Zac Easter’s journal, August 5, 2015
Oops sorry its been awhile since my last entry. Everything has been going about the same though. Still faced with daily depression and anxiety about stupid shit. Right now grandpa is in the hospital and he almost wasn’t able to pull through. Jake bought a puppy husky and that has been helping me with the stress. I still haven’t been working or looking for work.
I got put on Zoloft and my new psychiatrist seems to know his meds. I’m still fighting the side effects. Sleep has been dismal and I’ve still been going to speech therapy and PT. It sounds like they really aren’t on my side anymore and they want me to be focusing on my mood disorder. I can’t really blame them. I have been fucked up with depression the past few weeks. I’ve been going out more but using more drugs. Smoked pot a few times, rolled on Molly and now I got some coke. All that plus Adderall fuck it! It’s the only way I feel normal. I’m going to try getting a PT job untill the Zoloft kicks in. IDK what to do about a career right now. I’m just sick of living life how I’m living it so I’m trying to get right. I wouldn’t mind traveling. My confidence is a little low now that I know I’m not that smart. Oh well hopefully I can get some sleeping pills to help me sleep and I think that’ll help with the depression. My impulse control has been a little better but I still cant get myself to want to be around ppl. Sometimes I just feel like snapping.”
It was the end of summer, and time was running short with Ali. She’d always been a go-getter, and she was moving to Cleveland to attend law school at Case Western Reserve. Why did things shift between Zac and Ali? Maybe it was that Zac’s brain and mood issues were worsening. Maybe it was because Ali was the only person Zac felt that he could be his authentic, vulnerable, damaged self with. Or maybe it was that this on-again, off-again romance now had a very serious deadline, with Ali moving almost seven hundred miles away for a life that would be consumed with studies and tests and internships for the next three years. Whatever the reason, that summer—as Zac was grappling with his ongoing problems with his brain and mental health—something was changing about their relationship. Ali has always had a bit of a savior complex, forever motivated by the urge to help others; so perhaps it was fate that during Zac’s rapid descent, their relationship went from on-again, off-again to fully on.
Zac was struggling. His impulse control was shot. He couldn’t stop binge eating unless he popped an Adderall or two; the fitness freak had turned into a junk-food obsessive. His parents checked his bank account and were shocked at how much he was spending, including dozens of debit card transactions a day at convenience stores. “I used to be a tight ass and all about money, but now I just find myself spending all my money and money that I don’t even have,” Zac wrote. Over the span of three months, he burned through about $10,000 and had nothing to show for it. He couldn’t sleep. He was frequently dizzy. A guy who just a couple of years before was the fitness star of his military unit now stopped, out of breath and dizzy, only a couple of minutes into a jog. “I don’t know if I have that brain decise that people talk about,” Zac wrote, “or if I really am crazy.”
One night, Zac overheard one of his roommates say he was a weirdo. Zac was crushed. By this point, with his bank account dwindling, he couldn’t afford rent for much longer, so he figured he’d end up moving back to his parents’ house. He’d gotten a doctor’s note for a medical discharge from the military. “Good thing! I hate the fucking Army,” wrote Zac, tossing away those dreams of becoming an Army Ranger. Instead of chasing the army badass dream he’d always wanted, his goals were more modest. He was interviewing for jobs as a restaurant host at several Des Moines restaurants: a chic Italian place called Centro, an elegant, James Beard Award–nominated establishment called Bistro Montage, a rowdy New Orleans–inspired roadhouse called Buzzard Billy’s. None of the jobs came through. In his journal, he scribbled down other ideas for work: staining decks, or landscaping, or maybe a newspaper delivery route. In the meantime, he could prepare for the GMAT and start the process of getting into graduate school. Maybe he could even follow Ali and go to business school at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. “Its all part of the success story,” Zac wrote next to this modest to-do list in his journal. With Ali, he gave himself permission to dream.
