"1968" Revisited

[Mark Arbour]

Adam Phillips, of Cross Currents and It Started With Brian fame, is one of my best e-friends. God I love that guy. Anyway, he's been busting my balls about 1968 for a while now, and recently started an interesting discussion about it on his yahoo group. I thought I'd post some of the posts here, just in case you're interested.

 

From Adam:

 

 

I've mentioned to this group that I was going to be working hard to get caught up on Mark Arbour's stories. ADD-ridden as I am, I was losing track of characters that traveled from one novel to the next and that was irritating me, so I decided to start over and take notes on the characters.

 

I find myself in his second novel, 1968, again, and it's not so much his story as my reactions that have struck me this time around. So I want to talk about me. I want to be clear that this is about me, and not really about the merit of Mark's story. Because I'm puzzled by me and by the intensity of my reaction to the story.

 

I told him I'd be sending him a little recap at the end of each novel because I'd neglected his stuff for so long. I also mentioned that since it was already more-than-well- communicated that I didn't care for what he did in 1968, I wouldn't be wicked in my response.

 

But...

 

And see, I'm honestly not seeking to be wicked here...but.. .

 

Damn. I'm going through the story again...and. ..just... auggghh.

 

It's not that the story's poorly-written. I think I could almost bear that. The writing's actually quite good. I want to be absolutely clear that I'm not slamming Mark's writing ability. Far from it. Bad writers don't rile me up like this.

 

It's that the story itself is ugly. It's mean, and it's callous, and the protagonist and his character are in this novel utterly reprehensible and utterly without humanity. And we're supposed to like this guy.

 

The story is emotionally devastating to me. I can hardly get through it. And it finally struck me not to rake Arbour over the coals for it anymore--especially since I love Mark madly--but to concede that my reaction is really much more about me than it is about his story. And that's what I felt like posting about. Because honestly, this thing really f**ks me up.

 

I find myself wondering how other people react to the story and I find myself not trusting my own emotional responses. I walk away from this thing feeling awful. It puts me in a horrible mood and makes me feel bad about the world and even about myself.

 

Why? Why do I give a damn what an author does with a couple of fictional characters in a fictional universe?

 

I wish I knew the answer to that. Because my emotional response to the story--the intense negativity, the anger, the sorrow, the bitterness-- is way, way over the top. Jesus; it's a f**kin Gayauthors story, it's not exactly mayhem in Afghanistan or murder in South Dallas. I mean, for godsake. Who gives a f**k, and why should I?

 

I'm thinking in some way this has to do with my own life somehow. But it has me a little mystified. For some reason Jeff is a character I care deeply for...more than any of the other characters that have populated Mark's fictional universe at this point in the story. And I think maybe I could handle watching the guy self-destruct. ..though, given my love for the character it would be difficult... but what really drives me nuts is the protagonist' s reactions. JP's ugly, shallow, callow narcissism throws me into a literal rage as I read. His man...the love of his life...is drowning, and he seems mainly to be bothered by the inconvenience and the pain he's going through. Oh, and also distracted by the new piece of ass he's found, a piece of ass that mainly renders Jeff so much baggage to be jettisoned. I find myself hating JP, and I find myself loathing his new boy-toy, and the sex scenes between the two of them leave me utterly cold. Dead-feeling. They don't feel erotic to me. They feel depressing.

 

It's one of the weirdest reading experiences I've ever had. I wish I understood what was going on with me with this story.

 

Ugh.

 

I think in a perverse sort of way, Mark should consider all this a pretty high compliment. His characters came to life for me. Vividly. In such a manner that they make me see red. And I've read beyond 1968, so I know that subsequent novels kind of settle me down and get me actually enjoying things again. I just keep telling myself that I only have 9 chapters to go, then I can move along to the other novels, some of which I've read and which don't leave me feeling so awful.

 

But I gotta tell you...it's like I'm gonna have to read something else, or listen to some music, or have sex, or something, tonight before I go to bed, because right now, I feel just awful. And I'm not even at the really bad stuff yet. I'm only just done with Chapter 6. The truly devastating stuff is yet to come.

 

Other readers of this story, am I totally out to lunch and pathological on this? I'm at a loss to understand the violence of my response to this story.

