Prologue: Cemetery Gates

October 1991.

I was asleep. No, that's a lie. I was sitting in my bed not wanting to get up. If I got out of bed my roommates would mock me. I know they heard Traci and me fight all night. When we started dating they all warned me that it would be the greatest mistake of my life. They were right. But I didn’t care, she was hot, and she was into me. I’d rather go to bed angry then be alone.

If I went downstairs, I would give Mohawk Mike and Nick the satisfaction of reminding me that Traci is a bitch who treats me like shit. They say I can do better. They're wrong. She is the hottest girl I ever dated. If that means I have to put up with occasional screaming match to have her in my life, so be it. It's not like they can do better. Nick is dating a high school girl from back home, and Mohawk Mike, well let's just say his best friend is last call.

Instead of going downstairs and deal with my roommates I pick-up the stereo remote from the floor and hit the on button. Ian Curtis’s singing “Colony” fills the air.

Whenever Traci and I are having problems there’s only one CD I listen to, Joy Division’s “Closer.” Because we were always having issues this CD always had a home in my Sony 5 disc player. As I sang along to “Heart and Soul,” the phone rang. I could have reached down to pick it up. Fuck that I was moping.

The phone rang again.

And again.

And again.

Finally it stopped.

Someone walked up the stairs.

"Ouij pick-up the fucking phone," Mohawk Mike yelled from the other side of the door.

I turned down the stereo and did just that.

"Hello," I muttered in my most depressed sounding voice.

"Hey Robert how's it going?" a voice said at the other end.

"Kid Wid?" I asked.

"Yeah man," he replied. "It's been a long time."

Two years and three months to be exact. He decided to go to another college and take Lisa, the first love of my life with him. I was pissed. Pissed that he walked out on our friendship after the incident. Pissed that he left me alone. Pissed that he got the girl. Pissed that after he left the original gang, The Morrissey Clan was no more.

I couldn't figure out why he call me. It was probably to tell me that him Lisa were tying the not. Of course that had to be it. He was graduating in May, and probably wanted her to move in with him. The only way her parents would allow that is if they got tied the knot.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I got some bad news,” he said.

"What?" I asked.

"Ted's dead,” he replied.

Dead silence.

"He hung himself,” Kid Wid said. “My brother and Snave found him in his apartment. I talked to Scott and he wants all of us to get together tonight."

"I can't come down to Detroit," I said.

“Scott’s back in Big Rapids,” he said. “Didn’t you know that?”

"No, we really haven't talked since we were roommates,” I said.

"Lisa and I will be up there in a few hours,” he said. “We'll stop by your house first and pick you up. Sound good?"

"Yeah," I mumbled.

We said our pleasantries and hung-up. The music of Joy Division seemed very ironic at this moment. I couldn’t believe Ted hung himself. How punk rock.