I stared deep into her eyes and knew only one thing and that was that I never wanted to stop looking into her eyes. Natosha and I had been walking around the eastside of Los Angeles for almost an hour now and neither of us seemed to want to return to the party. We had met on the front porch, both of us were trying to escape the suffocating smoke of the spliffs being burned and the stench of more being twisted on every flat surface in the room. Right off the bat I knew she was going to be someone important in my life, so off we walked into the darkness of the night of LA, only guided by her smile which gleamed like the moonlight glistening on the breaking tides of Malibu Beach.   
“Where should we go next?” asked Natosha.
As we rounded the corner two rottweilers jumped against the chain link fence and barked at us. Their necks as thick as the trunk of a fifty year old Maple tree, slobber flying like shrapnel with each powerful bark. Natosha pulled me close as if to ask me to protect her, but it was also much more than that, because in her grip I could feel everything that she had ever felt. The good, the bad and everything in between, I felt like in this one moment that I knew everything about this perfect girl. I only heard of moments like this in the movies, love at first sight, where two people meet and instantly fall in love. Then they become dependent on each other, and spend every waking second they had together and it eventually ends in the death of the two of them. In this moment I thought I had finally found that special someone, the someone that my parents had always fantasized about me finding. At that moment in my life it was as close to true love as I’d ever known. I no longer had to wait for the one, I didn’t have to wait for my Ruca.
As she released my flannel she apologized.
“You have nothing to worry about,” I whispered as I gazed down at her. And for a moment not a word was uttered. We just looked into each others eyes for what seemed like hours, as I got lost in the beauty; inside and out, of this new found love. In her eyes I began to melt like the Hershey’s Kiss her irises resembled. The gaze was broken by gunshots heard in the distance, as her eyes darted around in a panic. To keep her nerves settled I began to speak again.
“Have you always lived in LA?” I asked.
“No, I moved from Long Beach back in sophomore year” replied Natosha, still uneasy.
This drew me back, was it fate? I’ve always felt a connection to Long Beach, California. The connection was through the band Sublime, who had originated out of this fair city. Not only do I love this band but they have had a large influence in my life and the lifestyle that I live. So now not only was she my ruca, but she was from the same town that the man I was named after came from. This may mean nothing to someone who doesn’t know the band, but I was raised on their music.
Since birth I basically had no choice but to be a fan of Sublime as my parents named me after the lead vocalist, my name is Bradley Nowell Jones. His name was Bradley Nowell and my parents absolutely adored him and his musical style until his death just before I was born. My parents having lived in a similar way to Bradley always admired his inner beauty and musical talent and wanted me to have the same personality. Bradley was known for his peaceful demeanor which probably stemmed from his belief in the Rastafari.
When most people think of the Rastafari religion they think of smoking weed, but that isn’t all that it is about. It is about valuing life not at a material level but finding a deeper meaning and rejecting the ideas behind western civilization and the whole idea of religions being an “ism” or “ity”. Unfortunately Bradley’s death came early from a heroin overdose at the young age of 28, at that point a few years older than my parents, whom I feared would fall to a similar fate. I always found it interesting that Bradley believed in not worrying about material things but was in a band; when music is usually considered a greed driven industry. But, interestingly enough, Bradley died before the band was able to maintain any mainstream success and before the band became the big name that they are today which seemed more fitting to him and his personality. It was just too bad that he had to die at such an early age. In such a short lived musical career Sublime was able to fuel the start of a new genre of music, unintentionally create an ultimately successful band and start a happy family. But in my short time on this planet I had no such luck.
I am a 19 year old junior in highschool, I had never had a girlfriend, not a lick of musical talent and about as smart and motivated as a bag of rocks. And a lazy bag of rocks at that, I had never gotten a job despite my dad’s efforts. He would yell, or strike me but this made me want to just spite him even more. So, all I do is sit on the couch and play my Playstation, making him regret ever buying it for me back in 2003. I chose to waste my first four years of high school playing Resident Evil and Crash Bandicoot, while my peers were studying to get good grades or smoking enough weed to go braindead or trying to snort their way into being a TV or movie star. I had no desire to do any of those things, I didn’t want the LA lifestyle, I was always different. I just wanted someone to sit around and spend my life with, someone who would support me no matter what I do, someone to share every memory with. Some might argue sitting around playing video games wasn’t the best way to do that. But, f*** what they say, because now I had every right to believe that I had found that girl and things for me were about to turn around.
