D1.8.2

The day after I graduated from South Sioux City Senior High School, I packed up my '64 spray-painted 'Super-Nova' and moved from Northern-ern-ern-ern rural Nebraskaland to Central more-urban-like Omaha. I was barely seventeen at the time and I took up my residence in what you might call a 'communal-effort of sorts'.

A commune sounds a little more noble than an acid-house; but, basically that's what the effort of the commune was sort of about.

There were around ten of us that stayed there on a regular basis and our lives revolved around a gay dive/bar that stayed open for after-hours playing disco, house, acid-rock serving its patrons soda, coffee, and poppers at the bar.

I was the novelty, the fresh blood, so to speak. The young inspired writer who was full of ambition and life. I was good -- a little too eager to love them and even more eager to be loved by them in return.

Before the club opened the door at 1:30 am, we would throw huge parties or attend some festive gathering to get rid of the weekly shipment of LSD which always arrived on our doorstep it seemed every Friday. All of 'our friends' had the money and there were always parties.

One night we finagled everyone to go to The Rocky Horror Picture Show prior to going to The Run. What a messy adventure that was. This weird guy sat next to me and kept touching my legs the whole time. No one would change places with me because they thought it was so funny how irate I was getting. After all, I was tripping.

Eventually I had to start to pretend I was stabbing him so he would get the hint that I didn't like it. Fool. He didn't stop, he just did it more. He must have thought I was flirting back. I had to sit the whole 'touch-a-touch-a-touch-me' scene out in the lobby with the chain-smoking Robert Taylor-look-alike movie attendant for protection.

Well, that wasn't so bad.

I loved the parties, though. I would lose my former hick-town self in the capricious masses. I watched, learned and partook in the social mind games they would devise to entertain one and other. And, at the clubs I would Dance. Each week I would discover myself anew in the mirrors surrounding the Dance floor.

D1.8.2

In the magic serenity of the disco lights I always conquered my enemy, the id.

After the club let out, we would usually go to Perkin's on 56th or the Elevenworth Cafe on the corner of Leavenworth and 11th Street. I would try so hard to impress everyone with my Interview Magazine-tutored knowledge of art, fashion, celebrities and pop. I used to study each issue as if it were some sacred stock of knowledge handed down to me personally by some great mind of my time. I could talk a mile a minute on this caffeine buzz I was on.

In return they blessed me with their stories and their scams. They taught me how they got what they wanted out of life and people. They defined the words 'crafty' and 'cunty' as distinct career opportunities and I wanted to learn. No one would ever hurt me again, or so I thought. I memorized everything they told me as we all came down off the drugs.

I don't want to sound too negative about the whole experience. I did learn the hard way from the mistakes I made during my youthful adventures and my chemical-induced enlightenment. But, at the time, I thought it was fierce.
Despite the personal penance's I've paid, I would never take those days back. We were hip: we were really hummin'. We were it.

Though sometimes I wish I had been a little older, as everyone else was twenty and up; mostly up. It was a learning experience.

I learned the most I think from the conversations I had with Thumper before she went off to work at the gas station. We would go have lunch at some 'all-you-could-eat-old-person-buffet' or, pending on the shape of our early afternoon dispositions, have coffee and aspirin at the Seven-Eleven as we did our laundry over at the Mat.

We would talk everyday it seemed for hours about her 'tragic' lesbian relationship with Maryann the Barbie-doll. I call her that because one time we decided it was a good idea to video-tape ourselves while we were tripping so we could then watch ourselves while we were in the same condition.

D1.8.3

I do believe that genius idea was Jack's, or someone similarly as enchanting and narcissistic. Anyway Thumper held up one of Lorna Doone's Barbie dolls, which was perched on the edge of the coffee table watching MTV; and, then, Thump-Skoots gave us quite an endearing little improv on what it feels like to be in love with a Barbie doll.

