I met three girls tonight. I’d already met them, really, but I “got to know” them better tonight. And I’m sad.

“A” has a boyfriend in prison. She’s 19. She lives with her friend… To be precise, she lives at her friend’s parents’ house. She gets pissed off at her friend’s dad who doesn’t appreciate all she does. I wasn’t clear on all she does, but I suspect it’s plenty enough by her lights.

She’s nineteen and her boyfriend’s in prison. She chewed out the guard the other day because he searches her boyfriend’s cell without closing the door. It’s a federal prison, but, she explains “a nice one where all the inmates get along”. I don’t know what was worse, her pitiful naivete or that strand of dead hair tied up in Native American ornaments.

I didn’t ask why her man was in the hoosegow, because that’s impolite. It’s funny to think of social norms like politeness for inmates and their kin, but I do believe that such norms exist. You don’t ask; you don’t ever ask. I never knew why folks shouldn’t ask, but tonight I believe I do. You never ask why someone was on the inside because that sort of jinxes the whole thing. When you are inside you just want to get out, and explaining why you are there just reiterates the need for you to be there

I didn’t ask why, but I suspect drugs. “A” dabbled in pain killers and muscle relaxers in high school.

So, since her current residence was tension filled, and a whopping $200/month, she is now considering living with a guy named “O” who is housesitting indefinitely. She doesn’t know him well, but he already had three girls living with him. He wouldn’t charge rent and would let her have a dog. His living arrangements, to be sure, are not in line with the home owner’s wishes.

I was flabbergasted. You’re only nineteen, for God’s sake. You are a nice girl… why are you visiting a convict in jail, and giving his guard hell, why are you snorting lortabs, why live with a guy you barely know?

“L” is twenty-five. L’s an ex- “Cayote Ugly” bartender, who used to fuck girls on stage for cash. She’s very thin and very sweet, and pretty. She’s bisexual. Just another lost sole, I used to figure. But I was wrong. Over some sips from several several hundred dollar bottles of wine (some patrons got drunk and left them barely full on the table), she giggled about how her dad used to get drunk and ground her. She was grounded every day from age fourteen to eighteen. Her mother left when she was fourteen after a throw-down fight with her father. She wanted to live with her mom, but her mom wanted nothing to do with her. The night of the big fight, L learned her dad was an alcoholic.

He constantly grounded her, L said, because it kept her at home. And if she could stay home, she could clean up after him. He used to drink until he pissed himself. She used to have to scream at him to get up and go to bed. Before the divorce, she was in school chorus. After, she never went out with friends and was condemned to her room after dinner. Her father cooked dinner, but she had to clean up, do laundry, clean house.

L’s dad then married a girl several years older than L. This girl already had a child, whom the two (L’s father and new wife) would beat with a belt. But the boy would only laugh, and so they would beat more and harder. And one night they hog tied him naked and then told him to go to his room, but he couldn’t. So now they got to laugh at him.

L has done a lot of ecstasy and coke. She used to “parachute”, crush coke in a napkin and swallow it, so that the coke wouldn’t absorb into her throat until it hit her stomach and the napkin disintegrated.

K lives with “R”. R is also twenty-five. R doesn’t know her real mother. Her real mother was, in R’s words, “a whore” who shacked up with lots of different guys. R has lots of half siblings. R is spending this Thanksgiving meeting a few of her half siblings, two of whom are state troopers. R lives with L and both smoke a lot of pot. They live with “B”, an ex-batteree who isn’t afraid to talk about her violent past. R will hook up with an ex-roommate while visiting her demisiblings so that she can buy dope.

A is going over to K and R’s house tonight to smoke weed and drink. Mild for food service folk’s lifestyle.

My loving father died when I was 16 of a brutally debilitating disease. Tonight I count my blessings.