When we die 
Souls arise

Hey

Well, here we are, back with our first issue featuring our hero Bill as last RWB standing (two down, one to go), it's been a while, almost a month, in fact, since the last NL that wasn't a death announcement, let's fucking have at it.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words and gestures following the death of that great man, it was truly touching to see how much he meant to people, and staggering to me the influx of e-mail I got from folks who only knew him, and me, through the NL, and who said they actually cried when they read about his death (which would have staggered my Dad as well, his opinion being "anyone who reads that thing has to be as nutty as you are"), well, there you go.

People keep asking me how I'm doing, I'm fine, really (realizing that fine is a relative term). I'm sad, sure, and empty, my Dad was a huge part of my life and no matter how much we fought, which was considerable, I loved him dearly and respected the hell out of him. My father was a genuinely good man the like of which I've seldom known, he could be crabby and crazy but at heart he was happy and good, he didn't have the genuine dark side, in thought and deed, that his angst ridden son has been plagued with most of his life. I think if you'd asked him he'd have told you, except for this past year, he'd had a very good life, and you can't do much better than that.

So, yeah, I miss him, immensely- who's going to talk crazy talk to me now?- always will, another big chunk taken out of my heart, and my life, but, without trying to sound all self pitying, it's not like this is the first time this has happened to me. You fucking deal with it. As best you can.

I have felt a little remorse over how- "blunt" was his word for it- I was with him when he came home after his stroke, in fact I told him while he was in his coffin, "If I'd known I was only gonna have to put up with your sick ass for a year I'd have tried to be nicer" and I'm pretty sure I saw him smile, but my Mom reassured me he didn't expect anything else from me (how could he, really), and was truly grateful for my help, which made me feel a lot better.

She told me that once not too long before he died I'd done something for him, then gone downstairs, he looked at her and said "That boy's got a heart of gold". A few seconds later he added, "Of course, you'd never know it". That was my Dad.

As for my Mom, the aftermath hasn't been nearly as bad as I'd anticipated, from death (which was truly a terrible thing to witness, some folks commented "It must have been a comfort for you to be there at the end", comfort for WHO, I sure as fuck didn't need to see it, as for my Dad, I'm sure his last thoughts were, "Oh holy fuck, not only am I dying, but BILL's HERE") through burial and this post burial grieving period, she has done amazingly well, nothing like the total meltdown we all expected.

She's still crazy nuts, and deaf as a hammer, but not any worse than she was before. Maybe even a little better, cos we're getting more sleep than we were when my Dad was carrying on all night, or she is anyway, I'm not sleeping so good, but when was that ever news.

Making the arrangements for my Dad was a LONG day- my Mom can make buying a can of peas an ordeal, you can imagine what she was like trying to buy a funeral and burial-

Mom: I never liked Big Tyler. It always seemed so dark and isolated. 
Thelma: Well, Dot . . . it's a cemetary. 
M: Yeah, but I always liked that one in Spring Hill, right by the road, where you can sit up and wave at the people going by.

She says this in total seriousness.

Bill: Listen, if you're gonna sit up after you're dead and wave at people, let me know now, cos I'm gonna sell tickets. 
M: You know what I mean. 
B: No, I really don't.

- but we got through it.

Lost in the bitter shuffle of my Dad's passing was Bill's 50th birthday, in fact I was planning on calling this issue Bitner Five-O (Book 'em, Dano) before he stole my thunder, had big plans, I'd decided to go ahead and let rip, sometime DF manager Breeze DJ's at whatever the Captal City Gold strip cluib is called now, had me set up with some strippers for some (free) after hours fun, had some blue pills and green and black capsules (never fuck a stripper without 'em) so it was gonna be epic . . . instead I spent it at my Dad's visitation, and I'm sure he was somewhere laughing his ass off, "Gotcha, bucko".

The offer still stands, and the drugs are still potent, so hopefully after the first of the year I can have a belated birthday party. I'm gonna take pictures, maybe some of them will end up in here. One can only hope.