Natosha and I found ourselves back to the party where I found my friend Tank stumbling into the bushes in front of the house. He was the reason I had come and was obviously hammered so I thought I’d help him.
“Yo, Tank what are you doing?” I asked.
“There you are you faggot, I’ve been looking for you,” said Tank with the utmost class.
“Watch the language around the lady there, d*bag”. Tank looked over at Natosha, surprised to see me with a girl at all, especially one as beautiful as her.
“What did you drug her with to make her talk to you?” he asked, with a raised brow, thinking she would be charmed. But, she just scuffed and rolled her eyes, unamused. In this moment I knew that this girl was truly amazing. Most girls were charmed by Tank and his manly overconfidence but Natasha was above that, and this made me admire her even more. The fact that her looks could be so out of this world yet her personality could be so down to earth.
“Whatever b****” said Tank. So I stopped helping him up, let go and he fell right back into the bushes, incapable of getting up under his own power. “What was that for?”
“I told you to watch the language,” I said with an outstretched arm. He knocked it away and asked.
“Why do you always have to be such a pu**y? You don’t drink, you don’t smoke weed and you don’t get laid, thats a sad life man.”
“And that’s your opinion, “MAN”,” chimed in Natosha sarcastically. Both Tank and I looked in her direction, surprised she had the courage to say anything, especially something as snarky as that. Then we looked back at each other and he knew by the look in my eyes that this girl meant a lot to me.
“My apologies, I’m too drunk and high to be making good first impressions right now, I can’t even walk straight, there is no chance of me thinking straight,” slurred Tank. I looked at him and mouthed,
“Thank you”.
“Now I need to go home, can you take me to your house?” said Tank.
“What?!? No way, why can’t you go to your place?” I retorted.
“You see me, I can’t let my parents see me like this, the moment my dad looks at my eyes he’ll know I’m high. Please, they’ll kill me.”
“The last time you showed up to my house like this my dad nearly killed me.”
“Come on. They’ll get over it faster than my parents.” This was true, my parents were not much for responsible parenting, they get angry because they’re drunk or high on one drug or another and then forget all about it by the next morning. Tank’s parents on the other hand were highly thought upon in most of the LA community. His dad was a local congressman and was a Robinhood for the poor class of LA despite his wealthy status compared to the community. They were hardly there to support their son so he started to get himself into trouble. Tank is not his actual name, his real name was Thomas Andrew Davidson. He got the nickname Tank from the large amount of drugs and alcohol he was able to handle... relatively-well. I knew that if I were to send him home in his condition his dad would throw a fit and ignore his son even more, further crushing the spirit and making Thomas punish his liver more.
“Fine, but you need to keep your s*** together this time. No throwing up all over my floor, and if you do you are cleaning it up this time,” I said.
“Deal,” said Tank as he finally was able to get to his feet, “now walk me over to the car,” he said as he waved me to his side to support him.
“I’ll be right back” I said to Natosha as I walked him towards the curb where I had parked my dad’s 1995 Cadillac DeVille. I crammed him into the front seat of the car and told him that I’d be right back, I had to go finish what I started with Natosha. He nodded as if he understood me but I could tell by the way he instantly leaned his head against the window that he was passed out the second he sat down. I jogged back to where I had left Natosha, but she wasn’t there. I deflated instantly, I looked around to see if she was somewhere near but she was nowhere to be found. I turned to head back towards my car when I heard something.
“Where do you think you’re going?”. I froze and put my hands thinking that the cops had shown up to the party, but was delightfully surprised when I heard a familiar giggle. I turned around and saw Natosha in the upstairs window of the house.
“What are you doing up there?” I asked.
