Tales From the Apartment
By: Shane D.
Second Final Version 7.0 (post fire)
. There came a time in my young life when I came to find home life appalling. I could not do the things I wanted to do, when I wanted to do them, how I wanted to do them, as long as I wanted to do them, or as loudly as I could possibly do them. I had no privacy. My door was never allowed to be locked (and wouldn't work when it was), and everybody has (at one time or another) had something (or someone) they think it would be best their parents did not find out about. I was determined to move out! Unfortunately, I was only nine years old and didn’t have the resources to carry out my will.
. In the years to follow, the situation would become worse and worse. Then came a time, just after I graduated, when I found myself with a neat job and an abundance of spare time. I know better than to allow myself too much spare time or else my mind starts to get weird. I then decided to move out. This is actually the story of my second try at moving out.
. I was introduced, by a friend of mine named Jason, to a lady named Carrie one afternoon at Applebee’s. We all talked for long hours about many subjects while drinking our Super-Caff Coffee with extra sugar and cream. Subjects such as God, Hell, the material links between Pauly Shore and Ernest P. Warrel movies, the fugly taste of Applebee’s coffee, the role of parents in today’s society, and the shackles of home life. I had moved out of my father’s house before and that seductive taste of freedom’s blood was still calling me back for more. I suggested that we all move out into a large house. With our combined incomes, we should be able to do quite well. Everyone said that it was a good idea and readily agreed.
. It didn’t quite go as we had planned. The search for a house went poorly and the roster of who was to be moving in with us kept changing. The only constants (and the only ones actually doing any work towards our goal) were Carrie and myself. Everyone else was slacking off, goofing around, and saying how cool it was going to be. It all boiled down to just the two of us living in a duplex on Latimer Rd.
. We took a look at the place before we moved in and decided it wasn’t inhabitable, but it was just what we were looking for. I met the land lord and my first impression was that this guy used to sell used cars and gave it up because it wasn’t challenging enough. You know... the kind of guy who wants to seem like your best friend so you won’t think he was trying to rob you blind. As friendly as these people seem, they get very upset when you call them anything other than “sir”. Imagine the look on his face when I forgot he was behind me and I called him “Guy Fun”.
. Oh what a glorious condition the place was in. Only one of the four heaters in the house actually worked. Naturally, it was in the room that had the window painted open; this had winter fun written all over it. Eventually I managed to close it after an exhausting bout with my trusty-rusty- hammer. Every light switch and power outlet in the house was clogged with paint too. Boy oh boy, our land lord was a real DaVinci. The living room and porch lights had a problem that needed to be fixed before my particle accelerator in the closet would work properly. The shower stall had been painted with the same water-based paint as rest of the house and people loved peeling it off when they showered. The living room had an unnatural “dune” to one side of the floor that made arranging the furniture a bitch but it was a great place to ski (see below, the part about the air-tight doors and cold mornings). There was no trim on any of the corners and edges, and the gaps in-between them were large enough to put your fingers in. The front and back doors didn’t quite seal properly when closed. This was no minor problem. We never had to open any windows because the gaps around the door frame were so heinous that the wind currents through the house would rustle papers, knock over the lamp, ruffle the throw rug, and pick up the witches riding bikes in our kitchen. On a cold night as I was writing, I actually watched as dew formed on the floor and furniture. As the night rolled on and my writing continued, the temperature dropped so drastically that the dew actually froze! You could imagine my startled reaction. Brandt and I nearly killed ourselves riding an inner-tube down the dune because we kept crashing into the sink. I made a mental note to buy some insulation foam to put around the doors and to pad the sink. The refrigerator was haunted by Elvis’ body odor, the lighting was terrible, the kitchen floor was ugly and unfriendly, the walls were paper thin and conversations with the neighbor’s children were not uncommon. They kept banging on the walls and asking for answers to their math homework before they went to school, and banging on the walls and shouting things like “we love you, do you love us? Bang on the wall one time if you do and twice if you don't”. The wall was pelted with axes, books, light bulbs, shower curtains, tapes, ammo (un-fired), and plastic fish. This did nothing to stop the questions, proposals, and Billy-Ray Cyrus music.
. I loved it. It was my home. Parental unit free. We decided to illuminate the living room with 3000 christmas lights and glow-in-the-dark star constellation sticker packs. Joy! I still can’t quite figure out why we had such high electric bills though. I’m talking three digits here!
. The next chapter has to be about furnishing the apartment. You see, Carrie and a friend of hers named Tammy had a head start on me. They had been trying to move out for some time and didn’t let the fact that they had not actually managed to move out yet dissuade them from shopping. In fact, I was taken back to Tammy’s house so they could show off their latest trophies from their latest hunting expedition in the deepest darkest parts of the Big Lots wilds. Oh, joy. The broom was purple, with hearts. The dust pan was purple, with hearts. The shower curtain was bright, with purple hearts. The trash can was purple, with hearts. The dish rack was purple, sans (I’m pleased to say) hearts. However, the toaster had ‘em, and lets not even start talking about silverware and refrigerator magnets. She painted everything else a deep green. I was shocked and appalled. I hadn’t even met her dog yet.
. I went on a shopping spree of my own in a desperate attempt to balance the place out of the eternal joy zone. I bought all sorts of color coordinated things for the house as well. The color scheme was basic and simple. Black. It was great! She had all the color and hearts she could stand, and I had my life-blood. I was given a Black coffee pot that had traveled halfway around the world with the previous owners. I would make it a point to take it with us when I traveled so it could see all 50 states. It never did see all 50 states, but it did see about 50 felonies. It was great at making my Black coffee. I drank it from my Black “HAVE YOU WORSHIPED SATAN TODAY?” coffee mug. I sat in my couch with the Black ink stain. I would listen to my Black stereo, complete with more Black components. My hair was Black. My feet were Black from walking on the evil kitchen floor. I should have been wearing my Black shoes, or at least my Black socks. My closet was Black with my Black jackets and Black shirts. The whole damned room was Black because of the Black cloth covering the Black Venetian blinds that fought valiantly against the imposing tyrant that is the sun.
. Don’t get me wrong, I love a little color in life. Just so long as it isn’t mine. I can imagine you sitting there thinking to yourself: “Damn, son. You must be a really depressing guy to hang out with”. It’s not true though. I just have a favorite color like everybody else, and it doesn’t clash with anything else. Black doesn’t clash with anything! Except for preachers and we all know what they wear. Besides, would a Hollow One wear a purple paisley shirt with a beige leisure suit? Would he then jump off The Cliffs for a thirty foot descent into icy, untrustworthy water while wearing it? Would he scream about lemon drinks on the way down? OK, OK, we’ve already established that I’m weird.
. Carrie and I both had dogs plus, I had a neat-o Black cat. In fact, even my pets were mostly Black. Her dog “Mojo” (French for ‘luck’, ‘fortune’, ‘goat’, or something...) was still young and considered a puppy in spite of its being a full sized dog, and it was still very hyper. Maybe it was the half-sheet of acid it sucked down when it was a puppy. My dog “Bonnie” is a small breed sports mutt. My cat “Yassir AriCat” (she has a sister cat named “Moamar Catdahfi”) was her usual indignant self towards this huge new monster. This didn’t stop Mojo from wanting to play with her. A scratched nose later and Mojo was taught to be more respectable towards her. Bonnie (ten times older than Mojo) was never in the mood to play with this wind-up ball of destruction. The only time they ever did anything together is when they assaulted a newcomer who bothered to knock on the door we never locked. Mojo was bred for the sole purpose of destroying things when left unattended, I swear. He ate my pizzas, seven chew toys, the welcome mat, a can of Lysol, my gun magazines, the couch, Carrie’s New Bohemians tape, my Rocky Horror Picture Show box, the Venetian blinds in the living room, a box of rifle ammo, my damned Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries, a cucumber, paint, some floppy disks, my F*CKIN’ toothbrush, and my answering machine! That beast would eat things that would make a goat say “Christ, man... you are a genuine sick-o. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m going to Technicolor-yawn”. This creature from the realms of chaos needed to be taught the value of stick! A lot! Hey, come to think of it... I have the best stick around. I brought out my stick (a fiberglass rod used in radiation testing), shouted a lot, jumped up and down on furniture, drank a glass of milk, and beat the couch very loudly.
The dog won’t come within twenty feet of me.