She and I also talked about how messed-up our Melissa-mom really was; about what we were going to do with the money we were supposedly pulling in; and, we even braved the unknown by talking about all the changes that were surfacing in every body's personalities due to this new found security we found in each other, and, of course, in the drugs.

Some of our little talks were not pretty, then again neither is green bile-fluid vomit; but, Thumper introduced me to that side of our reality too one night when we were huddled in the girls' bathroom stall at the Run after she'd over-done it a bit.

In the end, we decided that we did indeed belong to the deadbeatclub, as Melissa herself perceived and often told us.

Melissa-mom was a pre-law Creighton graduate who would manage to get herself convicted of a felony over the duration of the summer. As she was the self-proclaimed ring-leader, and it was partially her house, she got the master bedroom. Besides a nice stereo, there was a big bed in that room that was seldom empty and never full.

She shared the room with Davey -- that way cool D.J. -- who provided the soundtrack for our adventures both in the house and on the road. He worked at The Max regular hours, The Run after-hours and for KRCK -- Omaha's only pay-to-hear alternative rock station. I loved Davey, he would often pull me aside and tell me I was a very special little girl.
 
How can you not idolize someone who only wanted to tell you that?

There was Lorna-Doone Cookies, a very homophobic redhead who was in the Army reserves and had been tricked by Melissa into putting her name on most of the bills. She really wasn't a freak like the rest of us; but, she tried hard. I always felt bad for her the way Melissa terrorized her. She ended up putting a lock on her bedroom door to get away from a household full of trauma that she certainly didn't need or even remotely understand. I still remember her asking someone, in July, "How can you be gay?"

D1.8.4

Next to her on the second floor there was Jack#2 (Swenson) who was way too high-strung and would gayishly bounce around the house in one of my wigs doing Julie Brown impressions, "'Cause I'm a blonde, B, L, O, Gee, I don't know!" Sometimes his best friend from a neighboring small college town would show up for a few days and crash upstairs in his room.

This boy's name was Wayne and he was part of a wanna be They Might Be Giants duo called The WhereDoWeGo. I remember flipping through his Rolodex one afternoon and seeing a card from Chrysalis Records and being very impressed. (God, I was young.)

Early on during my stay there, Wayne invited me to go down with him to a pub near Old Market to listen to some Irish Folk Music. It wasn't as wild or zany as a night at The Run was; but, I kinda of liked it and him, a little. He treated me like he was my chaperone, the perfect gentleman. I guess that's the way a girl's supposed to be treated.

It's not that I don't like having my drinks bought for me, I just didn't understand it.

And then, there was Jack Allburn, who was always number #1 with me. I loved kissing him.

He was sort of like this exquisite Old Market/model/retail hustler type and he was always adorned by his Valedictorian best friend/roommate, Fallon-bear, who loved him just a little too much, I suspect.

D1.8.5

Even before I moved to Omaha, Jack was always one of the enchanting islands that drew me into this particularly torrid stream. I remember one night he had this party on the sixth floor of the apartment building where he lived and there was another party going on the second floor.

The second floor party was very straight and rather conservative; but, Jack thought one of the boys was rather cute and invited them up to the 6th floor. These staid people took one look in his apartment; saw the sights; and headed back to the elevator. Later that night, when Jack and I went for our 1:45 liqueur store run, he got this quite amazing idea.

We pushed the second floor button and started making out when the doors opened. We simulated this mad passionate engagement all the way down the hall where people were standing outside the other party. We bumped into them, oblivious, continuing to lip-lock until we were on the living room floor in the middle of their apartment. We made loud, loud slurping/kissing noises until everyone there was silent and watching. Then Jack just sat up and said, "Ahh, Hon, I think we've got the wrong apartment." We got up apologized and left.

Now, that's entertainment.

Fallon-bear, as I remember, was a bit more moody than most of us. I remember she got really upset and started crying the night we all got arrested for picking Geraniums at Denny's in Lincoln. She was even worse the day we had to go to court for it. She got on rather well with Melissa-mom and she was often indecisive about trusting me. I think this was due to my strong attachment to Jack. Then, again, Fallon and I do have our own stories.

