I’m afraid to fly. I realize this isn’t exactly a groundbreaking admission. Like most Americans, my anxiety soared after 9-11. Visiting my family in Allentown, Pennsylvania that week, I flew out of BWI the first day airports reopened. It was a Sunday and I made the mistake of thumbing through the Washington Post while I waited. Every story, you can guess, involved the three hijacked planes. I called a couple of friends from a pay phone near my gate, resigned to the fact that I would suffer the same fate as those unfortunate passengers six days earlier.

Everyone who boarded that flight felt a certain amount of dread. Guys who stepped past my row glanced at me and nodded, as if to say ‘we got this.’ I returned the nod; our gang of (white, male) vigilantes was assembling. I removed the dozen or so pens from my backpack and set them on the empty seat next to me. These would be my weapons. For my crippling anxiety, I downed eight cans of Heineken during the five hour flight to Phoenix. Before 9-11, I would have been labeled a degenerate and likely cut off. But these were not normal times.

I felt bad for a well dressed Middle Eastern man in his forties- Indian, most likely- who stood up to go to the bathroom. Every member of my vigilante crew rose halfway to their feet, heads rising above the seats like a perverse game of whack-a-mole, daring the would-be terrorist to try something. For my part, I clenched the pens tightly in my hand, ready to strike. The plane landed in Phoenix without incident. Unfortunately for me, I still had a connecting flight to Los Angeles.

My fear of flying leveled off over the next decade and a half. Then, on a unseasonably warm February afternoon in 2016, it reached new heights. That’s what happens when you visit a mosque and urinate in the holy water. Surely, I was now on some sort of jihadist list that includes Cheney and cartoonists who blaspheme Mohammed. Looking back, I never should have drank so much during the funeral.

Austin was found dead in his Santa Monica apartment. Whether it was an accidental overdose or a premeditated one was anyone’s guess. His being a doctor only complicated the question. Austin was a fairly heavy drug user going back to junior high. He would regale me with stories of taking acid and coke while navigating the treacherous world of teenage adolescence. I met him at UCLA, where we were pledged the same fraternity together. We shared a raunchy sense of humor and an affection for sports, particularly ice hockey. Like every other student in my pledge class, Austin came from a privileged background. Unlike the others, however, he never looked down at me and my lower-middle class roots.

Sophomore year, we shared a two-bedroom apartment in Westwood with two other friends. Despite our bonhomie, Austin was dubbed the ‘Grinder,’ on account of him ‘always having an ax to grind.’ He had a quick, volatile temper that would flare up at any moment. Thankfully, this hostility dissipated when he met Tina, a cute, perky Asian girl, halfway through fall quarter. They were a perfect couple. Inseparable. His nickname almost became ironic, like calling a fat guy ‘Slim.’ He and Tina moved in together after college. She worked in a medical office while Austin pursued a medical degree at USC.

Then it all came crashing down. A month before graduating med school, Tina left him. Not the usual course of events, that’s for sure. Typically, the newly minted doctor seeks to cash in on his elevated status and explore his options. Austin not only retreated to his Grinder days, his anger deepened. He inhaled copious amounts of cocaine, along with his daily regiment of weed and scotch. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a seedy part of Hollywood. A later stint at AA proved feckless. He kicked the scotch, sure, but not the coke, weed, and and his latest (and most dangerous) addiction: opiates.

I didn’t want to go to the funeral. Once again, I understand this is not a revolutionary statement. Who wants to see a dead guy in a casket? And it wasn’t because it was being held at a mosque. (Austin’s parents emigrated from Egypt and are devout Muslims; Austin couldn’t give a shit). In fact, that was the only reason I wanted to go. I had never been in a mosque before and was intrigued at the chance to check one out. What I wasn’t excited to see were two former friends who I knew would be there, particularly Dan the Man. Last time I saw Dan he drunkenly tried to pummel me on a Santa Monica sidewalk. He thought I was interested in his mousy girlfriend, which I decidedly was not. Though he left numerous apologetic messages on my voicemail- and a more than a few laced with arsenic- I never saw him since that night. The other was Frank, a dandified talent agent, whose pretentious air became too noxious. I was done with both of them.