. There are many stories of mayhem and slight humor about these animals. However, they are all because of this chaos beast named Mojo. At least he didn’t shed in tides. At about that same time, Carrie was seeing a friend of mine named Joe. Joe and I like guns... a little...OK, so I lied. We like guns a lot. Hell, I’d marry a gun that could cook better than I can and had a barrel large enough to........errr.... So, Joe came over so we could play with guns and he could play with Carrie. I have never known Joe to close my door, and Mojo (who was NOT an outdoor dog) shot the gap and was pleased to run all over the neighborhood. Carrie was scared that her dog would get hit by a car, and she pleaded that Joe go get him before he gets hurt. He did the right thing and agreed. This relieved her. He then asked for my help. This didn’t relieve her. I grabbed a few things that I had hidden in my room and excitedly joined the hunt. This upset her. Half an hour of exhausting chases left Joe and I standing in the middle of the road wondering where in the 9 Hells the beast had vanished to. I swore on my immortal left nad that the beast had turned into vapor so it could sneak back into the house and shit on the couch. Again. Joe pulled out his Walther PPK and shouted “Please God, if only he would come back out... maybe I could just clip him!”
. Just then, Mojo bolted out from behind a row of houses towards a hedge. Joe’s eyes flared and I dove for the gun. I had thought in that brief moment that the middle of a residential zone with children was not a suitable place for a raging burst of small arms fire. The following weeks and repeated escape incidents led me to change my mind. I found Mojo in my room eating my bed.
. One evening Joe and Brandt came over and we all sat in the living room watching a movie and cleaning our guns. Mojo was hiding, Joe was cleaning his Walther, I was cleaning my Ruger 10/22 assault pea shooter, and Brandt was modifying a new SKS that he had gotten earlier that day. He was now the most heavily armed of all of us because he already had a Marlin .22 and a one shot breach barrel New England Arms 12 gauge that we lovingly called “Kurt Cobain”. We were all having a wonderful time stroking our pieces (guns, you sick minded people, I’m talking about the guns) and talking about how great it would be if someone tried to break in to the house right at that moment. We happily chanted our mantra and rubbed gun oil all over our hard pieces while breathing the fumes (heh heh heh, Butyl nitrate). “Gunsgunsgunsgunsgunsgunsgunsgunsguns,” we would sing to the tune of whatever song came easily, and snicker every once in a while. Beethoven’s Fifth was a particular favorite that worked wonderfully.
. That’s when it happened. Carrie returned from a bad day at work, tired and moody. She opened the door and found an entire living room full of guns... all pointed at her. I can only assume she was less than thrilled about this because she grew three feet taller, her eyes glowed a brilliant red that seared the skin it looked at, her hair got big, and obsidian claws dripping with blood formed at the ends of her fingers. Joe dove behind the couch, I phased into the shadows, Mojo dropped a load, and poor old Brandt (who has no form of hand-to-hand combat training) was caught in a maelstrom of fury that made the Carrie in the movie look like a wuss. The slamming of the door to her room caused the smoke to clear and we were forced to view the carnage that was Brandt. It was not a pretty sight because she apparently didn’t enjoy coming home to an ambush (especially since she did not like guns in the first place). We collected what was left of Brandt and cloned a new one in the fridge.
. We decided to go out on one of our midnight runs so we packed our guns, some ammo, our brand new Brandt, and a few potatoes into Joe’s 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit. We have this thing against a church nearby, and it taunted us with one of it’s billboard sayings like “Abortion is a SIN!” and many other stupid christian sayings. On our way back from one of our shooting trips, we noticed that the marquee said “prepare to fight, the battle lines have been drawn,” I shit you not! That one was too good and we laughed about it for the next 3 miles. That’s when we decided to turn around and shoot the sin out of it with our guns in a drive-by. I was in the passenger seat and Brandt was behind me. I had my Ruger 10/22 Assault Pea Shooter, and Brandt had a tiny little .22 short caliber Rhom revolver. That thing was too small for it’s own good, HIGHLY inaccurate, and I swear it was made out of plastic. As we drove by it at 80mph, I stuck my rifle out the window and let loose with about 10 rounds, firing wildly because there was no way for me to aim it. Brandt stuck his arm out the window and fired 1 round (that’s all he had time to shoot due to the speed) from the Rhom. Due to it’s being right next to my ear, it shattered my hearing, and I felt something hit my face. We circled around the road to inspect the damages to find only 1 hole. Neither of us can take credit for it because I couldn’t aim (If I had hit it with one round with all my shooting, wouldn’t it stand to reason that it would be hit by other shots?) and Brandt’s gun was horrible (what can you expect for $15?). We decided that the Rhom made the hole because it was funny and drove home disappointed. As it turns out, the next day the marquee read: “All of God’s enemies perish in hell! Ask forgiveness now!” We knew the ploy so we weren’t about to fall for it. Did they expect us to care??? Nope...
. On the same night as the raid on the Moron Baptist Church, we were flying around West Outer Drive at approximately 80 miles per hour, give or take a curve, so we could get to the apartment in under 10 minutes. Joe and I were racing and Brandt was in the back seat cheering us on. I kept trying to lean forward so I could be in the lead, but every time Joe took a corner, the seat belt locked up and I couldn’t lean further forward (we were all in Joe’s car after all). At one point, we were cruising around and I saw a cat dart out from the left side of the road and try to run in front of us. We were going a little faster than the cat figured we were and as it looked at us it saw that it had 3’ to go, but we were only 2’ away from hitting it (we were still speeding). It decided that the best thing to do would be to run away from us so it started to veer away from the speeding auto of heavy metal gun fanatics. I didn’t have the ability to say anything at this point because I was in high speed mode where I’m moving so much faster than the rest of the world (except for the cat...) and any attempt to communicate with the outside world would lead to misunderstanding, besides... surely Joe saw the cat too. I figured that he would start using his brakes at any moment to let the cat get away. As I continued to watch the cat, I admired the long hair of what I decided must have been a Persian mix. I noticed the patches of brown and black on a noticeably white cat. It looked like it had been cared for well because it had a nice looking leather collar on or at least It looked like leather from the car. I also noticed that it was actually managing to pull away from the car! It was going faster than us, at 60 mph! I thought that it might actually be able to do it for a while, but at that point, it turned around and looked at us to see it’s progress. Either we were speeding up, or it was getting tired (understandable, I can only go faster than 60 for a few seconds too) of all the running. I had time to think: ‘is Joe trying to run the cat down?’ I looked over at him to read his expression when I felt the car jerk and bump. Joe’s eyes spread wide open and asked “what did we hit? A tire?”. It was obvious that he didn’t even know of the cat’s presence (it had only been 2-3 seconds at the most!) and was concerned about the safety of his car. I told him of the cat and how it almost got away while pointing out the back window. Joe suddenly became grief stricken with the thought that he had killed a living creature (insects never count). Brandt was confused and was getting concerned about it too. I could see the fear in both of their faces as Joe stopped and started to back up. All I could think about was that the cat had managed to out run us for a second or two, and wondered if it was adrenaline based, or if all cats could do that when prompted. We arrived at the cat and Brandt couldn’t stop saying things like ‘aw... poor kitty’. Joe jumped out to inspect the cat. It just lay there on the sidewalk (where it had been thrown) meowing it’s last breaths away. The sound was so awful. It sounded like a lost child’s cries from deep within a cave. Joe came back to the car with a noticeable tear on his cheek. He asked what we should do and I told him to finish killing it. He asked for my sword (that I had sewn into my trench coat) and went to try to cut the cat. Everyone has tried to poke a cat and knows that it does no harm because the finger just goes in and the cat just looks at you funny as if to ask “What?”. This is basically the same reaction Joe got with the sword, except that it just looked at him with his eyes (broken neck) and howled its hollow cry. Joe, for a minute, contemplated chopping the cat’s head off until I yelled that he’d better not fuck up my sword’s edge on the sidewalk. He came back to the car, haunted by the cat’s cries, and asked for my gun (the Rhom couldn’t pierce cardboard) and I offered to do it for him. He had gotten it into his head that it was his fault and therefore his duty. I handed him my rifle and he went over to shoot the cat in the head. Three times. He for a minute wondered if we should try to find the cat’s owner and tell them of the cat’s misfortune. I told him that there was no way in Hell that I was going to go door to door at 4 AM so I can ask if it was their cat that was laying on the sidewalk with broken bones and a bloody pulp for a head. He agreed that that was probably wise and we headed home.
