They Come in Three's

Its a strange sensation when people that you grew up with begin to pass away. Its even more strange when you don't seem to care that a once close friend has left to surf the cosmos. Its an odd sensation to want to care, but not being able to, and even odder to use your once friends death as an excuse to get out of school and work. But what can I say in my defense?

Mark and I had a strange relationship. A piece of my past that I have been trying to bury long before his death. He was apart of a conglomeration of odd balls who didn't fit in anywhere outside the stoner rebel stereotype. Now I hung out with these guys but I would hardly call them friends. They would pick on me at any given moment, because I was small, week, and I kept coming back for more. One time they even went so far as to corner me in Mark's basement, holding me down as two of them rummaged through my pockets trying to find some money to steal.

For a long time mark and I hung out on a daily basis and I thought he was cool, and sort of emulated him. He was a tough guy and a lot of the skanky girls we knew were all over him.
Then I don't know what happened. I guess like all friendships when you're younger you drift in and out of social groups.

A few more years would pass and demons would be fought with drugs. The friendships I kept around me began to crumble as those around me started to fall deeper and deeper into drug addictions. Mark would fight his battle with heroin along with so many others I knew. I never could understand his love for the junk, but then again I did consider myself a lot smarter than the company I kept. I too got swept into the drug scene in a way. I never hit the hard stuff, but the people around me got crazy over it. My best friend at the time Frankie even went so far as to rob one night too feed his crack addiction. It wasn't really a robbery because I gave him the money willingly, but it turned into a robbery when he went around telling everyone he pulled a gun on me. I still don't know what that was all about or why you would brag about such a thing when it never happened.

About this time Mark decided he would get clean and needed a workout buddy. Mark fueled his workout to keep him from the junk, and I fueled mine with the rage for some revenge. We worked out almost every day for six months. It was a good time and I don't think I have ever been stronger then I was back then. My battle with Frankie never came but Marks battle with heroin returned to him. We lost touch again, and I had pretty much written him off for good or as good as dead.

A few years would pass and we would be reunited at one of other friends, Dave "Snortan" Norton's funeral, who had none the less overdosed on heroin. His story is a bit more tragic for the fact that he literally died face down in the gutter, or at least how the cops found him. Mark appeared out of the darkness in the parking lot of the funeral home with a sweet Asian girl who was about to bare his child. He had the slight gin on his face that he always carried and muttered off some nickname for me that I have since forgotten.

Several years would pass when one of our mutual friends called to invite me to Mark's bachelor party. At the time I couldn't believe he was off the junk or let alone getting married. It was a very surreal feeling to be drinking with some one who told me that they had just gotten out of rehab a few months earlier, but that was Mark. He tried and he tried but he just couldn't keep his demons at bay.

Then came word of Marks death at the young age of 25. It was natural for me to instantly assume it was an overdose. As the real circumstances of the matter would unfold its still not clear on what killed him. Apparently he had been taking Zoloft for depression, which caused some sort of deficiency of something that lead to his heart having problems. I got my information from a third source who isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box. He said that he had walking pneumonia and had to go to the hospital and his heart stopped so they had to use the defibrillator on him. Then his Dr released him from the hospital then next day and he went home. 2 days later his brother in law comes over and finds him sitting in his chair on his patio, dead.

I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that story doesn't make a whole lot of sense but thats all I know. The autopsy results wont be back for several months so maybe I will never know what really killed him

Mark leaves behind the mother he tortured for years with his irate behavior and drug addiction, his brother who never really spoke to him, and his wife and their two children, along with his third child thats with another woman who made him sign his rights as a father away.

Mark had a tough life. It wasn't easy for him, and he made some poor choices. His mother seemed saddened at his funeral but not grief stricken, she had done her grieving years before. His brother didn't even show. His wife wrought with tears but in my eyes seemed more concerned on she would now support herself. His woman out of wedlock never showed. What was left of the rag tag onsemble was their. Sure enough none of them ever amounted to anything, beyond blue color crime and work. I didn't much care to see them and I paid little attention to their awkward anecdotes. Perhaps I was snubbing them, but in my mind it doesn't matter anymore because their all apart of a past I am looking forward to not remembering.

God speed Mark

You had your good qualities and your bad. We were friends and enemys. you will no longer have to find peace by traveling to the brink of death, because you are finally there.

Mark Thomas Shepard

May 13 1981-June 30 2006