A girl came up to us in one parking lot trying to sell us cologne.

R


ory the British waiter from the C&O had spent the night on the Kappa Mutha Fucka couch. He joined Matthew Hart and me on a mission to eat the buffet at the Maharaja Indian restaurant after we dropped Leah off at Fresh Fields. We were riding in Deya's car because Matthew's has ignition problems.

We had some time to kill between when we dropped off Leah and when the Maharaja opened, but nothing was open on 29 North except grocery stores. So we bought a six pack of expensive beer with a delightful hazelnut flavour and drove around looking at dumpsters but not actually looking in them. A girl came up to us in one parking lot trying to sell us cologne. Ha ha. We're all unwashed and smelly and she's selling cologne. Our fragrance mostly results from our sleeping in our clothes and our failure to shower, but Rory reeks additionally of milldew; I hear that's common among people from the British Isles, where nothing really ever dries out completely.

Meanwhile Rory fasted and grumbled ignorantly that the food probably contained dog meat. The English are famous for overlooking the highlights of their empire.

The Maharaja is on the shore of a vast parking lot in Seminole Square on 29 North. The buffet was well stocked and Matthew and I no doubt got our $7 worth. Meanwhile Rory fasted and grumbled ignorantly that the food probably contained dog meat. The English are famous for overlooking the highlights of their empire.

I was so uncomfortably bloated as I left the restaurant that I lay down on the sidewalk in front of a store selling overpriced tee shirts. A fussy little woman came out of the store and told me to go lie in front of the restaurant. Bloated people on the sidewalk apparently aren't conducive to tee-shirt sales.

Rory needs a place to live in a month's time, and Matthew has taken it upon himself to find him a girlfriend with whom he can live. His idea today was to fix Rory up with Meghan, the recently-piercing-crazed redhead of lobster liberation fame. We drove to her house and Matthew introduced her to Rory while her mother watched in amusement and I tried to find a place to comfortably digest my food.

My stomach was so stretched that it hurt continously. I tried drinking some beer, but of course that made me hurt even more.
In response to the "Rory as boyfriend proposal" Meghan said something like "sure, I'd love to have Rory as my boyfriend." But I don't know how serious she was. She is a weirdo though, so who knows. Mission accomplished, Matthew took Rory home.

T


he day was an especially hot one and we made plans to go to the Louisa quarry in the Dodge Dart. I couldn't do anything immediately, what with the Indian food I'd eaten. I lay down in my bed to moan and groan at the burden in my belly. The heat and gluttony conspired and soon I was asleep. An hour passed and Matthew woke me up. He was anxious to go to the quarry. And I was still bloated; the Indian food was proving to be a serious handicap.

The tequila we'd stolen last night had been mostly drunk, but a shot had been reserved for me. While I wasn't looking, damn it if Deya didn't drink it. I was infuriated by this (owing to the fullness of my stomach, liquor was the only form of alcohol I could comfortably drink) and bore a grudge against Deya for the remainder of the day.

Zach joined Deya, Matthew and I on the drive out to the Louisa quarry. Along the way we dropped off a car for Leah at Fresh Fields and bought a case of Natural Ice in bottles. I was in such a bad mood that when someone tried to tell me about a bowl of pasta Deya had left on the roof of my car, I glared at the unfortunate man and leaned on the horn.

There were lots of cars parked along the road near the quarry. I'd never been to the quarry when others were there, though it seems the place has become a relatively popular swimming location for people within a 40 mile radius (Charlottesville is 30 miles away). The majority of the swimmers are of course from the immediate vicinity, and are mostly rednecks. As we approached the quarry on foot, we saw one well-funded redneck driving a mud-encrusted four-wheel-drive vehicle around the field. He'd apparently been "mud bogging," which is what rednecks do when they want to assert their inner children by playing in the mud with their toys.