“Why don’t you come up here and find out?” she said provocatively as she smirked. This was the smirk that drew me in immediately. She had one of the most defined dimples that I had ever seen on the left side of her perfectly brown face. Her skin was soft and hazelnut colored, the tone made it impossible to pinpoint her nationality. She may be an angel, she may be a queen ,she might be black, white, American, Indian or Japanese. But that type of thing never really mattered to me, growing up in LA I knew better than to judge by color. That’s how you get yourself jumped, racism was something not taken lightly in my neighborhood. I realized in the time I was thinking about her beautiful face a significant amount of time had passed and she was no longer smiling at me but staring waiting for a response.
“I’ll be right…,” I stopped mid sentence as I started to think about a slight problem. I had never been with any girl and had no clue what was supposed to do. Anything I knew came from watching X rated videos on the internet and I don’t think she would be flattered by anything from those, “.. actually I can’t.” The smile had completely vanished from her face at this point and was now filled with disappointment. “I wish I could, but you know... ,” I looked back at the car window where Tank had already began to drool, “I have to take care of this lump.”
“Riiight,” she said as she rolled her eyes, “well be on your way then.” My heart sank. Disappointing her was something I never wanted to do. I quickly responded.
“This doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you again,” the smiled once again gleamed on her face, “I just can’t join you right now. But can I get your number?”
“I would give it to you but I don’t have a phone for you to call” she said. No phone? I thought that was strange for this day in age where even first graders were getting iPhones. “But if you give me your number I can call you when I’m around a phone”.
“Alright, well do you have a piece of paper?”
“Hold on,” she left the window to find somewhere to write down the number, or so I thought. But, out the front door she ran with a cell phone in hand.
“I thought you didn’t have a phone...”, I said curiously.
“I don’t, this is my best friends; Becca. I’m usually with her so if I ever want to talk to you she said I can use her phone.” I took the phone and entered in my name and number, Bradley Jones - (213) 874- 9560. I was skeptical about putting my number into someone’s phone who I had never met but I was desperate for a continued connection to this girl, so I pushed down the bad feelings and returned the phone to her. I told her,
“Here’s my telephone number, call me.” She pulled me close again and wrapped her arms around me, then got onto her tiptoes and began to stick her tongue into my mouth. I had never kissed a girl, but I figured not doing anything with my mouth was not what I was supposed to do. So I stuck my tongue straight out and puckered my lips. Natosha, giggled again and stepped back, this time with a full ear to ear smile on her face.
“Goodnight Cutie,” she said as she turned back towards the house. I stood there like a idiot with a blank stare, still thinking about what had just happened to me. She looked over her shoulder every few steps, still smiling until she got to the door where she stopped and blew me a kiss. Once she closed the door I turned around and headed back to the car. Maybe Tank was right, maybe I am a pussy, if I was normal I would have gone up there, no questions asked and taken her up on everything she wanted to do to me. But that is what I think differentiated me from the other guys in her eyes, I was a gentleman, which was usually mistaken for being a loser and nerd. I got into the car, looked at Tank passed out against the window thinking to myself about what he had said and how it might be time for me to change, I didn’t want to be that nerdy, loser anymore.
When Tank and I returned back to my house I had to wrestle him out of the front seat and try to get him to his feet. Each time he fell unless he had his arm around me for support. We managed to slowly make our way up the tattered, paint chipped front steps and through the shredded screen door which slammed behind us. I paused expecting my dad to yell to keep it down but was pleasantly surprised by the silence that ensued. We went immediately into my room where I laid Tank down onto my floor. I tossed him a pillow off my bed, as if it mattered. He could have slept through a car accident in the condition he was in, the pillow didn’t make any difference to him. I grabbed a blanket from our linen closet and draped it over him and scooted the garbage from the corner of the room right next to his pillow, in case he were to wake up feeling sick. Then I turned off the light, crept out of my room, across the hallway into my parents room. I walked in to find my mom and dad naked under the covers, the lights still on, passed out. There was coke still on the nightstand and empty forty ounces scattered around the floor. At the foot of the bed I found one forty that had not yet been cracked. I thought about changing my ways of being soft and antisocial, I was sick of wasting my weekends doing nothing while my parents did all of the partying. I snatched the forty and slipped back into my room, hitting the lights on the way out.