 

--Adam

 

 

 

My thoughts:

 

 

 

Wow. That has to be the most flattering review I've ever gotten. I guess as a writer in this genre, I hope that what I put out there has some entertainment value for people, but to have someone like you, who I respect to an almost obscene degree, have such a strong reaction, well, it's like a major achievement. Like I figured out how to hit your prostate just right or something.

 

More than any story in the CAP saga, 1968 is dominated by history. And it's a mean, callous, awful, horrible year. I wove the story around as many of the major events as I could, but there were so many, it was tough to do. Think about that year. Revolutions in France; the Prague Spring (crushed by the Soviets); Vietnam at it's peak, with the TET offensive and the My Lai massacre; Student riots on university campuses around the country; Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated; and there was a massive police riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, just to name a few. Things were so f**ked up I keep thinking "W" was president, but he was too busy dodging the draft. There wasn't a lot of gleeful news, and it seems to me to be pretty dark. It was inevitable that the story reflected that, at least if I was going to make it include all that history.

 

When I started writing 1968, I didn't plan to kill off Jeff, but his demise became inevitable. JP was a really shallow character, with very little emotional depth. He needed Jeff's death to haunt him, to shake him from his complacency and act as an irritant, something to constantly make him question himself and his actions. Grappling with that would take him into 1980, in Be Rad, and probably beyond, until he could get some peace. How horrible would it be to live with yourself, thinking that you could have done more, and maybe saved someone you loved? How horrible to have his death on your hands? How hard would you have to work, and what would you have to do to atone for that? I'm not sure if I pulled that off later on in the saga, but that was what was on my mind.

 

I think I felt some of that guilt too, since I seemed to subconsciously try and recreate him in later books, although I never could quite do it. Guys that reminded me of him, like Roger and Robbie, were different enough to not be clones, but they lacked the same essence that he had. Although Robbie has grown on me. Then again, I did kill off Jeff's son in Be Rad. Sigh. It happens in a soap opera.

 

Anyway, I'm glad it had an impact. I hope you get beyond that. Land Whore is a lighter read, but I like the two after that (Be Rad and Man in Motion). I hope you do too.

 

 

 

Sharon weighs in:

 

 

 

 

I think what most people overlook with 1968 is the time period before the story actually opens. We, the readers, get just a small glimpse in the opening paragraphs of Jeff's nine-month long descent into addiction and JP's inability to prevent that descent. Jeff, everyone's golden boy, did not just fall off his pedestal; he jumped of his own volition. JP picked him up, dried him out, kept him out of jail, covered for him, provided excuses for him repeatedly ,and Jeff couldn't or wouldn't help himself.

 

Readers tend to focus on the `couple' in a story; everything else is relegated to the peripheral. However, Jeff and JP weren't just a couple, they were part of a family unit. So at what point do you step back and say that the `couple' relationship is no longer viable and is becoming a danger to the family unit? Is there a specified time frame? Do you wait until a strung-out Jeff harms one of your children? Just how far down was JP expected to let Jeff pull their family? Why is JP the bad guy here?

 

Jeff had every opportunity handed to him and he consistently blew them off. I never, ever read JP as shallow or callous with regard to Jeff. I believe he just reached the point where for his own sanity and the safety of his family, he had to say enough is enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Adam Phillips]

Okay, Sharon, you know I love ya too, but I beg to differ. There's a point at which, in drug addiction, questions of volition and free will, in my opinion, are really irrelevant. Of course Jeff made those decisions himself. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him into drugs. But the pernicious thing about drug addiction is that at a certain point it co-opts your will. And given Jeff's background, you know he's damaged goods already, just ripe for the pickings. That he was born into the family he was born into was not his fault. JP, the child of privilege, appears to be utterly unable to appreciate the gravity of Jeff's predicament except insofar as it inconveniences him. And as far as danger to the family, at what point has Jeff's presence with any of the family members ever stood as a threat? Best I can tell, when Jeff's at his worst, he stays away from the kids. And even he were a threat, does that justify seeking to exterminate him? And as for your "at what point"questions, I'll throw it right back at you: At what point do you decide it's okay to give up on someone you've committed to spend your life with? At what point do his personal problems become larger than your commitment to stand by him? I think that's not a question with an easy answer, and anybody who's ever had drug addiction problems in their family knows that it's an intensely personal question with answers that can't be set in stone ahead of time. But, well beyond Chapter 6, I think JP shows his true colors in this thing's ugly denouement. Surely you wouldn't commend that solution--which, as far as I'm concerned, is sociopathic, self-serving, and not even recognizably human--to family members as a Final Solution to the "inconvenience" of being saddled with a dangerous drug addict, would you? God help us all if that's what "family" is all about.

