James.

We pull up across the street from a small and rather ordinary house on a road off Habersham, deep into the north side of Savannah, Georgia. The porch is shrouded and covered in plants, with a screen door on one hinge and warm orange light coming through the cracks in the siding. James looks at it quietly for a moment, a cigarette burning under his nose. He looks down to pack a pipe full of weed, catching the mound with fire from a scratched lighter. It sends harsh shadows across his face, and I'm impressed he can smoke two things at once.

“Where are we?” I ask pleasantly enough. 

“This is the commune,” He replies curtly after a pause. “This is where I spent my time in high school.”

“How do you feel about it now?”

“I don’t,” he says decidedly, putting the shift in drive. We flick our cigarettes out the window and continue through the night. “Someone’s bought it since and fixed it up a decent amount, ‘know it doesn’t look like it, but it’s different now.”

“But how do you feel, James?” I don’t know if it’s wrong to ask. 

“I do not,” he says again, more gently than the first time, a watery film over his eyes. “There’s no one there I want to talk to anymore.” 

/ / /

It’s earlier in the night, about three hours before we arrived at the commune when James pulls up in the front of my house. I open the door to a gold 90’s Camry covered in pollen and find him beaming at me, cigarette in his mouth and joint in his hand. It smells like nicotine and weed, a signature cologne.

“Howdy, howdy!” He says warmly to me, his glasses glowing green from the dashboard lights as he hands me the joint to light.

“Hey, James,” I say, taking it with a smile. 

When I asked James if I could write a feature on the narrative of his life in high school, I had not thought that he would agree. He has not spoken much of his past in the year that I have known him, and rightfully so. But he did agree, and it was a pleasant surprise.

In his Sophomore year of high school, James fell into a group of kids tightly knit and fidgeting for trouble. They spent most of their time in a derelict house, under the supervision of a boy named Charles. He was supposedly handsome, charismatic, and patient, and the group of children gradually became more a commune than simple friends. 

A relatively small man, James stands at the middle of my face, a couple of inches shorter than six feet. He weighs just over a hundred pounds, with a pallor like snow and short black curls and black-rimmed glasses. He's monochromatic colorblind; I often forget, and though he says he never minds with a jovial laugh, I still feel bad. 

When I first met him, I had just started at a tourist shop downtown, and we were moving boxes together. We bonded over video games, movies, culture, and drugs, of course. I soon came to find he was one of the smartest people one could meet, that I had ever met. He taught me everything he knew about history, engineering, science, and guns — not to mention, he’s the most responsible gun owner I know and carries more knives on him than you’ll ever see.

So, when it came time for me to craft an interesting story, I knew that James was that story.

/ / /

“Are we ready to go?” I ask happily and somewhat anxiously. 

“Absolutely!” He replies kindly, pulling away down the street.

James was born in downtown Savannah, off Abercorn Street. His upbringing was relatively normal; he went to church, he spent his afternoons in the park, and his home life found little obstacles. Despite this, however, school was not kind to him. Middle school was particularly hard, as most of the children his age bullied him for no reason in the way that puberty entices them to. He attended Savannah Christian, a private school that isolated and troubled him to his core. James had a hard time connecting to his peers and struggled to find happiness in school. It wasn’t until he transferred to Memorial at the beginning of his sophomore year that he began to feel as though his niche in society existed.

“I remember the first day of school, no kids would sit with me at lunch, and none of them made an effort to talk to me in class or the halls,” He tells me, puffing on the joint lightly before passing it back. “It wasn’t until Charles sat down with me and a couple of other kids that anyone talked to me.”

Charles was the ring-leader of the group, and according to James, had a special charm about him. He was very easy to talk to, made you feel special, and supported you, all while coercing you to do things for him. “By Wednesday of that week, I was already at their house with them, and rather quickly after that did I become a core member of the group.”

/ / /

Before we go to the commune, James takes me to another part of Savannah he spent a lot of time in. Secluded in the East Side, Runaway Point is a neighborhood and community thickly laden with single-floor homes, winding roads, cul-de-sacs, gangs, and drug dealers. 

As we drive through, I’m struck by the neighborhood’s charm and moved uncomfortably by its character. Many of the houses have Christmas lights still up, and many couples gather close outside their doors to share cigarettes and conversation. It’s quaint with a subtle dirtiness; James reminds me that we’re in East Savannah, and though parts look pleasant enough, the place is far from it. 