I sat in my twin bed, up against the wall thinking about all of the times I had accidentally drank some of my parents alcohol and how disgusting it was. I couldn’t imagine why everyone I knew wanted to drink it so badly. After pondering it for a while I decided to stop pussyfooting around and cracked open the beer. I sipped it at first but that just made the taste worse, so I began to chug it. After a few chugs I still didn’t feel anything so I continued to chug more. Before I knew it I had finished the entire can and was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. I felt like my whole world was spinning, I had to grab my sheets to make sure that I didn’t fall off. I had finally gotten the feeling that I never understood. I now knew why everyone drank, the way alcohol made me feel, I knew that my world would never be the same. I was never going back, God knows that I’m never going back. The next thing I knew I turned over to see that it was 12:46 the next afternoon. I looked to the floor where Tank still slept like a rock, his head directly on the floor, curled up into a tight ball and the blanket at his feet. I threw my remaining pillow at him, he didn’t react. He laid there in his boulder-esque state for another hour after I had woken up. I could feel the pulse in my head as it seemed to throb, and I felt a churning sensation in my stomach. That churning in my stomach progressed as I thought about drinking the beer the night before, and before I knew it I was hunched over the garbage can next to Tank’s head throwing up what little I had eaten in the twenty four hours previous. This finally got Tank to wake up as he yelled,
“Dude, what the f*** is your problem?!?”. I was incapable of answering him at the moment as my mouth was currently occupied with vomit and there was no room for words to come out with it. As the vomiting ceased I was able to apologize to Tank.
“Why are you puqing, you didn’t even drink last night?” asked Tank.
“That’s what you think, I pounded a forty after you passed out last night,” I said as I tried to spit up the nasty taste that lingered in my mouth.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Tank as he laughed, “and don’t worry your tolerance will get better the more you drink.”
“Who’s a pu**y now?” I said, proud of myself for thinking of something so clever.

“Still you…, I’m not the one throwing up after one drink. Don’t get too cocky you lightweight.” He had a point but that didn’t take away the feeling that I had about what had happened the night before. I had kissed my first girl, drank my first beer and had my first potential girlfriend, it was a big night for me. 
After I drove Tank home I returned to find that I had missed a call from a mysterious number. Usually I try to avoid them as it is usually just a wrong number but this time I had a feeling that it was Natosha so I called the number back.
“Hello?” said the voice on the other line.
“Is this,” I paused, realizing that I had forgot the name of the owner of the phone. I tried to buy myself some time by hesitating, “umm…. uhhhh,” then it his me, “Becca?!?”, I shouted. The voice on the other line giggled familiarly and responded,
“No, it’s Natosha.”
“Oh,” I said, slightly humiliated about what I had just said, “how are you?”
“Good, did you get that dhead home safely?” she asked with a bit of resent for him.
“Hey, be careful, that dhead is my best friend.” I said, thinking about how much of a dhead he actually was.
“Well a true best friend wouldn’t ruin such a sure thing for you.” I paused. “Hello?? Are you there?”, she asked thinking the call was dropped.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I said with a quiver in my voice, “what do you mean by a sure thing?”
“Exactly what you think I mean, dufous. I wanted you inside me.” she said aggressively. I hesitated again. But this time I responded how I thought Tank would respond,
“Well, then what are you doing tonight, sweet thaang..,” I said with confidence.
“Don’t talk like a douche, I like you because you’re not THAT guy, please don’t turn into that guy,” Natosha said in a disappointed tone.
“Sorry, but what are you doing tonight? I want to get another chance to see you.”
“There you go, now that sounded like the sincere you.” I blushed, and managed to squeak out a manly, high-pitched,
“Great”, in a voice that resembled that of Minnie Mouse. She laughed again and told me to pick her up at her house, and gave me her address. I hung up and began to skip out the door, excited to go see my girl, then realized skipping around town would get my ass kicked, so I retained myself, grabbed my dad’s keys and ran out the door before he scolded me to put them back.