. Things change in time and Carrie was now seeing a classmate named Ritchie. He and two friends were living with us for a few weeks until they could find a place that they could all move in to. Carrie was going to go with them when the new place was conquered. This meant that I was in the market for a new room mate, and had to start adjusting to life without purple hearts and Mojo. Oh however could I do it??? I chose to invite a friend of mine to come live with me in the House of Free Lovin’ where all would be groovy. While running around together, we’ve seen many strange things while doing many more of our own (these were usually surprisingly illegal). This was sure to be a riot, and I wasn’t going to miss this for the world. Imagine, God and Satan under the same roof. Fear. We decided to rename the apartment with a more spiritual influence. Jason had gained the nick-name “God” from some friends in Chattanooga while I had been dubbed “Satan” by my friends in the local high schools. The house became known as the Afterlife. Jason’s room had white walls and no curtains so it was always bright, had glow in the dark stars (that I put there one day as he slept so it surprised him when he awoke that night), and don’t even ask about the “Sun”. It became known as Heaven. My room had hardwood floors, wooden walls, a set of black Venetian blinds and 3 blankets over the one window in my room. When you sealed the door, there was NO light coming anywhere near me. I used a red bulb and a black light to illuminate my room. This led to my room being called Hell. The living room was called purgatory (the place between heaven and hell where your soul waits while it is judged for the afterlife), and the kitchen was called Ugly. It really was too. Egad! In case I didn’t mention it before, the floor was an ugly shade of everything. The pattern was disjointing, and the whole place was so dirty (we were allergic to cleaning), and I was trying to keep the tree from our front yard alive (which someone dug up and tried to steal) which always confused people because -I- was the one who was trying to revive it. I am hardly Mr. Green Sleeves, and I was born without a green thumb. Jason and I agreed that the names were fitting. Many good little girls went to heaven (hoping to be corrupted by Jason, but all the kinky stuff actually happened in hell. I even made a few converts (grin). Someone with a more theological approach to life might put forth a few theories on the coincidences of this but I digress. If you want to, feel free to submit your theories to: Gamul Nakoul, 103 Snow St. Nome, Alaska 80216.
. I was happy now because Jason and I had the same method of living life. Around 3 pm I would wake up for the first time and go back to sleep after making a quick reality check. I had to check every once in a while because in that house, anyone could just walk in and steal it. We would never lock the door because that would keep us out too. If someone knocked on the door, I wasn’t about to get out of my cozy bed and let in a friend who could do it them self. Those who were friends of ours had
permission to just walk in and have a seat, or get in bed with us. Don’t be surprised, it happened a lot. Those who weren’t granted this privilege were the people who needed to be met at the door. This category included: the children from next door who have lost their cat, the door to door Christ salesmen, Courtney, the pizza dude, the children from next door who are looking for their cat, the beer guy, the police, the landlord, Jennifer Cumby, the children who are still searching for their cat, The Elvii (an intergalactic race of Elvis clones who go around selling dime bags to get money for fuel to the next Grateful Dead show), the neighbor’s cat, Wallace (a 6’ by 4’ by 3’ block of styro-foam that lived in the back yard for target practice (more on this later)), those damn kids who haven’t found the cat (we let him hide under our sink when they came around), and the Marines (they wanted to make me march 5 miles with them, so Jason and I hid under the sink while the neighbor’s cat answered the door). Most of the time, these people would wake us up with their knocking at such an unreasonable hour that we met them while wearing either a bathrobe or a sock, and always carrying either a sword or a gun.
The neighbor’s children won’t come within 20’ of me either.
. I can remember one snowy morning when Jason answered the door in none of the above. I shot bolt upright in bed at the sounds of blood curdling screams! Jason was screaming because it was -really- cold outside (this is what we call stubbing your toe), and the Big J’s Witnesses were screaming because a short, furry, naked thing was standing there screaming at them.
Aaaaannnyyway.....
. After snoozing until just after dust, I would rise, don my black, and listen to the stereo while eating a bowl of my Unholy Crunch Berries. I would then find Jason and some other friends to start making the rounds.
Oh my god, here we go...
. A favorite third-shift haunt of ours was the WaHo on Cedar Bluff. (Waffle House for all those who don’t know Delinquent-eeze). Jason, Patrick, Scooby, and myself (many times there would be others, but they were never as popular as us there) would all sneak in at no earlier than 2 am and all the regular people who work third shift would recognize us. Usually, we could arrive after a self amused night at the Underpants (actually it’s spelled “Underground” but I wanted to show how it was properly pronounced). Everyone there would wave hello to us, and I think the cooks started to use the old “Norm” gag when we arrived. It’s kind of spooky when I think back and try to describe us as WaHo regulars. Bundles of energy and strange notions, we would proceed to entertain ourselves and the staff, while at the same time we would frighten the sheltered red-necks. We were often poor, flat broke, or worse but they started to feed us for free just to keep us around... kind of like pets. We all talked about the most unholy things we found under the tables (usually one of us) and whatever conversation came up and bit one of us (girl friends). Tradition is something to strive for in this world of entropy and we had a few of our own. Every time we went there, Patrick would feed the jukebox his salary in quarters. He would infallibly select the same red-neck that we all grudgingly came to know by heart. David Allan Coe’s “you never even call me by my name”. Those words still echo in my skull on nights when I can’t get to sleep. They keep taunting me and make me want to do naughty things to all things wholesome. The final chorus is as follows...
Well I was drunk...
the day my momma ...
got out of prison.
So I went...
to pick her up...
in the raaaaaaain.
But befooore
iiiiii
could get to the station
in my pick-uuuuuuuuup
truck.
She got runned over
by a danged old traaaaaaaa-aaaaaiiiinn.
. I ran away, screaming, from the pain. In time though, we all got used to it and I’ve added it to my list of the Melro group’s theme songs. Hell, now even I sing it with pride.... but I’m not a red-neck.
. One time we were in the midst of being Phlean (flee-N) when one of the waitresses actually understood our shit! She started it up with us using the same reckless abandon that we usually employed while stealing Wallaces. She impressed me. I asked if we could crash at her place. Rejected, we continued with our UNO game and only suffered minor casualties. The food came, and we started eating... cautiously at first, and then with no regard for personal safety. Jason gave me his grits, challenging me to eat the Evil Grit. I love grits like anyone born in the south (of Germany) should, so I accepted the challenge. Hence will be known as mistake number one. After cutting it into portions with a knife, I forked a bite into my mouth and fell to the floor in a spasm fit. The only people that found this shocking were the non-regular WaHo customers. After a while, I regained consciousness, climbed back up to the counter, and hung my head in shame of being bested my a greater evil. The grits had won. I pushed them far far away hoping someone else would mistake them as theirs and try to eat them (I’m mean). Jesus’s chili came and he took a bite, eyes flared, face went white, and stood out of his seat shaking a finger at his chili. We all knew that he had had a revelation. He slowly turned his head toward us with the expression of a man insane with wisdom and spoke unto us: “This.... is the BEST.... damned chili.... I’ve ever had in my life!!!!”. I think he meant it too. We went back to what we were doing, and Jesus quickly ate 3 more bowls of the enlightening chili with extra onions. We waved goodbye, four hours later, as we left without paying (again) and headed to our next destination of adventure, excitement, intrigue, romance (sorry, I meant Romans), terrifying dinosaurs, lost continents full of unruly natives, a rubber chicken, and our patented daring rescues.
