Attn: Moshe Kasher

If this all looks too long, basically my friend is in Jail in Adelaide, Australia, for selling drugs. I'm not here to judge, but he's my friend, and I want him to read Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16, by Moshe Kasher. It's a great book and I think he could really use it right now. In jail though, you can't have books brought in to you, in case someone smuggles you in a rock hammer, so the only way to get it to him is in loose sheets of paper, like a letter. So I'm trying to get the author's attention by tweeting at him (@moshekasher) with a link to this post (http://bit.ly/1ZntG6a) and the hashtag #KasherBehindBars to see if he can organize such a copy.

“Such a copy”? God I sound like a fucking tool.

Anyway, if that sounds interesting, let me elaborate:

Me and Sam Rouse knew each other since primary school, I didn't think much of him then, he was just a chubby kid we used to beat at Four Square, but we started going out clubbing and taking drugs around the same time when we were 18 in 2009. We had a lot of fun, he was a drug dealer and I was a crooked bartender, we made way too much money and spent it all on getting high and drunk and having nothing else to show for our lives and it was fantastic.

Cut to early 2015 and was living in London, I'd been away from my hometown of Adelaide since 2012, chasing my dumb dreams and being lonely, but still thinking of Rouse every now and again. I still have the little woollen figurine he gave me when I left, the night we spent in his bedroom at his Dad's house, high on mushrooms with t-shirts wrapped around our heads to stop the fumes from getting in. We painted the wall of his room with spray cans, he made this huge purple and green heart, and I wrote the lyrics to the last verse of Empty Cans by The Streets over the top of it. He gave me that little figurine guy, I don't think it was supposed to mean anything, but I keep it in my pencil case next to my pens and nail-clippers.

In London I met a girl called Rosie, from Adelaide, she was going home in a couple months, and after those few months passed and Rosie and I had a lot of great times together, I told her about my friend Rouse, and how the book I'd just finished reading (Kasher in the Rye) reminds me of him so much. Rouse always seemed to have trouble with the concept that drugs are only meant to be fun. He took drugs seriously, and so inevitably the drugs took him. He was depressed for a long time, and would always talk about the darkness that he was trying to escape. I used to worry about him a lot, and had forever felt slightly guilty for leaving, even though I knew that's what I had to do.

So Rosie and I planned an adventure: she was going to go home to Adelaide with my copy of the book and show up at Rouse's house with a gift from me, his absent friend from the other side of the world – the gift of a conversation with someone that knew him recently. Better than a letter, it would be news FIRST HAND. If I couldn't come home like he'd asked whether I would for Christmas 2014, at least I could send an envoy. Then she could give him the book too, and for a bookmark, the Polaroid of me holding the little figurine we took when we were high in my room in London. I was very excited.

And then when she got back, we found out Rouse been caught dealing. Again. He was already on a suspended sentence for drug charges. So he went away for a long time.

None of our friends back home could give me a straight answer on how to contact him, and it just kind of went away, as my life kept moving, the way that life does... but this week I left a message on his wall, because I've still been thinking about him, and a friend of ours hit me up and told me she's been visiting him every couple of weeks for the year he's been away so far. I contacted Rosie, The Mission is back on. All that's holding us back now is that the friend, Olivia, says they won't let visitors give prisoners books, because of that Shawshank Redemption joke I made earlier. She suggested typing the book out word for word, but I thought it might be a better idea to just hit up the Author himself – he's a comedian so I bet he loves stories, and after reading his book, I'm sure he has an affinity with the down and out people, the ones who are lost. No one has been more lost that Rouse – maybe that's part of why people love him so much.

