My Old Mate Dante

I heard about my mate, Dante. It has been a while.

His life went to shit, poor Dante.

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

There were bankrupt businesses. 

Then there was unemployment. 

Then he seemed to live off the charity of friends

There’s been drug taking, with bad health outcomes, followed by more drug taking.

He dealt drugs, got busted, surprise, surprise, which very nearly ended in jail time. 

Possibly, the poor health outcomes got him out of that.

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

His parents disowned him.

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? Well, he was always really kind of nasty with it all. He had an over estimated sense of self. I know. There must be deep insecurity fuelling that

He used to hang around with us when we all partied back when, in the good old days of the party scene. And I'm not really trying to be mean about it all, but we are/were all the good looking, successful ones and, well, he wasn’t. And you know, eventually, he was kind of nasty and bitter about it, you know.

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

You know, Tom used to keep him in line, but Tom has been dead for a long time now. You know, Tom would still be there for him, if he was still here.

I can hear Tom's reaction now, "He's a sister."

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

So, I’ve just heard about him from my buddy, Kim. Dante's parents died and left all of their money to his sister, Magella, so Dante contested the will and you know the courts are sympathetic towards no hopers with no means of support, and he got something over 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 

Good job, Dante, you’ve got yourself a convertible. 

I told David. His first reaction was, 

"I thought she was dead."

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 became persona non grata long ago. My mate Robert once said, "That's because you are handsome and successful." Shrug.

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?

The final words go to Kim. 

“I’m not going to contact him,” said Kim. “I don’t have a million dollar house, and he’d just laud it over me, you know what he is like.”