Secret Radio Tree House: Loser's Treason, Part II

Scroll down or click on the left to read “Loser's Treason Part I” if you haven't read it already.

My friend Earl was having trouble in several areas of his life while mine seemed to be getting better. I felt for him but I also knew most of his problems were the result of his choices and attitudes about employers and employment. I knew my doing better and his doing worse was going to create tension.

I never kept track of all the small loans I gave him.

I had a hard time getting a hold of Earl for a couple of days. Then he resurfaced with a plausible excuse that I was happy enough to believe.

It happened again, and again. I had a bad feeling but I hoped for the best. Earl stopped showing up for his job for over a week. They called me and asked me if I knew anything. I said I didn't but in my heart I knew what was going on.

I had to face it. He was 'using' again. He had locked himself in his apartment and closed all the curtains and had even taped over the peep hole in his front door. I found out later, he felt certain that soldiers were creeping down from the hills near where he lived to come get him.

Denial is a powerful thing... but I'm not talking about Earl; I'm talking about me.

Earl and I had an unspoken rule. I didn't treat him like a drug addict; I was the clean friend, the antidote to all the other recovering drug addicts in his life and the people he had alienated in the past. For his part, he didn't drag the drug world with all its dysfunction, recovering or not, into mine.

Now he had broken the deal. There I was, clueless about addicts, addiction and all it's signs and pitfalls, pounding on his doors and windows. knowing he was inside, ignoring me and doing God-knows what.

I learned later that he had become so paranoid he put tape over the peep lens in his front door, convinced soldiers were coming down from the hills to get him and could see in the peep hole.

Eventually I gave up. Short of breaking a window (and then what?), I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to be the friend of a drug abuser. None of the normal rules of social behavior seemed to apply.

In addition to, and probably because of his drug addiction, Earl suffered from depression, another area I was clueless about.

This blew my mind. He seemed to me to be the antithesis of depression. He was always up, always sociable, always the clown.

As you can tell, I didn't have a clue about depression either.

I don't know how Earl got to rehab, but he did. I got a call from him many weeks later when he had earned visiting and phone privileges.

I visited him and brought him some snacks and things he requested from Trader Joe's. It was all thoroughly checked over by the staff.

Earl seemed a new man. He talked about his desire to become a rehab counselor where we was staying. He seemed really into his program, really gung ho.

I went away relieved. When he moved out of rehab everything was good again. We worked on the Squeedle album from time to time, though I didn't have the kind of time to spend on it as I did before. I was married now, in a handful of bands and working on music that I intended to release as my own.

Earl was working steadily and living in a good apartment. His girlfriend had had some troubles of her own but was doing very well around that time. She was in school and enthusiastic about the prospect of a new career as a professional. She and Earl got engaged. It looked as though everything was finally going to be okay.

I have since learned that, for people with depression, sometimes the prospect of everything “being okay” can be terrifying. Earl wasted no time making sure “okay” didn't unpack its bags.

I got a full-time gig playing with a band that traveled across the country. Earl was supportive and happy for me but I could tell he was feeling badly that I had become a full time musician without him.

On one of my brief breaks from the road we went to dinner with Earl and his girlfriend at an Ethiopian restaurant. As we walked to our cars afterwords, we parted in four different directions.
Earl's girlfriend went to stay in Texas for a while to take care of some family business.
My wife went to stay with her parents in the Inland Empire.
I headed back out on the road.
Earl stayed in LA.

It was the last time I saw him on good terms.

While his girlfriend was away, Earl harbored a delusion that she was sleeping with some sort of construction crew that was working on her grandmother's house. Complete jealous paranoia. When she returned, their relationship was strained by his crazy accusations but she remained with him for some reason.

Audra and I went to New York for Christmas that year. As we had in the past, we asked Earl to stop by and put out food for the cats. While we were in NY, Earl's Girlfriend called us saying that she had not been able to get a hold of him for several days. They lived together at the time so she suspected he was holed up in our apartment. This worry put a damper on our holiday and an urgency on getting back home.