[paya]

Well... if I may add my impression of the story... For me the main shock came with the first paragraphs. I couldn't grasp how a man, an intelligent one, in a loving relationship with family and kids, could have got on drugs. I need to rationally understand the story I'm reading, even if there are emotions and all (and I think I can be pretty emotional about some stories...) to really accept the story my brain has to confirm "yes, that's possible". So my major objection against that story was "Why it had to be Jeff to be written as a crackhead?" There was plenty of secondary characters to write off, why it had to be one of THE couple? Once I got over the fact that Jeff became just by a turn of a page (and sort of in five years) a heavy drug addict, it was obvious for me that he's going to end up badly. In fact, making Jeff a drug addict was such an impulse for me that I came out from being an anonymous reader and asked at your yahoo group why did you do that! In general, 1968 didn't have such bad impact on me - mainly because I knew what's going to happen (I got it in the answers to my question) and I could prepare myself for that and I loosened my attachment to that character, to be prepared to let him go. In other cases however I'm a similar case like Adam, I get too attached to the characters and don't want them hurt (or dead :wacko:)

 

Side note: so "Robbie has grown on you", huh? So why are you making him such a whiner in the last stories - and mainly in the Box, huh?! You're mean to him!

 

To polemicize with Sharon's point: JP is the bad guy here because you just don't throw the member of your family overboard. This is of course only my opinion and of course I may be naive because I didn't go through any such period in my life (lucky me!) but you just don't do that. Not in 1960s. I'm not defending Jeff and what he did to JP in Paris, I'm aware of the fact that drugs change people. To get to my objection to the story, JP's main fault was he let Jeff get to the state where he couldn't be helped any more. We of course can argue what else JP could/might/should have done, but I don't want to divert this discussion, moreover we really don't know what JP did during those years 1966-8 when Jeff started to experiment with drugs if I remember correctly.

 

And because I like to oppose myself (it has indisputable advantages - e.g. I can have arguments with myself... ) I admit that people divorce, people say "that's enough, go away", hell people even kill their partners if they become inconvenient... so in fact, I really don't know. I can't stand up to defend JP for what he did or better said for what he didn't do... but on the other hand to blame ONLY him... that would be unjust as well.

 

 

 

Edit: And while I was typing this long exposé (I really didn't mean it to be that long), Adam has already answered to what Sharon's saying and sort of expressed in better way my "You don't throw a member of your family overboard." You wouldn'd do it to your son,why do it to his father?

 

 

Edited March 22, 2010 by paya

[sat8997]

Okay, Sharon, you know I love ya too, but I beg to differ. There's a point at which, in drug addiction, questions of volition and free will, in my opinion, are really irrelevant. Of course Jeff made those decisions himself. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him into drugs. But the pernicious thing about drug addiction is that at a certain point it co-opts your will. And given Jeff's background, you know he's damaged goods already, just ripe for the pickings. That he was born into the family he was born into was not his fault. JP, the child of privilege, appears to be utterly unable to appreciate the gravity of Jeff's predicament except insofar as it inconveniences him. And as far as danger to the family, at what point has Jeff's presence with any of the family members ever stood as a threat? Best I can tell, when Jeff's at his worst, he stays away from the kids. And even he were a threat, does that justify seeking to exterminate him? And as for your "at what point"questions, I'll throw it right back at you: At what point do you decide it's okay to give up on someone you've committed to spend your life with? At what point do his personal problems become larger than your commitment to stand by him? I think that's not a question with an easy answer, and anybody who's ever had drug addiction problems in their family knows that it's an intensely personal question with answers that can't be set in stone ahead of time. But, well beyond Chapter 6, I think JP shows his true colors in this thing's ugly denouement. Surely you wouldn't commend that solution--which, as far as I'm concerned, is sociopathic, self-serving, and not even recognizably human--to family members as a Final Solution to the "inconvenience" of being saddled with a dangerous drug addict, would you? God help us all if that's what "family" is all about.

