Sat beside me in the first grade was a dark mop of hair perched atop the head of a small
boy named Dillon Johnson. He didn’t speak much, on account of his stutter, but when he did, not a
negative word came from his mouth. We were never really friends in school, but somehow the
memory of his assigned show-and-tell day is one of the most vivid ones that I have.
At eight, we were told to take our seats, but one little figure had already settled in, his
small desk overwhelmed by a large metal cage. I sat down, peering into the crate, and spotted a
little white ball of fluff in the corner. A bunny! Excitement overtook me as I identified the creature,
but when I reached over to stick my fingers through the cage, it looked at me, and I quickly
recoiled. Its eyes were crimson red and, honestly, terrifying. I spent the day on edge, wondering
about the potentially horrifying powers those eyes might possess. Dillon, however, seemed
happier than usual, sitting a bit taller and speaking a bit louder when asked about his pet.
In primary school Dillon and I shared very similar experiences. We both came from expat
families, both enjoyed our greasy school lunches, both wanted to fit in. My life continued down an
expected path, my biggest obstacle being myself. I struggled with body image, anxiety, bullying.
But I always had a happy family to come home to, a hot meal set at my place on the dining table,
the structure of a good school. Dillon lost all of these things.
For a while, we were out of touch. Dillon’s parents had gotten divorced and he’d moved
back to the United States sometime during elementary school. In sixth grade, I got a message on
Facebook; “Aleya! I don’t know if you remember but we were at SAS together, I wanted to say hi.”
My mind flashed back to the image of Snowball the bunny. I accepted Dillon’s friend
request, wondering what he was up to. Over the next few months, we became close. He told me
about his parents, how his father drank too much and his mother was unkind, how he bounced
around between their houses, how he struggled with school. I told him about the bullies, how I felt
depressed and inadequate, how I clashed with my teachers, how I tried to make friends.
I used to be pretty closed-off. I didn’t like to reveal too much about myself and I always
wanted to come off as more confident than I was, but something about Dillon made me feel
comfortable opening up. Within weeks, we became best friends and confidants.
At age 11, Dillon started using drugs. He was getting in a lot of trouble. Most of the time, I
had no idea how to respond. I’d been growing up in a bubble: safe, privileged, and protected from
certain harsh realities. I knew about drugs but didn’t know any users. I knew about abuse but
didn’t think it could happen to my friends. I knew I was meant to think that people who got
expelled were bad, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. Dillon was the most kindhearted
person in my life. He wanted to talk to me, hear about my day, show me the music he was
creating. There was nothing bad about him except the situation he’d been put in. I began to learn
that people are complex. There are a million and one reasons why someone does something. I
started to understand that it’s not your mistakes that define you, it’s what’s in your heart.
In the summer of 2013, I visited Dillon at his grandparents’ house in Connecticut. He’d just
been through a bout of foster care and rehabilitation. He played some songs for me on his guitar
before we went for a walk down a long stretch of abandoned riverside train tracks. As we ambled
along the water, he seemed entranced by the light reflecting off the metal under our feet.
“Ever since I did LSD, I see colors everywhere.”
I squinted hard at the tracks, trying to get a glimpse of what he was seeing, trying to
picture the rainbow he’d described, but to no avail.
As we walked, he told me about rehab, casually revealing that he’d been doing heroin. I
was shocked. I uncomfortably searched my overwhelmed adolescent brain for some way to
respond, and could think of only one question to ask: “What does it feel like?”
“Like a freight train going through your head.”
Heroin is an evil drug and, in the years that followed, it wrought nothing but havoc on
Dillon’s world. We continued to talk sometimes between withdrawals, relapses, and court cases.
My advice to get clean and finish school seemed to fall on deaf ears, but I kept trying to push it on
him. I started to lose track of his life as I got busier and he became more nomadic. Shelters, trap
houses, homelessness. His life was a rollercoaster. Nothing was predictable. I could never be sure
whether he was clean or not, whether he was living with a parent or sleeping on the streets. I was
tired of trying to tell him what to do, and accepted that he had to find his own way. It became
clear that telling him to get his GED and stop using drugs wouldn’t work. The ideas had to come
from him; he had to be ready for them. Forcing them down his throat made him no more likely to
accept them. I had no idea how it felt to be in his situation and not a clue how difficult it would be
to get out of it. What business did I have telling him how to solve his problems?
Though at times it seemed hopeless, not for one second did I give up on him. Between our
conversations of drug deals gone bad and failed attempts at withdrawing from heroin were
beautiful discussions about spirituality and our place in the universe. I made the conscious
decision to stop focusing on the bad parts of his life, to trust him to carve his own path, accepting
that I couldn’t force him on a road to recovery if he wasn’t ready to drive down it.
When someone relapses, it’s the last thing they want to talk about, and the last thing they
want to hear is someone telling them to get clean. Instead, we gave brief updates on our lives, I
did my best to focus on the good things, and we moved on with conversation. He always seemed
hopeless when we talked about drugs, but positive when we talked about music, people, books.
No matter how dire the situation, he had something interesting and exciting to discuss. An
unmistakable fire, a passion, was constantly burning inside him, and it kept me hopeful too.
Things got really bad in 2016. Our conversations often ended in comments about the
pointlessness of life and casual mentions of suicidal plans. Dillon was starting to push me away,
saying he didn’t want my pity. He’d heard the phony messages of positivity before, and he
would’ve seen right through them, so I dealt with it the only way I could: with honesty. I told him I
didn’t pity him, I just cared. I wasn’t there because of some moral obligation; I was there because I
genuinely believed he was a good person with a unique mind. He told me I’d only be let down. I
told him I didn’t expect him to fix everything in a day. He told me it wasn’t worth my effort. I told
him that I didn’t want to fix him. I wanted to be by his side to ease things while he tried to fix
himself. He agreed.
Some time later, we spoke again.
“I saw a guy overdose on the side of the street like three days ago. Died right in front of
me. People just walked by like it was nothing. These streets are unforgiving. It can get scary.”
I sat staring at the blinking cursor in my Facebook chat window, frozen. I didn’t know how
to make him feel better.
“It’s the small things that I see and do that keep me positive. That cute kid’s smile on the
bus, the lady who told me to have a good day, the adorable dog I pet when someone walked by.”
The message came in as I was crafting a carefully worded response about loss. I smiled
wider than I ever had. He was right. No matter how bad the situation, there are little things that
can give joy. I smiled for two reasons: I’d been reminded of something I’d needed to hear, and
Dillon was trying hard to cope. I watched him grow more positive and hopeful as time went on
and tried my best to give him a judgment-free place to go to when he needed one.
As of October 2016, Dillon has been clean for four months. He decided to quit of his own
accord and was successful. He gets bored with normal life sometimes, hitching rides to different
towns in different states and staying till he feels like moving on. He’s a traveler, searching for
fulfilment, and that’s the best way to be. You can’t find happiness unless you’re actively looking
for it. Things may not be perfect now, but they’re better, and it feels like he’s on an upward trend.
I now understand that life is in constant motion, and I want to always be striving to make it the
best that it can be, never losing the motivation to do better. I see that in Dillon. He was dealt
horrible cards, but he’s a survivor. He once told me that he felt as though he had nothing to show
for his eighteen years of life. I disagree. I think he has an unbelievable amount of strength and
resilience to show for it. He’s shown me how to be a friend and taught me valuable lessons about
pushing on in the face of adversity. Dillon wants to share his story, and I want to help him do that.
Maybe some day we’ll be standing on a red carpet at our documentary premiere.
Credits go to Aleya Gaba 2016
www.aleyasfilmblog.com
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