“Many guns were pulled on me here,” He puffs out to me with a difficult chuckle.

“Oh my god, what happened?” My curiosity is genuinely piqued, and I turn from the foggy window to look at him. We’re sitting at an intersection with one simple light hanging from it, eternally blinking red. “Did you die? I mean how do you navigate that?”

“Only the first time,” James laughs again, this time more sincerely. “But, no, the first time I was able to get by because of the person I was with. The second time —”

“Oh my god, a second time.”

“— The second time, I was able to drop the right name of someone I knew in the area, and I was able to pass. The third time, I just sped off.”

“There’s no way.” I’m struck by his candor and marvel at his astounding ability to downplay something so shocking. “All three instances seem very lucky.”

“They are; if you don’t say the right thing, or have a fast ‘nough car, or whatever the hell you plan to do, it’s all about luck. But, also, it’s important to remember that most of the time, these kids don’t want to shoot you. The gun is just scary, and the last thing they want to do is shoot you.”

“That wouldn’t cross my mind,” I say as we pull onto a more familiar street and speed off past a cop. We smell pretty bad, and it’s late. “And even if it did, it wouldn’t make me feel any better.” 

/ / /

There’s no traffic anywhere, and the road seems to belong to only us. We puff silently while our heads swim in nicotine until he slows the car and pulls down a smaller and quieter street. Somehow, for some reason, my anxiety begins to climb, and sweat dampens the filter pinched between my fingers. I do my best to ignore this until he tells me we’ve arrived.

“This is it,” James whispers. It's a dilapidated single-story, with cracks in the siding bleeding warm light, a screen door barely hanging on and ill-watered plants on the front porch. “We held parties here all of the time, and they were massive. Secret flyers were passed out in school, attached to a copy of an (ill)legal contract I would type up to cover our asses if anyone got hurt or died.”

“Was that a common anxiety?”

“It probably wasn’t as much as it should have been, but we were, like, sixteen, so what did we know? Charles would rip on his base drunkenly until the cops were called in the early morning, and we’d dance on the roof with cases of alcohol and pounds of weed.”

“Oh my god, that sounds fuckin’ wild,” I giggle out, but James remains serious. “Where were your parents? Did they not care?”

“Oh, a couple of them did, for sure, mine included. But we were very good at lying, and most of us didn’t get along with our parents, so none of it mattered.”

“And you just threw these massive parties and did drugs filtering in between each other’s’ houses?”

“Yes, and no. Most of the time, we were here. We did a lot of drugs; pills, weed, we were strung out on it all. It never got too out of hand, though, and I don’t find much of it particularly remarkable, now.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t either, now.” 

He tells me about sleeping in the cold with runaways, stitching them up when they got cut stabbing between their fingers with a steak knife, and teaching them the basics of building things. He is not proud of all that he did, but remarks that through all of it, he built a kinship. It drove him as a friend and member, but as he got older, his way of life troubled him, until one day he decided to leave completely. 

“I stopped talking to everyone there around the time I graduated,” He coughs out to me. “My brain couldn’t take pills, and I couldn’t run above the law anymore. I was exhausted when they weren’t, so I knew it was time.”

“Do you regret your decision?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Do you ever think if it was the right decision for you?”

“Sometimes, yes,” He repeats as we begin our journey home. It has been a long night, and we are tired. “I know it was the right decision, I’ve always known that. Feel it? Not always.”

“Well, you’re smart. I know you’ll come around.” My smile is infectious enough to slide across his mouth. 

My friend seems older than I am, though he is my age. He developed himself alongside a group of individuals that, anyone else would say, pulled him astray and led him down dark paths. Either way, that's no longer the case. James has since left that life behind, and that's what I remind him as we pull up in front of my house.

“You are a good man, James, and I appreciate this evening. Thank you.”

“You’re absolutely welcome,” His eyes are tired, as are mine, while he lights his last cigarette. “But, like I always tell you, I’m not a good man. Now, after this, you know why.”

“I don't agree with you,” I close the door back to sit inside a moment longer. “Your past does not change that you have grown into a wonderful man. If anything, it’s a testament to growth.”

He does not say anything and looks away in an exhale. A moment passes silently, and I break it one last time before retiring.

“Then you are a better man, and that's enough for now.”