Blake

It's been a while since I've written. A lot has happened since then. I was robbed by a so-called friend. That was a pretty intense situation, and I'll try to elaborate upon it later. But most recently--June 27--a good friend of mine, Blake, was shot and killed by a deputy sheriff. So this post will mainly be about him.

I was with Blake two days before it happened. He was upset because he thought Eric wouldn't let him talk to Ashley (Ashley has been jumping between the two for a year or so now). I tried to calm him down. He was more-so upset that his parents were being mean to him--especially his dad. For a while he had been experiencing what he thought to be Morgellons disease or a worm infestation. He had wounds all over his body, had pulled out a bunch of hair, and had alleged specimens in tupperware containers that he would always present in a show-in-tell every time I was over there. But the doctors and myself were pretty convinced that it was delusional parasitosis from all the meth and lack of sleep and nutrition. His parents just thought he was just nuts and refused to take him seriously.

I wish I could remember the entire conversation we had last. I just remember he was very apologetic that he hadn't paid me back the money he borrowed since he was going through withdrawals from his pain meds and needed a roxy. He also was stuck on the topic of defending his honor--his pride. I told him he needed to stop worrying about what people thought. He insisted people were trying to usurp his masculinity.

He was very friendly with the kitty, but when his mom came in for a brief moment, they were pretty snippy with each other, though not worrisome at all.

But according to the on-going GBI investigation, Sheila, Blake's mother, called 911 and reported that her son had tried to strangle her. When the officers arrived, Blake had his shotgun in his hand. I always had a bad vibe about that thing--similar to the vibe I got with Randall's killer the first time I met him. Anyway, Blake said that he wasn't going to leave there alive--or something like that--and the officer shot and killed him.

Now a lot of people are blaming Ashley, which is not good for her. Yes, Blake was distraught over Ashley once again leaving him for Eric, but that was old news--it had been going on for over a year. The boy was having paranoid delusions while doing copious amounts of methamphetamine, not sleeping, probably not eating, and battling with organisms trying to invade his body. That combined with a deep-seeded imperative of standing one's ground and being a "man" is what killed him.

You could blame his parents for not getting him help. You could blame the cop for using lethal force. You could blame whoever the fuck was supplying him. You could blame Ashley and Eric. But in the end, the only thing that has much weight is mental illness (the drug abuse is only a symptom).

So, I'm fucking tired as hell of losing the people I love. I just have to find out what I'm going to do now--I want it to make it my life's work to help prevent fucked up shit like this from happening ever again.