Ditch
March 31, 2025 at 10:36PMM.D. McIntyre returns to Bismarck, North Dakota, to attend the funeral of her friend Justin, a man who died of a fentanyl overdose. There, she attempts to reconcile the distance between someone she’d been close to and partied with in high school, and the man who continued to use drugs because he couldn’t imagine a different life for himself. This is a stunning essay about confines—those of a small town and those we inadvertently put around ourselves.
Justin sent me a picture of himself about a year before he died. It was an unseasonably warm October night, and I had just been to see a band we both loved. We stayed up until 4 AM talking on the phone about music and writing and books. I made my usual pitch, told him I thought he should move across the country, go anywhere. He treated the idea like it was more impossible now than ever. I asked if he would at least come to my wedding in a few months. He waffled. Money this, life that. But, “sure, send the invitation.” I knew he wasn’t going to come.
While we were talking, he sent me a selfie. In the photo his arms were still thin and willowy. There was no waffled undershirt, no soft flannel, none of the leather of his youth. Just tracks on white skin, the same arm that once hung out the window of his red Oldsmobile, waving a cigarette as he’d smiled and said, “Get in!” His breath a cloud in the cool night air. His eyes full of anticipation.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/03/31/ditch/
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