. You know of course this means Wal-Mart! I hope that before everyone dies, that they can experience the true glory, wonder, and other stuff of a properly stocked Wal-Mart Super Store. There’s just something magical about a Circle W ranch. The great planes of shelves that held everything from motor oil to offensive socks to industrial size pooper scoopers. We all wandered in the front gates, didn’t buy a map because we were out of real money, and forget hiring a guide! We all had our
separate departments of interest so we separated. Jesus went to the books and magazines, Moses went to the automotive, Jason went to the IBC Root beer, Patrick and I went to the Sporting Goods section, and Scooby was already gone. Patrick and I decided that it would be easier and we could make better time if we took a tram to Sporting Goods. We finally caught one and we stared out the windows as we sped down the aisles. I decided that we were going too slow to make it there in time to meat the others at the in-store McDonalds West. There were several restaurants inside there so customers didn’t die from starvation while shopping. We hopped off the tram and snuck aboard one of the bullet trains to the hardware section that was within walking distance to sporting goods. As we sped by mass-manufactured sweaters, I felt the thing slow down and started to get uneasy because it hadn’t possibly been long enough to get there. I woke Patrick up and I pried open one of the connecting sections so I could see outside and check what was coming up. To my horror, I stared at a herd of crossing cattle on the tracks a couple of klicks ahead. “This thing’s a mag-lev isn’t it, Patrick” I asked? He looked at me with one of those looks that demanded an explanation... “yeah.... why???” I pried the seal opened a little more and pulled him out with me before the mag-lev impacted with the cattle and exploded. We flew aside and luckily landed in one of those bargain bins of bras. We have never been good at removing bras so we decided to ask for some service. We hiked to one of the emergency call booths where we explained the situation to the girl on the other end of the line. She got really frantic for some reason and she said to not move. A helicopter came down and a pair of firemen jumped out carrying the Jaws o’ life. I was nervous.... After a few minutes of removal, they packed up and flew off leaving Patrick and I standing there confused, without an explanation. I walked back over to the bin and looked at the sign. “Special closeout sale! Constrict-O-Bra! The only self adhesive, self tightening bra in the world! I understood our dilemma then because I had heard of these things not stopping when they reach the proper tension. I unconsciously started to rub my nads where one of them had adhered itself.... if they hadn’t gotten there in time! A short while later and we got incredibly lost. I think we were getting closer because we had managed to find the wicker section. Patrick and I were using our Phlea names so I asked:
“Wee Willy Womping Cow, which way do you think is north?”
“Gee, Bobby Lucifer II, I don’t know... That way???”
. We headed in that general direction when we lucked out! We found a skeleton on a motorized shopping cart! We hopped aboard and Patrick revved the 454, slammed it into 5th and we headed... north? Up ahead we saw a commotion. We slowed down and I recognized the hair ornaments of the Wicker Tribe. They are a group of refugees that had become lost and started to live in the wicker section. The oldest ones there were already on their second generation of children. We climbed out and I spotted... an Elvii? What are they doing here? This one was a female, one of the B series of clones. I pushed my way thru to talk to her.
“Hi, how’s it goin’?”
“Weeeell, I’m doing alright. Thank you, thank you very much.”
“My name’s Billy-Bo-Bob-Binob-Hob-Rob-Bobbity-Bobbity-Bo-Rob-Corn-Cob-Bibbity-Bobbity-Bo-McRalf, what are you doing here?”
“My name is Elvis 2602B, nice to meet you. We’re selling... stuff. Want a dime bag?”
“No thanks, we bought some from Elvis 1702A earlier this week. He’s a nice guy, you two look a lot alike.”
“Yeah yeah, we hear them all. So... what can I do for you?”
“Could you please give MacDonald Daddy here and I a lift over to Sporting Goods?”
“Why surely yes, fella. Hop aboard.”
“Nice Cadillac.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
. We made it to the sporting goods section and were amazed to see Jesus there. He had gotten lost too but had found a deck of UNO cards. He figured we would show up there eventually, so he
waited. We pooled our funds and snuck aboard a trans-Wal-Mart jumbo jet heading to the McDonalds West. When we got there, we found Jason, Moses, and Scooby there. We decided to leave now that we had found the UNO cards so we left the place a few summer sausages, IBC root beers, and UNO decks richer and with every Thrifty Nickel in a six mile radius. I looked down at my watch. “Oh shit! It’s Thursday!!!” We all hurried off. The only thing left to do now was to go to Taco Bell.
. We’ve been going to Taco Bell for many years and the mental abilities of the average employee has never impressed me. Jason and I had a favorite one that we liked to torment. His name was... ROY! Now you see, Roy was no ordinary employee, no. He was in his 40’s and looked like Archie Bunker. We loved to go and find Roy working the register. It meant free drinks. Not that he wanted to give us free drinks or anything, it’s just that we could confuse him easily. I still remember the first day we met... Roy. It was Matt, Jason and myself standing in line waiting to order. I looked at the person taking the orders (hoping for a cute girl to flirt with) and saw... Roy! I looked at his name tag. It said... Roy! I’m serious! I was so excited because he was the first Roy I had ever met. I got Matt and Jason’s attention and said: “Look! It’s... Roy!” Jason started giggling and rubbing his hands. Matt started saying Royroyroyroyroyroyroyroy really fast and making his eyes do this thing that makes people uneasy. As it became my turn, I put on a grin that automatically makes people want to back up.
“Hi.... Roy.”
“Welcome to Taco Bell, may I take your order?”
“Yes... Roy. I would like, Roy, three tacos... Roy.”
“Would you like anything else?”
“No... Roy. That’s fine.... Roy.”
“That comes to $1.98.”
“Here you go... Roy. Here’s $1.98 exactly, that was easy wasn’t it... Roy? Oh yeah... Give me one of those cups there... Roy...”
. He looked like he wanted to leave really bad but was stuck there for the lunch rush. I was still standing there while Matt made his order. Matt did a good job of intimidating him by using... Roy’s name too much as well. Plus, he used this little twitch that made his eyes seem to want to jump out and bite you. Jason on the other hand, decided at the last moment to cop out with the... Roy thing, and started his Used Car Salesman routine. We each managed to confuse him enough to get a large drink and then went about our business of making life hell for the other employees. Come to think of it, we decided that he was the Captain of the Taco Bell Mutant League.
. Anyway, we left Knoxville and headed for the only decent Taco Bell (and I use that word loosely) that Patrick knew of. Unfortunately, Roy quit soon after we found him and we couldn’t go to that one anyway because it was too late. Instead, we went to the one in Clinton (don’t ask me why). Taco Bell is usually only open until 3 am and we broke the sound barrier so we could get a fucking chillito. We sat outside of it, ducked down in the car, until 2:58, planning our attack. Now everyone knows that you can’t just walk in there at the last minute because they will get mad at you and booby trap your food (NEVER DO THIS AT A VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT!!!!). It’s rude to go in at 2:59 and ask for good service, so... in we went at 2:58. You have to give them two minutes at least! So we did. And we ordered. And they grudgingly gave us our food. And we checked to make sure it was safe and not sabotaged. And it turned out to be all good. And we ate. And we played. And we saw a chair. And we wanted it. And it wanted us. We could tell it wanted us because it used it’s telepathic powers to tell us it’s escape plan, checked to make sure the coast was clear, ducked behind the potted plastic plants, dodged the surveillance cameras, opened the doors, made us finish our food and hurry thru, ran the twenty feet to the car, jimmied the locks, and crawled into the back seat of Patrick’s car with us. Then we sped away from the Sheriff that was in the drive-thru where he could see us the whole time!
. We have a friend named Amanda. We all went to her house one night for a party she was having and discovered that we were the oldest ones there..... by far. It kind of made sense actually, because she is much younger than us and still in school. That’s OK though. We don’t care. We were the Deities (as well as the Phlea group). We were God (Jason), Moses (Daniel), Jesus (Jamie), Mohammed (Patrick), Buddha (Scooby), Pandora (Julia), Anti-Christ (Brian), Aphrodite (Amanda), myself (S8N) and Fred (McBee). I’m still waiting to find Artemis...
. I studied deities for a time and Jesus and I decided that all it takes to be a deity is the ability to do something others couldn’t begin to fathom, or at least enough to be viewed as having divine powers in that area. We each have special powers and we have people that believe in us (we did at least). Quite holy in our own minds, we had all sorts of fun demonstrating our powers and cursing each other. God cursed me to forever be downstairs (I didn’t mind, that’s where the kitchen was) to look over and torment the naughty ones (and I did). Jesus was preaching to people about everything except religion, and turned those who disagreed with him into lepers. We had entered the party as our own parts and proceeded to educate the crowd (now followers) as to the ways of the Phlea. We had their utmost attention and demanded their souls as tribute. I, being Satan, walked around with my hat to collect them. After an evening of much insanity, hilarity, nihilism, and a scandal involving me (don’t ask, I don’t want to be a Courtney. Besides, she lied about her age and I’m S8N. I’m supposed to corrupt the innocent), a successful hypnosis experiment, and a bag of Tostitos with the best damned salsa I’ve ever had, we topped off the evening by getting caught playing a game of Human Knot in the center of the living room by the mother of the house. That may have been the end of that session, but the night was far from over for us, because we were on a mission... from GOD! (This is the part where you hear the Mission Impossible theme song).
. All of us piled into Patrick’s car and we plunged headlong into the snow thru a blizzard at 120mph to McGhee Tyson airport. Buddha with his hat, God without shoes, Mohammed with his grin, and I with a spiked leather jacket, proceeded to enter the airport at the wee hours of the morning to go to the Delta booth so we could get a pair of plastic pilot’s wings. We left, successfully, with the wings, luggage tags on our toes, an ash tray, a no smoking sign, a wet floor sign, an elevator button and permit, and several screws from the escalator. For our victory feast we went to the WaHo on the Airport Motor Mile.