 

I'm sorry. Could someone please point out the section of 1968 where JP called for, agreed to, participated in, the extermination of Jeff? I seem to be unable to find anything referencing that particular idea.

[Adam Phillips]

I've just read Chapter 9; I didn't really remember this chapter and its relevance to the whole story. Jeff's emotional indiscretion with Stefan is certainly a complicating factor, and it's difficult to fault JP for feeling emotionally betrayed. I'm not sure that you as an author have me convinced, Mark, that Jeff would have actually been torn emotionally between JP and Stefan. That strains credulity just a bit, given that there hasn't been much of an indication that anyone but JP is Jeff's emotional anchor. To me, the fact that Jeff didn't want to see JP while he was in treatment but was willing to see Stefan was testimony to how important the relationship with JP was to him...he wanted to get it right on his own so he could be worthy of JP and strong enough to stand with him.

 

However, if I'm going to buy into your premise, I'll go ahead and pull back from my conviction that JP is totally at fault here. As for what ultimately happens, well, I don't think there's anything that can redeem that scene for me, but I suppose JP's reaction to Jeff's emotional indecisiveness at this point is natural and understandable enough.

 

I still don't like Sam, though.

 

--Adam

[Adam Phillips]

I'm sorry. Could someone please point out the section of 1968 where JP called for, agreed to, participated in, the extermination of Jeff? I seem to be unable to find anything referencing that particular idea.

 

Lord. Why bring up facts at a time like this? I'll deal with you later. Once I've made it to the chapter in question and managed to figure out how to hold JP responsible.

[paya]

I've just read Chapter 9; I didn't really remember this chapter and its relevance to the whole story. Jeff's emotional indiscretion with Stefan is certainly a complicating factor, and it's difficult to fault JP for feeling emotionally betrayed. I'm not sure that you as an author have me convinced, Mark, that Jeff would have actually been torn emotionally between JP and Stefan. That strains credulity just a bit, given that there hasn't been much of an indication that anyone but JP is Jeff's emotional anchor. To me, the fact that Jeff didn't want to see JP while he was in treatment but was willing to see Stefan was testimony to how important the relationship with JP was to him...he wanted to get it right on his own so he could be worthy of JP and strong enough to stand with him.

 

However, if I'm going to buy into your premise, I'll go ahead and pull back from my conviction that JP is totally at fault here. As for what ultimately happens, well, I don't think there's anything that can redeem that scene for me, but I suppose JP's reaction to Jeff's emotional indecisiveness at this point is natural and understandable enough.

 

I still don't like Sam, though.

 

--Adam

 

I think that happens when you really love them - you don't want to see you in that bad state you are - it may happen also after some major surgery, etc.

[paya]

Lord. Why bring up facts at a time like this? I'll deal with you later. Once I've made it to the chapter in question and managed to figure out how to hold JP responsible.

 

Well he knew what happened... Or at least he had that suspicion. His brain is logical. He deduced Sam could have met Jeff in the time of his death and that he could be somehow involved. For me it was also "enough is enough" as Sharon said. JP just resigned to do anything about Jeff anymore.

 

 

BUT! I blame Mark! He's the author, so he decides how it goes. He needed JP to lose somebody as close to him as Jeff was, so he just did it. You can blame JP, you can blame Jeff, Sam, whoever you want, it won't resurrect Jeff, nor it will change anything else. 1968 is a very emotional story, one that is hard to grasp rationally. I've read it once because I had to go through it and I'm not planning to do it ever again. I just don't like that one.

Edited March 22, 2010 by paya

[Tiger]

Jeff was a complicated character. I don't like what happened to him. I don't think placing blame on JP is fair though. He is flawed. But why wouldn't he be? His father was a cold-hearted bastard. His brother was an asshole. His mother was a whore. What about that household suggests that JP would be "normal"?

[paya]

Jeff was a complicated character. I don't like what happened to him. I don't think placing blame on JP is fair though. He is flawed. But why wouldn't he be? His father was a cold-hearted bastard. His brother was an asshole. His mother was a whore. What about that household suggests that JP would be "normal"?

