March 17 1998, Tuesday

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essika and I were watching some dumb show on premium television when she had the idea that we should clean the room between the kitchen and the living room. That room has never lived up to its potential, trapped as it is between two important rooms, serving mostly as a hallway and closet. Monster Boy lived there for awhile back in his protracted homeless phase. When Shira the Dog lived here, she quickly identified the room as the ideal place to pinch her fragrant loaves. Nicholas the Cat had been using the litter box (also located in this room) since he moved in back in September. Now Wilbur the Cockatiel spends most of his time in this room; his cage hangs from a hook in the ceiling.

As we were cleaning this room, Matthew Hart and Jatasya showed up. Matthew reminded us that it was St. Patrick's Day and proposed that we go get some Guiness to celebrate. So we all walked down to the Seven Day Junior and bought a four pack of the sixteen ounce cans (the kind with the little carbonation device hidden in the bottom of the can).

As we walked to and from the store, Matthew talked about how he'd like to make his attacker (the guy who hit him with the bottle the night of the 7th) pay for his extensive medical bills. Matthew, you see, had to spend the night in the hospital, receive MRIs and other intrusive and expensive electronic scans, and of course (like many young people in this great land of ours) he has no medical insurance. Imagine the injustice of having to pay thousands of dollars for injuries resulting from someone else's testosterone problems. Matthew is another one of those people who doesn't believe in pressing charges, and originally he had no special interest in hunting down his attacker, but in his dubious fiscal situation, his opinion has changed. The attacker, by the way, is described as being a white male having shoulder-length hair. He is either a member or friend of the Richmond band that played immediately before the Councilors.

From what Matthew said today, it's clear that Chaz and his friends played a role in Matthew's trouble. According to Matthew, there was a moment when Matthew and Angela were outside and one of Chaz's idiot friends asked Angela for a cigarette. After she'd given him one, he showed no appreciation whatever and called her a "whore." He was obviously taking the opportunity to prove some sort of masculine fortitude. Well, Matthew got ticked off at this point and told the guy off. Since this guy was one of Chaz's friends, somehow Chaz himself got involved. Matthew challenged Chaz to a fight. Chaz naturally declined, even though earlier, after Chaz's altercation with me, he'd been loudly boasting that he could fight all his enemies "with both my hands tied behind my back." Then, of course, all Chaz's idiot friends started ganging up on Matthew. Their ranks had been swelled by some thugs from Richmond including members of that one band - which had, by the way, placed Chaz and Wingnut on their guest list. This is their usual style; the thugs never do anything except as a mindless group. But for some reason this aggressive display died down. Later though, when Matthew was doing something else, once of these guys ran up and hit Matthew and then that guy with the long curly hair hit him with a bottle.

As we approached Kappa Mutha Fucka, Angela showed up in her Cadillac. She joined us for a little while, and we each drank a Guiness. Jatasya kept almost completely quiet with her hand over her mouth. The lobotomy rumour Jessika has been spreading seems more true every time I see her.

In other news, Matthew says that Shira the Dog, who has been living in a big fenced-in field at his mother's house near Staunton, has been involved in a lesbian relationship with another dog (some bitch). I pointed out to those assembled that Shira's sex drive probably hasn't diminished since her hysterectomy (she was spayed) because sex drive in female mammals is mostly related to hormones secreted by the adrenal glands, which are not affected by spaying.

After we'd each drunk our beer, the three who had come to visit all left together as a group.

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essika and I wandered around out in the cold for awhile looking for the means to make a dinner table. Jessika would like to turn the useless room between the kitchen and living room into a dining room.

Jessika got a call from Morgan Anarchy (his actual name is Morgan O'Kane, remember) inviting her (and perhaps me) over to Ray's house to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Morgan only had $18 left of the hundred dollars his mother had given him yesterday. He obviously told Jessika this with a sense of pride, but to me it's sick. Still, why not benefit from his sickness? We decided to head on over.

Ray's house is not a very long walk by foot. On the way, we stopped at the Old Dominion chicken place and bought a box of hush puppies, those little deep-fried corn balls. There's a lot of hush puppies in a box, and, believe it or not, we managed to eat so many that we grew sick of them. Jessika told me that hush puppies were originally invented to be thrown to barking dogs to make them fall silent. Realizing I'd just eaten a bunch of dog food didn't make that hush puppy feeling in my stomach feel any better.

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t Ray's house, we found Morgan Anarchy hanging out with Persad, the erstwhile boyfriend of wild and crazy Theresa. Last time I saw Persad, he had out a big knife and was intent on stabbing Kiki, aka Bad Sex, at the end of Observatory Avenue. Anyway, he left and we were joined by Ray and his girlfriend Melissa. To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Morgan had bought a litre of Johnny Walker Red Label whiskey. It had cost him $30, a fact of which he was most proud. To me it was just ridiculous to spend so much on stuff that (at least to me) tastes no different than the vastly cheaper Evan Williams, especially when drunk the way Morgan drinks: quickly and mostly while in blackout.