But look, this is a guy... I mean, Rouse was a true friend to me, in times when I needed a friend. When I told him I was going to my ex-girlfriend's 21st, even though I knew it was probably going to tear my dumb heart to shreds, he, rather than trying to persuade me not to go, lied and told me he wanted to come too. Because he knew I needed a wingman. And when I came back from South America in 2012, in the six months before I left Adelaide, after I'd cheated on my girlfriend and had no job and nothing, he let me clean his house for a RIDICULOUSLY GOOD HOURLY RATE under the pretence that he didn't want anyone outside the group coming into his HeadQuarters. He was there for me when I needed it, he gave me advice, and listened, and gave me his problems so I could listen too, so we could both lean on each other. And that's aside from all the ridiculously good times we had together. This is a real friend I'm talking about now. And he's in jail, and I'm letting him down by not talking to him, and I thought doing this might mean something.

If you think this is in any way a cool thing to do, please can you guys tweet at Moshe Kasher (@moshekasher) with the link to this blog entry, and hopefully he'll read this, and by touched by my beautiful words and the power of friendship and the sun will shine and everything will suddenly be okay again. That's all I ask, for everything ever to be okay, and nothing bad to ever happen. Is that too much? I DON'T FUCKING THINK SO.

No honestly though, tweet at him. Like, do it now. Don't read any more. Log on to twitter and tweet (@moshekasher) with the link to this blog post (http://bit.ly/1ZntG6a) and the hashtag #KasherBehindBars , and hopefully if enough people do, he'll read it.

Oh and Moshe, if this is you and you're reading, love the book, and your stand up is also fantastic. Email me on CraZhore@gmail.com (actual email) and let's talk turkey.

Peace, Taco.

The Bitter End

It's all over. Done. I'm promising myself, and you, whoever is reading. It's finished. I only want to hear from Andy two more times in my life: first when I send him this blog and get his reaction, and second when I hear that he's killed himself. This has been one harrowing experience, I don't feel relieved yet, but I will once I purge these feelings from my system.

I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about the goodness in people, and whether people's worst actions and transgressions can be justified or at least forgiven indefinitely. Is there a line that someone can cross after which there is no redemption?

When I first stepped foot on European soil it was Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport, July 18th, 2014. I got off the plane and went through customs with everything I owned in the world stuffed into two bags, then waddled out to the train station speaking not a word of French and looking excited and confused – the perfect target. I walked up to the ticket machine to get a ticket for the train into central Paris, and in an instant was approached by a girl in plain clothes, asking in a helpful French accent if I needed any help. I said sure, and she started fiddling with the menus on the machine, while another guy, presumably her colleague, started chatting to me in Spanish. I was comforted at the human interaction, and jumped at the chance to show off my skill with language and worldly experience – I am an intrepid explorer, you see.

When I walked away from the interaction holding two Euros change from a twenty, and a train ticket worth about four Euros, the realization I'd been swindled dawned slowly. Resignation turned to anger when I put the ticket into the machine and had it spat straight back out, and as I looked up to the concourse above me I saw my two adversaries walking above – they looked down and laughed with pity. The guy threw me a ticket, and I called him a cabron. Twenty Euro, that's Thirty Australian Dollars. Welcome to the old world, pussy.

I've never been able to harbour any hatred or resentment towards that guy for breaking my trust after what I thought was a nice conversation in Spanish, or the girl for that matter, for playing the silent second fiddle to the scam. “It is what it is.”, I have rationalised time and time again, with a shrug, “you get me, maybe next time I'll get you, and who's to say I wouldn't do the same in your situation?”

Andy though... I mean, this is a completely different animal – and that's what he is, a fucking animal. I can safely say that I could never do what he has done.

He told me yesterday that he was leaving the house, and that the agency had put a new girl in the flat, on the phone his exact words were, “The agency have moved a new girl in, cute English girl, she's quite nice actually, you'll probably fuck her.”
        I'm familiar enough with this kind of manipulation now to know that what had actually happened was he'd got someone into the flat, taken their money under the now-familiar pretence that he was the owner of the property, and was trying to distract me from this obvious fact by presenting her as a romantic interest. He knows my weaknesses.