 

[Hermetically Sealed]

You know, I never understood the way people blamed JP for acting the way he did in 1968. I guess it stems from the fact that I watched my sister do the same thing as Jeff for the last 30 years of her life. Not only did she ruin her own life, she ruined the childhoods of her three boys. She has been in rehab several times, some by her own choice, others because she was threatened with jail. It is extremely taxing on everyone involved in that person's life. The stealing, the lying, the extreme mood changes, violent outbursts and general unpredictable behavior, it all eats away at the feeling you have for them. And the sad fact is, they won't get better unless they want to, and sometimes, even not then. There is a point when you have to say, enough is enough. Sometimes not for their benefit, but for your own.

 

I honestly sympathized wholeheartedly with JP in that story because I have seen for myself what he went through with Jeff. I love my sister but if she were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't question it, nor would I be sad. I'd be relieved, as would everyone else in the family, including her own children. I'm not happy about that, and I'm not proud. It's merely the truth.

[Hoskins]

Speaking purely as a person who has been an addicted person and who's been around a lot of people dealing with it for most of my adult life, I see JP's role in 1968 as being completely fed up with trying to fix this guy.

 

There comes a point in an addiction where the people around the addict realize that no matter what they do, it won't be enough to save them. Not if the addict doesn't want their help. I've been on both sides of this - as the addict and as the family member. JP is, through most of the story, on a knife edge about what to do with Jeff, and when he finally commits to the idea that Jeff can't be helped, it's devastating.

 

If you haven't been around this, it's hard to understand, but believe me, there does come a point when it's no longer about "saving" the addict, it's about saving yourself FROM them.

 

I think Mark caught these moments perfectly.

[Hermetically Sealed]

If you haven't been around this, it's hard to understand, but believe me, there does come a point when it's no longer about "saving" the addict, it's about saving yourself FROM them.

 

I think Mark caught these moments perfectly.

 

This. Completely, and utterly this.

[Mark Arbour]

Well... if I may add my impression of the story... For me the main shock came with the first paragraphs. I couldn't grasp how a man, an intelligent one, in a loving relationship with family and kids, could have got on drugs. I need to rationally understand the story I'm reading, even if there are emotions and all (and I think I can be pretty emotional about some stories...) to really accept the story my brain has to confirm "yes, that's possible". So my major objection against that story was "Why it had to be Jeff to be written as a crackhead?" There was plenty of secondary characters to write off, why it had to be one of THE couple? Once I got over the fact that Jeff became just by a turn of a page (and sort of in five years) a heavy drug addict, it was obvious for me that he's going to end up badly. In fact, making Jeff a drug addict was such an impulse for me that I came out from being an anonymous reader and asked at your yahoo group why did you do that! In general, 1968 didn't have such bad impact on me - mainly because I knew what's going to happen (I got it in the answers to my question) and I could prepare myself for that and I loosened my attachment to that character, to be prepared to let him go. In other cases however I'm a similar case like Adam, I get too attached to the characters and don't want them hurt (or dead :wacko:)

 

Side note: so "Robbie has grown on you", huh? So why are you making him such a whiner in the last stories - and mainly in the Box, huh?! You're mean to him!

 

To polemicize with Sharon's point: JP is the bad guy here because you just don't throw the member of your family overboard. This is of course only my opinion and of course I may be naive because I didn't go through any such period in my life (lucky me!) but you just don't do that. Not in 1960s. I'm not defending Jeff and what he did to JP in Paris, I'm aware of the fact that drugs change people. To get to my objection to the story, JP's main fault was he let Jeff get to the state where he couldn't be helped any more. We of course can argue what else JP could/might/should have done, but I don't want to divert this discussion, moreover we really don't know what JP did during those years 1966-8 when Jeff started to experiment with drugs if I remember correctly.

 

And because I like to oppose myself (it has indisputable advantages - e.g. I can have arguments with myself... ) I admit that people divorce, people say "that's enough, go away", hell people even kill their partners if they become inconvenient... so in fact, I really don't know. I can't stand up to defend JP for what he did or better said for what he didn't do... but on the other hand to blame ONLY him... that would be unjust as well.

