Well...

My best friend when I was growing up was Brett. He was in my class at school although I don't really remember him being all that sociable in front of our other classmates. I was always at his house in my teens and it was great because his dad and step-mother were never home.

You know when you're going through your teens, there's always one friend you associate with and basically tells you the facts of life - well Brett was that friend. His home reeked of teen-rebellion. It was always dishevelled and quite dirty. The carpet was a mass of dog hairs. Laundry (both clean and dirty) was draped over every surface. Coffee-cups with cigarette butts inside could be found in every room - including the toilet. I mean, it was a mess but I loved it. Brett and his two brothers could swear and smoke but oddly, his step-mother Cynthia didn't like the kids drinking - although we did.

Well. Brett moved away. His dad and step-mother told him to go to his mother's house when they found a small stash of pot in his bedroom. They must have gone looking for it as they really weren't the type to clean that intensively.

I kept in touch with him for the first few years but we sort of drifted apart as our interests diverted. He liked girls and I liked boys. He also got heavily into stronger drugs like Ketamine and L.S.D. I was drinking a lot at the time I last saw him in the 90s. It must have been 1993. I can't remember. Most of my twenties are a blur on recollection. Oh - it was the Friday before the IRA blew Manchester up with a bomb. I remember coming home from Manchester and turning on the telly to see places where I'd stood an hour earlier, blown to smithereens.

Anyway. In the recent past I ran two Madonna fan-sites (no I'm not really a big fan), Madonnarama and when that site closed, Madonnatastic. Brett had Googled my name and because my surname's quite unusual, he found me instantly and contacted me through one of the Madonna sites (I can't remember which). We've spoken on the phone and emailed over the last two years but I'd never had the time or money to go see him.

Well, I was supposed to go to Manchester last night but a friend cancelled on me. I was desperate to get out of the flat but everybody in my phone-book was busy. I suddenly thought of Brett. I phoned him and he sounded shocked that I wanted to see him but pleasantly surprised. He didn't live as far away from me as I thought. I'm in Bolton and he's in Salford if that means anything to any of the UK Orgers.

So I jumped on a bus and asked the bus driver to tell me when we got to this place called Irlam Of The Heights. I think it took me less than an hour to get there.

I headed for the first pub I found called the Dog & Partridge. It looked like a dump. As I walked in, I had to barge past a drunk teenager with his dick out, pissing against the pub's outside wall. This was only about 08:00pm. It wasn't exactly a classy joint. The weird thing is that 'Kiss' was playing on the jukebox when I walked in. I thought it was a sign that everything was going to be just like old times. We both loved Prince in our teens.

I called Brett on my phone and he said he lived around the corner and would be there a.s.a.p.

When he turned up, I hardly recognised him. He used to look like a young Paul Mc.Cartney. Although we indulged in advanced doctors and nurses during our teens I was never attracted to him. I'm unsure why - he was quite good-looking. Maybe it was the skankiness of his home. I don't know. Anyway. He walked in and he looked old. He looked like a different person but the same. He had a ponytail, square frameless glasses and a goatee beard. The sort of person I'd steer clear of if I met them at a party.

He sat down and started sighing and shaking his head. Apparently his girlfriend Stella wasn't happy that he'd dropped everything to come and meet me. He said that he was mad at me for dragging him out! I was a little confused. He could easily have said that it was a problem when I first phoned him. I couldn't see why his girlfriend would have a problem. At the time I phoned him they hadn't been planning to do anything. In fact he said that he was upstairs on the internet and Stella had been downstairs reading. I was bemused.

After a couple of pints he lightened up a little. He spoke more than I did because I couldn't get a word in basically. After each sentence, he arched his eyebrows and said: "Do you know what I mean?" I didn't know what he was talking about half the time. His speech had this weird affected tone like what he was saying had been rehearsed and he was remembering lines from a script - I can't decribe it. It was like a radio voice. I felt like I was being interrogated.

I told him a few of my past dramas, thinking that he'd find them funny: The boyfriend in Belgium saga; The getting arrested for kicking a car drama; The job interview at BBC Television Centre story. He just looked at me with a glazed expression as I rambled on awkwardly.

I asked him if he'd seen a tv show last Wednesday about women being abducted in Romania and being sold as sex slaves in Serbia. It really affected me. He looked at me with what I can only term as repulsion. He told me that he hasn't owned a television in years as it rots peoples' brains! He wasn't the same person who used to watch Prisoner Cell Block H with me in my teens. We both used to watch any old cack on the telly and both laughed at the same things.

The knockout punch was when he told me that he'd converted to Judaism. I was stunned. I've always been agnostic and I have a phobia about any organised religion. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. It just wasn't him. It was so weird. He started to tell me about his Jewish neighbour and how she wasn't as good a Jew as he was. It was really odd. He was using yiddish words which I didn't understand. He said it saved him from his spiralling drug-use. I said that it was good that it had helped him but I really wasn't interested. His mood changed.

We then started talking about the military action in Iraq. Well, I did. I said that I was completely opposed to it and that I hope George Bush is voted out of office. He then accused me of being anti-American and said: "I bet you're on the side of the Palestinians too". He was literally shouting at me. It was quite intimidating. I think that he's gone insane. I honestly think that he's got some kind of mental problem.

I said that I'd better go and jumped on the bus. I didn't even say goodbye. I think I said "See you around".

It was odd. I know it had been ten years since I last saw him but it was really weird. Really, really weird. I've never known anyone to change as much.

wow what a story. well i guess ppl do change. you shouldn't expect ppl to stay the same forever. that's the great thing about life tho. he may just be very happy with his life now that he is off the drugs.

Sorry

Milty said:

But that's the weird thing...

Before he told me about finding religion, he'd actually offered me some cocaine! He asked me if I wanted to do a couple of lines with him in the pub toilet!!! I politely declined.

I don't think he's happy at all. I think he's gone mental. I was really pissed off when I left him last night. I felt like somebody had died. I really was upset.