This One Time, I Broke Bad

Fans are Clamoring to know if I’m covering Breaking Bad. Yes, yes I am.

I tend to gravitate towards those that others might find um… difficult to know. These relationships don’t generally end well. It just takes me a little longer to figure out that not all drug addicts are as poetic about usage as I am. I first met Brian when we both worked together at the café. I was still of that beautiful age where you think you know everything – every good author, every obscure film – when you really know dick (take that both literally and figuratively). Brian found my bravado endearing, I liked that if I switched the letters around in his name I’d get “Brain” and that reminded me of zombies.

He was so wonderfully fucked up that it made me feel closer to normal. He liked to be videotaped when he huffed duster to be sure that time wasn’t actually fracturing into splintered pieces that lay on top of one another becoming moments that occurred simultaneously. He hated weed and thought I was a dirty-hippie-loser for always wanting to smoke some; the site of me doing so launching him into a tirade about the unappreciated beauty of fascism. He would write me pages of love letters in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. He was addicted to the sound of my voice – requiring me to read out loud to him his own writing, which proved difficult when I was on acid.

We maxed out my credit card with all the trips he took to the pharmacy to get himself cough syrup but I didn’t care. He could sit there in my kitchen mixing tussin and soda, robo-tripping as he tried to plant sloppy cherry-flavored-mustache kisses on my face all day if he had a mind to. What Brian offered me was priceless: a few months of frenzied friendship that would provide years of creative inspiration. I may be a poetic addict, but I’m still a selfish and manipulative one too.

It was on a rare occasion that we watched television that Brian introduced me to Breaking Bad. “Have you ever seen this? It’s like they crawl into your [brian]brain and pull out everything it means to be a completely fucked up person. It’s the most honest show on TV.” I sat there with him for a good six hours watching Walter and Jesse figure out what to do with the dead body of a drug dealer while a live one was chained up in the basement when Brian finally threw his hands up and hurled the remote across the room.

“I can’t watch this anymore. It’s too close, it’s too much – this is everything that’s in my head. How the fuck do they know all this stuff!?” He stormed out in a huff, which was pointless since he didn’t own a car and by court order had to be driven everywhere anyway. I got in the car and drove him home, declining to come inside. He slammed the door – not because he was angry at that particular moment but because he felt all doors were meant to be slammed.

What can I say? I have a soft spot for psychoses – it’s not the fact that they’re crazy, it’s the conversation. Intelligent debate partners are hard to come by. I actually know people who won’t let me finish a sentence that starts with “This one time” without interrupting me to say “at Band Camp” – there are grown people in this world who still insist on making American Pie references. Do you understand the gravity of this situation? The days of the brilliant are numbered and we didn’t even last past that summer, I’ve got Breaking Bad to watch and pot to smoke while I watch it.