Many moons ago, I was an angry, drugged up teenager. My parents marriage was disintegrating, our family was in shambles. There were no rules. I didn't have to come home if I didn't want to, and when I did, my parents were often gone.
One of my 'lost boy' friends was this guy:
Offender Tracking Information System (OTIS) - Offender Profile
In the photo, he looks hard. I wouldn't recognize him if I saw him today. Back then, he wasn't a bad guy. He was just a lost suburban kid like us. If anything, he was a voice of reason, the one trying to stop things from getting to dangerous. In some ways, I feel like I contributed to corrupting him.
I was there the first time he took LSD. We watched him wander around a golf course at night, tripping out of his mind, and we laughed at him.
I managed to find a path that led to a positive life. Evidently he didn't.
It makes me very sad. He wasn't a heartless person.