I had a buddy in high school who was fucking crazy. He was a sociopath -- very smart, but conceited and narcissistic. But he was one of the few semi-poors at this school along with me, and alternated between a pretty legit punk look and then a credible rude boy look after I introduced him to ska. (Full disclosure: the ska I introduced him to was Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but we eventually found our way to the real shit and went up to Phoenix to catch the original Skatalites at some point junior year, I think.)
He was a severe alcoholic even at 16, and he started having these seizures where he would pass out. It happened when he was driving once and he got his license suspended. I don't remember when exactly I figured out I should probably stop hanging with this dude, but it was shortly after a house party we attended was busted up with a full on SWAT team invading from the wash (dry river) through some backyard fence, cop helicopters, many cars, lights, sirens, etc. etc. after some dumbass tried to sell meth to a very obvious undercover. We only got out because 1. we were with the band (it works!) and 2. I had my rich high school's t-shirt on; the cops looked at me and said "you shouldn't be here, take off" and that was that.
Anyway, I didn't hang with him for a few months senior year until the very end when we ended up at a dude's apartment near U of A that graduated the year before. Half of a crew stayed at the apartment and got very stoned (this guy Tom did not smoke, but got very drunk as per usual), half went down to Nogales to gamble. The Nogales crew came back completely sober because no casino was serving 18/19 year olds, and Tom decided he wanted to get a Clash tape from his car back at the friend's place where we had started - maybe a mile away. I think we were all zonked out listening to some weird trip hop and he was bored. He asked for my car (my mom's car, who was out of town and I was supposed to be at home with my 13 year old sister), and I was like "fuck no man, you're hammered, get real." But he convinced one of the sober Nogales crew to ask for my keys, then once they got to the car, took the keys from him, drove, passed out, and crashed my mom's car. Then came to, and, in front of a crowd that had gathered by a UofA frat house because he had crashed into the back of one of the brothers' trucks, announced that Charlie, the other sober friend, needed to say he was driving because he (Tom) was drunk and would get into trouble. Somehow this all got swept away because Charlie's dad was super rich and paid someone off, but my mom ended up having to foot the bill on her own car. It was fucked up.
I dropped Tom permanently after that, but he would occasionally try to get in touch with me during college and afterwards, and would get manic. Like, I got a message from a weird name on MySpace once with no identifying pictures or characteristics, just like a "what's up." I didn't respond, and then a day later got a message that was like "FUCK YOU THEN MOTHERFUCKER I HOPE YOU DIE" or something like that. We finally caught up a couple of years after that on the phone and had a good conversation; I was in NC at that point and he had moved from Tucson to the DC area, and wanted to hang out. I was non-committal, but didn't shoot it down. He called me the next week and I didn't pick up. He then proceeded to call me every 15 minutes and leave increasingly angry drunk threatening voicemails and I just blocked his number. I emailed a mutual friend after that and she was like "yeah, I guess he's had some problems -- he holed up in a house with an arsenal a couple months ago and a SWAT team had to come talk him down." I don't know how he was out of jail, or if he even went, or what. Crazy shit. I thought he might show up at my house and gun me down.
No idea what this cat is up to now. I saw some pictures of him from his sister's wedding a few years ago and he looked bloated, but had a sharp suit on. I think he got some jobs on some ships and spent some time at sea. Crazy motherfucker.
Thanks for the prompt to take that journey down memory lane. Good times. Tucson is weird.