I never got to meet her. I got a call from Nadia (property manager from The Agency) yesterday saying that she'd organised someone to come round and clean the whole property. Andy was gone, he'd left without a trace, probably because he heard she (or Luis, or Flat Owner Lady, or whoever else had a dog in this fight) had finally got their shit together to get the cops after him. He took all his stuff and disappeared through the cracks, and is now barred (again) from visiting the property. Nadia rocked up with her cleaner under orders from Luis up top to evict anyone who hadn't paid – this girl had definitely not paid. Not The Agency anyway, she paid Andy, she paid him ONE THOUSAND POUNDS!

So to break that down, Andy realised the game was up, decided he needed money to skip out with, advertised the property on Facebook, and within 24 hours found someone willing to move in straight away, paying a month's rent plus another month as deposit UP FRONT, then left. With her money. Nadia told me she broke down in tears when she was told her money was gone. She cried and said she wouldn't live in the flat now even if she got her money back.

Just breathe.

So when I got home around midnight last night, the cleaner was in the house, under strict instructions to not open the door for anyone except me. I called him, and he opened the door for me. We chatted for a minute, maybe three, and then a knock on the door. It was Arron and Alai, the Moroccan/Spanish guys living in Andy's old room for the last month or so. I looked at the cleaner in a panic. Should I let them in? Nadia had said if I let anyone in it'd mean trouble for me. I don't want trouble. I never wanted trouble. They were knocking at the door now, they heard my voice when I told them in Spanish that I was calling Nadia to confirm that I could let them in. The phone dropped out. Calling again. More yelling.
        “QUE PASA PRIMO! QUE PASA! NOS HA CONOCIDO TRES SEMANAS!!” I'm panicking. Looking at the cleaner. He has no idea what's going on. BOOM!! The door is kicked in and the boys with another friend storm through. Right in my face yelling. All in Spanish.
        “WHY DID YOU MAKE ME KICK THE DOOR IN?! WHY DIDN'T YOU OPEN THE DOOR?!! WHAT THE FUCK COUSIN?!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! AND WHO THE FUCK IS THIS!!??” They bundle the cleaner out. He bounces off the walls like a pinball. Arms over his head. We spend the next half an hour shouting and my heart is beating like a broken engine. Once we calm down a little I take my bag and jacket off that I've been wearing this whole time, and lean against the nearest door frame, then slump down to the floor, and hold my head in my hands. I feel my hair, and run my fingers through it. Needs a cut. What have I been doing these past two months? What the fuck am I doing here? I look up at Arron and say sorry again for not opening the door, and we all feel defeated.

More than anything now, I'm angry. I hate Andy for what he did to us, and to that girl. He took her fucking money, like just straight up robbed her blind, of £1000 – that's a month's wages where I work. And his games and manipulations meant that Arron, Alai, their friend, and I, were stood in the passage screaming at each other at 12:30am last night – that's four people who have only ever been good to each other, turned sour and wrong by the filthy influence of one broken person who just couldn't bring himself to shoulder the burden of his own existence. Andy. That name has been ringing in my ears for so long, and I'm about to let it go.

I've always given myself over to the assumption that there IS some good in everyone, I've never even really had to try, it just comes naturally to me, that kind of belief. It's not something I've ever had to fight for, which I've always thought of as a good thing, and something to be thankful for. I'm naturally predisposed to passivity and forgiveness. But maybe it's not so great – any belief not considered, no matter how virtuous, is still arbitrary and therefore worthless. Maybe I need to think a little bit harder about people before allowing them free reign – I never let Andy walk all over my life too much, but I could definitely have stopped him from hurting people around me, and I didn't.

