.
Like a baby.
Graphics by Maddie Bui