with an unusual group

That's a little gay for my tastes (I usually sleep naked), but I was willing to play along.

K


elly and I had been invited to a Sunday brunch party this morning. It was to be happening at her landlord's (John's) place upstairs. Kelly doesn't know John all that well, but she gets along with him amiably enough, and now that I'm an occasional visitor and he sort of knows me ("the weird guy across the street from where my girlfriend, Katherine, lives") there is now enough of a connection to get an invitation.

The dress code was: pajamas. That's a little gay for my tastes (I usually sleep naked), but I was willing to play along. Kelly found me some striped blue and white pajamas that were a perfect fit.

Upstairs, there were more people than I'd expected, well over a dozen. They were all about the same age: late 30s, with a few 40 somethings, and John's girlfriend, Katherine, who is still in her early 20s. There was also a little boy, somebody's kid. Either these people were unusually childless, or they'd found an effective way to farm out their kids on a Sunday morning.

It sounded like a lot of work, sleep deprivation and money in exchange for very little to tell her friends once she got back.

They were all friendly, happy liberal people, with nice jobs (many working at the university hospital) and good educations (at one point they independently started discussing Oberlin College). I'd never seen any of them before. They weren't the sort who inhabit Charlottesville's shady underbelly or its art & alcohol scenes. Kelly and I were a little disappointed that there were no bloody maries or mimosas to be had. The only consciousness-altering beverage available was coffee, so we drank a lot of that. I'm always at my best conversationally when I've been drinking caffeine, so this was a good thing.

Kelly and I mostly chatted with Katherine, who told us about her deep sea fishing adventures this weekend. It sounded like a lot of work, sleep deprivation and money in exchange for very little to tell her friends once she got back.

Eventually Kelly returned me to Kappa Mutha Fucka. It was a beautiful clear Fall day, and I suppose I should have taken her up on her invitation to go out into the country for some pointless driving, but for my own personal sanity, I needed to resume complete control over my life. I'm actually rather pleased with the casualness I've been allowed to enforce.

When alcohol exists and is drunk in such quantities as are the norm lately, it isn't difficult to take a little now and then completely unnoticed.

Yesterday Matthew Hart and Angela bought a whole gallon of gin, and today there was still a lot lying around, so I had some. When alcohol exists and is drunk in such quantities as are the norm lately, it isn't difficult to take a little now and then completely unnoticed.

Later on, Matthew, Angela and I sat on the front porch, admiring the Autumn and sipping on gin and tonics. I became so sleepy that eventually I lay down on the couch in the living room for a nap.

Theresa taints trip

T


oday Angela and Matthew hatched a plan to go to Richmond to visit Angela's old boyfriend, Nicholas the Human (see the Friday and Saturday entries). Ready with my sense of adventure, I invited myself to go along too.

Weighing most heavily on her mind is her impending sentencing, which is coming on the heels of her recent felony conviction in the Dink Boy case.

When Matthew and Angela got back from wherever they'd been, they brought Theresa with them. Angela had said she could come with us is he promised not to fight with me. (Theresa is apparently a little miffed that the prosecuting attourney in her recent felony trial has been reading these musings.) But Theresa didn't seem even remotely angry with me; far from it, she was overly friendly. More on that in a bit. Weighing most heavily on her mind is her impending sentencing, which is coming on the heels of her recent felony conviction in the Dink Boy case. For those of you who don't remember, back in February, Theresa and her boyfriend Persad beat the hell out of an annoying goth friend of theirs named "the Weirdo Doug" (aka "Dink Boy") when he refused to leave their apartment, Goth Central. Dink Boy recovered completely and went on to steal Monster Boy's girlfriend, but that story has all been told before. Anyway, Theresa is looking at something like a fortnight in the slammer, and she's none too happy about it. She'd been drowning her sorrows in spiced rum. The level of her intoxication wasn't clear just yet, but boy did we have something to look forward to.

We four loaded up in Angela's white Cadillac, and Matthew did the driving. I was in the back with Theresa and Angela rode shotgun. Theresa talked and talked the whole time.

As if to prove the point, Theresa reached up to grab Angela's breasts, or, when we were out of the car at Pantop's Mountain, her ass.