Once, I brought her back to my grandmother's farm and she ran out to the pig pen where there must haven been dozens and dozens of new little piggies. She picked one up and wanted to know it's name, like it was a pet. Fallon was, in some respects, an absolute ingénue.

There was Beau-mo-sexual, the prostitute I shared the basement with. He got picked up one day by a bunch of men in 'nice suits,' or at least that's what Melissa-mom said had happened, for reasons none of us claimed to know.

With Beau it could have been anything.

I remember one time he told me he had to go into this place where he used to work to get his pay check. I should have known something was up when he had me drive him there at 5 am and park in back. The place was a bakery and I knew I had been made an accomplice when he came running out with a garbage bag full of money and pastries. Needless to say we ate well that month -- that month, and the month Thumper worked the graveyard shift at the gas station/liqueur store, free "Kiet Doke" for everybody!"

D1.8.6

I almost forgot Rikk, the brilliant Boystown graduate who was studying to be a nurse at Creighton Medical. In addition to being named Rikk, he really did have that Astley effect which was the unfortunate lot of always being someone you couldn't quite remember.

Now, then.

Last, but, not least, in the middle of this three-ring circus, there was I: AnyaHard--Queen of the Flying Hairpiece.

With 'And She Was' spray-painted on the back bumper of my car, I was convinced, I told someone once, I think it was Jack#2, 'anyway we can, we're gonna find something' through all our 'hard-aches,' acid trips, and mis-adventures that happened on a day-to-day extended day basis.

At the onset of each new weekend, we would go to extremes to 'out-do' the last great 'adventure'. We once broke into this old mansion that had been deserted during it's construction because the wife had committed suicide. We held a rather nice little gathering of exploration, spills and chills. I remember someone had gotten into something really foul smelling and we all had to suffer with it in the car on the way back into town.

We would hold nude beach parties out at stomach-liner lake with our $3 Target air mattress and a six pack of beer cover charge. Once, while we were at the lake, I was doing something (?) on the floor of my car and accidentally kicked the car into neutral and rolled it into the lake. Thank-god for someone's father's AAA card.

When the Midwest humidity broke we'd dance in the neighbor's garden; and, in the Central District Middle School playground (located half a block away), all of us in white, torn sheets, in the rain. Melissa did have it right . . .

One time Melissa was so messed up, she pushed her way onto the stage we built in the basement, interrupting our entertainment, the Hippo-fish. She grabbed the microphone and screamed, "We're the deadbeatclub, . . .we're the deadbeatclub, . . . We're, . . . the,. . .deadbeatclub!"

D1.8.7

She then molested Dynamo, the lead singer of the band much to the delight of all the deadbeats who filled our basement. Later Dynamo spray-painted the words, "Sex, Tacos & the Hippo-fish to the wall." I could never forget that because my bedroom was where the stage was and I spent the rest of the summer staring at those words wondering about him.

But, not even our parties could compare to Adam A.'s. He'd have an eight-ball in the bathroom of his penthouse apartment in the Orpheum building which overlooked downtown Omaha and Council Bluffs.

Adam had a huge sauna on his huge deck, with a huge open bar and anything huge you wanted; he'd provide. I remember borrowing his car for an alcohol run and joyously dialing all my friends back in Sioux City on his cellular car phone to update them on the 'good life'.

According to the inner-city rumors, he had made his first million by the time he was twenty-one. He had four patents and supposedly his brain was the one behind those neat CD albums that Walmart sold which look like photo albums and the Mega-Mundo Drink twister straws we used to get at the Kwik-Shop.

He loved all of us: 'we were such a fun group of people,' this pit-faced Asian mastermind would say. We didn't care about his looks though, he was a good time too. We liked his notoriety and his money.