Nothing seemed to be going right. Except, that is, things with Ali. Previously, their relationship had been a casual thing, which meant they’d be together when Ali was home but go their own ways when she was at school. They hadn’t wanted to be in a long-distance relationship when Ali was an undergrad in Kentucky and Zac was in Iowa. And they didn’t want the small-town rumor mill to chatter about them. So they talked and they texted, but they never discussed who either of them was dating, and they never turned their relationship into anything official—never called each other boyfriend or girlfriend, never checked the “in a relationship” box on Facebook, never overtly held hands when they were out with a group of high school friends. But when winter or summer vacations came, they’d fall back into their routine like nothing had changed: to the bar with friends, then disappearing together for a “rum and Coke.” The time when they were apart had an unexpected effect: It made them best friends, not just lovers. “We’re both good at compartmentalizing,” Ali said. “But in the back of my head, I always knew who I’d be with.” Zac’s mother approved; she knew there was something between these two, and she started to think of Ali as the daughter she never had. Ali’s parents and friends approved, too. She had always dated “douchebags,” as Zac called them, but here was Zac, this good, fun-loving country boy who was loyal to those he loved and curious about the world.
That summer, as they got closer, they went to Lake Ahquabi and lay in the grass. They half joked about who would be in their wedding party, and what their children would be like. When Zac spoke about going to business school, Ali encouraged him; both had big goals, and they believed they’d achieve them together. They shared a playlist on Spotify with songs they loved. One was “My Escape” by the Canadian band Ravenscode, with haunting lyrics about not letting a loved one “slip away,” and needing someone “till the very end.”
There were just five days before Ali was to leave for law school. Later, she would refer to this time as “the perfect week.” On Monday, she and Zac met at Gray’s Lake. They sat at a picnic table and gazed at Des Moines’s skyline. They went to the movie theater to see Trainwreck, the Amy Schumer comedy. They laughed and giggled the whole time. At one point, Zac reached over and grabbed Ali’s hand. This was a big deal: an expression of love, in public, while sober. They got some drinks at a bar near the mall, then they went back to Zac’s place.
On Tuesday, they went for another walk around Gray’s Lake. Neither of them wanted to hang out with anyone else; they didn’t want to have to pretend anymore. They went to a place called Zombie Burger + Drink Lab, a zombie-themed burger joint. They ordered two Undead Elvis burgers: a hamburger patty topped with peanut butter, fried bananas, bacon, American cheese, mayonnaise, and a soft egg. They walked around Des Moines’s East Village in the shadow of the state capitol building, then they dropped by a martini lounge. They were the only two at the bar. They talked about life for two hours—about religion, about law school, about Zac’s struggling brain, about politics. Ali had interned for Democratic US Senator Tom Harkin, and she tried to guide Zac toward the left side of the political spectrum. And they talked about football. He’d spent a lot of that summer reflecting about the sport, and the many things it had brought to his life. The good things, like the camaraderie of the team, the connection with his father and brothers, the excitement of playing in a game, the thrill of rooting for his favorite NFL team. And the bad things, like however the game had contributed to this crazy thing that was going on in his brain. Ali was the only one he spoke with about this. He never brought up his ambivalence about football to his family. “Zac would always tell me he got a lot out of football,” Ali said. “He also felt like it was expected for him
to play. He didn’t want to take himself out of games. At times, he really did still love the game. At times, he hated it. He’d say to me, ‘I don’t even know why I played football that long, but I couldn’t have quit.’ ”
Whenever he confided thoughts like this to her, he always made an addendum: “Don’t tell my family.” So many of his familial ties revolved around football. He didn’t want his parents and brothers and others to know his struggles with his brain betraying him, and how he suspected football as a cause, perhaps the main cause. Part of it, Ali suspected, was a sense of shame—that Zac felt his issues were evidence that he hadn’t lived up to the ideal definition of what it meant to be a man. The test of manhood that he always thought football represented had come to represent his own failure. Now, he couldn’t even hold down a job.
