My Old Mate Dante

I heard about my mate, Dante, my old mate, Dante, my ex mate Dante.

From all accounts his life had gone to shit, not just accounts, his life had gone to shit. His life had been one long shitfest.

It’s just been one disaster after another disaster with him all the way through.

He’s gone bankrupt three times. He lost his beauty businesses. There’s been various disasters with cars that his parents have bought him. A brand new one that got written off with storm damage. Two cars that were his parents hand me downs that were just a shit show in themselves. There was a long saga about a V6 Audi he bought that ended up costing thousands of dollars more than it was even worth due to Dante's poor decisions. 

His spine disintegrated at his brain and had to be reconstructed, which put an end his beauty career permanently. Eventually he got a low paid entry level, office job, from which eventually one of the other office workers took offence to him, and he was sacked, claiming no fault of his own, of course. 

Then there was unemployment.

There’s been drug addiction, heart attacks while he’s been having drug filled sex, more heart attacks when he’s been taking more drugs.

He ended up in a townhouse that an old friend provided for him where he told me he’d sent off hundreds of resumes, but couldn’t crack it for a job with anybody, anywhere.

He then dealt crystal meth. Being on drugs and dealing drugs is never successful, so they say, and he was raided by the police. His friend threw him out of the townhouse because of the police raid. 

He went to court and very nearly went to jail because of his drug dealing, I think, only avoiding jail because of his health status regarding his heart attacks.

I saw him after all of that, and he said that he lost everything. He looked awful.

His parents disowned him, probably before this point, but certainly by this point.

He ended up in housing commission in Broadmeadows with absolutely no prospects for his life going forward.

And you know, you might feel sorry for him, you might ask me being his friend, why I didn’t help, or show sympathy for him and that’s because he was always really kind of nasty with it all. He had an over estimated sense of achievement/entitlement. I know deep insecurity fuelled his sense of being better than other people, or than he was.

He used to hang around with us when we all did drugs in the 90s in the party scene, and not really trying to be mean about it, but we are/were all the good looking successful ones and he wasn’t successful, or good looking. And you know, eventually, he was kind of nasty and bitter about it, as I guess you might well be.

He did once have a heart of gold, once, but that was a long time ago. He used to be fun and funny, albeit in the self deprecating kind, but that person left us a long time ago.

You know, Tom used to keep him in line, but Tom has been dead for a long time now.

The last I really heard about Dante was that he was going nowhere really fast, in poverty on welfare, in the outer suburbs.

So, I’ve just heard about him from my buddy, Kim, that Dante's parents died and left all of their money to his sister, so Dante contested the will and you know the courts are sympathetic towards no hopers with no means of support, and he something like a million dollars from their estate. So he bought himself a house in the leafy outer suburbs and a convertible Mercedes.

And what would I say to him if I saw him, well done Dante your life is an absolute shit show, but at least you’ve got a convertible Mercedes, well done. I would probably add dickhead in my mind. Too mean? Oh yes, too mean, I know, but this is a downward spiralling saga that has been going on for years, we all can't help but feel, What has he done now?

I told David. His first reaction was, "I thought she was dead." Actually, that might have been my first reaction, David is usually nicer than that.

But, we both laughed when I said, "She'll have lost the lot in 5 years."

"Two years," said David.

Just reminiscing, that's all. Water under the bridge, as they say. Dante is never going to contact me again, I think that is long since passed. So, none of this really matters anymore. It was just that Kim gave me the update, and you know I use this blog as a kind of journal.

It's just interesting what people do, how they lead their lives, don't you think?