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From: ganns@hound.UUCP (R.GANNS)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: more on roommates
Message-ID: <1589@hound.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Jan-86 11:54:31 EST
Article-I.D.: hound.1589
Posted: Mon Jan  6 11:54:31 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jan-86 04:26:31 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 118

Since I got some positive responses from my posting on tales of strange
roommates, I thought I'd submit this postscript on "Roommates I'm
Glad I Never Had".
This is about a group of such people. "Armstrong and the Kids"
were a a group of 4 or 5 characters who I knew in Fairbanks, AK
when I was there from 9/72 -8/77. They all lived in a big A-frame
house on the edge of town, and were on first-name basis with
all members of the Fairbanks police department; this was due to
the inordinate amount of local interest generated by their nocturnal
festivities which occurred every so often, such as Mondays, Tuesdays,
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On Sundays, they 
merely partied.

Armstrong was also known as "daddy" since he was the only one with
any sense of responsibility, and could hold his liquor better than
the rest. Laura was his girlfriend, who was very good looking, tall,
slender, and built like the proverbial brick shithouse; this was in
contrast to Armstrong, was short (5'7"), bald, 25 pounds overweight,
and had a scraggly beard. After his first six-pack he frequently was
prone to incontinence, so Laura would drag him into the bathroom
and use a large beach towel as a diaper; Armstrong would emerge in
this, charging around the house waving a half-empty beer, screaming
"PARTY TIME PARTY TIME! YAAHHYAAHHHYAHHH".

Laura and Armstrong seemed wildly unsuited to eachother, and a lot
of the Kids had the hots for her; there was much ribald speculation
on Armstrong & Laura's bedroom activities; the Kids were jealous,
and tried to get her attention. This they did quite successfully.

Jonesy was a latent homicidal maniac who liked to keep loaded guns
around the A-frame. There was a loaded 12 guage pump shotgun in
his bedroom, a loaded 22 cal. rifle in the hall closet, and a 
.45 automatic pistol with a full clip on top of the refrigerator.
Every time I went over, I would go around and systematically unload
each weapon; Jonesy would follow, chortling with glee, reloading
each one after me. At a particularly rowdy party one night, some
drunken miscreant whose name I made it a point to forget, staggered
out of the bedroom waving the shotgun, shrieking that he was going
to shoot Armstrong because he didn't deserve laura and because he
was pretty sure that Armstrong was the one who took a shit in his
bed (it turns out it wasn't); well, the shotgun dishcarged into the
cieling, through the cieling, and partially through the waterbed
in the upstairs bedroom. Nobody was in the bed at the time.

The kids preferred to avoid domestic drudgery, such as doing dishes,
laundry, grocery shopping, and Laura showed her masochistic streak
by cleaning up the A-Frame regularly; the only job I could compare
this to would be cleaning up the restrooms in a Greyhound bus terminal.
Well, one day Laura gave the gang a piece of her mind, the result of
which they drew lots to see who would have to go out and get groceries.
Subsequently, two kids left with about 50 $ in cash and a grocery 
list. 6 or so hours later they returned, drunk, stoned, and in the
possession of a gallon bottle of Jim Beam, which was all they had to
show for the grocery money. This seemed to suit the rest of the kids
just fine, and they lined up with empty glasses at the bottle cackling
and braying and ready to party ( it was 10:00 a.m.).

Laura, claiming that man doth not live by Jim Beam alone, insisted that
some food be gotten, so she and Armstrong went to town and came
back with a few sacks of groceries. After the goods were put away,
they left to go visit some friends. In a few hours they returned to
find that the kids had taken all of the groceries, emptied every single
package onto a heap in the middle of the kitchen floor, had taken off
their clothes and rolled in the pile. Armstrong nealy strangled one
of the kids -- the others pulled him off just as the kid was turning
blue. This was a watershed event, since Laura had gradually been
convincing Armstrong that there was more to life than drugs and alcohol.

Armstrong and Laura bought some property south of Fairbanks near the
highway to Anchorage and began building a house. Progress on the house
was measured in cases of beer consumed. I had a replica of an old
black powder pistol that I liked to shoot beer cans with, and Armstrong
and I would polish off a six-pack of Oly talls and then have a little
shooting match in the backyard. One day, feeling a bit cocky, I set
up three empties, one on top of the other, and asked Armstrong what
he would bet that I couldn't shoot the each can off in turn without
disturbing the others (this was at a range of about 75 feet; I was a
fairly decent pistolero in those days); "Gannsy" he says, "I'll bet
you a roll in the hay with my old lady you can't do it"; the flip
side was that if I lost, he got to perform some unspeakable act upon
my person. We turned around, and to our surprise, Laura was standing
there, with that expression on her face that usually meant "What
have you naughty little boys done now ??". Well, I said, "Laurzies,
did you hear that ?" instead of the expected verbal torrent, she
simply said "Yes. And I'll do it". You could hear the wind whistling
through Armstrong's open jaw, because Laura usually meant what she
said. Well, I hit the first can right off no sweat. I wasn't surprised.
Armstrong: "Hah, luck. You gonna fuck this next one up, Gannsy."
Well, the second can flew off, and Arstrong, muttering, popped open
another beer and watched. I took my time, and got the third can just
at the base, so it flew neatly up into a high-altitude arc.
"I don't believe you did that, Gannsy. You didn't do that. I don't
fucking' believe it...".
I turned around and looked at Laura and said, "Well, when do you want
to go?" "Right Now" she said. Silently we walked back to my truck. Laura
turned to Armstrong and said "I'll be back tomorrow afternoon. See Ya".
We laughed hysterically all the way back to town. Had dinner out,
a few beers, and she slept on my couch that night. The next morning,
at about 6:00 am, we heard the screeching of tires, and Arstrong came
roaring up, jumped out, and came up pounding on the door, looking a
little under the weather. "Is Laura here?" "Yeah. She's still getting
dressed" I was just pulling on my pants. Armstrong sat down and silently
started flipping through some magazines on the coffee table. I made
a quick scan of the room to make sure no sharp objects or firearms
were handy. Soon Laura came out, and without a word, they left.

It was a month or so before I saw Arstrong again. He was working at
the Airport, and I ran into him on my way to catch a flight to Portland.
He was his old jovial, sarcastic, wiseacre, smartass self, and we
were at ease with eachother again. After a chat, I turned to leave
to catch the flight, and he added: "Oh, by the way Gannsy, did you
hear that Laura's pregnant? It's great! now her tits are REALLY big!!!"
I just couldnt' resist saying: "Oh, is that right? what happened ?
did you lose another shooting match ?"

                      -- Cheers,       Rich

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