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I was reading about eating Turkish food on the Internet at Cocke Hall and became so desperately hungry that I almost started licking the dust off the monitor. I am human, however, and so I found my way to the Corner, and I picked up a filafil pita at the Pita Inn. It's a mostly Lebanese Restaurant, judging by the hookahs and framed photographs labeled "Liban" all over the walls.
After I ate my pita, things got interesting.
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Me.
"ironically now an Afro-American because he failed to repay Sara Poiron some money after swearing on his whiteness she had nothing to fear in loaning him some of her precious cash."That alone is deeply offensive to someone of his peculiarly anachronistic racial beliefs. Perhaps if he repayed Sara her money, it might be possible to qualify this statement. But all that's been lost in the dust of time. A guy like him needs to loosen up and see the humour here, but he is a skinhead.
Interestingly, instead of promising future violence (as even the scrawniest wanna-be skinheads in this town do), the Huffanator promised a lawsuit. Perhaps he's maturing from the impolite days when violence was his only coping mechanism.
He also demanded that I withdraw all I'd written and post an apology. Perhaps the apology would say something like:
I was wrong in saying all the bad things I did about Eric Huffman. He's a noble man of pure Caucasian blood. He's never done wrong to anyone who didn't do wrong to him. I respect him a great deal and am full of regret for the things I wrote about him.
In truth, I have to admit that Eric has never done anything bad to me personally. He even shared some pot with me once when he picked up Jessika and me hitch hiking from Scottsville. He can be a rather charming person, as Farrell discovered during a long conversation at Big Fun. Furthermore, he has his own firm (if Medieval) standards of right and wrong. He believes in the fair fight, revenge, self-pride and valour. He has no patience for cowardice or sneakiness.
What really bothers me about him is his inability to let go. Why is he still mad at Morgan? Why did he scuffle with Matthew Hart? Why couldn't he just leave Theresa and Persad alone the night he was stabbed? Why does he have to be such a bully? Where does this hate come from?
Ironically, for all his white supremacy, the only people I ever hear of him brutalizing are white people of Christian background, most of them with Aryan features like blue eyes.
He was worked up, swinging his wallet chain and figgetting. I was trembling a little from all the adrenaline. Confrontations make me crazy with jitters, just in case I need to do something fast. He said, "Why're you shaking, you look like a girl!"
He also seemed upset at implications in my musings that I might prefer him dead. I didn't think of this until later, but I don't really want him dead, I don't even know if I want him to be different. He's too rare and interesting of a character. I just don't want to have to deal with him personally. It looks like that situation has changed.
Another thing Eric said, "You don't know me; I can be your best friend or I can be your worst nightmare." To this I said, "I've heard mixed reports." He had an almost hurt tone to his voice at this point, like he expected better of me.
Noel made occasional snide or dismissive remarks in the background, for example, saying of me "he ain't even worth it."
I followed the two skinheads up the street after the initial confrontation, and it picked up again a little ways down the sidewalk. Finally they ducked into Michæl's Bistro for a beer and were gone.
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I want an interesting life, but I also want an easy life. I have trouble navigating between those two goalposts.
When Deya came home, we got some deep-discount Pete's Multigrain Brew and I discussed the matter with her. It was important for me to talk about this all, because otherwise it causes damage. The events of yesterday, though trivial in comparison to those of today, were bad enough, and much worse so for my keeping it to myself.
Strangely, my web presence seems to be coming to some sort of a head. I get lots of email now from strangers, and everyone I deal with in the town seems to know what I've written. I'm unnerved. I don't know what to do.
I do all this for my readers, and I wonder now if it's worth it. Tonight it just doesn't seem so.
View an index of links concerning skinheads and skinhead violence in Charlottesville.