 

 

 

Edit: And while I was typing this long expos

[Adam Phillips]

I started this whole damn thread, or rather a thread I started at my Yahoo group started this. I hadn't intended to belabor the issue. I already bashed Mark enough for it the first time I'd read through the story and he and I have been e-buds for years. I was just trying to get current on his writing because his output is so hard for me to keep up with, and I realized that to have any sense of what was going on in future stories I'd have to start from the beginning of the Cramptonworld series. I knew 1968 would be tough on me, but I was already hard enough on Mark about it the first time around. I figured I'd just bear up, grit my teeth, and get through it and on to the next "novel" in the series.

 

But it effed me up (it's so ridiculous that we have to censor ourselves at this place) again, as badly as it did the first time, and quite frankly I was mystified about why my reaction was so strong, and so strongly negative. I'll concede that I have no experience of dealing with people who are decades-long addicts, and I "hear" and register the words some of you write about the toll that addiction takes on non-addicts in the family. I hardly think that makes JP a much more redeeming character, and personally I think Sam's intent to go murder Jeff, and his decision to let a deranged person make a life-and-death decision, and to sit idly by while his life slips away, doing nothing, is reprehensible, if not criminal.

 

However, as I was forced to concede by a near-lifelong friend at my own group (damn his sorry ass!), the extremes of my reaction come from some of my own personal history with a personal friend, who experienced nothing like what Jeff experienced, but who was a football player himself and who had a horrible childhood trauma. I hadn't even considered the relevance of all that to my reaction to Jeff's pitiful end. It's not only Jeff I'm seeing there circling the drain and finally slipping through, and that's why it's especially horrifying to me.

 

Anyway, it's time for me to get on to The Land Whore if I have any hope of getting current with his stuff any time soon. Sorry to have distracted the lot of you. I know that for you the story's over and done. And it really was my personal hangup much more than Mark's viciousness as an author.

 

Nevertheless, I still wish he would have had Sam raped with a broken baseball bat and given JP AIDS and had him die a miserable, excruciatingly painful death. Alone. I would have enjoyed every grisly scene.

 

--Adam P

[methodwriter85]

Talking to Adam online about this, I realized what bothered me about this.

 

I've been around addicts in some way, shape, or form in my life. And people talking about their own experiences confirmed it to me...

 

The thing is...Jeff's downward spiral felt too abrupt for me. Yes, I know that there was an 9-month period before the story opens. And he's dead by June or July. That means it's about a year-and-half that Jeff goes from beginning to use drugs, to developing a habit, and then just giving up. That doesn't ring true for me- I feel like it takes more than just about 18 months for anyone to get to that point.

 

Barring an accidential overdose, most drug addicts don't check out in so little a timespan like that. Drug addiction tends to be longer and more spread out, with a lot more peaks and valleys than the one we got with Jeff.

 

Jeff giving up like that would have rang true to me if it had been more like a 5 or 10-year struggle. I think that's what didn't ring true for me.

[Adam Phillips]

Talking to Adam online about this, I realized what bothered me about this.

 

 

 

Barring an accidential overdose, most drug addicts don't check out in so little a timespan like that. Drug addiction tends to be longer and more spread out, with a lot more peaks and valleys than the one we got with Jeff.

 

Jeff giving up like that would have rang true to me if it had been more like a 5 or 10-year struggle. I think that's what didn't ring true for me.

 

Yeah, but when your creator is effing determined to kill you off, little things like realism don't matter. It's a hard Calvinist universe in here, Jeremy, and the God of Cramptonworld elected that Jeff Should Die. You and I, we gotta get with the program and eat the troubling details.

[Adam Phillips]

Okay, I'm done with all this. Sorry for the distraction, ladies and gents. I love Mark madly and at this point I'm just yankin his chain. I said my piece and I'm ready to get on to the next story in the set. I figure I'll be current by the middle of next month.

 

--Adam

[Mark Arbour]

Talking to Adam online about this, I realized what bothered me about this.

 

I've been around addicts in some way, shape, or form in my life. And people talking about their own experiences confirmed it to me...

 

The thing is...Jeff's downward spiral felt too abrupt for me. Yes, I know that there was an 9-month period before the story opens. And he's dead by June or July. That means it's about a year-and-half that Jeff goes from beginning to use drugs, to developing a habit, and then just giving up. That doesn't ring true for me- I feel like it takes more than just about 18 months for anyone to get to that point.