We returned to find our apartment rather disheveled and smelling funny. Sure enough, there was a piece of tape over the peep hole in the door.

We hadn't been an home for an hour when Earl arrived and opened the door with his key, quite surprised to find us home. He said he'd thought we were going to be away longer but I could tell he, in a his drug stupor, had lost track of what day it was. He gave the excuse that it was medication for back pain that was making him act as he was.

I shouldn't have let him drive but I was so sideways about the state he had left things, I just wanted him gone.

Later we found a crack pipe and some cash missing.

Earl had broken my last thread of trust. I am very understanding and tolerant to a point. When that point is crossed, I am done, end of story. It was time for me to break my end of the unspoken agreement. For the first time I had to treat him like the drug addict he was and confront him with it.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It may not seem like much to some folks, but for me, it was huge.

I called and told him I knew he was using, I knew he had been lying and stealing from us. I told him that I loved him, but I could no longer have any contact with him until got himself checked into rehab. He offered excuse after excuse; denial after denial. I held my ground and merely repeated my demand each time he tried to shuck and jive.

It was the first time I had stood up and been a true friend. Besides his lies and excuses, all he had to say was: “So you don't want to be friends anymore?”

Not surprisingly, he ignore my ultimatum. He didn't get help and kept on using crack and apparently abusing alcohol.

Sometime after that, Earl was arrested for attempting to shoplift some beer. Combined with several bench warrants for other unsettled offences, it looked like the theft was going to send him to prison.

I was glad actually. He had always avoided prison before. Maybe it would provide the wake-up call he desperately needed. Perhaps this time around rehab he would experience some sort of significant core change not just going through the motions.

I was pretty much done with Earl, but he wasn't finished with me just yet.

No longer touring with the band, I had flown to Toronto to work on a show. While I was there on got a phone message from him saying that nothing was left, he had pawned away almost everything he owned and he was going to kill himself. “You're welcome to whatever is left,” he said.

I thought long and hard whether to respond just in case he was serious. Finally I decided not to take the bait and stick to my guns.

He didn't kill himself.

He called my parents and tried to get to me through them. They told him it was good to talk to him but that his relationship with me was his own business and that they wouldn't be messengers or advocates.

The Earl I had known seemed completely gone. I began to wonder if that person was ever real. What if the drug addict and social manipulator was the true Earl and my friend was complete fiction? A cult of personality that was only smoke and mirrors?

Earl had been in rehab a total of four times only fall back into heavy abuse for ride number five. I could now see the cycle all too plainly. I wanted off the merry-go-round and out of the amusement park.

I lost a friend. Not to death or geographic separation but through his own choices.

I avoided drug abuse myself only to have it sneak into my life in sheep's clothing and throw up on my clean floors and walk out the door with my possessions.

Earl continued to contact me. His girlfriend dragged him over one day to give my bass back after she paid to get it out of the pawn shop. I met him in front of the building. I said very little.

It hurt. It hurt a lot and still he wanted to burden me with the guilt and the responsibility choosing my own emotion health over what had become a dysfunctional friendship.

He commented on some Facebook posts as if nothing had happened. I could see that eventually I would get sucked back into the cycle unless I made myself absolutely clear.

I composed an email. It first it was venting and emotional but I revised it many times until it was composed and articulated only the facts; almost legalese. I said that I would always love him, but that he had abused my friendship beyond its elasticity.

I told him that I wanted absolutely no contact with him for five years. If he was interested in regaining my trust he would have to prove significant and deep self change that was reflected in his career, his relationships and his bank account.

There were a few more emails. I deleted them unread. They stopped altogether eventually.

Once in a while I will hear a tidbit about him from his now ex-girlfriend, like that he had completed rehab and was in school to become a chef.

He was always a pretty decent cook.

