Altered States, My Roommate From UnderGrad, and The American Nietzsche in My New Life

My roommate A_ from UnderGrad was my best friend, piano teacher, and intellectual counterpart. He would teach me what he was learning as a Piano Performance major, and I in turn would teach him what I was learning in my English classes. We were almost inseparable our freshman and sophomore years. We would eat breakfast at the Cafe in the mornings, meet during our breaks between classes, and smoke a cigarette. When 5:00pm came around we would roll one up, take a cruise down a country road listening to Pink Floyd, and head to the music building to watch a recital. It was a part of his homework as a music major, and I was living college to the fullest being a part of everything on campus that I could be. If there were no recitals, I would bring my English homework to the practice rooms, and read or write as he practiced his piano homework. We would swap for a bit, and he would teach me theory, or play his own music. We loved talking about art, literature, and films. One film he mentioned was a cult classic called Altered States where I scientist suspended himself in a steam-punk water tank, ate psychotropic mushrooms and de-evolved into an ape. We talked about Nietzsche’s Ubermench, Dostoyevski, and literary Transcendence. He was by far the most A-type in our group, or self made fraternity (including my girlfriend, and her roommate.) Our college had its biggest party night on Thursdays, and he would set his alarm for midnight, and be the first to leave. He was goal oriented, motivated, high energy, and extremely responsible. He was the responsible older sibling type, and I was more creative, free spirited, and adventure seeking. I can be the high strung A-type, but for every season there is turn. I was that type in high school, and I was ready to let loose, expand my mind, and allow the University experience mold me.

He was becoming overbearing. My girlfriend was enough to keep up with. We were all changing, and going different directions, and there was K_: a long hair, hippie, free spirited cool kid like me blowing a flute on the Quad with an Elven vibe from a Tolkien novel. I was leaving A_. He was becoming angry. He was dissatisfied with his teachers, cutting, and always angry with someone, or something. One night, I snuck out of our dorm to play piano with another piano major, a New York Jazz type, where A_ and I had the classics in common: Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Bach. When I got back to our dorm, A_ was awake, and firing questions at me, and interrogating me on where I had been, and who I had been with. It was like my mom, or a wife I had been cheating on. We slowly drifted apart after that. We would still see each other at parties, and still keep up, but we were never as close as before. He changed to a science major, and I was working as an Artist with K_, and his family business. I began my yoga journey, and K_, and his brother were going to Traditional Chines Medicine school after they finished their majors in Sociology, and Philosophy. We were going the alternative medicine, Eastern way. Healthy food, diet, and yoga exercise.

Years later K_ had moved to Toronto for TCM school, and A_ had a full scholarship for a PhD in BioChem. I was in the best shape of my life in advanced yoga practices, and working as a Chef to get back into school. (My family life had been demolished, and had to drop out of school, but that’s another story for another time.) I had moved close to the University A_ was attending with high hopes of recreating our UnderGrad relationship. We could play piano together while he was doing his science homework I thought. Now who the hell was this person? He no longer played piano, he was a narcissistic drunk. Beer cans littered his apartment. He would wake up for school, and turn up the whiskey bottle before a class he was teaching, and he was voting for Trump. His girlfriend, and he had an abusive relationship, and he was constantly in, and out of jail. Was this the same overbearing, militant, too responsible to have any fun roommate I had had? It’s true, his little brother had shot himself a few years earlier, but he had said, after he and I weren’t roommates anymore, he just sat around in the dorms drinking whiskey, and playing video games when he wasn’t doing his science homework.

I made the best of our newly revisited friendship. It was different, but we had fun. It involved more drinking, business, politics, investigative journalism, and he would teach me chemistry while we were drinking. He had turned into a privileged, irresponsible, rich kid, ready to a fight at the bar, and always drunk. It was the Trump years. Luckily, I had convinced him to vote for Hillary, but the backdrop to it all was alcohol, gangs, conflict, anger, fighting, and yelling. It wasn’t just A_. It was everywhere.

A_ was kicked out of the PhD program, and was lucky to finish with his Masters. Outside of the University, he couldn’t hold down a job. He began resenting our talks about my job, because I was progressing, and becoming a well respected Chef. While he was in the PhD program he enjoyed feeling superior to my menial labor, little people strifes, but now he was beginning to get irritable when we kept up, and I had nothing more to talk about other than working 70 hour weeks. He would consider relocating for a job, and he would research the prison systems in the location, and police. It was humourous at first, or deep. Like a Dostoyevski satire on Prison Reform. Or I would mention moving to Florida together, and the concept of “Florida Man,” scared him. I would say, it doesn’t happen that way. You don’t just magically turn into a meth smoking alligator hunter when you cross state lines, and apply for Florida tags. But I could see a look in his face. It may have actually been a possibility for him at this point in his drinking career.

We haven’t spoken in over a year, but I check up on him occasionally through mutual friends. He’s been in, and out of prisons, psych wards, fights, and still hasn’t held down a job. It’s similar to “Florida Man” news with our friends on A_ sightings. He’s like a part of the Alabama landscape now, and showing up in our friend network like Tabloid sightings, police reports, and old friend brawls. If Nietzsche’s stages of enlightenment were The Camel, The Lion, and the Child; it would seem as though the American version would go something like The Nerdy Pianist, The Pompous Science Professor all the way to Florida Man, and tabloid sightings.

Last updated May 24, 2023