The next day, Ali finished up at her summer job at the Express clothing store at the mall, and a group of girls from work took her out for a goodbye dinner. Zac joined them. Hanging with people he didn’t know, feeling socially awkward, Zac slammed several drinks in succession, becoming really, really drunk in a flash. Ali got pissed. She texted him: “I hate you, but I love you.” They hopped around to a few bars. Ali made sure Zac got home safely that night; once he got home, she cared for him as he threw up from all the alcohol.
“I’ve been in love with you for five years,” Zac told her, drunk. “I don’t get why you can’t see this.”
“Zac,” Ali soothed him, “why don’t we have this conversation when we’re sober?” She didn’t want them to have a big, emotional conversation only to have him forget it the next day.
When Zac woke up the next morning, he had a massive headache and few memories of the night before. “What did I do?” Zac asked Ali. They went to get their cars. But both had been parked illegally, and their cars had been towed. They laughed at their bad luck. Before Ali left to go to the Iowa State Fair with her parents, she met Zac’s gaze and said: “We should talk later.” That night, on Thursday, August 13, 2015, they met at Gray’s Lake. It had been a steamy Iowa summer day, but by the time they were dodging cyclists and joggers as they walked around the lake, the temperature had, mercifully, dipped below eighty degrees. For an hour, they circled the lake and dodged the elephant in the room. Then, Ali told Zac what he’d said the night before: that he’d been in love with her for five years. “Yes,” he said. “It’s all true.”
Finally, it was out there. And it was out there while they were sober. They went back to Zac’s place and talked over their options. One, they could date each other exclusively despite Ali leaving for law school in two days. Two, they could stop seeing each other entirely. Three, they could keep up with this in-between crap.
Zac thought it over for the night.
The next morning, a day before Ali left, he turned to her in bed: “OK,” he said, “let’s do it.” They spent the entire day together. They watched one of their favorite television shows, Shameless, a dark TV comedy about a dysfunctional family in Chicago, and House of Lies, another TV comedy about a group of cutthroat management consultants. It was August 14. They made their relationship public—told friends, told family, announced it on Facebook.
The next day, August 15, Ali left Indianola and drove to Cleveland to begin law school.
“And right after I left,” she said, “it started to go downhill.”
Zac Easter’s journal, September 5, 2015
Just got back from spending some more time with Ali [in Cleveland]. IDK if I’ve told you but me and Ali are dating now. We’ve been super tight for years and now we’re already saying we love each other. IDK how I feel about yet. She still seems emotionally unavailable and its killing my own emotions. I just don’t think shes very aware of what she does. She wont tell me how she feels and I know she feels just as vulnerable as me. IDK Im falling for her hard and I really just don’t want to get myself hurt. IDK if I can be with though when I’m this insecure. She has helped me get myself more motivated, plus Im just out of money and I need to start working again. I got enough for one more months rent but after that Im screwed. I havent told Ali that the real reason I cant come up is because Im broke. I still feel like shes more distant than ever . . . I think Im just going to stop chasing her and slowly start to break myself off from this attachment. I just cant do it right now.
Other than that, my depression seems to be getting worse. Ive been taking Zoloft and Adderall now for a month and a half and I don’t really feel better, if anything I feel worse. I keep having crazy mood swings and Im just not sure where my emotions are and Im so sick of it. I need more therapy and I want to get help. I also need to go talk with my parents.
I’m scared if I can’t get help or feel better I may want to just end it all. As in suicide. Im just so tired of feeling so shitty and anxious. I had a job interview, two of them and its hard for me to not have panic attacks. It seems like I still cant get over my anxiety. IDK lifes just a bitch. Im try to forget about that fact that Im mentally ill and that I might have a traumatic brain disorder. I plan on going home tonight so hopefully I’ll be able to talk to my rents a little more. I might even move home next month if I cant get some income coming in. I honestly just want to move and be with Ali, but I don’t think that will happen when I need to start separating myself as it is. I feel like my drinking problem is starting to come back so Im going to try and not drink this weekend. And also try to not spend money. I just got my Adderall script and started snorting it right away! Im going to try and leave it home when I go home so I don’t use it all. Physically my heart rate is still always nuts whether I’m Adderall or not. I’m trying to work out but its just getting harder each day. So yeah I guess that’s an update for now.