Theresa has a real talent for pouring salt in old wounds as well as creating fresh new wounds. She especially delights in dwelling on the subjects that are just better left unsaid. She asked Matthew, "So, have you been fucking my sister a lot?" Angela and Matthew looked at each other in embarrassed disbelief as she went on, "So, was it really good? I mean, was it really good?" Matthew and Angela tried to deny there'd been any sex at all, but Theresa would have none of it. She said (whilst in the middle of applying heavy gothic eyeliner) that she understood completely, and that, in fact, she'd like to fuck Angela too. What? I thought maybe she was kidding, but Theresa was absolutely serious. As if to prove the point, Theresa reached up to grab Angela's breasts, or, when we were out of the car at Pantop's Mountain, her ass. Theresa asked some completely random stranger, a nice looking conservative woman with two well-scrubbed children, whether she'd ever consider having sex with her sister. Understandably, the woman just wanted to gather up her spawn and hurry away from this gothic parking lot maniac.

She complimented me on my corduroy jacket and my unremarkable pectoral muscles. Regarding the latter I said, "I paid a lot for them; they're made of silicone."

We stopped at a McDonalds in Fluvanna and stood in line waiting to get some french fries. I'd originally planned to get something for myself, but spending time in line with Theresa was so much of an ordeal that I only got something for Matthew. Back when I still thought I'd be getting something for myself, he'd had the sense to hand me money so he could escape the scene Theresa was generating. She was talking loudly, commenting about the others in the line, pushing & shoving, and most distressingly, suddenly randomly elbowing me (why the hell does she have to do that?). She was also holding my arm and caressing my chest. I didn't know what to do; I did what I could to contain her, but I was hating it. She complimented me on my corduroy jacket and my unremarkable pectoral muscles. Regarding the latter I said, "I paid a lot for them; they're made of silicone."

When they had presence of mind, Angela and Matthew locked up in the trunk what remained of Theresa's half gallon of spiced rum. There was probably more than a pint left, and I hate to think what would have happened had that ended up inside Theresa. At the rate she was drinking, it wouldn't have taken very long.

She'd seen mutant babies dancing on our "combined chakra."

The ride continued. Theresa was all over me. This was something I found myself encouraging just so she wouldn't pummel the driver and cause us to crash. But it wasn't pleasant. She clawed me and punched me and caressed me and encouraged me to caress her. She was most calm when I had my hand on her breast, so, as much as I would have preferred not to, that's where I kept my hand. What with the rot in full effect, it was a total nightmare.

Through it all, Theresa continued to broach uncomfortable subjects. For example, Theresa wondered aloud what Jessika would think about what was going on between us. Theresa insisted that Jessika is very much in love with me, that she'd seen mutant babies dancing on our "combined chakra." And out of respect for Jessika, Theresa said she would go no further with me. So I pulled my hand off her butt, but she put it right back. "You're very lucky to have Jessika," Theresa said.

"I don't have anything!" I insisted, and Matthew agreed from the driver's seat.

He had a spacious cluttered room in an apartment he was sharing with big brown cockroaches and several housemates.

Somehow we made it to Richmond, into the part surrounding Virginia Commonwealth University. We found parking and proceded to track down Nicholas the Human's apartment. Meanwhile Theresa was dashing around, shouting happy things at the top of her lungs. She said she loved Richmond, that it was a little piece of New York. The part we were in did look a lot like Brooklyn. I'd never really hung out in Richmond before, so this was a novel experience for me.

Nicholas the Human lived on the top floor of a rustic old three story apartment building. He had a spacious cluttered room in an apartment he was sharing with big brown cockroaches and several housemates, one being an artist guy with two side-by-side lip piercings.

We drank a little gin and Theresa continued her reign of terror. She encouraged Nicholas the Human to get back together with Angela, and later, when alone with Matthew out on the roof, told him devilishly "You know Angela and Nick are in there having sex right now!"

And as we were leaving to hit one of the local restaurants, Theresa randomly picked up a knife and jabbed it into the wall.

They'd desperately needed the Theresa-free five minutes they'd stolen from me.

We went to a supermarket and I found myself babysitting Theresa. She was being horrible, trying to get me to throw her up against a wall and take sexual possession of her. While I was so distracted, the others did the "Jane Fonda Workout" and got away. I went to look for them in the store, dragging Theresa along (she had her hand on my ass), but couldn't find them anywhere. We'd been abandoned.

But then, off in the distance, there they were, my friends. They assured me they'd never just abandon me. They'd thought hard about it and decided to return for me. They'd desperately needed the Theresa-free five minutes they'd stolen from me.

We went to The Bidder's Suite, a cozy little restaurant with a mostly youthful punk rock clientel and a staff of two bleached-blond skater-dudes with wallet chains. There were a couple of Internet workstations available for public use at the rate of $1.75 for fifteen minutes. For such a wired establishment, I'm suprised to find such a lousy web page.