The mosque was in Anaheim. My good friend Chris, whom we shared the apartment with Austin during college, drove us to the funeral in his Range Rover. Despite her affection for Austin, Birva, Chris’s wife, did not attend. Her absence was on account of the way women were treated in the Muslim faith. And, sure enough, this was the first thing I noticed entering the mosque. Females were barred from praying with the men. They had to stand outside the glass wall, watching the ceremony like gawkers at a zoo. Other than that, the proceedings were not terribly dissimilar from Catholic masses- just a lot more kneeling and bowing. Like every other second it seemed.

I saw a handful of old acquaintances, including Frank and Dan the Man. Most of them I had not seen since college, over twenty years ago. We shook hands, exchanging sorrowful facial expressions. After all, we weren’t here for a reunion party. Austin’s portion of the ceremony began. I still couldn’t believe he was gone. Barely forty and a doctor, to boot. In my mind, he had already won at the game of life. Heck, if I was a doctor, I’d wear scrubs every day.

After the prayer service for Austin, our group of twenty or so migrated to a cemetery a couple miles away. I rode shotgun in Dan’s Mustang, my angst towards him quickly melting away. We stopped at a liquor store on the way. Dan bought us a couple of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, his alcohol of choice. We polished them off in the parking lot as Dan apologized profusely for his past behavior. I accepted.

We joined the others at the cemetery. I expressed my condolences to his dad and brother, a slightly older, bloated version of Austin. Surprisingly, his mother was not there and not mentioned. We gathered around Austin’s gravesite as his coffin was lowered slowly into the dug-out hole. I couldn’t stop the tears from dripping down my cheeks. On the way back to the mosque- a private memorial was to be held- Dan and I made a pit stop and gulped down more hard lemonades.

By the time we arrived at the mosque, I was completely drunk. In one of the back rooms, our group feasted on cold cuts while we took turns swapping memories of Austin. I spoke, slurring words, of how Austin was a true friend, never judging me like others in my fraternity. I don’t recall exactly what I said and, based upon the odd glances and jaded applause, I don’t think anyone else did, either. I sat down, wiped my watery eyes, and wished I had another cocktail. Then it happened.

I had to go to the bathroom. One of Austin’s uncles, a regular at the mosque, directed me towards it. I tramped inside, eager to relieve myself. I was overwhelmed by its beauty- very opulent, like bathrooms found in five-star hotels. Especially considering the mosque itself was a bit rundown. Blue and white tiles. Marble urinals. They were strange looking, though, with one-foot high square stools in front of them. A Muslim thing, I guessed.

I unzipped my fly and started to urinate. I was halfway through, groaning over the sheer pleasure of emptying my bladder, when an older, rail thin Arab stuck his head inside the bathroom. In a stern voice, he admonished me: ‘that is not a urinal.’

I quickly zipped up, horror spreading across my reddened face. The Arab pointed to the room behind it- one, which in my drunkenness, I had not noticed. ‘Sorry,’ I uttered. Head slouched, I slogged to the rear. And back there was the actual restroom, dank and pedestrian. I had pissed in the holy water.

After completing my micturition, I scampered out of the bathroom, into the parking lot. Dan cackled when I told him what happened. I was aghast, having offended not only Austin’s family and the mosque patrons, but an entire religion. You know how many Muslims there are in the world? The only saving grace was the thought that Austin would have laughed his ass off. And he probably was, right then and there, somewhere in the afterlife. Dan drove us to a bar in Santa Monica where would drink the night away. All I thought about was ISIS tracking me down, a befouler of their faith. Shit, now I’m really afraid to fly.