The Wolfe

I wonder what Sasha would have been like now if she didn't kill herself.

It was 1997 when I got sober in Nyack. I had moved there with my family a few years prior, but only lasted about a month in that middle of nowhere suckhole, before I jumped on the New York State Thruway with a backpack and a thumb. I went back up to Woodstock where I could successfully complete my very first bottom in life. A few years had gone by and I had managed to destroy what little life I had up there, and was forced to come back down to Rockland County to hide at my Mother's house. I had done some real scumbag, junky type shit and was forced to go into rehab in Nyack, (I figured that would lessen my jail sentence once they figured out where I was). The feelings I was going through are not important at this moment, but I will tell you that there was tons of confusion and fear... a lot of fear of the unknown type shit, I had never really HAD to get sober before. The party had been over for years now. I was trying to keep the torch lit, but the great spirit just kept dumping buckets of water on me...
When I got out of rehab, I had to go back up to Ulster County for a few to 6 months. I kinda had no choice, as the cops were waiting on my Mother's doorstep the day she drove me home from rehab. After finishing that lovely stint of awesomeness, I went back down to Mom's to start my new life. I now had about 6 months sober under my belt, a nice little chest happening, and was finally able to wear short sleeve shirts again. It had been a few years since I had been interested in anything but heroin, so there was a lot of time spent on this new thing called the internet. I didn't have much going on, actually... I didn't have a fucking thing going on at all. I would sit up all night in my Mother's office in "tattoo & piercings" chat rooms, chainsmoking her cigarettes and jerking off to message boxes with people I was hoping were girls. Every once in a while I would get a girl to send me a picture, and would have to wait like 45 minutes for it to download... click ~ click ~ click ~ click. Finally getting a picture of a girl that said she was a lot skinnier than she actually was, and jerking off to it anyway. Trying not to look at the stretch marks on her boobs.
I eventually started to venture out onto my own in this huge community of sober people in Nyack, about 20 minutes away from my Mother's house. Girls in real life were much better than the ones in the chat rooms, and if I sat home all day and night I would eventually just leave again to go shoot heroin somewhere. So I started going to meetings down there and just hanging out at the Starbucks all night long. This is where I met Sasha. A tiny little jaded jew, who was just as pissed and newly sober as I was. Right out of the gate we got along, because we liked to rip into peoples defects the same way... giggling with each other as we made each others insecurities almost disappear through the flaws of other people. I had met a bunch of people my own age who had a bunch of years sober, and they taught me that you didn't need to be drunk or high on heroin to have a good time. That you could actually have WAY more fun making fun of the drunk people in town, rather than wishing you were one of them.
A few years had passed and Sasha moved to Los Angeles to go to school. Under a set of completely different circumstances, I had ended up out there a few months later. Again, entering unfamiliar sober territory, I clung to Sasha who had been out there a few months already, so she had the lo down on where to hang and who to hang with. We hung out just about every day for quite some time, doing the same shit we did in Nyack. Running to meetings together, hanging out at diners and coffee shops talking about everyone elses misfortune.
I would go to her apartment in the valley and lay on the floor watching television, while she did school work or whatever. I didn't really have much going on out there at the time either, so when she wasn't in school or working I was always with her. When we were super bored and lonely, we would sleep with each other, then talk about how empty and loveless it was, laughing about how fucked up we were. She moved up north to go to another school, and I relapsed after a few years. We eventually lost touch for a while, only keeping in contact through instant message on the computer, but she was very distant because I was loaded. One of the last times I saw her was when she came down for a visit, and I was trying to get sober again. In her car, loaded on pills, while she lectured me. We went to a mall with some friends, had a few laughs, and that was that. I eventually got sober and tried to reach out to her, but over the years she had become very depressed and isolated constantly. She barely returned the messages I would leave on IM.
I just figured she would eventually get out of her funk and we would someday be friends the way we used to be, which is why I was totally surprised when I got the call that she had put a plastic bag over her head, taped a hose that was attached to a helium tank to her mouth, and killed herself. They found her in a chair she used to study in, in her dark, lonely, apartment in Oakland or something. She was so isolated that she had been there a few days before her Mother called one of her friends to go and see if she was ok, which obviously, she wasn't. I didn't really know how to process this new information I had just woken up to. It had been years since I'd seen her, and even though we used to be super tight, I felt like I had no idea what she had turned into. She was always a miserable person, but so was I. I never thought she was so bad that she couldn't stand to be on the planet anymore.

Our friend went up at her Mother's request to clean out her place. he brought me back a few books that I had bought for her over the years for her birthdays and stuff like that. Some old pictures of us she had hanging on her mirror, and her Ipod. The one she was listening to when she ended her life.
I can't help but think that a part of her spirit was sucked into the ipod while it was in her ears, when her soul left her body. Sometimes when I miss her I will put her Ipod on my speakers, and listen to the happier music she had on there, passing by all the "Smiths and Joy Division," and going right to the "Aggrolites." I know she is with me when I'm playing her Ipod.
I'm a much happier person these days, and have changed a lot over the years. I wish Sasha had hung on just a little longer to see that, and maybe even changed herself. I don't think about her as much as I should, but when I do, I miss her dearly. Her Mother ended up committing suicide as well... a year to the day Sasha did.