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"The Absinthe Diet & Insanity Program" |
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Written by Victor Lasato
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Friday, 23 December 2005 |
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Page 4 of 4
I was speechless, as was the rest of the auditorium. The MC was shaken up as he dusted himself off, assisted by his stable of fitness models. All of us in Mykel’s cheering section were off like a dress on prom night as soon as the commotion died down. He was being held in the Essex County Jail, in posing trunks no less. Had the contest been in Ocean County where we live, his attire would’ve been amusing, nothing more. But deep inside the tombs and bull-pens of the dirtiest and most violent county lockup in the whole state, Mykel would not fare so well. Luckily, his lack of sanity was enough to convince the guards to put him in isolation, and give him a nice, maroon, jail-bird-jumpsuit as well.
Mykel was released on his own recognizance after three days. My wife and I decided not to bail him out for his own safety. His body needed a break anyway. As a result of his violent outburst, a judge ordered Mykel to undergo anger-management classes and a psychiatric evaluation, which naturally found that he was not insane by nature, but in a state of psychosis brought on by drinking nearly 17 liters of hallucinogenic liquor over a three month period.
The next time I saw Mykel at the gym, he appeared humbled, ashamed almost. He became known in local bodybuilding community, (including the gossip mill we call a gym) as “Loco-Myke, or the demon fighter, Van-Helsing,” and a host of other derogatory names. The worst part of the whole thing... He actually won the contest. The kid who had second place won by default, but his physique couldn't hold a candle to Myke's.
But in all fairness, he did it to himself, which was the first thing I told him. To my “told-ya-so” advice he replied, “I couldn’t see it, any of it.” I consoled him, “you never can kid, besides, we all go a little crazy from time to time.” “Yea,” he responded, “but I went more than a little crazy. I blew the competition, the last three months of my life, sat in jail practically naked until they gave me a jumper, and lost everybody’s respect…” I cut him off right there. “Hold up, you’ll only loose my respect if you don’t learn from your mistake. Everybody fucks up, ‘to err is human,’ right, like that Shakespeare cat says.” At the time, I thought he got the point.
As I was clearing out my locker and about to leave the gym one day the following week, I was feeling good about the whole situation. I helped him through a rough time, didn’t enable his addiction, and just gave him the support that people need to get through tough times. I believed that Mykel would put all this behind him, and go on to compete again; just maybe a little more natural next time. Yet all my hopes and dreams for the boy went to shit when he opened the locker across from me, and the distinct smell of licorice, anise, wormwood, and ethanol filled the locker room with its sweet aroma. Not seeing me at first, Mykel stopped, bearing a guilty look and a forced smile, before walking past me with his emerald-green pre-workout drink. I guess some things, or more precisely some people, never change. Maybe they just never want to. "Hey Myke," I shouted, how about a little moderation this time; we've got enough ass holes at this gym I don't need demons to deal with too." He laughed, slightly embarassed, and walked off.
These events occurred almost six months ago, and I see Mykel a lot less now. Word is that he got two DUI’s inside of a month, the second occurring before he even went to court on the first. Potential, talent, “a gift from God,” as some people call it; point is there’s thousands of ways to waste it, and only a handful of ways to make the most out of it. So what’s the moral of the story? Moral? Who the hell am I to go giving moral advice? Right this minute I’m about to pour myself a Green-Hemingway: Absinthe, OJ, Champagne, ice, and sugar blended. With a scoop of natural flavored whey protein for good measure, of course. However I don’t do this ten times a day every day for months on end. So there: “moderation is of the utmost importance in life. There’s your moral if you must have one.
F.I.N.
Victor Lasato can be contacted via PM at the Avant Labs forums (http://forum.avantlabs.com, and shortly at Entheogen Dot under the screen name: Viator
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