I have a lot of guilt around that now. I let this thing get way out of hand – that's assuming I had any control over any of this situation whatsoever. Let's say I did. I let things keep going exactly the way they were going, letting Andy do everything to everyone, and I just sat back and watched, the silent observer. Quietly gathering material for my story. This story, whatever it has been. Some sort of document that I've convinced myself is an important snapshot of some unique corner of space and time I've inhabited. The portrait of a sociopath? Or just a part of someone else's life, seen through my eyes. Who knows? Is this important? Is it even entertaining? What is the end result for the strife and turmoil that have been the price I've been willing to allow myself and these others to pay.

I'm sorry I guess, although I don't know that I wouldn't do it all again. Because the uniqueness, the emotion, the feeling, it's all been so real. Visceral. These moments of being caught up in the maelstrom with no way out, staring into the eye of some beast I have no hope of understanding and trying, trying, trying to feel my way around its terrifying form. These moments have been inescapable. They force you to exist through them, and that's what I want. To not be able to run away from the present, because I know that given the chance, I will escape to hope or memory every time, wishing my life away into the future and the past, while ignoring the present, because it's all too daunting and fearful.

It's been worth it I think. I hope, anyway. I can't take it back now.

These are the last words I said to Andy, and this I know now really is the end of the story. I've made one last decision actually, just since starting this last chapter, and that is that he will never see this. Not from me anyway, so probably not ever. I'm going to change his name if I ever print this outside of the blog it was born on. Thanks for reading guys, it's been something.

        “Don't ever speak to me again, you're a worthless piece of shit and you will never know anything but loneliness. Don't think that I say these words lightly, I've known you long enough now to really know you - REALLY know you. And I have given you every benefit of the doubt, even when I could plainly see your transparent manipulations and lies.

I thought there was some good in you Andy, so I ignored a lot of what I shouldn't have because I thought something decent might come of your lies, but you've proven me wrong. You have taken the miniscule, almost insignificant amount of belief I had in you and proven it to be wasted. It's sad, and you are sad. Fuck. I feel sorry for you, but more than that I'm angry.

When you die alone, remember this and every other moment in your life like it, and know that each time those countless people turned their backs on you, one by one, this is what every single one of them felt. I wish that the weight of all this guilt and sorrow would break your heart and leave you dead in a heap on some sad street corner somewhere, but I know it wont, so all I have to say now is go fuck yourself.

The End.”

Click here for an important announcement about the girl who lost £1000 - So Here's the Plan

Fear Not of Man

You have nothing to fear from an honest man, and an honest man can fear no one.

A lot of people seem to be worried about me now that my attitude has dropped from the happy-go-lucky vagabond enjoying his life of ridiculousness, to someone who seems a bit more stressed and angered by this house situation. I want to reassure all of my friends and family and well-wishers and indifferent punters (actually there's a good idea, maybe we should be betting on this? Anyone keen to run the books? Give me a shout) – I want to reassure everyone out there that I am in no PHYSICAL danger living in this flat. I've never seen or experienced any sort of threatening behaviour from Andy, just lies and manipulation WHICH NEVER HURT ANYONE RIGHT?! Honestly though, I'm fine. He's off the coke, so he's just drinking heavily now, and the guy who was living in the room with him is gone. He owed Andy £40 and evidently didn't want to pay, so he left, and took a pouch of tobacco, a bag of MDMA, and £10 in change from my room with him. That was super annoying to discover, but still, no bruises guys!

Jesus I sound like a battered wife right now don't I... “He never actually hit me! He's just stressed! DON'T BLAME HIM WORK IS STRESSFUL AT THIS TIME OF YEAR!!”

I need to keep painting this picture though. I honestly don't know how much longer I can stand living here, so I need to keep working because I feel like there's something in this tangled mess of a situation that is important, or true, or unique. It's like Hunter S. Thompson, “we're right on the main nerve and now you want to quit?” That's right, because I am Hunter S. Tompson.

You heard.

So our property manager is this lady called Nadia. She's an idiot. She's the third person we've had doing her 'job' since I've been living in the house – basically her duties are to message the tenants and tell us we have to pay our rent, and if/when we don't, make empty threats at us in increasingly broken English and then call us to apologize. She's lovely to be fair, but fuck having to look after the vile zoo that our flat regularly becomes under Andy's influence.