. As mentioned before, we liked to play UNO. This is more than just a mere card game the way most mortals see it. It is a full-contact sport with custom rules for hard core play. The point of our games were to be as evil, rude, and vengeful, as possible. The first rule of the game is to play it in a place where it would be as inappropriate as possible. A place where it would be considered loud and embarrassing. We went to Shoney’s. I sat by the window. Directly across from me sat Buddha. To my left sat Mohammed, and then God. To Buddha’s right sat Jesus, and then Aphrodite. The waitress risked coming over to take our order and we asked for copious quantities of coffee, because of course we weren’t wired enough! I think someone actually had enough money for food, but that’s a story even -I- won’t write about. Besides, the point is to play until we get kicked out! I looked around at the nearby tables and couldn’t help but smile. All of them were empty except for the one directly behind us. It was loaded with a bunch of innocent people. You know the type, the kind that look like they just got out of midnight mass. A whole family of them! I turned back around and we all started to eye each other, wondering who would die first. Jason brought out the deck consisting of 6 decks mixed together. We dealt out the first hand and started either laughing or crying. Buddha started flipping through his hand and saying “words, words, words heh heh heh” which of course made us all nervous. We have several additional rules for Phlea UNO. The first one is to play it in the wrong place. The second one is that there are no 9’s in the game. Those cards that others call 9’s are really just mis-printed 6’s and they still count as 6’s. This is the first part of the Rule of Six. The second part is that you must continue to play sixes once the first one has been played or risk personal harm! For every three sixes that are laid down before the cycle is broken, that’s how many times the breaking player gets punched in the arm or a dare must be fulfilled. The third rule is the Rule of Smurf. This rule also has two parts. The first it that if you have a blue card of 3 or less, you may play it no matter what the suit or color currently is, although you may not play it to counter a word card’s effects. The second part of the Smurf rule does however. If you are sitting there and suddenly you find that you have to draw cards as the result to getting rolled, you may play a blue 0 and say ‘Rule of Smurf, halt’ and the roll is stopped. Play resumes normally as if the active card is now a blue 0. This brings us to the Rolling Rule. If someone lays down a Draw card on you and you don’t feel like picking up the cards, you can lay down a Draw card of equal or lesser value and the total is passed on to the next player. They may do the same and it goes on until someone does not have a draw card powerful enough to stop the roll or pass it on. They must then draw all the cards totaled by the Rolling. Not everyone has as many Draw cards as the others and this could lead to a person’s plan for vengeance going wrong. This is where the London Underground comes into play. If you have a Draw card and you can collaborate with another player who needs it, you can try to sneak the card to them under the table (or any other suitable sneaky way). If someone catches you doing it though, you must draw the total number of cards as if you were hit by that card, plus the Draw card goes to the bottom of the deck.
. Anyway, I was not pleased at the thought of Scooby having so many word cards, and I did not like my position in the circle. I looked desperately for a Reverse card so any hell he brought down wouldn’t land on me. He looked at me and asked ‘can you roll it?’ I knew what he meant, and I could. I nodded and we look down the table trying to guess who would be the one to get rolled on. I figured that since everyone had 10 cards and I had used a Hyper Deck for this game that just about everyone had a Draw card of some kind or another. Scooby’s turn came and he threw in a Draw 4! “Opening with the big guns,” I said. This would be quick... I threw one in too. So did Patrick. And then so did Jason... and then everyone else did too! It finally stopped on Jesus. “Damn you all! Make me draw 154 cards will you... You’re all going to hell for this!” I smiled and thought about that prospect for a second. Imagine trying to talk to the devil and trying to explain that the reason you are there for an eternity of fire and brimstone was because of a card game!
. To sum up a few hours of cheating, we stole the ketchup, sugar, salt and pepper shakers, a spoon, and the Tabasco thingy, I only had to dance on the table once, we stretched a condom over one of the chairs, they ran out of coffee and sugar, the people behind us beamed back to their mother ship, and we left without a bill. I think they just really wanted us to leave.
. There would be lots of fun with Jason and I living under the same roof. From there, we would have to have the nightly party. Then we would go out to do who know what, corrupt who knows how many, consume who knows how much, steal who know how useless, smoke who knows what, and wind up who knows where... but we had fun doing it. Then, we would go home look at our beds and then the clock and ask each other:
“What do we want to do now?”
“Party time!”
“Can you dig it?”
“Aaawwwww yeeeeaaaah!”
“I knew that you could. By the way, how many people called while we were out?”
“137; including 36 of those times being us, 24 being form Carrie demanding that we pay our utilities bill, the rest were Courtney, Jennifer, the children who were looking for their cat, and some other people. Oh yeah, your dad called.”
“That’s OK, if it’s important he’ll call back. Say, it’s 5 am. What should we have for dinner?”
“Lets check the crypt and see what doesn’t bite us.”
. We foraged through the kitchen and opened the fridge to survey the carnage. We would have to fight for our food. We rescued 3 dozen eggs, some milk, 51lbs of BACON and some Bisquick form the Bologna and Celery gangs. We tried not to disturb them because they can get really violent if they think you are trying to invade their turf. Not wanting to wake up with a refrigerator full of hoods, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor. While I laid down cover fire, Jason snagged goods. “BREAKFAST” we cried! 20 minutes later, we dined on blue pancakes, eggs, and the best bacon this side of Atlantis. (did you know that they have to import bacon there?) As the sun began to make its threat of ascension, we returned to our caves after switching off the christmas lights, feeding the fish, setting the booby traps by the door for the children, and making sure the fire alarm was inoperable. A few Zs later we would start again.
. Christmas is a joyous occasion for most everyone and we were not to be the exception because of some minor differences in beliefs. Although Carrie had taken the tree when she left, we had tinsel, a snaked bundle of christmas lights, and Evil Ducky. Evil Ducky is a rubber duck that I got from work one day and decided was too innocent for me. A little work with some electrical tape and a magic marker produced a new friend that would drag us all on many an adventure. I believe that Evil Ducky had more of a sex life than I did. I forget him one night at Applebee’s and he spends the next four months living with a woman that I had wanted since high school. We wrapped him up in christmas lights and made a nest of tinsel. This became our tree and everyone wanted to see it. People came from all around to bow down before him. I was amazed that people I didn’t know actually came up to me and brought up the subject of wanting to see him. Christmas Ducky was a weird success!
. Mostly, we enjoyed the snow that was to come, but New Years Eve is my favorite holiday and I try to go all out. A friend of ours named Kathryn was in town from college and didn’t want to go to either of her parents houses. Who could blame her? No party can possibly be any fun when someone is watching what you do critically! I invited her to stay with us and she agreed to spend New Years with her friends and me. Jason came home and informed us that he was going with Amanda to a party and said that we could go too. After a friend harvesting session we had around a half dozen people tagging along with us. We gave up waiting on Jason when we discovered that he had gone already without so much as a note. We arrived there only to be rejected by the mother with a lame excuse. Disgruntled, we went back to the cars to develop a new plan of attack. Nobody knew of another party to crash so; “That’s it! Fuck this looking for somebody else’s cheesy party to go to. You’re all coming to my apartment. I was stoked! After a brief covert excursion to my dad’s basement, I arrived with 4 bottles of good wine. Red and white. Between the beers we already had and the wine, we
treated ourselves to the floor. I took up position on the bean bag chair and played drinking games with anyone who could make it over. We watched What’s Up Tigerlilly, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Cops. We listened to some music, but for the most part, I can’t remember what it was. I’m lucky I can still remember where I was. I do remember the count down and we all sang Bee Gees songs. We had disco fever! In fact, we listened to the whole Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I remember looking to my left and was surprised that I saw Jason sitting beside me.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“It got boring at that party and so I came home.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“It got boring at that party and so I came home?”
“.....Oh yeah! You already said that, didn’t you?”