Like being in prison, each small pleasure seemed to us like a biological joy.

The others ordered sandwiches and such, I ordered an appallingly flat on-tap Sam Adams Oktoberfest, and Theresa terrorized the bartender and kept the juke box playing goth tunes (The Cure almost exclusively). Most of what we found ourselves doing involved telling Theresa we would not let her borrow Angela's fake ID, that I would not buy her a drink, that the bartender would never accept the lie that Theresa and Angela are twins, and that she should settle the fuck down. We prayed she'd be going home with the bartender, but we had no such luck. Like being in prison, each small pleasure seemed to us like a biological joy. Small pleasures at this point mostly consisted of the occasions when Theresa was not sitting with us but was instead harassing complete strangers.

I helped Matthew and Angela eat their generous portions, became momentarily obsessed with an anonymous buxom girl with blond streaks in her hair, and regretted having ever ordered an Oktoberfest.

Out on the streets, Theresa surged ahead of us and kicked things randomly. She was angry that we hadn't allowed her to drink in the bar. But back at Nicholas the Human's place, she delighted in drinking gin straight from the bottle. For some reason no one stopped her. The protocol is: it's cool to hide alcohol from an obnoxious drunk, but once she sees it, she has a right to it.

Theresa continued throwing salt on wounds, randomly mentioning that she saw Rory and Leah the other day on JPA and that Leah was looking warmly into Rory's eyes.

She tried to run off at one point, perhaps to lose us again, but Matthew caught her, and we kept ahold of her after that.

We'd originally intended to spend the night, but with our experience turning out so completely miserable, we decided to head back to Charlottesville. On the way to the car, we somehow lost Theresa. We found ourselves scouring the neighborhood looking for her. It was completely ridiculous; in a just world, we would have abandoned her to the whimsy of the streets of Richmond. But we felt some kind of obligation to track her down and see to it that she returned to Charlottesville with us safe and sound. We walked for blocks and blocks in various circles, among surprisingly punk rock throngs. Suddenly Matthew saw Theresa and went charging down the street after her. We all caught up, and shepherded her back towards the car. She was in a foul mood, deriving simple pleasure from furthering our misery. She tried to run off at one point, perhaps to lose us again, but Matthew caught her, and we kept ahold of her after that. When she got in the car, she started slamming around and being obnoxious, and I lost my cool. I said, "Did you miss that day in Kindergarten when they taught the lesson on how to be nice? Why the fuck do you have to destroy everything you lay your hands on?" She became even more sullen at this point, but she stopped lashing out and remained quiet for the rest of the ride. Nicholas had been joking with me that I had a big chance to get lucky on the ride home. Surprisingly, I was able to sleep most of the way.

After we dropped off Theresa at Angela's place, Matthew said that he'd never seen her so bad before, and had never before been on a road trip in which one person had been so responsible for making it into a complete disaster. I said that it almost would have been better to have been babysitting Eric "the Nazi" Huffman. What was so strange about Theresa tonight was how consistently messed up she was the whole time, even when long stretches of time passed between drinks, times during which she should have begun to sober up. It seemed as if more than just alcohol were at work here.

---

an unpleasant tale

Presumably he justified such actions by saying he was "getting back at the white man."

T


his morning, Kelly told me the disturbing tale of Tray, a friend of her old boyfriend, John. Tray had a rich white mother and a black father, and at a certain point in his life, he went to Brooklyn to learn how to "be black." For awhile he was a prolific Charlottesville artist, doing naïve paintings celebrating the triumphs of the black man. He also did a number of murals in a similar style, one of which is visible on Main Street between the Corner and the Downtown Mall. His friendship with John was mostly related to their mutual interest in marijuana. One day Tray brought a girl to the front of John's house, fucked her in John's car, sent her off on her way, and knocked on John's door, asking for some smoke. John brough out the pot, rolled up a joint and handed it to Tray, who took a big sloppy wet hit. Then he passed it back to John. After he took a puff, John handed it back, saying, "You can finish it, man!" The joint, he was horrified to relate later, had tasted like pussy. Imagine how skanky that pussy must have been.

Tray went on to steal John's van and leave Charlottesville, never to return. Presumably he justified such actions by saying he was "getting back at the white man."

In a similar way, perhaps Rory is still fighting the War of 1812.

---

Get a sense of what I was like exactly eight years ago and one year ago today.

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