 

Barring an accidential overdose, most drug addicts don't check out in so little a timespan like that. Drug addiction tends to be longer and more spread out, with a lot more peaks and valleys than the one we got with Jeff.

 

Jeff giving up like that would have rang true to me if it had been more like a 5 or 10-year struggle. I think that's what didn't ring true for me.

 

You think it was just drugs that drove him to kill himself? They were a catalyst. I would imagine, and I say that because I've never been seriously suicidal, that there is some rationality in the decision. I'm not saying it's a sane choice, I'm just saying there has to be a reason. If you look at Jeff's life, where he had cut himself off from the people who were important to him, irreparably ruined those relationships, and all he had left to make him happy was what came in a syringe, I'm not seeing where 2 years, 5 years, or 20 years makes any difference at all. He was living off money he had blackmailed out of his former partner, after blowing through money he'd stolen from his other former partner. And to stoop to that blackmail level, he had to sacrifice everything about himself that was important.

 

If he was just using drugs, if that was the only thing, then your point may make sense. But there's a lot more to destroying someone's psyche than time. Jeff wasn't that shallow. And I really don't see how it's possible to generalize about that. Just because some drug addicts go up and down for years doesn't mean they all do. Give me something beyond just the anecdotal, and I'll be more receptive to your theory.

[Tiger]

I find myself trying to remember what drugs he was using. Wasn't it pain killers? I doubt pain killers (except maybe dilaudid, morphine, and MSContin, the latter of which did not exist in 1968) could cause someone to fall quite that quickly. However, heroin and methamphetamine (again did not exist then) could cause someone go down hill that quickly. Those are some serious drugs. So while the idea that just pills would do that is far-fetched, the idea of someone dying so quickly from using certain drugs is not out of the question, especially when needles are involved. If someone could remind me what he was using it would help. I do remember him using the needle, but I'm trying to remember whether or not he was on heroin.

[Mark M]

hmmmmm the death of jeff did effect me greatly as i had a person in my life (not anyone to me but girlfriend of my best friend) who turned to drugs only as an option out of her bad....life to put it nicly. Her mom was divorces, raped, beated and everything as a child, then she and her mom took in my best friend because he was havin his family problems himself anyway. So because her mom got divorced her father was in the same town still(population maybe 2,000-4,000). So she had little friends as people were on his side rather then her mothers. Then she tried to control my friend by saying u can't talk to her can't do this and all that shit. Read his personal text messages (Which is another issue i can elaborate on if i'm asked) and always was drama. She tried ODing on drugs 3 or 4 times.....all times ending up in the hospital. So i realated Jeff too somewhat of my own personal experience, which made me hate him as a person to turn to drugs, but given all things said. I'm not Honestly Surprised.

 

I also Disagree with the probable time line. I believe the first attempt my Friends Girlfriend took about 14 months into the relation ship. And then it was about 4 more months untill they finaly were done just in last august. So Jeff ending up dead after 9 months i think is plausible.

 

Adam don't discredit yourself either! you were emotionaly Tramatized by the story which is definatly a high Paid Complement, Sadly Mark has only affected smiles of appreciation from me on most points, i've never really been completly emotionaly compromised on a spin he choose to take, People like "another person", Who u'll meet in Man in motion, and he's fun believe you me. I Never honestly Hated him but he was annoying. Sadly only one author has brought the Emotions out of me and that is to this day Vlista Sadly i wish i could talk to him and get him writing (Sorry Mark A) On a positive note Mark does have a quality that keeps Drawing me back, Be damned if i know what it is but i love it, as of right now in this point of my life he is my first choice for reading a story/chapter.

 

BTW i also hate the effing censorship on the site but what must be done for minor's!

 

-Mark M

 

P.S- Now that i'm done this i hope this is relavent to what i just read, Some of you have used big words to confuffle me a bit :S

[Mark Arbour]

I find myself trying to remember what drugs he was using. Wasn't it pain killers? I doubt pain killers (except maybe dilaudid, morphine, and MSContin, the latter of which did not exist in 1968) could cause someone to fall quite that quickly. However, heroin and methamphetamine (again did not exist then) could cause someone go down hill that quickly. Those are some serious drugs. So while the idea that just pills would do that is far-fetched, the idea of someone dying so quickly from using certain drugs is not out of the question, especially when needles are involved. If someone could remind me what he was using it would help. I do remember him using the needle, but I'm trying to remember whether or not he was on heroin.

