Ghost Of The Past Pt. 1

So I’m walking to the gym yesterday and I see this high school kid walking down the street. He looks just like a friend of mine from high school.

His name is Fergal Mitchell and we were good friends our senior year. He was Irish to the hilt. His father was an ex-priest with an accent so thick he required subtitles at times. Fergal was a sweet innocent kid who had a goofy smile a goofy laugh and when he would cuss, the words sounded strange when they came out of his mouth. Very unnatural, like he felt uncomfortable saying them, but did it anyway because that’s the way you were supposed t talk when you were 18 and rebellious.

So as a lark, I emailed my oldest friend Marc Pearsall (by oldest I mean I’ve know the guy 30 years), to see if he knew what Fergal was up to. Marc is a good person who has kept up quite a bit with people from our class. He sends articles out when he reads about former classmates, etcetera.

I digress.

So I email Marc and he writes back saying that his mom ran into Fergal’s mom about two years ago. Fergal had run into some hard times apparently. He had become a drug addict (something we both have in common), a heroin addict at that (a commonality we don’t share.) He was homeless for a while and then he disappeared. She hadn’t heard from him in about a year.

That news that is two years old and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it this morning. That cute fuzzy Irish kid crawling the streets looking for a hit. It seems so bizarre.

I had heard some crazy tales of him after we fell out of touch in college, including some ex-girlfriend stalking issues, but I figured it was growing pains, a stupid thing done as a youth that you look back on, shake your head and wonder why you were so stupid. From this latest update, I guess he took a left turn when he should have gone right.

I have become very curious about finding out what has become of him, a little frightened, but curious nonetheless. The last thing I want to know is that he O.D.’d in some shitty motel somewhere. I’d like to hear that he cleaned up and is trying to get his shit together. A tough road to walk, but possible and has been walked by many before him.

So step one was to get his parents phone number, which I did. His dad’s name is James and if you can believe it or not, there are only two James Mitchell’s in the Prescott Arizona area. When I was told the streets they lived on, I was able to pick out his dad’s place. So now I have a number. The next step is to call, which I’m working up the nerve to do.

30 MINUTES LATER

Wrong number. My memory for street names isn’t as keen as I thought. Back to square one. So I call my mom. Parents are good that way. She grabs the phone book and now I have a new phone number to try. We think it’s right. If not, she’s got another old friend of the family to get in contact with that may be of help. Now I’m back to making the call, which I’ll have to do tomorrow. Right now I’m off to dinner with my father.

It’s that same strange feeling that I talked about in my posting about past relationships. I’ll be sitting down to a free meal with dad while a person who I cared for in my past may be out there somewhere in a bad way. Life is one bizarre trip.

I’ll give an update as I learn more.