September 14, 1997, Sunday

T he article at right appeared today in the local newspaper, the Daily Progress. I hadn't known that Rory had actually hit two cars. Another thing I hadn't known was that the police had to use a K-9 unit (dogs) to find Rory hiding in the bushes. Leah says that the police completely made up the part about John Fulmer (aka Ocean) hiding a piece of the Volvo. This whole thing is turning very bad. That the police are milking two different felony suspects out of it is profoundly unsettling. Didn't I say just a few days ago that the American justice system is an "unfriendly jungle"? Leah says that this experience has renewed all her anti-cop feelings. She says she saw a cop today and felt the urge to tell him off. But, you know, she (and our household) came off easy. Her fine for public intoxication will be about $40. Just think if I had gone on that ill-fated ride. I'm sure I'd be looking at a felony charge too. I'd have to kiss my sweet bank account good bye.

A


t UVA this morning, I discovered that Comet was unreachable over the Internet. Some routing tables at BBN Planet (Comet's only T1 provider) were confounded. I thought perhaps funnier things were afoot and ventured to the Corner to check up on the matter. Stefan was busy, patiently, answering the many phone calls flooding in. The problem wasn't fixed until 2pm EDT.

I found the experience of disconnection from my mail and web server most unsettling, like being blind or deaf or having a broken back. It seems that my body has come to regard the Internet as an extension of itself.

Of course, I did have coping mechanisms. I could send mail using UVA's machines. The experience made me want to have a ready backup site of some of my most important web pages. It's important to understand that I use my web pages as a portable "environment," a context from which I reach other places on the web. I hardly ever use bookmarks, since I use such a wide variety of machines. My pages are the only real constant.



I


  ran across Matthew Hart near Kappa Mutha Fucka. He'd just returned from the beach and was on a run to get Chinese food. He told me he'd caught a 19 inch flounder off a dock on the Chesapeake Bay near Newport News (he hadn't gone to North Carolina after all). It was the largest fish caught off that dock that particular day. I asked what he thought of the strange appearance of a flounder (they have both eyes on one side of their face and lie on their other side on the sea bottom). He said he'd been completely surprised, thinking the fish deformed. Matthew would have eaten the flounder himself, but he had no way to prepare it or keep it fresh. So some guy on the dock bought it for $4.

Later he showed me a polaroid picture of the flounder. He accidentally marred it with his thumb print.

I rode my bike to the Fontaine Avenue Amoco and ate some batter-fried potato wedges there. The Amoco folks have their own special way of making them that has made me into an addict.

I had better things to do than to not get beat up by him again, so I continued on.

O


n the way home, someone, seemingly a Frat Boy (judging from the backwards baseball cap) passed me in a shiny new pickup. Then, when he saw who I was, he started indicating me to his male companion and I could see him mouthing the words "He sucks!" I realized with alarm that the "Frat Boy" was actually Eric Huffman. He pulled over in front of Rory and Tyler's house (the Haunted House) and started to get out of the truck. I almost got hit by a car as I turned onto Observatory. He was hollering "Gus!" at me, pleading (I guess) for vengeance, but I had better things to do than to not get beat up by him again, so I continued on. Had he followed me to my house, I would have been prepared for anything. I doubt his friend would have helped him beat me up, but who knows?

Though it is an aggravation and cause for uncomfortable feelings of paranoia, I kind of like the excitement of low-budget death squads wanting to silence my writing. My feeling is that American authors have it too easy and have become soft. There's not enough repression here, and hasn't been since the McCarthy Era. To write well, you need to live on the edge, to experience pain, paranoia and fear. I've found that if you play your cards right, you can have all the artistic benefits of East German repression here among the malls and McDonalds of America.

Still, anyone who drives a shiny pickup truck has their own set of vulnerabilities. Along that line, I was impressed to note that Eric drives carefully, conscientiously, far more so than I would have had I been in his situation.

To be quite honest, I don't understand going quite that far out of the way just to look weird.

I


n the evening, Deya and I went to pick up some beers and a pizza (the latter being just for Matthew and I). Tyler was with us by this point, and so was Monster Boy. Monster Boy was again wearing his little old lady dress and lots of black, white and grey eyeliner. To be quite honest, I don't understand going quite that far out of the way just to look weird. But it's harmless, and he's having fun, so no one really cares. Matthew joked that if he drank too many beers, he'd have to watch himself around Monster Boy. He'd see that dress through his beer goggles and, well...

Tyler and Matthew were playing one-on-one volleyball over the telephone and cable teevee wires that drape across Observatory.

Deya bought a big blue ball the other day, and we all played with it out in the street in front of the house. In the midst of doing this, Deya managed to re-sprain an ankle she'd sprained a week ago at the Louisa quarry. She was trembling and had a look of misery as she applied an ice pack to it. By this point, Tyler and Matthew were playing one-on-one volleyball over the telephone and cable teevee wires that drape across Observatory. The neighbors looked on silently, suspiciously.

T


he pizza and the rare microbrews joined forces in my stomach to make me lethargic. I took a nap and didn't awake until 11:30pm.

The others by this point had become drunk and goofy. Monster Boy talks loudly and does obsessive things when he's drunk. Best of all, he reveals secrets, things we all want to know but are too embarrassed to ask. Matthew, on the other hand, tends to take special care to enunciate his words after he's had a few too many. The others had mostly gone to bed.

And Rory continued to rot in his jail cell.

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