Yah!: will no one tell the violent they're fools?

M


atthew Hart came to Comet at the very end of my shift. He'd spent an uncomfortable night in a smelly wet tent with Zachary, Peggy, Monster Boy, Deya and Leah down at Deya's parents' farm near Scottsville. Three nice little boy-girl couples on a cold rainy night in the country in Springtime...

Today was the day we chose to drop our applications off at the landlord's office so as to secure 129 Observatory Street as the next residence for the remnants of Big Fun society left in Charlottesville.

Any landlord beholding that application form would know right away what sort of a tenant I will be.

As usual, though, we had a problem on our hands. My copy of the application had been left in the Dynashack kitchen and looked like someone had in desperation used is as toilet paper and then tried to clean it. I think it had wallowed for a time in a puddle of coffee. The application also had a guacamole stain surrounded by a spot of translucent avocado oil. I tried to remove the guacamole with rubbing alcohol, but that was a disaster. Now much of the writing (done in two different colours) had bled through to both sides. Any landlord beholding that application form would know right away what sort of a tenant I will be. I'd be fully exposed for the dissolute slob I am.

It had lingered in the mosh pit that is the back of the Vomit Comet, crumpled under a small cast iron wood stove, a 14 inch multiscan computer monitor and God knows how many empty open containers, but it was mostly unripped and unstained.

Also as usual, Matthew Hart had a solution. He had Leah's copy of the form. It had lingered in the mosh pit that is the back of the Vomit Comet, crumpled under a small cast iron wood stove, a 14 inch multiscan computer monitor and God knows how many empty open containers, but it was mostly unripped and unstained. Most importantly, it hadn't yet been filled out. It seemed possible that we could make fresh copies of it.

He drove us up to Kinkos on 29 North and in no time we had good two sided copies on the correctly-shaped paper. We thought we'd sneak out without paying the 30 cents it had cost, but a guy in a tie followed us out the door and made us pay.

We then went to Raphæl's house on High Street to pick up Leah. She'd spent the morning sleeping in her car in the parking lot behind the house and she looked like she might puke. Leah and the others had all been drinking vodka and carrying on around a campfire until very late last night. Hangover is ever so much worse when you have to sleep in a car.

We went to the Italian Villa on Emmet Street (near the Corner) and had waffles and such while filling out the application for the Observatory Street House. We were all paranoid that we'd get maple syrup or coffee on the forms (it seemed somehow inevitable), but an angel protected us and the forms stayed clean. On the application I put down that Nathan VanHooser is my landlord, since he'll give me a good reference. Or at least I think he will. He's my childhood friend, after all. I can't use Wade Apartments as my reference; I was a subletter at the Dynashack, see.

It was as if I had a cameo appearance in Fawlty Towers.

A


fter Leah had been dropped off successfully for an eight hour shift at Fresh Fields, Matthew and I did some bank business. This involved cashing one of Leah's paychecks. We went to the Barracks Road outlet of Nation's Bank and I marched up to the teller window. I'd originally wanted to start up a checking account, but I quickly became flustered with the idiotic teller. As a comic twist, God gave me an idiotic teller with an upper-crust British accent. It was as if I had a cameo appearance in Fawlty Towers. She refused to cash Leah's check unless Leah was present. This struck me as odd considering the fact that I have an account with over $2000 dollars in it. I became so frustrated with her that I said loudly at a crisis moment, "I'm thinking about pulling all my fucking money out!" She was shocked, saying in her ridiculous accent that she didn't want me to use language like that. I'm reminding myself more and more of my cranky ancestors every day.

I did manage to cash the check. All I had to do was deposit it alongside my Comet paycheck into my account and have the amount of the Leah's paycheck (a dwarf beside my paycheck) given to me in cash. Yah!

I turned in the applications at the landlord's office on Ivy Road. Surprisingly, I had to pay $50 so that Leah and I could both have credit checks run on us. That rather reminds me of the Chinese policy of billing relatives of the executed for the cost of the bullet used.

I slept at the Dynashack, my housemates be damned.

---

I


  awoke, took a shower, and was about to go on my errands when Steve told me that the skinheads were only a few houses towards the Corner on Wertland. That was ominous information. As usual, I armed myself with my metal rod. Then I went out the back door and followed a crazy route through back yards to 12th Street, then over across Main Street, and on through the hospital grounds to Cocke Hall. Here I am, working on my musings.

The email is interesting today. Last night I subscribed to the Open Pages mailing list and thought I'd regret it, but actually it's pretty interesting stuff. Also, Jessika says that the likes of the nazi Dean will be given their just desserts during the reign of terror that will descend with her and the other Malvernians in mid-June.

I'm about to leave for the Corner. If I run into any problems, you'll surely find out.

---

T


he Corner was calm, though I'm anxious when I am there alone these days. The shadows hide the potential for danger now. It seems preposterous that a group of mildly-retarded thugs can hold a small town so easily under their dominion without having to endure complaints simply because of the terror they evoke. Am I the only one in this town with the balls to tell these unattractive white males the truth about their pathetic cowardly lives?

At Plan 9 I bought a 1991 Dinosaur Jr. B-side compilation called Whatever's Cool With Me for $6. It's mostly music that was formerly released in Europe, including some live stuff. It sounds more classic rock than I expected. And J. Mascis is whinier than usual. I really am not so impressed just yet. It sounds like the inferiour "mature" work of most rock stars, the sort of stuff that gives rise to the phrase "but have you heard the early stuff?" Yet 1991 is kind of early. I guess I'm just disappointed that this just isn't as good as the other cruddy B-side compilations that I so love.

I napped again in 22 Elliewood. I wish I could rent that place.

---

When the only music I knew and understood was classic rock, he was listening to the Pixies and Captain Beefheart.

A


  long lost college chum, Matt Rogers, sent me email today. I met him in the Fall of 1986, back when I was a naïve farmboy fresh from Virginia. He's several years older than me, and I have to grudgingly admit that he introduced me to a number of influences that have made me more worldly. When the only music I knew and understood was classic rock, he was listening to the Pixies and Captain Beefheart. I thought his music was obnoxious in those days. My, how times change. Matt was also a big devotee of philosophy, and used to drop the names of philosophers with an impunity that seemed to beg for the attention of my cruel tendency to ridicule. But, I mean, Matt was asking for it. He used to wear a red beret and sit cross-legged on a pizza cart in the Harkness kitchen, expounding on things like "the gestaltic nature of reality as it applies to the übermensch." In those days I used to be more idealistic and less prone to opportunistic behaviours and gossip. Whenever my true nature would show through the facâde, we would go through periods of alienation from each other. But in the end, his exposure to my sociopathy influenced him as much as his music influenced me. Matt's college education appears to have paid him as handsomely as mine has paid me: he paints houses for money, does a little graphic design on the side, and writes poetry and records atonal music in his free time. Suddenly we can communicate, and it feels like the 80s again.

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