While Matthew and Zach jumped off the 37 foot cliff into the deep tranquil green waters, Deya and I went around to the shallow beach to wade among the beer-drinking rednecks and two token UVA college kids and a scuba-diving volunteer fireman. The sexual interest for the guys appeared to be a thin girl in a skimpy bikini who sipped periodically from a Busch and rarely ventured into the water. She tried on the scuba diver's leg-mounted knife holster but concluded that it wasn't designed for female geometry.

I did very little except sip lethargically from a beer. It seemed the Indian food had rendered me incapable of drinking. I was disappointed; if there was any place to be drunk on a hot day like today, it was the quarry. To add to my humiliation, a little sunfish kept sneaking up and nipping at me. I tried to catch him and teach him a lesson, but he always zipped away too fast.

There's maybe even a skeleton or two that would close the book on a couple Central Virginia missing persons cases.

I went up to the top of the 37 foot-tall cliff and watched Zach and Matthew exploring a relatively uncharted cliff several hundred feet away. A couple young teenage redneck boys sat with me and we talked for awhile about cool fanciful things we could set up to make the quarry even more fun: a waterslide, a zip line, maybe even get a motorboat and do some water skiing. We also discussed what might lie at the bottom of the deep water (which they told me was 800 feet deep; I really don't think so). No doubt there is old rusty mining equipment down there, probably lots of bottles. There's maybe even a skeleton or two that would close the book on a couple Central Virginia missing persons cases. One thing that definitely does lie at the bottom is a bottle of Natural Ice that Matthew accidentally released as he jumped in today. Owing to the unfathomable depths, anything that sinks at the base of the cliff is gone for good.

As I sat there, a mixed-sex group of young teens walked up and jumped off one after the other like Norwegian lemmings. A second time they jumped off in pairs. Such seemingly foolish casualness was made possible by the unique structure of that part of the quarry wall. At that point, you see, the cliff sticks out in a sort of a peninsula overhanging an embayment and it's nearly impossible to miscalculate and hit the rocks. I noticed that the local teenagers (all of them white) spoke a weird composite accent comprised of plantation-style-southern English, generic MTVspeak and Black English presumably picked up from an interest in rap music. I would normally just assume these kids to be rednecks, but they were more cosmopolitan than that, as evidenced by their heavy use of gangsta slang and underground pot-culture jargon (such as "it's 4:20" meaning "it's time to smoke pot").

At one time Amy might well have been a real looker, but the years, the beers, the cigarettes and, most importantly, the bon-bons, had taken their toll.

D


eya was pretty drunk by this point and had found a small group of extroverted pot-smoking rednecks to talk with. They were sitting in the shade near the beach end of the quarry, passing a hooter around and giggling to one another. The rednecks consisted of three people:
• Hope (aka "Hopeless"), a snaggle-toothed old wench of perhaps 40.
• Amy, a plump lady wearing a fuschia dress that she'd only buttoned part-way up the front, leaving on display huge sagging breasts only partially contained within a dark blue bra. At one time Amy might well have been a real looker, but the years, the beers, the cigarettes and, most importantly, the bon-bons, had taken their toll. She said she was thirty, but she looked considerably older (being 29, I'd like to think so anyway).
• Danny, a big dumb overly-tanned redneck dude with a long thinning ponytail and a distractingly discoloured front top right incisor. He had a way of squinting at everyone pleasantly with a ludicrous benign look on his face. At first I thought maybe he'd smoked a bit too much pot. Later I determined that this was his essential nature. Matthew attributed Danny's doofiness to "bad breeding," but perhaps that's a bit elitist considering Matthew's mother is a teacher and his dad is a lawyer.
When Deya, the rednecks and I were joined by Zach and Matthew, I noticed the two redneck women were eyeing Matthew and Zachary in a way that left little room for guessing about intentions. I have to give the rednecks their due: in their drunken extrovertedness, they had a certain undeniable charm that seemed to work miracles, especially on Deya and Matthew. Amy in her fuschia dress seemed to have the most allure. She had Deya hanging on her from one side and Matthew on the other.