. It was about that time that Courtney entertained us all with a brilliant display of his speed, reflexes, and flair for the dramatic. If you were to ask him, he would give you the complete description of what happened as he saw it. Who would know better than he, right? He says he started to feel nauseous and so he stood up quickly, and ran around the couch to get to the bathroom so he could pray to the porcelain gods with a Technicolor yawn. Sounds simple and elegant doesn’t it? Too bad that it’s all wrong... What happened, according to the other 20 people that had shown up there so far, was that he slid off the couch, turned to run around it, clipped the side of it spinning him into the opposite wall where he fell down, got up, fell into the bathroom doorway, pulled himself up with the doorknob, slammed the door closed, turned around and opened the door again, looked at us to discover that he had not successfully entered the bathroom and was facing the wrong room, turned around, went into the bathroom, slammed the door, fell down making some ungodly amount of racket, and that’s all we heard for about 3 hours. When someone asked what that huge crash had been, I replied in my best attempt at normal speaking, “he fell into my bathtub” (the apartment only had the aforementioned shower stall). I think McBee noted that I didn’t have a bathtub, to which I replied “that’s the trick” and left it at that. Upon later inspection, he had passed out before reaching the toilet and had thrown up everywhere! There was whirl on the walls, the dirty laundry pile (which he was sleeping in), the electric wall heater, the sink, the floor, the trash can, my toothbrush, the plunger, the shower stall, the shower head (!), himself, and the toilet paper. Of all these things, the toilet was -spotless- ! Not a drop of the vile hurl had made it into the toilet. He still prides himself on this. I taught him the value of the stick. A group of us went into Hell to celebrate with a packed bowl. I don’t smoke, but I was there to make sure they didn’t burn down my water bed. A cloud hung right at eye level and we had fun playing with the black light, the posters on the walls and ceiling, that fuzzy thing I kept on my headboard, and Spam’s tummy. Spam might strike you as being a dull klutz sometimes, but I have to hand it to him. Never turn your back on the snack ninja. He specializes on being sneaky right-in-front-of-you. The bastard managed to position himself in just the right spot that everyone had to pass the bowl to him so he could pass it on to the next person. (He took a couple of hits from it each time it touched is hands and no one even noticed!) “Why does the bowl keep cashing out so quickly?” people would ask. When everyone was sufficiently messed up, I showed them Jason’s room. I had decorated it with an entire package of Glow-in-the-Dark-Stars while he was sleeping (heh heh, trippy)!
. Courtney redeemed himself by introducing us to a game called Crack the Case. The object was for someone to read a scenario to them self and the rest asked yes or no questions to solve the case. After several hours the questions dwindled to a strange mix of silly and some serious patterned questions from those who haven’t resigned their souls to the demon of party games. We soon learned to ask the most important question first.
“Was there sex involved?”
“Yes.”
“Were the people having sex married?”
“No.”
. Don’t laugh yet, 90% of the cases revolved around sex as being the main motive. The questions went on and on until we had discovered who, what, when, where, why, and how many times the milkman came by. One case stumped us all and it was eventually solved by Brian who had started in with the silly questions. One of them solved the case.
“She was having an affair with Victor?”
“Yes.”
“Was Victor married to someone else?”
“No.”
“Victor was the dog!”
“Yes!”
“What???? You mean that she was having an affair with the dog?”
“Yes.”
“..............................................”
. All that remained to figure our once you had discovered the details about sex, was the people who were murdered, by whom, with what, and maybe a few other questions like, “How many pets were exported to Ecuador” (but these didn’t matter since you now knew who was getting it and who wasn’t). The next morning, I invited everyone to risk breakfast with me and those who did,
complemented me on the blue pancakes and Dr. Pepper. They all thanked me for a House o’ Free Luvin’ New Years that they wouldn’t forget and then found ways home. That is.... except for Courtney. He never left. The bastard hid a suitcase in the closet when he came in. Courtney, you fat bag of Vaseline coated gerbils, you still owe me a bag of groceries!!!
. We, and many of our friends, help out at the local theatre. One night after a show, we were at the cast party doing one of our things and someone brought up the idea of going to Mardi Gras. (A lot of these stories are not in order so, get over it! This is how life goes for me. Time passes very differently for me.) We calculated the time necessary to get there, get hit on by drag queens, get a buzz, get our minds clear (yeah, sure), get back in time to take a group shower and get to our places for the show. In our estimations, it would take 18 hours, 15 minutes, and 32 seconds. That was 15 minutes and 32 seconds past opening curtains. It was obvious that it couldn’t be done, so off we went.
. We left the very next night. The crew for the S.S. MacDonald Daddy was Amanda, a friend of hers named Donna, Patrick, and myself. This time however, the destination was Virginia Beach (don’t ask me). We were determined to drive to the beach, jump into the tide, jump back into the car, and get back in time to be late for the show. We tore down the interstate at our usual unsafe speeds. I was in the back with Donna and Patrick’s cellular phone. Vernon and Patrick were racing out of Oak Ridge and Voyn stopped at the pay phone in Solway to call us on the Cellular. I talked to him on the phone using my little old Chinese man’s voice. It was the usual “wrong number, but would you like some cashew chicken?” routine. We decided to test the range of the connection and right about the time none of us knew where we were, the connection went dead. It was ok though, because we never give up and I was looking forward to finding Oofutt again (it’s this silly little city that consists of a hotel and a Taco Mac where all the lost souls of the world wind up and are trapped forever). About an hour and a half later, we stopped at the Deus-Ex-Machinas McDonalds. The Mcdonalds to end all. We weren’t really hungry, but the sheer size of it made it impossible to swerve in time to avoid it. We parked and were caught off guard by the “World’s Largest Indoor Playland” sign. We had to see this!!! Two things stuck out in my mind as the words rolled around my head trying to figure out what was wrong with it: Indoor Playland, and World’s Largest. The first part was the part that caught my attention because the concept was new to me. The second part was what hurt my mind. I ran thru the doors. We were not daunted by the Cheeseburgler “you must be below this line in height to play in the playland” sign that tried to bar our entry. I didn’t feel like a game of limbo so we took it with us. I think it must have enjoyed itself, seeing as how it had probably never been allowed to play on it up until then. Yes, we did get kicked out, but not before we stole a few of the plastic balls, an ashtray, and the guy’s hat.
. A quick nap later and I awoke to find that Patrick was the only one left alive, but just barely. The girls had passed out as quickly as I had. I rubbed my eyes and leaned forward to talk to Patrick. Before I could start with the usual questions: “are we there yet”, “where the hell are we anyway”, “how could we get this lost”, “do you even know what state we’re in”, “does this one have any beaches”, etc., I found that another question was pushing it’s way to the front of the line. I let it. I shifted my focus from the interstate ahead and noticed that Patrick was on mental auto-pilot.
“Patrick, how long have we been driving through a snow storm?”
Patrick’s eyes lost their glaze and a puzzled expression began to cross his face.
“I don’t remember...”
“Is it safe to be passing the snow plow?”
“Well, this lane’s fine.”
. We were admiring the snow when the girls woke due to our conversation. They were excited about the first snow of the year, and wanted to stop at a rest area so they could make snow angels. We did, and they did, and we left. We continued blindly onwards into the wall of crystalline magnificence thinking “what a pleasant surprise”. A little while later and I had to ask if it was safe for the snow plow to be passing us. We decided that it was time to start looking for a hotel for the night. We scrounged up a five dollar bill from Amanda and 23.57 from Patrick’s spare change pit in the console. The emergency gas fund was going to save us again!!! We found an exit with a Value-8 motel that offered a double for 17.99. That was for us! After a short automobile acrobatics display, we slid into a parking spot. We figured the total cost and counted it our of the change. Of all the people in the car, they chose me to represent them. I found the office and was greeted by Hapu, the owner. I admired his turban for a second and decided that the writing on it was an elaborate insult that I wasn’t in the mood to ask about. He asked If I would like the room for the entire night or just a couple of hours. I laugh to this day about that one. Twenty minutes of misunderstanding and trading insults later, I emerged with all my teeth, some really kooky new insults, and a room key. We rushed inside to discover that the room was COLD.... but it had HBO. We all got into the beds and watched a cheesy vampire movie before slipping into a coma. In the morning, I asked how many of us still wanted to go swimming in the ocean. We made it back in time for the show and a dozen pots of Super-Caff.
. Around here, it -never- snows before New Years, then it snows like it’s going out of style and we wind up with (maybe) three inches. That’s Oak Ridge for you. As soon as you cross any of the City Limit lines, however, it’s a whole other story. Snow drifts three feet high and snow all over the place. There is one border in particular that gets a lot of snow and that is Key Springs Rd. It leads from north Oak Ridge to Marlow. We like to refer to it as BFE because there’s nothing out there except for a few trailer parks and some rednecks. That way lies madness. This road is famous for icing over in the winter and becoming extremely hazardous. The road is terribly dangerous and many times it is life threatening. Nobody with even the slightest bit of intelligence would dare to go anywhere near it... and for good reason.