Over the next few months Natosha and I spent most of our time awake with each other. She was all that I have ever wanted and more. I couldn’t bare the time that we spent apart, because it made me think she was out there falling in love with another man. So whenever I could I would scoop her up and we would just sit around together, sometimes talking and sometimes silent but all of the time smiling. I had never experienced a similar feeling, any time that I spent with her was time well spent to me, because I was always happy when we were together. Not to mention all of the great sex, she had opened up for me and I made sure to fulfill every fantasy she had ever had.
In this time I had also managed to spoil my sobriety, with the help of Tank and Natosha bringing me to parties in every neighborhood of LA. Where I earned my own nickname of B-Rad, because of my radical view on most things and the “radical” amounts of drugs that I could consume coherently. For example, when someone asked me to if I smoked I would respond with one of my favorite Sublime lyrics.
“I smoke two joints in the morning, I smoke two joints at night, I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints, it makes me feel alright.” I had no resemblance to myself just a few months earlier, I had left the old me behind and the modern me was here to take control.
  Except for when I was with ‘Tosha, that always stayed the same, because when I was around her I always felt like I was myself. That’s what was so great about her, the level of comfort that I always felt no matter how uncomfortable of a situation we found ourselves in. I always had the ability to make her smile and that made me feel some kinda way. This feeling made me feel indestructible and that was a great feeling, but was nothing that countless drugs couldn’t mimic. Taking drugs was like being released from a ball and chain, which made the real world no longer matter. All that mattered was the present and this present world is too crazy to handle on my own. I was always taught that boy meets girl, they fall in love and forget the world. Nine months later sweet little baby is on the way, then you kiss them on the cheek and its all okay. But I was horribly wrong, because in one night my entire world was flipped upside down.
We were at a party same as usual, surrounded by people I had slowly gotten to know from various gatherings. Some of them I had slept with in a drunken stooper. But, Natosha came up and grabbed ahold of me saying,
“If you come with me, you will never be set free.” She wanted me to take her back to her empty house to stay with her so she wouldn’t be scared. Her parents had left for the weekend and she claimed to want me especially bad that night, somehow I had managed to keep all of my other devious conquests a secret from her. It wasn’t something I was proud of and it never changed how I felt about her. I was just a badfish and I needed to be allowed to swim. But that night I wish that I would have just stayed put and not gone anywhere. I had already gotten significantly drunk but managed to find my keys and stumble out the door. I crept out into the night, towards the Cadillac, with Natosha in my arms. It was like any other night that we went out, we got started while the car was warming up. The windows just starting to fog when we pulled away towards her house. She talked of all of the things that she wished to do to me once we got home, and while she did this I loved to gaze into her eyes. She stared right back at me and it was if we were making an eternal connection at that moment and I’m glad we made the connection because our physical relationship was far from eternal. Looking into her eyes, although beautiful, made me take my eyes off the road, making me run a red light on one of the busiest intersections in LA.
When I came to I was in the hospital, without a clue of what had happened to me the night before. I looked around the room, expecting to see Natosha, Tank and my parents but none of them were to there to be found. The only person there was a member of the LAPD at the foot of my bed.
“Good to see that you’re alright there, Mr. Jones, we were worried that you wouldn’t make it.”
“What happened?”
“Why don’t we start by you telling me what you remember?”, asked the officer, but I could tell that it was more of a command than a question.
“The last thing that I remember I was chilling at a party, squeezing girls’ asses and drinking recklessly.”
“Okay, do you remember leaving the party at any point in the night?” I thought about it and answered honestly,
“No sir, I don’t remember anything. But my head feels like I must have had some fun.”
“That sir, you did. We brought you in here with a blood alcohol level of .36. That’s a near lethal amount, we proceeded to pump your stomach.” My first thought was, where was Natosha? Was she alright? How did she get home? I knew I did something wrong, that’s why the five-oh was there, but what in God’s name could it be? I had to know, so I asked the cop,
“What happened?”
“You got into an accident that resulted in a casualty. Do you know Natosha Baker, she was the passenger in your car?”