In other birthdays, Rachel turned 17 last month as previously mentioned, my Dad turned 79 on 11/23, just in time to die, my Mom was 80 on 12/11, I took her out to dinner at Tidewater where they still have excellent, excellent crab cakes, and Sarah turns 20 on 12/22. Lordy. Something tells me Bitners like to fuck in the spring.

What else? I saw in the newspaper where Allegra's Dad (she and Shawn said they always thought of my Dad as "a distant grandpa", he would have appreciated that, he always liked Allegra from her appearence as a Falconette, he got a big kick out of how she damn near smashed the lamentable "Screamin' Mean" Joe Sexton's face in with that trash can lid) Clarence, was being commended for donating an unbelievable 42 gallons of blood. Good lord. Fuck a few lines in the paper, give the guy a medal, or his own fire engine or something. FORTY TWO GALLONS OF BLOOD.

You go, Clarence, you are definitely the fucking man. And you've also given me an idea for this issue's run down memory lane, to come later.

My new TV girlfriend is definitely Sandra Lee. I've mentioned her before, but she just keeps getting better and better. She's such a total lush, all about her cocktails, I got her cocktail right here. I mean, I can see why serious cooking people despise her, the other day she had a "recipe" for a Yule log, she took a store bought Swiss roll, covered it with Cool Whip, voila, took her about ten seconds, hey, fuck, who wants to be hanging around the damn kitchen when there's cocktails to be chugged? What a prize.

Her tablescape obsession gets a bit much, but wouldn't be hard to deal with in person, "You know what's gonna look good in the middle of that table, your bare ass, now fix me a cocktail. Oh yeah, and a Yule log, don't spare the Cool Whip. You'll be glad, later".

We haven't had a- vote, no, that's not the word I'm looking for, I'm just gonna keep going till it comes to me- in here in ages, just like no Comics Corner, mostly cos comics today are all beyond me with how they keep fucking with "continuity"- what a joke, they have no grasp of the concept at all- I was gonna talk about Hawkman a while back but he's no longer the Hawkman I knew, I don't have a clue regarding the new geek, and speaking of, (geeks), a while back I told Chris, actually, I asked him, I'm not sure telling Chris would get you too far, to come up with DC versions of the Rat Pack, cos he's as big a comic geek as I am, a geek who can karate chop you to oblivion, but a geek just the same, he came up with The Question-

(WHO?)

-very funny, for himself, cos TQ is into martial arts and anonymity, and Black Adam for yours truly cos he's hot tempered and vacillates between good and bad, meaning he can't get along with either side, he'd just as soon fight Luthor as Superman. Also, BA is a big muscled up guy with a super hot wife (Isis). Chris couldn't come up with comic versions for you other guys, the same problem I was having, so- POLL. That's the word I was looking for.

We're gonna do a poll, who's the hottest "cook"- and I'm using the word loosely, so Sandra Lee is eligible- on Food Network. You can vote for a guy if you want, but no joke votes, like, say, for Paula Deen. Vote early and often, and ten bucks says my girl Sandra wins.

(YEAH, WELL, YOU'RE COUNTING THE VOTES, AREN'T YOU?).

As a matter of fact, I am. Impartially, of course.

(OF COURSE).

I'm not just out of touch with comics, I'm plain out of touch. I was watching TV Guide channel a few weeks back when Lori's kids were in, this commercial came on for some show with Jay Z, said only Elvis and The Beatles had more number one records than he had-

Bill: That's crazy. Not only have I never heard this guy's music, I've never even heard of HIM. 
Lindsay (incredulous): You've never heard of Jay Z? 
B: Not till this minute, no. 
L: Uncle Bill, where have you BEEN?

In a better place, apparently, cos from what I heard of him on the commercial, Uncle Bill here sure hasn't missed him much Jay Z.

I'm a rock in a landslide 
Going over the mountain side 
How deep is the valley 
How deep is the valley . . .

What has Bill been listening to? Got a new crop of SSSLB stuff (someone asked a while back how many CDs I have so I counted them, about 600, they also said I should ditch them and get an iPod or some such shit, thank you, no, I also don't have a cell phone or a MySpace account and both you and the future can kiss my ass, when I want your advice . . . I'll never want your advice), mostly just replacing things I had on LP, like an Animals retrospective, Beach Boys Sunflower/Surf's Up, Bowie's Aladdin Sane, Mountain's Flowers Of Evil, Saucerfull Of Secrets by Pink Floyd.

