Thick blue gray smoke hung over the heads of a dozen or so of the most wretched people you can imagine. Punks mostly with a few skinheads. Nearly none of them had jobs or a home and most were covered with scars and jailhouse tattoos, evidence of their short and often brutal existences. Their clothes were, more or less, tattered rags adorned with patches, chains, spikes and messages of hate. I don't know how I accumulated so many undesirable people as my friends but I felt comfortable with them and they considered me one of their own. It's a nice thing to feel like you belonged. Exchanging insults and greetings I waded through the crowd, passed my brother a beer and found a seat in the corner next to a bottle of whiskey and an ugly young woman who no one would claim as their own woman but nearly all of them had had sex with at one point.

Women like her were a curious breed. If she cleaned up a bit she'd be at least decent looking, if not pretty. Her personality wasn't altogether too unpleasant, she could certainly make friends with less defunct people if she had the inclination, but something within her drove her to submit herself to be used and abused by a group of men that weren't worth shit. We had fucked her, stolen from her, cussed at her and destroyed her mother's house but always she would come around, buy the booze and taxi a number of us around looking for somewhere to go or something to steal. The oddest thing about it is we never seemed to have a shortage of women just like her, that we could abuse to the breaking point and toss aside like so much trash.

When I sat she offered the whiskey and I took it. It was bad whiskey but more importantly it was free so I downed a glass and poured another. It burned its way to my belly and started to work its magic. I'm still amazed by the awful comfort that people like us could draw from alcohol. The dual nature of addiction insured that comfort was only as far away as the liquor store and that most of us would inevitably die as we lived: drunk and suffering from some injury or illness that was easily avoidable for a sober person. Our vice was the cause of, and answer to, all of our problems. The bottle would draw the life out of us but when we have that terrible poison coursing through our veins we felt at ease and immune to the ordinary woes of life. Of course in the morning nothing was changed, you're still broke and homeless and desperate, and the only solution in sight was to go back to work so you could hand over your hard earned cash to an evil, faceless corporation that was all too willing to pour more of that rotten stuff down your throat. The cycle was just as we were: wretched and pathetic but beautiful in its simplicity. I knew some people who were into something called straight edge, which basically means you stay sober and have a shitty attitude. I could relate to the latter but sobriety never seemed to cut it for me, but at least they had something to believe in, which I'm told is a good feeling. Pretty soon I found that I could laugh easier and the ugly girls were getting prettier. After failing to convince one of them to blow me I drank another glass, tossed it into the yard through an open window and went to the bathroom.

When I returned to the porch I found that a circle had formed and the crowd was cheering and cursing and laughing and groaning in disgust all at once. I pushed my way to the front and there I saw the cause of this excitement. It was Steve, pants down again, with about three inches of an eight-inch paint brush sticking out of his ass. He was alternating between nervous laughter and grunts of discomfort and he had a very surprised look on his face owing, I think, to the fact that quite understandably he'd never had anything that far into his ass.

I scanned the faces of the crowd, lit from the numerous flashes of cell phone cameras. Most were laughing, some were cheering and throwing beer bottles. I saw a girl dry heave at the sight of him sodomizing himself in front of an inappropriately supportive crowd. One of the skins was angry as hell that we were all so "fucked up" and that we thought this was funny. I asked him to define "fucked up" for me but he only shot me an evil glare without answering the question. He left and took the only good looking girls with him. But that was okay with me because I doubted that this sort of thing would put a woman in the mood to fuck.

Pretty soon he'd pulled the brush from his ass, he was laughing like a maniac and threatening the various onlookers with his shit covered stick, pants to his ankles and his remarkably unimpressive and uncircumcised penis barely hidden behind his free hand. I was stricken by his willingness to defile himself for the sake of a laugh without shame. Shamelessness was another of his good character qualities. The first night I met him he'd come over to an apartment a few of us were squatting. After the booze loosened him up a bit he practically insisted that me and few others give him a beating, and we didn't need too much encouragement. We beat him, bad, spit in his face and one guy took a piss on him. In the end he was laying on the floor bleeding and soaked with urine. I tapped his ribs with my boot and asked if he'd be okay. Apparently he'd lost interest in being beaten and let his mind wander because he said simply, "I want to fuck a black chick." I considered him a friend from then on.

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