. So there we were, dressed in the warmest of gothic winter ware with plastic sleds. We don’t have a death wish or anything, we are gods and therefore can’t be harmed. We have a favorite quote from Danzig II, Lucifuge. The quote comes from the song “Devil’s Plaything” and goes: “Devil’s plaything in my hand. If you don’t want pain, you don’t understand”. That pretty much sums up the method in which we went about this excursion. We proceeded to flip over, fly off the road, crash into banks, yodel, and park the sled in just about every uncomfortable tree around. When that became boring, we started to set land speed records for the “most number of idiots on a plastic sled going down a dangerous curvy road that is covered (almost) entirely in 3 inches of ice”. We won and lost at the same time. Did I remember to mention that we had no idea how we were supposed to steer these things??? It was interesting to see when we ran out of ice and started sliding across dry asphalt at 50 miles per hour. Lucky for us, a tree always managed to catch us. Have you ever been bowling?
. After a few hours of this, another idea found it’s way into our twisted, less than logical, minds. We found some rope and headed for the industrial park. Mind you that no actual construction goes on here other than building more industrial park. It’s just a hill with a bunch of companies sitting on top of it. We didn’t care about those.... at that moment. The roads were icy and we keep reading about it in the news about how someone died while trying to play in the snow there. The roads were icy and all the companies were closed... except for Coors (it’s only 3 am during a blizzard, why should they be closed?). The ditch was covered in ice, and we had cardboard! We proceeded to use the rope to pull someone behind the car who was sitting on the cardboard scraps for as long, and as fast as possible. Have you ever been traveling at 55 miles per hour in -12 degree weather while clutching to a piece of glorified paper because it was the only thing keeping your ass from becoming one with the ditch ahead? It may have been a lot of fun, but it was sooooooo cooooooold! I was wearing: 3 shirts, a leather jacket, a sweater, 2 pairs of trousers with long johns beneath, tanker boots, gloves, a lined trench coat, a pair of goggles, and a beach towel wrapped around my head for use as a toboggan / helmet. It was a little bit tepid outside that night. We did everything we could that night and when we had to toss Jason into the car because he had become solid, we decided to call it an evening and go home to make grits.
. An early evening hangout was Applebee’s. We would go there and order pots of coffee, sugar lick blocks, creamer, and the never ending glasses o’ cola. We would live there with our other friends and just keep asking for refills until the employees got off work and would try to kick us out of our hiding places and herd us out. It had been a place where our over cafinated minds would go into full tilt absurdity. Many ideas sprung from my mind and we would talk about and improve them. One such rant was about the pirate ship. Remember Wallace? You know.... 6’ x 4’ x 3’? Anyway, I pointed out that there were about 20 of such Styrofoam blocks sitting behind a company called Elographics. What was to stop us from taking a few and building a raft? Even we couldn’t sink Styrofoam. We continued with the discussion. A large raft? A small castle? A large motorized castle with ramparts and spud launchers? A pirate ship? ....! A pirate ship! Imagine the possibilities! We had envisioned a large Spanish galleon made out of these with masts, tie dyed sails, a paisley paint job for camouflage, a 30,000 watt sound system that would blare disco songs to frighten the poor unsuspecting rednecks, Spud Launchers for offensive weapons, and a diesel engine to speed us around when the winds were fighting with us. It would be manned by a rag-tag team of weirdo’s dressed in disco pirate outfits that would glow in the dark and yet be invisible in a spotlight. It’s the old “too gaudy for human eyes” technique. We would use it to set sail on Boomsday to board houseboats, and annoy the drunken rednecks while we stole their beer and sank their country music tapes. This would require a LOT of Wallaces and so off we went. Wallaces are just a name that I gave to that one. I don’t know what they are really called (probably trash) and they could have been called super-fuzzy-left-handed-goose-nuggets but I get this mystical feeling that they’re not. Under the cover of snow, we rode with Brandt in his truck to steal one. We dropped it off behind the apartment and that’s when I dubbed it Wallace. We loved Wallace. Now we only needed 30 more. A few weeks later, Brandt returned from his cave at Warren Wilson and after a brief interlude at Applebee’s, we headed off again. This time we managed to get 2 more Wallaces and we decided that it would be a bad idea to keep them in the back yard with the first one because they are very territorial and would kill each other like typewriters often do. Take a second to imagine that one. The thought of waking one evening and having to go to the back yard and pick up a shit load of now useless Styrofoam bits was not an appealing one. I always hated it when someone got into my bean bag chair because you can never clean up -all- of those little white foam thingies. We drove around for a while trying to think of an option and wound up just throwing them off the broken bridge at the bottom of Key Springs. This sort of negated the point of stealing them in the first place but no plan is perfect. I named them Joe and Mark, the illegitimate children of Wallace. They stayed there for a few weeks and I went to visit them every once in a while.
:::Important note; Never hide behind one when someone starts to shoot at you!!! It fails to work. This comes from first hand experience, and I learned it during the disposal of Joe and Mark. Just don’t ask:::
. I take as large of a hand in making sure Melro keeps going as I can. This is a game of medieval fantasy gaming, where you wear costumes, sometimes armor and make-up, and often get into sword fights. This game often bewilders and frightens the sheltered rednecks who see us do this, and we don’t care. They’re not playing. One day, we had a small game called a fighter’s practice behind the apartment. The neighbors thought of us as lunatics and devil worshippers. Heh heh. Twenty people running around shouting, and swinging swords seems fun to me and I was in the midst doing the same. I stopped paying attention to the reactions others have to what I do because I really don’t care what they think. There’s only so many times you can enjoy reruns of shocked expressions. If they are not shocked by it, then that’s cool and there is nothing to see. After the game, others told me about how the neighbors had hid their children (who were watching us at first), closed all windows and blinds, and then closed and bolted the doors. I’m glad we weren’t using the flaming arrows or anything. It’s best not to disturb the natives.
. It seems that our place must have been put on some list that the churches put out of “houses that need to be harassed into loving Jesus” or something because we were their favorite. I don’t like the idea of a list kept by the churches in order to keep track of who has not been assimilated and taught to conform to the ways of their gods. Of course we balked at this!
. It just so happened that every time they came by, we were in the process of doing something that was probably either immoral, or illegal. So? This isn’t any sort of sign or anything, because we were -always- doing something either unholy, illegal, immoral, or all four at once. You can use your own imagination and that’s probably what we’ve done. Everything from burning bibles in the hibachi, to sniping children’s playthings from the living room couch.
. One time I opened the front door only to be harangued by a minister from Central Baptist Church. JOY! That place disturbs me. Only Hitler was more expansionistic. I have been there a
couple of times on recon missions and have noticed that the walls and floor space don’t match up properly. They are trying to conceal something there. If it was St. Mary’s I would say it was a base for the Knights of Malta, but I guess it was just the Army for God. I noticed that there are two guys that loiter by the front entrance and I noticed slight bulges and ear-pieces. I think their little pins are really microphones too. I watched them for a while to figure out their purpose and decided that they were doormen to the underground lair where the secret members went after giving the secret handshake. They would go there and put on their uniforms and arm bands before taking up their positions at the command network for Oak Ridge.
. Anyway.... lucky for me that when I answered the door, I happed to be wearing my armor and holding the sword I have that has SATAN engraved into the scabbard. I did my best to stall him and keep him out of the back yard because of what we were burning there. Guess. We needed the ashes to paint our faces for that evening’s ritual, and I don’t think he would have wanted to stick around and roast a marshmallow. At least not after I started asking if we wore the same size of clothing. He gave up and left (quickly).
. Later that month, another church came by to solicit their gods to us. It just so happens that the three of us were in Hell doing... Stuff! No, the third person’s name was not Stuff...... it was Julia. I answered the door in a bathrobe and a stick of butter. I tried to tell them that I was busy as moans and surprised giggles came from my room.
“Hi, how’s it going?”
“Have you been saved?”
“Yup, I was about to fall off, but Jason grabbed me and pulled me back up.”
“Er... I meant have you found Jesus?”
“What time is it?” One of the two looked at her watch.
“It’s seven-thirty.”
“Oh, that means he’s at Fazoli’s. He wasn’t there yet when we came home from work earlier.”
“I think you’re talking about someone else...”
“If you’re talking about a guy with long sandy brown hair and blue eyes who talks about God a lot, then we’re talking about the same one. He’s a really interesting guy. He calls here all the time and we talk about guns until God gets home.”