Sounds like a lot but it's really not, I get this stuff dirt cheap. In addition I got a CD by Terrry Stafford cos it has the ultra great "Suspicion" on it ("Why torture me?" indeed), a lot of people have the misconception that all I like is the heavy/spacey shit, but I'm all about the crooning as well, always have been. Also again fucked up by ordering drunk which I said I was gonna stop doing, but haven't, just like a lot of other things, got a Buddy Holly greatest hits only to find it has neither "Not Fade Away" ("A love that's love not fade away", well fucking said) nor "Well, All Right" (which the TS covered nicely), so it's essentially useless.

Got a couple new- in the sense I'd never heard them before, not as in their being current- CDs as well, Amon Duul II (drug addled heavy/spacey German band from the '70's, they titled one of their albums Phallus Dei, I think we all have enough Latin to translate that), Live In London, good shit, reminds me of Hawkwind and that's high praise, and Julain Cope, another drug addled wonder, live on the BBC, it's gonna take me a while to digest this one, but Julian was another one for the album titles, like World Shut Your Mouth, (I hear ya), Peggy Suicide, and what was going to be That'll Be The Deicide, but I guess he didn't have Amon Duul II's liberal record company, cos someone at Julian's found his title offensive and changed it to That'll Be The Decide, about as idiotic a title as there has ever been. Ah, the music business.

What's Bill drinking? Rolling Rock. I'm not in love with it, by any means, but it'll do till I find a new regular. Danny drug me out last Wednesday night, I really wasn't in the mood, but he had some things he said he really needed to talk to me about (this wasn't one of them, but he did tell me the fine cut of 16 to Life is done, which means the finished cut is close, hurray), before agreeing to meet him at Cold Spot (Dunbar) I told him he was buying, and I was gonna put a (financial) hurting on him for my trouble.

Turned out that went both ways, as he bought me a big draft PBR before I could tell him I'd quit drinking it, so I stayed with it while at the CS, four of those big 24 oz glasses, and I have to admit it tasted good, then switched to Bud- we split three pitchers- when we moved over to the Pour House- a real shithole, I was surprised, I'd heard it was halfway nice- after CS closed at the wholly unreasonable hour of 10 pm.

Anyway, I was wicked hungover on Thursday and I'm sure it was from the PBR, I was right to drop it, nostalgia's all well and good, but it's not worth dying over.

What's Bill been watching? On TV, watched the Rings Trilogy on TNT, patently great stuff even after having seen it as many times as I have, one of the things I love about it is the off handed bad assery of some of the good guys, in the first film Aragorn tells Frodo to run, then looks up to see about a hundred super orcs charging at him, he's completely casual, like, "Hmm, think I'll just stroll over here and KILL A BUNCH OF YOUR FUCKING ASSES."

Even fuck up Boromir (although Sean Bean is still one of my favorite actors) at his end, "Hmm, here I am shot all the fuck full of these big ass arrows, guess I could lie down and die . . . or jump up and KILL A BUNCH OF YOUR FUCKING ASSES".

But my favorite by far is Eowyn, confronted in the last film by the ultramega super bad ass King of the Naz Ghul, going (not aloud, attitude wise) "Hmm, guess I COULD run away . . . or I could just CHOP THE FUCKING HEAD OFF YOUR BIG GODDAMN FLYING MONSTER. Oh yeah, and while I'm at it, how about I RAM A SWORD IN YOUR FACE AND KILL YOUR FUCKING ASS, TOO." Great stuff.

And Aragorn fucked up bad there, oh, I've got this airy fairy elf princess, big fucking deal, I've never rated Liv Tyler anyway, she does nothing for me, maybe cos I can't stand her Dad, just going by looks Eowyn was tons hotter, plus, give me a woman who will stand up to a big goddamn flying monster and chop it's fucking head off, ANY day.