 

It was primarily heroin, but when he was hospitalized in the beginning of 1968, they found PCP and LSD in his system as well.

[Mark Arbour]

hmmmmm the death of jeff did effect me greatly as i had a person in my life (not anyone to me but girlfriend of my best friend) who turned to drugs only as an option out of her bad....life to put it nicly. Her mom was divorces, raped, beated and everything as a child, then she and her mom took in my best friend because he was havin his family problems himself anyway. So because her mom got divorced her father was in the same town still(population maybe 2,000-4,000). So she had little friends as people were on his side rather then her mothers. Then she tried to control my friend by saying u can't talk to her can't do this and all that shit. Read his personal text messages (Which is another issue i can elaborate on if i'm asked) and always was drama. She tried ODing on drugs 3 or 4 times.....all times ending up in the hospital. So i realated Jeff too somewhat of my own personal experience, which made me hate him as a person to turn to drugs, but given all things said. I'm not Honestly Surprised.

 

I also Disagree with the probable time line. I believe the first attempt my Friends Girlfriend took about 14 months into the relation ship. And then it was about 4 more months untill they finaly were done just in last august. So Jeff ending up dead after 9 months i think is plausible.

 

Adam don't discredit yourself either! you were emotionaly Tramatized by the story which is definatly a high Paid Complement, Sadly Mark has only affected smiles of appreciation from me on most points, i've never really been completly emotionaly compromised on a spin he choose to take, People like "another person", Who u'll meet in Man in motion, and he's fun believe you me. I Never honestly Hated him but he was annoying. Sadly only one author has brought the Emotions out of me and that is to this day Vlista Sadly i wish i could talk to him and get him writing (Sorry Mark A) On a positive note Mark does have a quality that keeps Drawing me back, Be damned if i know what it is but i love it, as of right now in this point of my life he is my first choice for reading a story/chapter.

 

BTW i also hate the effing censorship on the site but what must be done for minor's!

 

-Mark M

 

P.S- Now that i'm done this i hope this is relavent to what i just read, Some of you have used big words to confuffle me a bit :S

 

Thanks for the kind words MM. And don't apologize, I like Vance's writing too, even though his stories leave me feeling unsettled.

[nightsky]

I just spent an unspeakable amount of time reading CAP and 1968 (thereby neglecting the mtn of work on my desk), so I can't read through this thread right now.

 

But I do want to comment that I cried, Mark. You made me cry, dammit!

 

Jeff. really? I mean, maybe if we had seen it coming, had some sort of inkling as to why a guy who seemed so centered, would go down that path? Sure, his parents were abusive, but he seemed to have dealt with that stuff even before college. So... how did he get so deep into the drugs? He was a character with so much integrity and I was very sad to see him go.

 

Why couldn't it have been...Jason? He got to the point where I thought he should die. (ok, yes yes. he had a horrible abusive history too... but sadistic bastard would've deserved it after what he did to Stefan).

 

Part of me is scared to read this entire thread b/c of spoilers to the rest of the story. I see I have a lot of reading to do here. It'll keep me engrossed as I wait (patiently?) for each chapter of Crosscurrents to be posted.

[Adam Phillips]

I just spent an unspeakable amount of time reading CAP and 1968 (thereby neglecting the mtn of work on my desk), so I can't read through this thread right now.

 

But I do want to comment that I cried, Mark. You made me cry, dammit!

 

Jeff. really? I mean, maybe if we had seen it coming, had some sort of inkling as to why a guy who seemed so centered, would go down that path? Sure, his parents were abusive, but he seemed to have dealt with that stuff even before college. So... how did he get so deep into the drugs? He was a character with so much integrity and I was very sad to see him go.

 

 

 

Indeed. And welcome to the Dark Side. Oh, and don't forget to bear a grudge or two hundred against Sam, the would-be murderer who chose to sit there and watch Jeff commit suicide. I was tempted to jump into the story, sorta like in that Stephen King short story (hell, I forget the title), and tell him, "What goes around comes around, bud," but not being the author I don't guess I'd be able to assure him of that.