He started lying around all day long. Stretched way out on the couch. All the way into the early evening hours. I saw it happen incrementally once we came back from the holidays. The world was starting to open up and that made him close down. Playing games deep into the night. Ordering greasy food from a 4th bank account. Although, don’t even get me started on how hard it was to get a Venmo from the guy. “Oh, yeah, dude, uh, give me a second to link up my card again, I guess that it somehow disconnected.” *Wait 30 minutes* “You figure it out?” “Uh, yeah, bro, uh, it like locked me out but I’ll just hit you tomorrow.” Pfff. He would waste away hours on Youtube videos. Reactions to hearing Playboi Carti, MIT professors teaching you how to calculate enthalpy, Joe Rogan roundhouse kicks. Hours and hours and hours. We just heard the noises from the other room.
Money was always on his mind. Stocks this, hedge funds that, my dad invested here, I almost went to school there. I don’t think I ever saw him make more than $100 a day. Still, money on the dome. All day, every day. When I met him he talked about all of that stuff. Now he was talking about it with a certain tone. He was growing irritable. His eyes rolled a little as he droned on about his topics. Snooze, snooze, lose, lose. For some reason I felt that little rhyme/chant/proverb bouncing around the apartment a lot during those days. His mind was a collection of statistics, all revolving around who is the best, or which one piece of art won a certain award. It was impressive at first. Now it was unnerving, irritating, almost worrying. Oh, Tom Cruise is for sure the actor who has made the most money? That’s awesome and I’m confident that you’re right, but why are you saying it like that?
He started to sink so, so hard into that tan couch while the Californian sun bleached him with sadness unbeknownst. He talked about girls and their bodies but his libido was nil. He talked about how powerful and athletic he felt, but his cheekbones were hidden by now. I remember the day I first sensed a bit of embarrassment from him. It was around 7:45AM, I came out of my room and found him maybe a foot away from the 50” TV. He had pulled up the whole couch. He quickly turned off “George Lopez” and switched to “Opening Bell” like he was following the performance of his latest stock purchase. He hadn’t slept. The Xbox was still on which means he was flicking from playing games to TV to porn to games to TV to porn. Cycles. Revolutions (he loved that movie, too, no surprise there). While I smoked a little, I could tell that he felt embarrassed. This was at the beginning of his new routine to sleep all day and be awake all night. Before, yes, he would stay up late, but he would at least work for two hours or get drunk in the evenings.
Now, his world was that couch, that TV, and those late-night DoorDashes. He felt ashamed and he scuttled off into the shower and proceeded to take a shower that was an hour and a half. An hour and a half. I repeat, an hour and a half. Probably more. That was the last little pirouette to his routine. The almost two-hour steam from 8AM to 10AM only to crawl back into bed and sleep until 7PM. This routine went on for two almost three weeks until we addressed it. We asked him if everything was ok. We had discussed prior to the mini intervention the reality that he would never admit to being unwell. His ego would never allow it. We were right.
He said everything was cool. That he functioned like that. That he had worked at Goldman Sachs as an intern and had slept during the day there because they knew he would get his work done. He mentioned that he had applied to a Disney job and that he was positive he would get it. That he always got those sorts of jobs. We knew he was denying his own emotions but, as I’ve come to learn, there’s not much else you can do sometimes for a person besides just letting them know that you are looking out for their best interests. It’s the whole thing about taking a horse to the water. We wanted him to know that we acknowledged his behavior. I thought it would be a good idea since maybe it was a cry for help.
Anyways, nothing changed. Mold started growing in the bathroom because of his shower sessions. His skin started to get greyish under his eyes. It looked like he had been punched and the bruises were just beginning to heal. There was that thin ring of yellow that surrounded them. He put in hair products, put on these white t-shirts with holes and condiment stains on them, only to go right back to bed. We found liquor bottles inside some of the bags of fast food. He started rapping lyrics randomly and muttering insults at us. I would ask him to repeat what he said but he would say something different. Then, one day, we came back from our evening walk and he told us that he had to go back home for a funeral. We didn’t think much of it.
He packed his bags and went home. Two days went by and I figured I’d call his dad to see if he would fix my computer when I was back in town. I had never spoken to his dad. All I knew was that he came from a lot of wealth and knew everything about computer hardware and software. I call the father and I open up by stating how sorry I was about their loss. He replies saying, “what funeral are you talking about?” “The one that made Bobby have to go back home.” “Oh, uh, no, Bobby must’ve lied to you. He’s back here because the film he’s shooting is taking a break from recording. I don’t know why he told you that. Also, he said he hasn’t lived with you in over two months. That one of you got in a terrible car wreck so he decided to leave the house. That…” *Click*