Strange people immortalized

I once had a friend who was fixated on death, danger and "fuck the consequences" behavior. I'll call him Juan

When we were kids we found and rebuilt an old tree fort that was up in a giant 1000 year old tree. I myself have a fear of heights but I would carefully climb up the 50 feet or so to the tree house platform.

My friend would proceed to walk out on a limb about the diameter of a telephone pole, jump up and down and dance around without regard to the 5 story drop and the jagged rocks below. I think he enjoyed seeing me get nauseated.

This type of behavior continued through our teenage years . I once walked past the restroom and saw Juan holding a cocked and loaded .45 to his head with his finger on the trigger and thumb on the hammer. I calmly asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing. He said, "I want to know what its like to be close to death" I asked, "what if your thumb slips" Juan replied "well it won't matter then... the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out"

I finally got him to put the gun down by convincing him that if he killed himself in front of me I would probably be sent to a psychologist and then have to deal with his family. He just said "oh yeah that would suck for you wouldn't it".

This guy had genius quality smarts, but had not a lick of common sense. He once saw a show on Houdini so decided to take handcuffs and secure himself to his bed and throw the key across the room.

Once he realized he wasn't Harry Houdini......

It took him several hours to work the glued joints of the bed apart so he could drag the headboard across the room and retrieve the key.

I saw Juan take a BB gun away from his little brother because the little twerp was pointing it at the neighbors. He decided to unload the gun for safety by putting his finger over the barrel and pulling the trigger. I think brainiac still has that BB lodged in his index finger.

When Juan was in his early twenties he got laid off from his job, so he decided to move to Colorado and live off the land. He took his crappy car, 60 dollars, no food, no warm clothes etc... and drove to Colorado, up a mountain and lodged his car on a rock popping the oil pan and stranding himself about 12 miles from the nearest town. He lived on berries, and snow melt for about 3 weeks before he realized that roughing it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

He ended up working in a pizza parlor in town and living in an ice cave at night. He had to walk and hitchhike 12 plus miles to and from work each day. I don't think he had a clue what living in the wilderness was going to be like. Maybe he watched too many episodes of Grizzly Adams.

As far as I know Juan is still alive and mostly intact. Dumb luck I guess.