“Yes, she’s my girl friend, where is she?!?” The officer’s head dropped and he looked at the floor for a few seconds. My stomach dropped, what had happened to Natosha, was she in a coma? or worse, was she dead?? I couldn’t live with myself if I had killed the most important person in my life. “Sir!! Tell me what the f*** happened to her!”
“Calm down sir, this is no time for rash language. Unfortunately she passed away. The car you collided with made impact with the passenger side of the vehicle, killing her almost instantly. We had reports of you driving on the sidewalk, running stop signs and breaking every single traffic rule.”
“Please sir, tell me this is some kind of cruel joke,” I said as tears swelled up in my eyes. I thought about every great moment that we had spent with each other, and I couldn’t think of anything other than that. Because at that moment that was all that mattered to me. I didn’t care about the charges to come, for drunk driving, countless traffic tickets, and a manslaughter charge. Nothing mattered anymore, I was living without reason now and no longer cared what happened to me.
As I was escorted out of the hospital I looked into the light and didn’t look away. I usually needed sunglasses but not any more. I didn’t want to see a thing if I couldn’t see her. When I got into the police squad car the clock read half past one. There was one thing that I wanted more than to see Natosha again and that was a joint for myself to relieve my headache. I had no recollection of the evil things that I had done but the LAPD had the papers to prove it.
The squad car pulled up to my house after I went through the booking process. They told me my trial would be within the next week as I exited the car, and to myself I thought that it wouldn’t matter, it’s not as if I’d be alive.
The second that I walked through the door I went to my parents bedroom and knocked on the door. there was no response so I barged in. Nobody was home. I walked up to their night stand and began to riffle through their drawers. I wasn’t finding anything that I was looking for. I wanted to find drugs to take that would ease the pain that had overwhelmed me since I had found out the horrific things that I had done. I found some mysterious pills tucked into the back corner of the drawer. I thought they could be anything from ecstasy, PCP, quaaludes or maybe something as simple as adderall. Whatever it was I didn’t care. I grabbed the corner of the bag and dumped all of the remaining pills in my mouth. I counted some twenty plus pills in the bag, I figured that would be a significant amount to take the edge off. I went and sat down on the couch and waited for the effects to kick in so I knew what I was dealing with. A half hour had passed and I still felt nothing, so I got back off the couch and went over to the fridge. I found a couple forty ounces on the bottom shelf and  immediately cracked one of them open. I threw back my head and began to chug the malt liquor inside.
I finished half of it and then began to feel my muscles in my legs tense up. I stopped drinking momentarily but then the tension released itself and I began to drink again. Then my heart began to pound, racing faster than any time I had taken coke, but it wasn’t the usual trip that came with acid or shrooms, it felt like my muscles all began to vibrate. Soon I began to sweat, but my skin was feeling cold. I ran into my room, and went under my bed to grab my stash box. I pulled out a bowl that I had left half packed from the day before and torched the remnants and inhaled deeply. I exhaled fully and things around me seemed to slow down, I was sitting against my nightstand and I tried to stand up but I found that I had lost all sensation in my legs. I dragged my body into the bathroom because I didn’t feel well and I thought I might be dying.
I grabbed the sink and pulled myself up to look into the mirror. My iris’ were gone as my pupils swelled up, the corners of my eyes began to fill with blood. I couldn’t recognize the person that I saw in the mirror. He looked like a ghost of what I used to be, but that was not me. For I was not myself without Natosha, so I closed my eyes and imagined being alongside my one and only.
I imagined us just sitting together as we usually did, looking at the sky and pondering the problems in our world. We sat along a river, I looked into the river and saw it was filled with drugs and the regrets of my life. A sign marked it as the River of Babylon. Babylon being a term used by the Rastafari, speaking of the evils of a degenerate society of material possession, oppression and sensual pleasures. Then along came a boat that was carrying a lion. Compelled by some unknown force, I stepped onto the boat holding Natosha’s hand the entire way. My senses were overwhelmed by the feeling of touching her once again. The boat began to move and slowly the water cleared as we entered Zion. Finally, Natosha and I were free. Free to spend the rest of eternity together.