After I awoke I went to my place of employ because Ira, the guy who handles the finances, had sent me e-mail telling me someone had tried to cash a check upon which a stop-payment decree had been placed (this was a check I'd lost and had had to have re-issued). The only trouble with this story was that some weeks ago I had in fact found the lost check, and it had been safely back at my house, sealed in an envelope, unsigned. It's extremely unlikely that someone snuck into my room, rooted around through my stuff, stole the envelope, steamed it open, signed the check, took it to the bank, was turned down on attempting to cash it, erased his signature leaving no trace whatsoever, sealed it back up in the envelope, and hid it back among my things exactly where it had been. All this while having stolen nothing else among the many things far more obvious.
While I was at Comet, Sharynn, the woman who answers the main business line, fixed me a pot of coffee. Without the Bakery, it was good to have another source of free coffee.
I wasn't long back at my house, the Dynashack, when suddenly there was a massive invasion of goths. The contingent that quite suddenly appeared consisted of Theresa, both Brazilian Girls (Cecelia and Nada/Leticia) and an extra goth, Monster Boy, whom I haven't ever really seen outside of Theresa's place.
We sat around talking about Theresa and Persad's recent arrest.
Jessika had told me a little something about "the arrest" in electronic communications with me last night. She had heard about it from Peggy who had returned briefly to Charlottesville to drop off Zachary so he could join a massive Big Fun alumni contingent heading to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. This contingent includes such familiar characters as Matthew Hart, Morgan Anarchy, Vanna the Increasingly Gothic Punk Rock Girl, Torrin and the Wonderboy Neek.
Theresa figures she'll beat the felony charges for which she has been accused. She says that the Weirdo Doug had been reaching for a knife the whole time she'd been attacking him and that, in her own home, this was clearly a case of self defense.
The plan for tonight was to go to "the graveyard" (a little piece of the Victorian Age in northeastern Charlottesville oft-frequented by the goths I know). Since we'd be getting back before 9pm, I could come along.
But there was a chill in the air and the trip to the graveyard never occurred. Instead we went (in Monster Boy's hotrod, the Monstermobile) to Monster Boy's house, which is a Jewish theme house (like Oberlin's Hebrew House, perhaps?) somewhat related to the University of Virginia. It lies in deepest Fratville, not far from Morgan Anarchy's mom's place where Jessika lived this summer. Monsterboy's room looks much like Morgan's room. It's big and full of comfy couches. On the wall punk rock/gothic sentiments are expressed in poster form. Monster Boy unfortunately has to share his bathroom with the older Irish drunk next door, a gentleman who leaves notes on the toilet complaining about something called "shyte."
While sharing a clove cigarette, Leticia and I pleasantly discovered that we are both also given to chewing on whole cloves. I decribed the process to her: biting off the papery thin-walled head, then the four shoulders, and then slowly crushing the clove while the adjacent region of the mouth goes numb. She says she chews cloves the very same way. She thinks there's probably a small underground of clove chewers out there, because she bought a used jacket once and it had cloves in the pocket.
Monster Boy has a reference guide to all the wacky movies that are out there; that's how he knew to get Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and the other flicks in his collection. The particular reference guide he uses is in a series that includes other books he has collected on subjects such as body piercing and the so-called "modern primitives." I thumbed through a couple of these books in awe.
I skimmed over one story about a man who adminsters to himself all manner of horrendous piercings (he drives nails through his scrotum for example). It's apparently a distraction from the pain of cystic fibrosis and constitutes a kind of therapy. As a result he is the oldest surviving person afflicted with this dreaded genetic disease. The man does other cool things like play in an "experimental noise band." It was obvious that Monster Boy reserved particular respect for him; calling the man "extremely intelligent" for example.
At around 9pm, we piled back into the Monstermobile, picked up the boy Jesse, and took Leticia home. Then I was let out on the Corner so I could begin my pre-work nap. Theresa did all the driving and was scary enough in that capacity for Monster Boy to deploy his safety belt.
It had been a thoroughly enjoyable evening. It's rare that I have quite that much fun hanging out with a group of people. Monster Boy reminds me somewhat of Persad, mostly in the way he talks, but there is more about him that reminds me of myself than is the case with most people. He's 21 and he thought I was about 23. I'm going to be 29 on Sunday.
By the way, Rebecca, Monster Boy's gothic girlfriend, is not getting along so well with Monster Boy and Theresa these days, judging from what they said about her behind her back. Theresa called her a cunt and a bitch and Monster Boy called her a slut.