We were listening to music Morgan had just bought, a Social Distortion CD from 1990. Morgan was already very drunk, but of course he continued drinking. It seemed unlikely that he would make it to tonight's big event: an excursion to the Virginian (where Ray works as a cook) for beer and fries. Since Morgan intended to buy beer anyway, I suggested he "get the beer now" and switch to that for awhile.

With Schlitz after Schlitz in his hand, Morgan told stories from his recent life as a gutterpunk. Most shocking of all was the time he contracted a horrible staph infection all over his body.

He was already infested with several varieties of lice which would fight wars for domination of his body. Sick of the creepy crawlies, he checked into a "youth at risk" crisis center in New York City. All such centers cater exclusively to "gay youth" and Morgan says he always had to lie and say he was gay in order to use the facilities. In the shower, he shaved off absolutely all the hair on his body, "even my asshole." In so doing, though, he managed to spread a small patch of staph all over his body. By the time he got to Chicago, he was oozing pus from much of his body. So he checked into a clinic and was immediately put on antibiotics. A few days later, the pus went away and was replaced with scabs. He still has scars on his arms, however.

As Morgan became increasingly drunk, he switched back to overpriced whiskey and even became sort of belligerent. For some reason he focused his belligerence on me, starting with an argument about whether Nirvana was a good band or not. As one might expect, Morgan dislikes Nirvana because they went on to become a famous band while other bands, forced to steal their equipment and tour seedy squat houses, receive no recognition at all. Dealing with someone who is belligerent but in blackout isn't especially difficult; it's easy to distract such a person into thinking more pleasant thoughts. Since the drunk isn't remembering anything, he quickly forgets he was ever even angry. But still, the underlying feelings driving the anger can cause it to resurface, and that seemed to happen on several occasions tonight between myself and Morgan. I have a theory what Morgan's problem might be, and astute readers can probably figure it out themselves, but I don't feel like discussing it explicitly.

Morgan's blackout condition came in handy on several occasions. At one point, for example, he was insisting that Jessika have a sip of whiskey to get into the St. Patrick's Day spirit. But Jessika hates whiskey. So while Morgan was off in the kitchen, I suggested to Jessika that she pour herself a shot glass of tequila and tell Morgan that he'd poured it and that it was whiskey. This worked perfectly, and Morgan actually believed us when we told him it was whiskey he had poured for Jessika. But he thought it was an egregious sacrilege for Jessika to lick salt and suck on a lime in connection with the shot.

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laine arrived. I've never mentioned her in these musings before, so I guess it's biography time.

Elaine used to go out with Austin, one of a group of friends that included Morgan, Ray and others. Austin is sort of a nut; he's been in Western State Mental Hospital in Staunton and he's had lots of trouble with the law. But his badness is appealing to women; he dated Jen Fariello for a couple of years and he fathered a child with Elaine, a little girl who is now four years old.

After Austin was sent off to prison for a vandalism incident, Ray took up with Elaine and was her daughter's father figure during her early childhood. But after more than a year, problems eventually developed between Elaine and Ray and he gradually moved out of her house. This was back in the days of Big Fun, and Jessika let him move into her room there. Jessika and Ray actually had some sort of month-long relationship during March of 1996. It was one of the many inexplicable late Big Fun things, and I don't know what it entailed or necessitated other than a new latch on Jessika's bedroom door. When Elaine found out about Ray's consorting with Jessika, she flew into a rage and tossed what remained of his possessions out of her house and into the street.

In April of 1996, I don't know what happened, but Jessika kicked Ray out of Big Fun and he moved in with the Brazilian Girls in a house on 14th Street near the Corner. There are those out there who understand all of this, but I'm not one of them and reports from Jessika are conflicting.

In the aftermath of these things, Elaine refused to acknowledge Jessika's existence when they saw each other on the streets, and for her part Jessika would say nothing but bad things about Ray. I found the situation amusing and was often heard sarcastically extolling Ray's virtues, particularly his profound wisdom on a wide variety of subjects.

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  don't remember much of the Virginian experience except for the huge basket of fries and two big pitchers of outrageously expensive beer. It was all put on Ray's tab as "Budweiser." The fact that most of my friends have restaurant jobs not infrequently pays dividends such as this.

The only thing we had to pay was a tip, and I paid Jessika's portion of it with the understanding that she repay me. For some reason I found it prudent to remind her how much she owed me during the drive home. This infuriated her (I don't really know why) and she promised to beat me up when we next got out of the car. So in front of Ray's house, she leapt at me and we fell down in the mud. I might have enjoyed the fight a lot more had it not been raining and the ground hadn't been muddy. She ended up with torn stockings, bloody knees and mud all over one of her several layers of skirt, a frilly off-white thing that has become an important part of her look of late.