brief, but terrifying

the version of cheetah i got back was flying higher than i’ve seen him since denver

i didn’t usually see him in the thick of most of his trips there. generally if i came to town it was after, when he was coming back down and needed help putting himself together again. i can only recall one time when i went over to take care of him and he was about this current level of fucked up

last week sometime he mentioned his guy had ‘points,’ that is, needles for injecting. i think here in town he’s only been smoking his dope before now, but i’m guessing he got into it the other way again this time

anyway, that was thursday morning. he’d snuck back in already before i woke, and was laying in his bed when i got up about eight. i asked how he was doing and he softly replied that he’d screwed up again. i agreed, and went back to my room

we didn’t interact again the entire rest of the day. i went past a couple times to go to the bathroom, and he was always laying in bed. sometimes he was buried under the covers, sometimes inside his hoodie. sometimes with his phone, sometimes without. i even dorked in the kitchen a little bit, twice, just to give a chance to interact, but he gave me no sign he wanted any attention, so i went back to my room and left him to it

i honestly don’t think he moved from that spot all day

friday morning i woke early and started some last packing. chee was in his bed and i asked if he’d gotten any sleep at all. he made a non-committal reply. i asked if he was going to try work that day. he waffled on that too. i said unless he needed me for something specific, my truck was already mostly packed, and i was going to just keep with my original plan of going up to my cabin

that had been the plan before, and he knew it, so he might be upset he’s being left, but it shouldn’t be a surprise

we end up almost arguing anyway. he’s high as fuck and inquisitive and can’t rally any emotions and expects me to be the same, while he otherwise challenges me on shit that matters, like the core structures of our relationship

as i’m leaving, he says something sarcastic and biting about my vacation. i object to the term at the moment, but by the time i get up here i realize he was right: gods alive, i needed a vacation

sure, i’m working on things. managed to write several chapters, and even finished the second to last story arc in my novel! but it’s a vacation because it’s removed from the anxiety of what day-to-day life has been like lately

i had to finish the trip up here by snowshoe. i left my truck just inside the property line because the snow drifts were getting too tall. it’s absolutely rushing the season to be here, but it’s the first time in three months i’ve made it, and i couldn’t be happier for it

look at me, wandering around and getting exercise. working on mechanical systems. taking pictures of scenery. acting like i give a shit about something! it’s incredible

it’s the rollercoaster that gets me. i keep using that word in this journal. i can handle a lot of crazy, but that he keeps presenting a totally different set of attitudes toward me every few days seems to be past my level of being able to handle. one day he’ll be loving and snuggly, and literally two days later he can’t stand to be in the same room as me. the day after he’s high. the day after that he wants to argue about how to fix our relationship

around sunset i snowshoed to the top of the hill and was staring down at the town. i sent a picture of it to cheetah to let him know i was thinking of him. he sent back a depressed reply. i replied that i love him, also said that i’m struggling a lot, and that both can be true at once

he replied back he didn’t want to talk about it because that would be conflict

saturday i kept meaning to message him, but i never quite did

it’s now sunday morning. i was again planning on messaging him a little later, asking how he was doing and wishing him well sort of stuff. he saved me the effort by calling me though

when the phone rings theres this moment i stare at it and consider, do i really want to face this?

but he is my cheetah still, so i give in and answer

instead of a hello, he starts out by demanding to know what i did to the furnace

apparently, i, my fox, and my “other friend” came into the house, and threw some asbestos or something into the furnace and it’s now been blowing all over the house?

i try to tell him that makes no sense. for one thing, i’m stuck up here. the roads never froze last night, i couldn’t make it out if i had to. fox is in dallas for a convention. i didn’t even poke at the issue of who my “other friend” was

i tried to claim the furnace was working fine when i left two days ago. he contradicts that too, and goes back to saying i stuffed something in it

i try not to argue about who did it, or even when it happened, but point out again i’m totally stuck up here. per the weather forecast, it’s probably several days before i can make it down again. whatever has gone wrong, he’s going to have to handle it without me

he goes on that this is all against him. he’ll handle it, but he’ll be sick, and it’s because i won’t do anything to help him. he’s also really upset that i don’t respect reality is as he says it is

truly, through the short call, i feel he’s a lot more bothered that i won’t believe i was the one who did this than he is about the actual this of the thing that’s supposedly broken

when he’s going on again about responsibilities and how i’m not taking care of him right, i finally just hang up. he calls right back and i send it to voicemail

that voicemail is 47 seconds long. he goes on for a while about how he’s been in situations like this before, and the people who do this kind of stuff are malicious, and they don’t care about how much they hurt him, or drive him insane, they just are out for as much retribution as possible. his tone gets sarcastic then, and says that he knows i’m not part of it, but he knows i also wouldn’t have any misgivings if he got hurt. he’s going on more about it not being a safe place when he seems to hang up on himself in the middle of a thought

that’s one of the weirdest parts of cheetah’s drug trips – how much he believes there is some grand conspiracy in the world just to toy with him, to string him along and throw “unrealistic shit” at him, to borrow his usual term, for reasons he never seems to explain

everybody is in on this

one time he told me how his new mexico friend drove all day to denver just to crash a random dinner cheetah was at with his coworkers and throw humiliating accusations at him, before driving back home later the same night and disavowing the whole thing. chee was looking up hours of travel on the map and showing me the guy’s work schedule and vehemently tried to argue it was possible, and thus it did happen

many times he’s told me of the vehicles that follow him. he’s not really followed in normal days, but put amphetamines in his blood and suddenly vehicles, often belonging to people he knows, will pass him every few minutes, back and forth, all night long, tracking him, wherever he goes

drones get involved in it sometimes, and whole lots and lots of random people who just happen to be there, where they are, specifically to observe cheetah and report on what he’s doing, or sometimes even toy with him for the organization

the amount of money it would take to run an operation the size he believes in is massive, like we’re talking on the level of world governments. and it only happens when he’s high, or about to be high, and in fact a large part of the conspiracy is to get and keep him high, because of very logical reasons that he never explains

this is the first time he’s ever blatantly accused me of being part of the conspiracy. i mean, we both knew he believes i’m part of it, though he’s usually tried to avoid saying so. he’s definitely mentioned my truck was following him before. but he’s never before told me i was there in person, messing with him

i wonder what i’ll actually find when i make it down there later this week? i wonder what asbestos blowing through the house actually means?

i wonder if cheetah will manage to burn my house down before then?

he’s never been that destructive ever before, but the last two months have been filled with many firsts. i have to recognize that it could happen

i mean, clearly he’s utterly falling apart. a month and a half ago i started this journal because i felt he had stopped acting rationally. it also feels like the roller coaster has been generally more downhill than uphill ever since

what in all the hells am i actually supposed to do here?

every third day i’m not welcome in his life. he’ll insult everything i hold dear just to take out anger on me. he’s demonstrated a willingness to beat the shit out of me if i stand up for myself when he gets in the mood to hurt. he’s been doing dope every ten days or so, except this last time when it was seven, and he did more than ever. right now he’s flat out hallucinating that i’m throwing chemical attacks at him

what in all the bleeding hells am i supposed to do here?

for now, i think i’m going to hang out right where i am and watch the clouds play over the mountains. i mean, i kind of gave myself no choice on this, and got myself trapped here by the weather for a while. there’s no way in the world i could pretend this part was an accident