Indeed, had an alien spacecraft landed and a two headed green monster with tentacles scurried out and befriended us, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Matthew entertaining the notion of trans-biologic intercourse as well.

Matthew quickly fell into a familiar pro-social mode; he invite all three rednecks to come back to Kappa Mutha Fucka with us. He thought it would be a wonderful sociological adventure. When we were out of earshot of the others, he went further and admitted that he was titillated by the ludicrous prospect of having sex with Amy. As bizarre as this sounds, I more or less understood exactly what Matthew was saying. There was something very exciting about the idea of being seduced by someone so completely unfamiliar as a fat old redneck wench, quite apart from the social dischord and logistical problems attending the actual pursuit of such an idea. Indeed, had an alien spacecraft landed and a two headed green monster with tentacles scurried out and befriended us, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Matthew entertaining the notion of trans-biologic intercourse as well.

We had the rednecks follow us in their beat up old sportscar. They drove incredibly slowly, and I had to keep waiting for them to catch up. When they stopped at a gas station, they bummed a dollar off of Matthew since they had almost no money between them.

Finally, in a desperate effort to bring her harassment to an end, I slapped her across the face.

Meanwhile in the Dart, Zachary and Matthew were leaning way out the window and acting crazy as Deya alternated between hitting and caressing me.
I have no doubt she's upset with the idea that I might be engaging in sexual acts that do not include her. Of course, the mere fact that she has a complete double standard in this regard provides me no real freedom to do as I choose. Every time I'm in my room with a girl (anyone from Leah to Jessika), Deya can be found standing in the door, watching to make sure nothing is going on.
And when Deya gets drunk, she becomes especially jealous. But this jealously is mixed with frustration. She goes from flirty behaviour to violent punching every few seconds.
As I was driving, I found her unrelenting physical intervention extremely irritating, no less so because I was still pissed off about her drinking my tequila earlier today. Finally, in a desperate effort to bring her harassment to an end, I slapped her across the face. She started crying and, at my request, traded places in the front seat with Matthew Hart. Matthew and her held hands the rest of the ride as she tearfully told him what a big meanie I am.

B


ack at Kappa Mutha Fucka, Leah was waiting for us, Matthew particularly. She was a wee bit surprised that we'd brought a carload of rednecks with us. Perhaps she was even a little more surprised when Zachary told her that Matthew had intentions of having sex with the big wench Amy.

Not being hippies, we don't have any incense, so I burned feathers and plastic in an effort to smell something -anything- else.

When the rednecks walked barefoot into the house, they tracked in some appallingly dreadful dog poo that some malicious pooch periodically places directly in one of the front yard's principle paths. The poo smelled incredibly bad and I had to do something immediately. I got out the hose and blasted off the front porch and then had the redneck wenches stand there while I sprayed their feet. After that I blasted to oblivion the poo puddle in the yard. Finally, I mopped all the inside floors. Still the poo smell hung heavy in the unmoving air. Not being hippies, we don't have any incense, so I burned feathers and plastic in an effort to smell something -anything- else.

Aside from caressing Amy's shoulder, he didn't pursue her much further. Instead, he refocused his lust onto Leah.

The prospect of having sex with the redneck wench Amy only had a passing titillation value for Matthew. Aside from caressing Amy's shoulder, he didn't pursue her much further. Instead, he refocused his lust onto Leah. But since she was sober, Leah found his gross horniness to be repulsive. She refused to run off and have sex immediately. So Matthew threw a temper tantrum, kicking the coffee table and knocking things onto the floor in a display of passion common in our household.

I wasn't having fun anymore; I wasn't even drunk. I was just irritated. So I went to bed. Deya came and slept with me. I couldn't get her to leave, and I certainly wasn't going to leave my own bed, so that's what happened. It was all completely innocent, as Leah confirmed later when she came storming into my bedroom to see what was "up."

Late in the night, Leah and Sarah (Natalie's sidekick) had a long conversation about the soap opera that is our house.

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