One September night in Indianola, Zac forced himself to go to a party at a high school friend’s house in honor of another friend who had just graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and was working toward becoming an Army Ranger. It had been a couple of months since Zac had seen Nick Haworth, his close friend since childhood and a former high-school football teammate. Haworth congratulated Zac—he’d seen his name in the newspaper recently for making honor roll at Grand View University during his final semester. “It seemed like he got his shit together,” Haworth said. There was a video from that night of Zac in a beer-chugging contest with friends. He seemed joyful, his old happy self.
The three young men—Zac, Haworth, and Lance Parker, the friend who was back from West Point—took their beers and headed to the back deck for some catch-up time between good buddies. They sat on a table while Haworth lit a cigarette. Zac wasn’t too talkative. Then, after a while, he started speaking up.
“I’m kind of going through some shit,” Zac said. “I’ve been out of work.”
He hadn’t worked in two months, he told his friends. His headaches were constant. He had just moved back in with his parents. He could no longer afford rent. As he sipped from his beer at the party, he told his friends that he hadn’t mentioned these struggles before because he didn’t want to burden other people with his problems.
“I think I have this thing called chronic traumatic encephalopathy,” Zac told them. Haworth had no idea what he was talking about. Zac detailed the turn his life had taken: depression, headaches, mood swings. At first, doctors had told him about postconcussion syndrome. Then, they mentioned this much scarier disease. Zac told them that this was the disease that Chris Benoit, the legendary Canadian professional wrestler, had contracted after a concussion-filled wrestling career. Benoit had murdered his wife and seven-year-old son at their home in 2007 before hanging himself. Posthumous tests showed that his brain was so severely damaged that it looked like the brain of an eighty-something-year-old suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Zac’s two friends were speechless. The next day, they met up again to talk about Zac. “Man,” one friend said to the other, “it sounds like his brain is turning to fucking mush.”
That whole fall, everything seemed dark to Zac. The weather w
as gloomy, cloudy, rainy. It felt like the whole world had turned black. His mood matched the skies. Before he moved back in with his parents, he’d lock himself in his room and drink, sometimes appearing in the living room for ten minutes wearing sweatpants and an expressionless look before disappearing back into his room. His roommates were concerned. Things only got worse. His family knew about Zac’s struggles now, but to his parents and brothers it appeared he was getting better. In September, to celebrate Zac’s older brother’s birthday, they all went to Bensink Farms Hunting Preserve in the nearby town of Pleasantville. Zac seemed like his old self. He posted a photo to Snapchat that day with the caption: Time to shoot some shit.
Pheasant season was to begin on Halloween, Zac’s father’s birthday. The Easter men planned to go hunting on their grandpa’s farm. The night before, Zac’s dad gave him simple instructions: “You bring your boots. I’ll bring your gun.” It was chilly and rainy on Halloween morning when Zac pulled up in Big Red to the family farm. He was wearing shorts and tennis shoes. “I thought, What in the fuck, you dumbass?” Myles Easter Sr. recalled later.
“It’s fricking freezing out,” Myles Sr. told his middle son. “You’re gonna get sick.”
Zac opened a rear door of his Mazda and started looking around the back seat.
“What are you looking for, your boots?” Myles Sr. asked him.
“No, you got my boots, Dad,” Zac replied. “I’m looking for my gun.”
Myles Easter shook his head. He had told Zac this the night before—You bring your boots. I’ll bring your gun.—and Zac had gotten it mixed up. That wasn’t like Zac. Myles Sr. had been skeptical the past several months when Zac told the family about his problems with his memory and his brain, and the concussions from football that might have been the cause. The explanation felt like an excuse to Myles Sr. He figured Zac was a twenty-four-year-old kid struggling to adjust to adulthood. This brain thing? It was just an excuse for him becoming a bit of a fuckup, like plenty of twenty-something young men do as they are trying to find their way in life. But on this day, Daddy Myles started to see a different and scarier version of his middle son.
Love, Zac Page 18