What else? Some SSSLB DVDs, Death Curse Of Tartu, every bit as good as it sounds, 60's film about some archeology students who go to an island in the Everglades to excavate an Indian burial mound- never a good idea- but once there instead of digging they start doing some crazy ass period go go dancing and making out on it- a worse idea- which so pisses off the Seminole witch doctor inside he comes out as all kind of animals- a shark, a snake, and an alligator- to get 'em.

Even more ludicrous is Sting Of Death by the same bunch of geniuses, about a guy who turns himself into a jellyfish man, capped by the most (a)pathetic, passive fight to the death ever filmed, it's lack of action I'm sure due to the fact that the actor portraying jellyfish man was asphyxiating under the plastic bag meant to represent his jellyfish man head. At the conclusion the not quite as mad doctor's daughter wails, "Oh Dad, how could such a thihg happen". "Close your eyes and don't think about it", he tells her. Good advice to us all.

Got some other SSSLB DVDs, like the Japanese Gojira, but since I haven't watched them yet (saving that one for the next MC) we'll talk about them once I have.

Haven't done the Bill's dreams thing in here for a while. I had one night before last where Ron (who Danny, when asking about him later- we all went out to the Tomahawk on Rt. 60- I was underwhelmed- for drinks after my Dad's visitation- referred to as "that GQ looking guy", a compliment, he was quite impresed with Ron) and I had gotten an apartment together in some big city, you'd think after Chris's experience as a Bill's dream room mate Ron would have known better.

It was a nice damn apartment, spacious and well furnished, I know it was in some big city cos I remember looking out the window at this far larger than local skyline, we had this killer home theater room and we were watching this really neat movie, giant spiders had taken over the moon and these guys in space suits were rooting them out with machine guns and flamethrowers, there was this huge cooler built in right between the Captain Kirk swivel chairs we were seated in, I reach in and get a beer, ask Ron if he wants one, he goes-

Ron: So, Bill, when do you think you're going to pay your half of the rent?. 
Bill: Well, I'd have to get a job first. 
R: And when are you going to do that? 
B: Never. 
R: I suppose I should have seen this coming.

I suppose you should have.

In DFZ news, Danny and Brian got into a big fight over that September to Dismember DVD (children, please, if I have to stop this car) which resulted in us quitting/getting kicked out- not sure, exactly, cos it all happened while I wasn't looking, it was a done deed by the time I was aware there was even a problem- of AWA Apex and having to give the tag belts back. Also got told to stay away from the Chief Black Eagle Memorial tournament. I truly could not care less, and Brain Logan is an idiot- or a fucking asshole, as DFZ called him on the mike at the DVD release party at Embassy Suites week before last.

That was fun, thanks to those of you who came out, and especially to those of you who bought me beers (although boo on the free Jaeger bombs, I hate 'em, but won't refuse a free one or five), I ended up hammered as fuck, got one free beer from some unknown sweetie pie mark in a WVU hoodie who wanted her picture taken with the Death Falcon, kidding, I told her "It'll cost you a beer", she agreed too quickly, fuck, I should've priced myself higher.

DFZ is supposed to appear at Season's Beatings for WVWA this Thursday, then defend his EWE Hardcore belt at Christmas Chaos 12/26, not too interested in either but I guess I'll be there, that head and the crown thing, you know.

Getting tired, I'd better get to this issue's journey to the past. So . . .

Talkng about Allegra's Dad and his massive blood donations reminded me, when I was listing all the places I've been kicked out of a few issues ago, I left out the (misnamed) Highland Blood Donor Center in Huntingtion. Here's how it happened.

The two years I went to Marshall I wasn't exactly flush. I worked at the Golden Skillet 
my senior year of high school, where in between puking in the chicken fryers and getting blown in the stock room I made decent money- $1.75 an hour when minimum wage was $1.60, but gas was .39 a gallon and a twelve pack of beer cost you three bucks and change.

I didn't save much of it, however, so things were tight my freshman year, and even worse the next- also my freshman year, since I didn't get enough credits those first two semesters to be considered a sophomore- because I refused to work the intervening summer of '75, as it interfered with my social life. A person simply cannot, freak of nature or no, stay out all night, every night, drinking and or fucking if they gotta get up early the next day. Regerts have I none.

