According to Matthew Hart, when Dave Simpson of the C&O breaks a candy bar in half: the atomic weights of the two halves are perfectly equal.

But no, we made the best of the situation and continued filling our cups as if the morning had been simply an intermission in our party.

W


e could have looked upon the half-full keg of Red Hook on the back porch as some sort of mocking icon. But no, we made the best of the situation and continued filling our cups as if the morning had been simply an intermission in our party.

Then Matthew Hart, Leah and I decided to go eat Chinese food at the Peking Restaurant off the east side of the Downtown Mall. We stopped in first at Nemo's house to pick up Raphæl, Ana and the lad for which the place is named. All these things were done with exceptional casualness. Planning or calling ahead are simply not the way things are done in our little world.

Our attractive waitress at the Peking Restaurant spoke rather good English. This wasn't the only indication that she was rather more assimilated into American culture than the other employees. You see, she had dyed her hair a sort of reddish colour. And I don't know about her eyebrows, but they appeared to have been plucked into comic little arched lines and darkened with pencil.

For his part, Matthew, the good husband with a bite mark on his forehead, can be startlingly bold at times.

She had attracted the attention of Leah, who I should perhaps again briefly refer to as Matthew's "on again off again lesbian girlfriend slash wife." Leah kept nudging Matthew and making little remarks to us in a voice that must have been plainly audible throughout the restaurant. For his part, Matthew, the good husband with a bite mark on his forehead, can be startlingly bold at times. He asked the waitress if she'd like to come home with us. No, she had to work. Of course. She's a busy girl working in a Chinese restaurant. Matthew doesn't define such things as rejection, and even if he did, he wasn't going down so easy. Before we left, he was sure to leave the waitress detailed instructions on how to come to our house. The rest of the day the prospect of her showing up provided recurrent titilation.

This brings up an interesting similarity between Leah and myself (and possibly Matthew Hart). We have a fetishistic interest in Asian women. Asks Leah rhetorically, "Why do you think I took Chinese at Bryn Mawr?"

If we'd occasioned upon a sobriety check point I'd wager a guess that we all would have flunked MSG breathalyzer tests.

We ate to excess of course. Raphæl most of all; he had a dish consisting almost completely of beef. When we ducked back into the street, we were rubbing our bellies, complaining happily about our distended stomachs. The feeling was rather more profound than simple overindulgence. One could safely say we were intoxicated. Raphæl even experienced difficulties driving. If we'd occasioned upon a sobriety check point I'd wager a guess that we all would have flunked MSG breathalyzer tests.

We all went back to Observatory Avenue and sat around in the living room, drinking more of that albatrossesque beer and generally being bored. While most of us (with the possible exception of Matthew Hart) are content to just be bored, Raphæl insisted on doing something. Anything.

O


rganically, the plan became one of going for a drunken Sunday drive. The day was perfect for such things; the sky was bright blue and clouds looked as if they'd been clipped out of a college brochure and pasted into the sky. We went in three cars, actually, and mine was the only one in which drinking actually occurred. Zach, Leah, Matthew Hart, Deya and brick mansion Sam (a legacy from the night before) all rode with me. Raphæl drove Peggy and Ana and assorted embryos and babies in his silver BMW (a recent acquisition). Finally, bringing up the rear, was the ugly mutant-vagina-pink Geo Metro convertible belonging to Aaron, Monster Boy's manatee-like friend from Norfolk. His passengers included Monster Boy and Wonderboy Neek (a most unwelcome straggler from the night before).

The videocamera played an important role as well in as much as it chronicled events far better than our drunken minds.

I drove like a maniac down winding roads at speeds that bore no relationship to posted limits

There is something marvelous about so flagrantly violating the norms of our society as we did today. I mean, picture two gallon jugs full of Red Hook making the rounds as I drove like a maniac down winding roads at speeds that bore no relationship to posted limits, deliberately swerving to hit each and every roadkill with a thump. Whenever my coffee cup was empty, Matthew or Leah would fill me another. Absurdly enough, in an effort to break something out the window, Matthew threw a perfectly good glass.

We went down 20 to Scottsville. I pulled into Big Fun, and the others followed but then we saw a car down there, perhaps belonging to a new tenant. Quick! We drove away.

Raphæl had to go to work, and he'd managed to pick up some pedestrians who needed to go to work too. Zach had to work as well, so they cut out of our contingent. Down to two cars, we drove past Deya's parents' house to the mighty James River, which on this day was flowing unusually high. On the way we kept losing the Geo Metro in the rearview. This was a result of a combination of Aaron's conservative driving and his Geo's pathetic little three cylinder engine. We kept jokingly applauding the car's disappearance; in our drunken rowdiness the loss of Monster Boy seemed like a small price to pay to be rid of Wonderboy Neek.

On the one hand you have Wonderboy looking like he could serve as an extra in a movie about the Holocaust.

By the edge of the swollen James I chewed the pulpy lower trunk of a grass stem, as I have always done since I was a small boy. The others did too, but no one had the patience to develop the hearty green cud that dwelled for a time in my mouth. Matthew Hart took his shirt off, and soon most of the other boys had too. At such times one realizes that human body shapes are remarkably different. On the one hand you have Wonderboy looking like he could serve as an extra in a movie about the Holocaust, and on the other you have Aaron looking like he just might slither into the river only to get his back scratched up by a passing motorboat.

On the drive back, suddenly Leah wanted to go visit some obscure friend on one of the many plantations that lie in the route 20 corridor. I made an awkard three point turn right in the middle of 20 and soon enough the beat up old Dart was parked in the circular driveway of a nice little anonymous white mansion. No one we knew was home, but the parents were there, just leaving actually. Down the road a little ways they came upon as we all stood or squatted around a rural intersection urinating. It's all on videotape to the galloping rhythms of Slayer blaring from my car's stereo.

T


he keg was still kicking back at 129 Observatory. Sam called up Ami Sage to encourage her to come over and help us drink it. So she showed up. So too did the boy Jesse as well as Leah's older sister along with a friend. Leah's sister is one of the few people who really can get away with wearing an eyebrow ring.

She did so with a combination of fear, loathing and flirtation.

The day becomes sort of a blur at this point. For some reason sexual politics played a ridiculously big role. It all seemed to have its origins with Deya, who was incredibly drunk. She has lots of unresolved sexual issues related to me, see. Without inhibitions, she was more than willing to confront these issues. She did so with a combination of fear, loathing and flirtation. She even predicted that I'd eventually be doing the butt with Leah. Deya found some solace in Ami Sage, who then became the unlikely object of her affections.

I lay around in my room with the latest Guided by Voices CD blaring away. Periodically others, particularly Leah, would come by and we'd engage in the most despicably dehumanizing gossip about the other members of the household. Almost all we talked about was "the butt" and who wanted to do the butt with whom. It's clear that our house is obsessed with the subject of sex. And the only term we use for it is "the butt."

Then Leah would complain about the Guided by Voices and root around through my CDs commenting about how bizarre the collection was and that I have entirely too many Guided by Voices CDs. For my part, I was sincerely feeling that "Portable Men's Society" is the best song ever written in the history of mankind.

See some images captured from video on this day.

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