One of the old housemates who moved out pots-Andy was Leroy. He was an Aussie guy from Melbourne, super sound, one time we wrote a song while drunk which included the lyric “I don't care what your family's goin' through, you're still an ugly bitch.” We had some great times. Leroy and I had a running joke/competition to see who, if any of us, could sleep with Nadia first – I always fancied my chances over his because even though he's taller than me and can rock a fine high-vis jacket, Nadia's name is my name backwards (Aidan), and if you don't think that's a sufficient measure of fated compatibility then I'm sorry but you're destined for loneliness. It was never going to happen, but we had a lot of fun clumsily flirting with her in group messages – she's probably in her mid-to-late-30s and clearly enjoyed the attention so would flirt back, or sometimes just laugh and say “You Boys!” while stood in our kitchen pretending to know something... anything Nadia... please know ANYTHING!?

Leroy moved out around the same time Rosie did, and around that time we started to go off Nadia because she began to represent an antagonistic force in the house. The kitchen sink had stopped working and overflowed almost daily, and then flat beneath us was complaining to the council about his flat being flooded whenever we did the laundry. Nadia would harass us about the issue, like it was our problem not hers. She once cut our internet for a few days because Andy stopped paying his rent – this was before he turned everything around and started working for the Agency and became her boss – and she basically just turned into a bitch as soon as anything started to go wrong. Leroy and I stopped calling her 'babe' and asking her to come out for drinks, and she stopped coming into my work in colourful dresses to collect my rent.

Cut to a few months later, the last night before Andy's arrest, when we were talking in his room. This is an example of just how manipulative he can be. This is why I am having to work hard to hate him, and this is why I want to hang around and write about him, because the audacity of his despicable behaviour seems endless. Inspiring in it's bottomless depravity

He needed me to turn against the agency with him, or else he'd have an enemy in the house, and someone who would resist his scheme to create it anew as his fortress against the world. I can't remember which passage of conversation it came from, but my memory fades in from when he fixed me with his stare while sat on his bed and told me, “Oh you know about Nadia right?”
        “What about her?”
        “She's a prostitute!” – high pitched, and he laughed dismissively and grinned his wicked grin. “You used to fancy her didn't you!” he continued, “You should message her right now and tell her, 'Alright Nadia, I've got £100 if you come round here and see me right now.'”

At the time I just thought he was making a joke, or maybe he was telling the truth and wanted me to help him humiliate her, but either way I just laughed it off and did nothing. I knew Nadia wasn't a prostitute, and even if she was, I honestly couldn't care less as long as I can keep sending my rent to her. That is honestly all I care about... I've definitely considered whether I'd be able to pay for sex before – I've never really had the opportunity arise, or the money at hand, but I don't really have a moral problem with it and so I guess if I had £100 and was feeling a little lonelier, then in another life maybe that night may have gone down differently.

But later on I realised what he was trying to do, and how it would have looked to Nadia if I'd sent her a message soliciting prostitution... I mean I'm pretty sure that's illegal, so he basically was trying to trap me. That manipulative piece of shit. That twisted genius playing with the minds of men. It's scary to know that there are people out there willing to go to those kinds of lengths to accomplish even their most petty ends.

The one thing that I believe is protecting me now and will continue to do so is my integrity. I am honest about my motivations for staying in this house, I am honest about my means of doing so, and I am honest with every player in this limping drama. No one can say that I have wronged them thus far, and as long as I can maintain that, then it is my sincere belief that I will maintain immunity. Maybe that's naïve, but I believe in that, and in myself and my resilience. People are inherently good. People are inherently good. People are inherently good. People are inherently good. People are inherently good. People are inherently...

Peace, Taco.

Click here to read the next part - The Bitter End