I didn't need money during the summer anyway, cos I had plenty of folks, guys and girls both, who were willing to drive me around and buy my beer, all for the pleasure of my company- seriously, ask Joe, he'd show up at my door that summer, "Wanna go running around?", "I don't have any money", "I'll buy", "Okay, lets go".

My parents weren't a good source of income during the school year cos my Dad knew better and my Mom was typically clueless-

Mom: Can't you get by on five dollars till the next time you come in? (Which was like once a month, if that). 
B; Not the way I drink. 
M: What? 
B: I mean, no, Mom, Jesus. I gotta buy pens and paper and stuff, you know, for like, uhm, class, plus dininer every Sunday night (cos the dorm only served breakfast and lunch on Sundays and since I never got up before 1 pm, when they quit serving, I often went without eating on Sundays . . . but seldom without drinking). 
M; Well, I think five dollars is plenty if you don't waste it. 
B: Waste money? Me?

So then Rick found the Highland blood donor center, where if you gave them a pint of your blood plasma, they'd pay you the princely sum of $5. If you came back again in the same week- you couldn't come back the next day, but the day after was okay, then you had to wait a week- your pint of plasma was worth $10.

Well shit, I thought we'd died and gone to heaven, I'd given blood many times before and a big deal it wasn't, and quick as well, I'd been in and out in half an hour more than once, so I'm thinking, that's like $10 an hour, and $20 the second time. Yeah, right.

That first time, Rick and I were the only ones from our floor to head down there, everyone else was like, "Selll plasma, oh YUCK", fine, you elitist pussies, let Mommy and Daddy support your punk asses, I'm going to sell my bodily fluids like a man . . . and also like what could most charitably be called riff raff, which was every other donor there at the Highland Center.

Ancient, ageless homeless, with everything they owned in the world in their pants pockets, grizzled winos two shakes away from the DT's, prostitutes, welfare moms- one of whom once brought her hyperactive brat with her, who buzzed around the place for hours totally unsupervised by mom or staff, I just knew he was gonna get tangled in someone's tubes and yank the needle out of their arm, but somehow it didn't happen- and me and Rick, and, the following year, Moose- this is who sold their plasma. Cool.

You had to fill out a goofy ass questionaire every time- no, I don't fuck animals, but like if I did I would check yes on here- and then get a hole punched painfully in your ear lobe, they'd squeeze a drop of blood out and into a tube with some kind of blue stuff in it, and if your blood didn't explode, or try to crawl out of the tube, you were passed on to this bored prick of a doctor who took your temp and blood pressure- I got turned away a couple times cos my temp was way up, I tried to tell 'em, I'm not sick, just killer hungover, but the assholes wouldn't listen, "Man, you realize how long a walk it is from the dorm to here, plus I need that money to buy me some hangover cure-" "Sorry, your temps too high, next".

A truly unnerving part of the Highland donor center was that most of the "nurses"- I don't know what their qualifications were, actually, the girls who stuck you- were also clients, as their bruised arms, where needle insertion hadn't gone all that well, attested. Sweet Jesus.

I always made it a point to get stuck by the nurse with the absolute worst looking arms, like that ancient joke about the town with the two barbers, go to the one with the lousy haircut cos you know he didn't do it himself, just like these girls weren't sticking themselves. It must have been a good plan cos I never got a truly bad stick, unlike this poor bum who had a seizure after about 20 minutes of this ham fisted incompetent trying to get a needle into his vein, she'd just jam it in hs arm and THEN MOVE IT AROUND LOOKING FOR THE VEIN, God have mercy, I damn near had a seizure watching.

Moose got a bad stick once, "Your veins are rolling" 
Florence Nightengale told him, all pissy, like it was his fault she was better suited to driving a bus.

Anyway, once Doc said you'd made the cut you went back and laid down on one of your standard blood donation tables and got stuck- hopefuly, not fatally. They used big damn needles there at the Highland center, BIG damn ones, you could see down the bore of it as it came at you, I asked the first time, "Why you guys use such big ass needles?", "You'll find out" I was told. I don't mind your regular blood donating needle, but these bastards hurt going in, and they continued to hurt the whole time they stayed in- which turned out to be a hell of a lot longer than half an hour.