“You know, a moment of purity to let the lord into your heart will grant you an eternity of bliss in the after life.”
“Aw c’mon, talking to you two has made me miss several minutes of bliss in the now life. Aw look, my butter’s melting...”
“Heathen! May God curse you to an eternity of Hell, because that’s where you’re going!”
“Exactly, when I get there, I’ll tell God you came by. I’m sure he’ll be upset he missed you. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I have to put this butter to use. If you’d like to come in and wait for us in Purgatory, we’ll finish up in a couple of hours while you watch some movies and then I can show you my guns!”
That church won’t come within 20’ of me.
. To say the least, the three of us are wiser for not having stopped and let them come in because they were probably a bore and would have been offended by the booster seat. Jason is druidic and Scottish... or was it Irish? He’s the only one I know that actually likes Guinness stout and I sometimes think he is only drinking it to be patriotic. Exactly one month later, the same thing happened. Jason was in his room, painted up and burning things in a brass bowl on his bed. He looked adorable in his leather loincloth with his hair flaring out. I was asleep in my room because I was going to MEPS in the morning for my Marines processing. A knock at the door disturbed Jason’s concentration and he went to answer it, sword in hand. Expecting it to be Pontus (who was late) he flung the door opened and screamed “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?” and waggled his sword at the visitors. It turned out not to be Pontus, and was instead a trio of wandering Mormons who wanted to tell him that the Lord was coming or something like that, but they just started crying instead.
. Nothing in this world is free... except for radiation, smog, junk mail, and network television. Oh the horror! You can’t even die for free any more. The moment you are born, the hospital bills your parents for watching, and giving your mom drugs. Your parents hold this over you until they die and expect you to pay for the funeral and have them gift wrapped in a charming box and then tossed into the ground and buried like a dog’s bone. Thanks to that box, their remains are sure to be there when someone goes looking for it later (just like the dog’s bone). Using the same logic of supply and demand, we were forced to pay our landlord rent. This got harder and harder when the two of us quit our jobs (quit, fired, same thing). Anyway, when employment fled our company, the game of rent became more and more of a challenging game. I remember one evening I was on the phone with Joe (Joe Walther PPK, not Joe of Wallace) while we were getting our rent together.
“Hey, let’s go racing each other again on Outer Drive tonight!”
“But Shane, I thought your RX-7 died.”
“Oh yeah, we’ll ride with you then.”
“Makes sense to me. Another trip to the Moron Baptist?”
“Sure. We’re kinda busy right now though.”
At that moment, Jason bounds in with a coin in his hand. “Look! Another one! I found it in the dirty laundry pile.”
“Cool! The rest of the pile is over here by the ashtray. I’m prying more off the coffee table. Try searching the couch next.”
“What are you guys doing over there? It sounds like you’re counting bodies.”
“Oh, we’re scrounging for our rent money. It’s due tomorrow.”
“Ok.”
“WOW! A quarter! Quick Jason, I need a large screwdriver to pry this one off.”
“How much do you guys have so far?”
Jason bounced over with a large flat head screwdriver, and I counted out the money we had gotten together so far. “Hmmm... 125... 135... 140... “
“How much do you need?”
“We need to come up with 325 dollars by noon tomorrow or we get kicked out.”
“And you only have about 140 dollars?”
“What? No, we have about 140 cents. 165 with the quarter and I haven’t even started counting the pennies yet. We’re getting there. Now we only need about 323 more dollars. Hey, I think I have some coins in my car,” I said as I gained enthusiasm.
. All I could hear on the other line was laughter. Or was it tears? “Only 323? I think you can easily find that in the change you keep in your ashtray, hey I think I lost a penny under your seat once too,” Joe said with one of those sarcastic voices.
. “Thanx! Even better!”
. After four more hours of scrounging for coins and an hour of counting pennies, we paid our rent with two one dollar bills and some change. The next day, I got the bills for the electricity, phone, and my car. Joy! This part of the story marked the beginning of the end for our days in the House o’ Free Luvin’. Entropy in action I guess.
. One night Patrick, Scooby, Jason and I were riding back from Faragut where we had dropped Amanda off for the night. We were driving down what I think was Dutchtown Road and we passed a
country dancing club. A truck pulled out of the parking lot right behind us, but we were doing about 70 so we left him a way back. I was sitting in the back seat and noticed that the reflection from the guy’s headlights were getting brighter and brighter. I turned my head to look and see how close he was and if he was going as fast as I thought he was. Just then, I saw his front end bounce twice then the truck just shot off the side of the road, and flipped a few times, landing on it’s back. Patrick saw it too from his mirrors and was stopping. Jason and I deployed and started running towards the truck to see if the guy was alright. Scooby and Patrick stayed with the car. When we got there, Jason and I used my sword to pry the door apart enough to get a grip on the door and rip it open. The guy was unconscious and laying on the roof of the cab. The engine was still running and I reached in to turn it off for fear of an explosion while Jason dragged the guy out. He woke up and started asking who he was, and what was going on. I tried to take the keys out of the ignition and the stereo turned on and started blaring. “Oh yeah, that’s Green Day, they kick ass,” the guy said and then started asking who he was again. He started stammering a bunch of shit that none of us could understand. The stench of booze on his breath was repugnant. Patrick and Scooby had come up before we could get the guy to slow down and enunciate. He went on and on about not wanting the cops involved. He offered anyone 500 dollars in cash to say that they were driving instead of him. I was tempted because it was 500 dollars. My mind started trying to figure a way of getting the 500 dollars from this drunk guy without doing anything risky. I looked at Patrick and saw the expression at the request to not call the police. I noticed that he still had his cellular phone in his hand. I asked him quietly and he confirmed that it was the first thing he and Scooby did when they stopped the car and that’s why they didn’t get there immediately. Great. No one said a word about it and we just agreed with the drunk that calling the cops would be bad and how no one had done it. I talked with him some more and he offered me a check for 400 dollars if I said I was driving. I looked at the others funny and they caught it too. For the next five minutes, the drunk had managed to talk himself down from 500 dollars cash to a check for 200 dollars to be mailed to us when he found his check book if we gave him a ride home. He recounted his criminal history to us so we could understand his dilemma. If the cops showed up, he was going back to prison for 5 years. Meanwhile, I started looking through the cab and saw a lighter. Wow, a Zippo! I grabbed the lighter and palmed a couple of the tapes for salvage and mementos. The ambulance showed up and started to check the guy out. We were playing UNO on the hood of Patrick’s car when the sheriff arrived and asked us about the driver. He was toted off in handcuffs and we went to the Rocky Top down the street to look through our salvage and get a Hostess cupcake. I still have that lighter, and the tapes were all country so I burned them.
. There are many more stories like this one but I can’t possibly capture the moment on paper. I can’t describe the people, the paces, the smells, the trajectories, the slurred speeches (but dramatically inspiring nonetheless), the positions, and anyone who knows me knows that an expression is worth a thousand tangents. There are stories I used to tell about the first time I moved out and lived with Kain and Mark that I’ve been able to make people laugh tears with. There’s a great long one where I once walked into a room of people who were tripping. I was carrying a Soldier of Fortune magazine, and a cup of Super-Caff coffee to find the conversation was about world domination. I sat down and asked what I had missed and they told me that they wanted to take over the world. I took a sip of my coffee and got comfortable. Then, I explained to them how to do it using explicit details and what parts they would play in it.
They won’t come within 20’ of me either.
. There is the Otter Story, but I can’t possibly tell you more than it was a camping trip to Big South Fork that involved me, several stoners, some mysterious greenery of nature, a moron in a mummy sack that I still can’t figure out how he got into his hammock, and a herd of skunks. There is the story behind the dead, skinned cat that was hanging from our shower head, the little girls from next door who had lost their cat the night before, and then found that one. I promise you, as long as you have a good constitution, you’ll see it’s humor. There are many many many gun stories including the raids on the Moron Baptist Church, the assault on the train, the shooting of the dog for Carly’s video, The time Joe shot himself and his trousers saved him, the time everyone was caught shooting guns at the springs by the cops and never managed of find the illegal ones, and the time I shot the children’s beach ball from my kitchen.
. All the names in this story were kept the same because we like it that way and there’s no way satire can be admissible in court. If you have any questions or comments, please E-Mail them to Tdevil@Hell.S8N or you can talk to his correspondent at KarlGruber@aol.com for your free cheese.
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