Fame and fortune, these were the only two antecedents prompting our household statutes of demeanor. We were such a Feudal lot in that respect.
I remember going down to Allen's for fifty-cent jello shots and a twenty-five cent beer. Oh yeah, and the old, shitty jukebox in the corner would always be playing real loud, "Another One Bites the Dust", "Crimson and Clover," and "Ninety-six Tears."

Fallon-bear would go out on the Dance floor and begin to spin in her long gypsy skirt. After a few shots, Jack would join her until he ran to the bathroom to throw-up. I would cuddle up next to Davey and Melissa would get mad.

Lorna-Doone would complain about some guy bothering her at the bar who was bothering her by not bothering her. Jack#2 would pick Thumper or Arianne, whowever was there, up off the ground and spin them around in the air, "Cause I'm Blonde, . . . ."

D1.8.8

Over the course of the night, Beau and Rikk would disappear into the shadows. Those two tricks.

We were wild girls walkin' down the street. Just wild girls and boys going out for a big, big, big time.

Melissa-mom would amazingly come up with witty and neat new adventures to entertain her household. At the beginning of the night Melissa-mom our Julie-Cruise-Director would announce the travel agenda for the evening's trip.

"Let's go down to Central Park and dance under the waterfall or we can go down to Normaltown (her parent's upscale suburban neighborhood) for that party my Dad's having for an associates," she'd giggle at just the thought of that. Afterward we'd hit The Run and then go skinny-dippin' in the moonlight before the sun rose. And, when we were coming down, we'd watch The Little Mermaid until we fell asleep.

She never said let's just continue to accelerate this charade so we never have to notice how pathetic we are, sitting our candy-asses on the 'Go No-Where/Lose a Turn' spot we all happened to have landed on that summer.

D1.8.9

We were wild girls walking down the street:

Melissa

Davey

Jack

Rikk

Leona

Jack#2

Fallon

Thumper

Arianne

Beau

Wayne

Anya

Wild girls and boys going out for a
Big Time.

Anyway we can, could - we were gonna find something. We danced all night at the Run on any number of combo-plate drug specials. We lived out Melissa-Mom's 'Less than Zero' delusions of grandeur.
 

D1.8.10

We'll Dance in the garden
In torn sheets in the rain

To have just come out of it alive and sane ... wow.

For me, it was, every-single-minute, a worth-while exploit; excellent fodder to write about in the years to come; for next on my agenda, was college and the big lights, big cities of the East Coast.

However, in every game there are winners and there are losers:

Melissa barely escaped a long jail sentence for the charges of check fraud and stolen property (totaling nearly ten thousand) held against her. She had to move back into her father's house at age twenty-four so she could make the monthly payments on her debts.

Davey D.J.'d at The Run and KRCK for a while; but, grew tired of the same old scene and moved back to Sioux Falls.

Jack is working as an interior designer/decorator for a catering company in Chicago, still hustling any sugar daddy he can find.

Thumper finally gave up on Maryann and moved to Chicago with her new girlfriend, Katie(?). I heard they opened up a popcorn stand in the middle of the mall there.

Jack#2 simply left for San Francisco, "Cause I'm a blonde . . ."

Lorna Doone moved to a marine base in California, her credit rating ruined due to all the household bills we all stuck her with thinking Melissa would have to pay.

Beau, well, Jack told me two years ago he saw him sliming around Chicago. With Beau, who knows?

Fallon made up with her father and moved to Oregon to go to college. I heard she's married now.

Maryann moved to New York to be a nanny and moved back to Omaha six months later.

I heard Rikk had recently been ripped off by two girls he had been living with. Some people never learn.

Me? Well, I'm here at Boston U, sorting the fragments one at a time.

D1.8.11

"Oh No! Here they come -
The members of the Deadbeat Club."

I can't help but wonder what they think about it now. I am now barely the age most of them were then. I wonder if they try to remember or forget? Maybe I'll write a book and see.

D1.8.12

Anthology of Inspiration