After you've given your first pint of blood- yeah, I said first- they then have to take and run it through the "plasmaphereisis machine"- that's what the pamphlet you had to read called it- which was a simple centrifuge, which spun the red blood cells off from the plasma, or vice versa. This process took 18 minutes, and when they were busy there'd be a long line waiting to use the machine, it might take up to an hour after they took your blood away before it actually made it to the centrifuge, all the while you're laying there with this fucking javelin throbbing away in your arm.

After they'd drained the plasma off, they'd bring back your red blood cells, which they'd then mix with saline and pump back into your arm. I loved it when my saline came straight from the refrigerator- I got to where I'd ask them not to hang my saline bag until they were getting ready to put it in, and most of them would agree- cos that cold saline/red blood cell mix felt so fucking good going into my arm, which by that point was already hot and sore.

Someone told me years later that they shouldn't have done that, that the cold saline mix could have given me a heart atack. Appreciate the concern, but not this heart, darling. It's gonna take a fucking freight train to stop this heart.

(OR YOUR OWN HAND).

That's right. Or my own hand.

Then they'd take out another pint, and do it all over again. The whole procedure never took less than two hours, and I was once in there for a nightmarish five and a half (which left a goddamn hole in my arm some of you boys could probably have fucked, and a scar I have to this day).

I never left there when my donating arm wasn't sore as fuck, made for a miserable time on the liong walk back to the dorm (HDC was on 4th Avenue, a block past the courthouse). So, why'd I do it? Well, there was a record store/head shop there on 4th Avenue between HDC and campus, often the $5 didn't even make it back to the dorm with me, LPs were $4.98 in that Golden Age, with tax it came to more than $5 but the guy who ran the place let me have records for five bucks even, I remermber buying It's Only Rock And Roll by the Stones, and Desolation Boulevard by The Sweet, and both Mott and The Hoople with blood money.

If I made it past the record store, the 7-11 across from the dorms sold Old Mil tall boys 6 for $1.99. One of my favorite days was when I would get the $10, then I'd buy a record AND have enough money for two six packs of tall boys. When I wanted to fight or fuck I went to the Hole, (Joe remembers it), a mecca for finding drunk horny girls, or assholes deserving of a punch in the head, but I also really liked, even back then, just getting quietly shit faced all by myself, listening to records and reading. This Lonesome Cowboy Bill thing is hardly a recent development.

We weren't supposed to have beer in our rooms (not to mention my first semester there I was underage even for the Golden Age at 17), before running over to the 7-11 I'd check and see which RA was working the front desk, most of them were pretty cool, as long as you didn't put it in their face and make it obvious, they weren't going to check your (Golden Age paper) bags. If it was one of the dick RA's who'd fuck with you I'd prop open the stairwell door and come in that way.

My last visit to the HDC, there was this particularly pungent bum in there. There's not a doubt in my mind that he had a load of shit in hs pants. I don't think it was recent shit, either. This is on top of his already overwhelming dirt/alcohol/sweat reek. He smelled as bad as any human being I've ever encountered in my life.

There were only two beds left when Moose and I got back there, the two closest to Stinky, go figure. I was a little quicker on the uptake than Moose so I ran and jumped on the bed farthest away from that human sump, Moose got pissed at me for it, too bad, slow poke.

Everyone back there was choking from the stink, this one nurse kept spraying this nasty, medicinal smelling air freshener, which, if anything, made it worse. Moose was getting genuinely pissed, it would have been better if the bum was just oblivious, but he starts trying to make excuses to Moose, you don't know how tough I have it, I'd get cleaned up if only I could, bla bla, woof woof . . .

I swear, my motives were purely altruistic. I felt sorry for this poor filthy motherfucker, and genuinely wanted to help him out. However, ONCE AGAIN, Bill tries to be nice and everything goes to hell. It's why I gave up trying to be nice.

I tell the bum I'd be happy to take him back to the dorm and help him get cleaned up.

