I wish this could have gone different, but here's the story. I met him a rainy day of October. It was hard to say what happened after the last day I saw him. He was fragile like leaves in the fall. He was skinny, pale and all his clothes were dirty and broken, except for his smile, always bright like he'd never suffered.

That night I went to a friend's concert not so very far from town. Once there, he was already drunk like the rest of the people. Many girls were screaming for no reason at all, smoking yellow paper cigarettes. In that period they were so trendy people would swallow even the plastic just to be seen with one of that thing in their mouth. Anyway I came closer the table football where some guys were bent over to see the little moon that was orbiting in that green sky. I saw him alone and I asked to join me for a game.

"Ehi, nice to meet you, I'm Kody."

"Ehi Kody, I'm Jerome."

That's how I met him. We had never lost a play that night and we were conquering the crowd that was cheering on us. We looked each other in the eyes and I saw his fragile yet unyielding spirit trying to thrive in that so messy body. His hair were long and dirty, his nails broken and yellow, while his teeth were like pointing to the left, like he had received a really huge punch on the right cheek.

I came from a very delicate job and I had some money with me. No idea of what to do in my free time, maybe afterwards it was the reason we became very good friends. In few minutes we were talking about our magic tricks and how to hit on girls. He was holding a bottle of wine that was gone quite fast.

Half drunk and very happy we were smiling big, until two girls came close asking who we were.

"Oh look, two muses." He said fast.

"We come from the stars." I added.

The girls laughed and me and Jerome stared at each other getting the good vibe we shared and understanding we were meant to meet.

After that night there were many others, every time different, every time wilder. He was sleeping in a van at that time and he was working randomly and spending all he had in alcohol and drugs. I wasn't working in that period  so I shared the weed and the booze with him. We spent so much time talking about the world and the manifestation, the portals and sacred circles. We planned to do graffiti all around town. The consciousness in the city had been so shallow that we designed graffiti with the world Lucifer or ancient astronauts so that people would question what they put their life in. We weren't believers of any sort and we liked to think for ourselves. Maybe the anarchy was the thing that most fitted us in that moment.

We took two red spray can and wore our darkest clothes filling our pockets with stickers just printed. He was repeating endlessly how he lived the life of the squatter and he wanted to occupy places, old factories and creating chaos through the city. I agreed with him, we talked about that every night.

We were chilling, wasted with his van close to the waters. Some beers on the sand and the ashtray filled with dead joints. We were throwing pebbles in the water and laughed at the ripples they were making.

"We should go and break through the glasses of something big."

"Nahh." I replied "We should be smart about it."

"What do you mean smart about it? The world is dying."

"That's why we should be gentle with it. If people are sleeping you can't wake them up if they don't want to."

"C'mon you know this is bullshit. People like us should shake the world."

"You are just talking from an individualistic point of view." I said slowly.

"I ain't." He replied fast.

The night would go on and on this way until the beers were finished or he wanted to get some more weed. Again and again.

It was four o'clock that night of a Monday. There was nobody around. People with serious jobs and stuff were sleeping, like during day in the office. We looked like ninjas. I took the stencils in my backpack and he had his spray cans in a metal chain hanged down his waist. We were laughing hard and sweating. We took ketamine fifty minutes before so we were clumsy and loud and we didn't care. We were skinny shadows facing the great city wanting to have our soul.

One night, that we were spending in the van, two girls were hanging by and chilling. They brought some music and some pizza. We shared what we had.

"Well if we tell you a story and you smile... then you owe us a slice of pizza."My friend said.

They smiled saying we didn't need too. We sat all together and laughed out loud for no reason. Jerome took the guitar and a dusty bottle of rum.

"You've never told me." I complained.

He winked at me.

"Just in special occasions." He said pouring down the honey liquid into a metal cup.

The girls smiled again. I must admit that we weren't the type of guys you could meet on the street so often. We were the hopeless romantic type, the river rats and the gold seeker of lost tales. Oh, that night. It went so fast, but sometimes I hear the laugh of some random girl and I turn to check if she was one of the two. Anyway after the bottle of rum Jerome played the guitar so good that I swear I could have kissed him. The blonde girl did it and the brunette one just slid towards me with the same intention.

"Where do we start?" I asked Jerome laughing.

"Well, where they need most love." He replied like a zen master would have done.

We loved to tease the people with arrogant questions or giving very random replies.

"Where is this place? Is it your van?" I replied laughing.

"It's the church."

Few minutes before we stood before the tall building. White like paper you could buy in the market. We hid our faces and swinging like drunk people leaving the place with red marks.

"What's next?" Jerome asked when we finished.

I took some photos of the street decoration and then I looked up for directions.

After a while my friend probably got bored and stood up pushing the blonde girl away. When he was acting like that he was normally having a good idea or just needed to throw up, honestly disgusting. That time he came up with an idea.

"Why don't we take one of those boats and reach that island?"

I was not sure about it.