We actually passed him on the freeway a couple years ago. He was driving an old Volvo, like he always did. I couldn't help wondering how long it would be before he lost that one like all the others. I wondered about the new friends he had surely made with all his charisma. I wondered when he would loose those too.

We didn't honk or wave. He didn't see us and turned off on the next exit.

The Song

I don't especially like performing ballads, but Loser's Treason was an important song for me to write. I worked out my feelings as well as the melody and the words, often with with tears running down my cheeks. I choose to put it on the album because it turned out to be a pretty decent song that helped round out the variety of styles I wanted it to encompass.

Click here to listen to the song as you read on.

Loser's Treason

You are my friend

but I can't see you anymore

I can't even talk to you

You're not you

I don't know who this is

It's like you moved

And left a shell

But maybe it is

Maybe your real McCoy

You ran out of ways to hide

No more ways to lie

You still call me up

And tell me you're going to kill yourself.

You've been killing yourself for years

The one lie too many

The one that made me turn and see

The ten-thousand

That came before

You left me nothing

Nothing I can even cry about

Except the lessons

Of being taken for a fool

You wouldn't do it for yourself

Wouldn't do it for your kids

What made me think

You'd listen to me

It might not make sense

But you are my friend

I went on

I did well

That didn't do too well with you

A loser's treason

Another loser's treason is to win

You are my friend

You are my brother

You know I pray

I pray for you to heal

Hope is eternal

But the hopeless infernal

There's only one thing

That I know for sure

That you are my friend

Always be my friend

You are my friend

The Recording

The main bass part was just an idea that I had put on tape years ago. I thought of it as a going to a song that had hope and positive energy. When I transferred the tape to a digital file I was forced to name it something.

“Peace to You” I called it.

The song started out simple with just the main bass line and a voice. I still perform on stage it this way and it works well.

In my recording I wanted to show to myself and the world that I could arrange a produce a polished ballad. I included drums, a drum machine, keyboards, backing vocals, strings and one more important ingredient...

There's very little guitar on my album but I never want it to be said this is because I don't love guitar because I do. This song needed a true guitar solo played by a gifted guitarist. My good friend Jim, who Earl and I hung out with like old mates when Earl came for Christmas, was the obvious choice. Jim was my sounding board for the whole tragic story and understood my part in it better than anyone besides my wife.

He's an amazingly expressive and virtuosic guitarist, he was the obvious choice.

I emailed Jim a copy of my latest mix and very soon afterwords received a guitar solo in my inbox.

Technology!

It was perfect! He conveyed the tragedy and healing of the song exactly as I knew he would.

Singing this song had been a challenge from day one. That challenge helped me grow from a relatively inexperienced singer. I have sung it hundreds of times to develop the melody and my performance. Even though I am mostly satisfied with my performance on the album I continue to work at the nuance of performing this song.

I had to learn to sing with the intensity of the personal experience the song comes from without simply 'belting it out' as I did in early renditions of the song. I had to hit some somewhat high notes while still singing relatively softly.

Once again, I owe credit to Roger Love and his Book/CD “Set Your Voice Free” and my friend Richard MacLemale for recommending it, for ever being able to pull this song off.

When I sent my recording to the CD manufacturer I gave them special instructions not to change or manipulate the endings of the songs. The endings of several of my songs contain material and sound effects after the song itself has ended. It is possible that a well-meaning technician might have lobbed off those extra sounds thinking they were mistakenly left on the end.

“Loser's Treason” is a prime example. Though the song develops into a full production from a simple beginning, by the time the last notes ring out, only the bass and drums remain.

I took this a step further by including the sound of the drummer and myself getting up from our stools, leaving the studio and closing the door. This was to symbolize my moving past my unfortunate experience with a drug abuser.

I don't think anyone ever 'gets over' loosing a close friend this way, but writing and producing this song was very healing.

Please support my efforts to promote the album by buying this song as a download for a just a buck, the whole album download for $9 or the CD for $12 + shipping all at CDBaby

The album and songs are also available on iTunes and Amazom.com