two yellow lights: where we are now

There was this one time in high school when Ken was driving stoned and I'd never seen an actual stoned person before. He flew under this yellow light screaming his head off cause I was worried. He wasn't screaming mad, he just wanted to freak me out. He laughed afterwards but I didn't. Days after Ken's screaming, I lost all my friends because I had been all over their backs, criticizing them about smoking dope, until they ditched me and didn't even say goodbye at our graduation ceremony.

Except Ben. Ben didn't go to our school, but he hung with me all through high school and then after, came up to Tampa with me, to sing in our band. Ken and Ben were best friends. Somewhere they probably still are but they don't talk much anymore because things are so different now. Ben is so deeply immersed in Yoga that he, along with his fellow students, have accepted their instructor as their monarch, their Jesus. A sort of Moonie-esque, Manson type situation. Ken doesn't smoke pot much anymore but he drinks way too much. Then he drives. And his fucking seatbelts are broken and they don't fasten. And tonight, when he and I were driving back to my parents house, I could smell clouds of alcohol pumping out his mouth when he laughed and screamed again under another yellow light, like he had over ten years ago in high school.

Ken's second scream took place as we were coming back from some open mic music night downtown. Downtown Ft Myers is turning into Lil' Ybor City, which is trying to be Lil' New Orleans. I'm moving to the big New Orleans this Sunday. Today I secured an apartment there. I will be living in a guest house attached to a giant old mansion. $325 a month. 15 blocks from the French Quarter. I've never been to New Orleans. I'm going to buy a book about it to read on the bus ride there. And Ken will stay in Ft Myers and drink his brains out.

Ken and I get along great now actually. Time diminishes grudges, I'm glad that's the case, cause he and Ben were important to me. They totally helped mold my sense of humor. Now that my mind has developed, all these years after he screamed under that first yellow light to scare me into thinking he was marijuana crazed, I can now make Ken laugh on cue, effortlessly. I can, at times, control him with laughter. It's awesome.

He's also the one who started me playing guitar when we were little (14-15-16?). He was a very important person in my life. All the guilt I've felt in the past couple years, since I've turned into such a pot addict, for having chased Ken away by criticizing his weed abuse; when we're in the car and he's laughing I feel like I've been given another chance. And you never get those.

So, though I am scared to death tonight, at the age of 27, as Ken screams loud under another yellow light, this time drunk, I'm now able to keep my mouth shut and not criticize. I don't tell him, 'Drinking's not like pot, it's dangerous, it kills, it ages you and makes you ugly, leaves you old and alone. Maybe it won't. But it can. It's not like pot.'

I'm more scared for Ken now than I was in high school, but in the car, I'm quiet.

We reminisce about Ben between my stifled criticisms and our big fits of mutual laughter. Ben's amazing. Flaky. Dangerously idealistic, in that he will believe in the stupidest shit on Earth if he chooses to. And you will not phase him. On the car ride back from open mic night, Ken and I talked about playing music with Ben. The beauty of it. How we used to kick each other out of the band, then make up, get back together. It gave us stuff to do. And Ben was a good singer and the girls liked him but now where are we all? Ken's alcohol breath and broken seatbelt endangering my life on McGregor Blvd., me going to New Orleans by myself while never feeling so unstable and worried before. And Ben; I haven't spoken with him in four years and I probably wouldn't want to if it meant him forcing spirituality on me. Ken however, though he thinks it's corny, thinks he understands that mystical side of Ben.

"When Ben and I were young and playing music back then, we were asking ourselves the same spiritual questions at the same time," Ken told me tonight as his drunken headlights beamed off the famous Thomas Edison palms lining McGregor Blvd. Edison promised the city of Ft Myers he'd pay for enough palms to line the five mile stretch of road, four feet apart from each other, and two feet from the tar on each side of the road. But when the palms came, and after they were planted, Edison told Ft Myers to fuck off; he wouldn't pay the bill. I listened to Ken and watched the repetitive palms, seeing them as chance after chance after chance after chance for some drunk like Ken to...

"And he and I just chose two different spiritual paths," Ken continued, pulling off McGregor and rounding the corner into my parent's condo complex, "Now, Ben and I do two totally different things."

I wasn't so sure it would make him laugh but I replied, "Yeah, Ben's in a yoga cult...and you drive drunk."