This one time in Colombia, I buried a friend alive…
He was a good man. Tall and handsome, his piercing blue eyes made him no stranger to attention at any bar or night club. If you just took a quick look, you’d never guess that he could have children celebrating their 21st birthdays all over the world (although you might guess that he had 21-year-old girlfriends on all 7 continents).
The man who had it all
I spent a great deal of time with this man over the last 10 months; sometimes as a business partner, most times as a friend, and every so often as bait to approach a group of latino women.
Sure, we had our laughs and our fun, but there comes a time in every man’s life when he needs to take a stand. When he needs to take back what’s his and re-establish the alignment of power. Now, you see, this man I speak of was no ordinary man. This was a man a few years my senior. He was richer, wiser, smarter and faster* than me. He had more women, more clothes and significantly more Axe body spray than I ever could have imagined.
That’s just not me
He was generous with his time, yes. Trying to teach me how to charm women or trade stocks, but I could never quite learn. I wanted so badly to be like him, yet I was nothing like him. His methodologies seemed crazy and far-fetched. Approaching someone and saying hello? Ending every night with a few new contacts and 7-10 more Instagram followers? Grabbing someone by the back of their hair, leaning in real close, puckering up your lips and slitting their throat…? How would any of these things work?
As much as I tried, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t compete. They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery and they’re not wrong. But they also say that “if you can’t beat em, join em,” and that’s where they’re dead wrong.
If you can’t beat em, make em disappear
I don’t mind a little friendly competition. It often brings out the best in everyone having someone else there to raise the bar. And for awhile this works. You compete and you struggle and you push your limits past a point you ever thought possible. Except that there comes a time when the losing starts to wear on you. Where you can no longer come to grips with playing second fiddle and you have to act.
The man who had been like an uncle to me needed to be removed from the picture. There could only be one alpha dog and it was going to be me. So, one fateful Thursday night I decided it was time to make him disappear.
The burial
It all started with a casual dinner. Tacos and beers surrounded by a few close friends. We talked about work and women and where we’d be in five years time. Little did he know what was in store for him just around the corner. After discussing business for a bit longer we settled up the tab and headed on our way. I knew the exact moment I would pounce and make my move. We started walking up a nearby hill when “BAM!” I smacked him with a shovel that I had expertly placed within reach.
Groggy, but still conscious, I grabbed his limp body and carried him to a party bus. The bagpipes blared loudly, a staple of any Scottish funeral. From beneath the cocoa sack that had been placed over his head I heard him exclaim,
“Ryan, wait. You were dead. I saw you die!”
Confused as to why he thought I was dead when we just had dinner together, I responded, “I was faking. I used ninja focus to slow my heart rate down.”
I began to shower dirt over his cold body. Dressed in all black, a fitting wardrobe choice for the occasion, he began to disappear to the point where there was nothing left but his head. He shouted out in a panic, “What are you doing?!?”
To which I cooly replied, “I’m burying you.”
He proceeded to shout more loudly at this point, “I’m alive! I’m alive” Clearly unaware that his days were numbered.
To be honest, his struggle began to annoy me, and when someone starts shouting out “I’m alive! I’m alive!” in a Colombian neighborhood, a place rather well-known for it’s history of violence, you begin to raise some red flags.
I quickly nipped that in the bud, shouting even louder than his shout (it was always a competition till the very end), “You’re waking the neighbors! SHUT UP!”
Goodnight, sweet prince
The dirt continued to wash over him as he faded in and out of consciousness. I picked up a few muffled groans and I could have sworn he asked to have his Instagram handle put on his tombstone. The groans became fewer and farther between as I whispered in a hushed tone,
“Let the dirt just shower over you…”
He was completely buried at this point and the competition was all but over. At the end of the day, there could only be one and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him. Despite our differences, I was very sad to see him go, so we made sure to have a proper funeral in his honor. His closest friends all arrived wearing back. In lieu of flowers, they mostly brought Grey Goose and Whiskey. I stood over his grave and said a few words about what he had meant to me. When I was finished, the entire group took out their prayer cards and recited a revised Our Father as Despacito began to blare loudly over the sound system.
The celebration of his life raged on and as he would have wanted. A beautiful Colombian stripper danced over his dead body and the debate raged on into the wee hours of the morning whether he could still get a boner six feet under.
When all was finally quiet, and the rest of the crowd had gone home, I took a moment alone with my dear friend. I knelt before him and put my forehead to the earth and I whispered…
“Now I’m going to play the drumsticks.”