Bum: You can't get me in there. 
Bill: Of course I can, all I have to do is sign you in. 
BU: I don't have any soap. 
BI: You can use mine. 
BU: Or shampoo. 
BI: Use mine.

(A brief digression-- at this point everyone on our floor called shampoo "hairwash". I came in one time, way late and roaring drunk after an early morning assignation, decided to wash off the sex sweat and juice (that shit'll give you a rash), ambled down to the bathroom, which was across from poor Rick's room, before I realized I was not exactly prepared for a shower, having neither towel, nor robe, nor anything to clean up with, so I banged (and banged) on Rick's door till he finally woke up and answered it, none too happy to see Swaying Cowboy Bill-

Rick: What the fuck do you want?

I was literally too pixilated to speak.

R: What do you WANT, you bastard? Goddammit, GO AWAY.

I pointed mutely at my head. Try though I might, words would not come.

R: What? WHAT? You need shot in the head? Of course you do, but I don't have a gun, now GO- 
B: Hairwash. 
R: HAIRWASH?!

He fell down laughing, then got back up, threw a bottle of shampoo- or, hairwash- at me, then slammed the door in my face. Next day he told everyone, and that's how shampoo came to be known as hairwash on the third floor that year. Anyway- )

Bum: I don't have a towel. 
Bill: You can use one of mine.

Every excuse this guy had for not coming back to the dorm and getting cleaned up I had a legitimate answer for, "Well, I don't want to get cleaned up and put back on these dirty old clothes", "You can have some of mine", and as the excuses started to mount, I started to get pissed off.

Looking back on it now maybe the guy had reason not to trust some college kid making him these offers, maybe he was just being prudent, but back then . . . I just fucking went off (the fact that I was still really, really mad about something that had happened the night before probably didn't help things).

Bill: You just like stinking, don't you? You don't care how much it fucks with eveyone else, you're happy with smelling like a fucking dog turd, aren't you? Fine, then, the offer's cancelled. But once you get done here you better hit the road, cos if I ever see you agan- anywhere, back in here, or on the street, ANYWHERE, I'm gonna fucking kill you. You hear me, you goddamn piece of shit? I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!

Which would have been bad enough, but I went on like this for a good ten minutes, till Stinky is in tears, all the nurses are cowering in the corners of the room, no sign of Doc from out front, Moose thought it was funny at the start but then when I woudn't quit-

Moose: Bill, man, come on, calm down. 
Bill: I'm gonna kill him Moose. I'M GONNA KILL HIM! Stinknig goddamn-

Well, the fit eventually runs it 's course, I settle down . . . and here comes Doc, with a cop in tow.

Bill: Good, you're gonna haul his stinking ass out of here, right? 
Cop: I'm here because of you.

I almost came off the table at Doc.

B: You called the cops on ME? HE'S the one stinking up the damn place! 
Doc: But he's not threatening to kill the other donors. 
B: You motherfucker, I'm gonna- 
Moose: Whoa, Bill. 
Cop: Yeah, whoa, Bill.

This cop turned out to be very cool, he agreed that Stinky- who by then was in the process of finishing up and getting his vile ass out of there- was provocation enough for any man, even got on Doc some for not screening his donors a little better, I promised to be nice, cop says fne, you'd better, and leaves, I give Doc a smirk, and he responds in kind-

Bill: What do you mean, don't come back? 
Doc: Just what I said. Don't come back. 
B: You cocksucker. I wouldn't come back here if you paid me. 
D: We do pay you. 
B: If you paid me MORE!

So, that's how I got kicked out of the Highland blood donor center- even though it was actually plasma, and we didn't donate it, we sold it.

I think I'm gonna wrap it up, I realize it's not 5 am yet, but I'm pretty tired.

I'm a leaf on a windy day 
Pretty soon, I'll be blown away 
How long will the wind blow 
How long will the wind blow . . . 
Till I die

Anything you want to say?

(CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DON'T THINK ABOUT IT).

Amen, brother.

(OH YEAH. AND LONG LIVE THE KING).

Absolutley. Long live the King.

Later.

Bill