"Come on, where is your sense of adventure?" He insisted.

Me and the girls stretched out our necks to see through the dark waves of the sea. The lighthouse not very far revealed the little land covered with trees. Drunk like dogs we stole two little rowing boats, we pushed them  in the water and paddling with much effort we carried the two passengers on the other side. Once there, the girls were drunk and tired. We undressed and we made love under the shades of the plants sheltering us from the moonlight.

We went to the banks and I drew an alien face writing ancient astronauts under it. Jerome looked at it and he looked iffy about it.

"That's it." He cried suddenly. "In the bible, there is written that the Jewish should control and conquer the world lending money to others, but not their people."

"What?"

"Yeah, that's why banks own everything." He said spitting on the wall.

I scratched my head and laughed at his behaviour. He laughed too. It was too good to believe. We run towards next target. The great walls of the humanistic university.

"Here's the place that make people believe they're intelligent." I said confident.

"Weren't you a student?"

"Oh yes, but I dropped out."

After that he started teasing me so I needed to draw something to show I had nothing to do with that world. I wrote: Art Comes From Beneath, You Idiots. I added the hashtag sixwordstory to make sure to make an impact. Jerome was satisfied. He took a bottle out of his backpack and opened with his teeth. He put it upside down and drank huge sips, then he came close offering the drink and patting my shoulder.

"Stop right there." A voice called us from behind flashing a torchlight.

We froze.

The following day we woke up naked and Jerome came from the water like some kind of god of Greek mythology. He dripped over the girls and with a fast movement of the head he get us all wet. He laughed out loud showing a black tooth and a some broken teeth.

"Come on, stop it!" The girls protested.

He sat very amused, using his t shirt as a towel. Once his hands filled with scars were dried up he rolled a huge joint. We laughed all morning and then our stomachs started to protest for the hunger we felt. We rowed back to the sandy shore on the other side where some folks beating their paddles on their right hands.

"Let's get them!" They screamed.

We quickly turned and landed far for the shore from where we departed the night before. We run to the van and I pushed all the gas in a very fast manoeuvre to get out of troubles. Jerome kept laughing all the drive long. The girls were amused and laughed with him. We stopped in a drug store and bought some strong beers. We got wasted again and we spent the night with the muses.

There was a police man in front of us. Looking better we saw it was a night guard. The fear of thieves brought too much security on the street. Me and Jerome looked at each other. We winked and slowly turned, then sprinted and eventually run as fast as we could. The man called his colleagues and in few minutes we found ourselves surrounded. Jerome tried to escape anyway, while I got the game was over and I raised my hands.

They found drugs in his van and pictures on my phone. He needed to spend few months in prison. I managed to stay out of there because I didn't have precedents and crimes on my history. The prison changed Jerome and when he got out I couldn't have a decent conversation or even a sincere moment. He started smoking and when he was holding the lighter he was shaking.

"What happened to you? Why are you not talking to me?"

He smiled back, like he always did, with that fragile kaleiodoscopic teeth and his poker face. I knew something went wrong, but he didn't open up.

The months passed and I finished all the money, so I found a job in a coffee place. Like the insects I retired from the cold waiting for the summer adventures. One day, at the end of the cold season a woman with huge sunglasses and a yellow dress came inside the place I was working in. She pressed her hat on her head meanwhile the bell attached on the door rang in a sweet way. I leaned forward and smile.

"How can I serve you?"

"Mmmhh, I'd like a cappuccino." She said with a low tone.

I turned and prepared what she asked for.

"Kody?"

When I heard she was calling my name, I knew.

I slowly turned letting the coffee fall on the ground. Now she had taken off her glasses and the hat. I could see her blond hair and I recognized her. I haven't seen her since those rad days during summer. She was holding her womb. I felt a shiver along my spine.

"Where is Jerome?" She asked with a broken voice.

Few days later I started the researches. My friend was impossible to find. Damn it. He was always around, but lately his presence was very rare. Last time I saw him he had some strange marks on his forearm and behind his elbow. I found him after five days, he was wearing a hood and he was very pale. He was scavenging for food in the rubbish. I tried to call him, but nothing, he ran away.

A month later I heard the news on the radio. A homeless man was found on the motorway crushed by a huge truck. I went on the scene straight away. Nobody recognized him, but I knew who he was. I didn't want to know anything, so I asked everybody to respect the way he wanted to be buried. I prepared a grave stone and I wrote his favorite quote: where is your sense of adventure? I recite his mantras and stayed close to his body all the time I could to support his travel then I went back to the coffee shop.

The sun was getting hotter but my heart had turned cold.

Suddenly when I was lost in my thoughts and memory, a woman carrying a stroller with her entered making the bell ring. When she saw me she started crying and she ran towards me leaning close and she kissed me passionate and desperate through the tears. We hugged for the entire day. When the sun went down we began talking.

"What's his name?"

"Jerome."

For the first time she smiled again.