The whole relationship with Scott was strange, wild, strained, and exciting. It just couldn't last. Too volatile. Towards the end of the relationship, Keith came back into the scene. He was sleeping on the floor of our tiny studio apartment. Scott was working night shift at a diner. I hadn't had any reason to be afraid to be alone at night with Keith, naive as I still was. Then the drinking started.

I found this pattern to be SO true throughout the whole time I knew Keith. Instant asshole, just add alcohol. One night, while Scott was working, Keith came to the apartment drunk out of his mind. He said he'd been partying with "Pappy" and they'd had words, but Pappy just misunderstood what Keith meant, so it came to blows and a knife was involved. Keith's hand was cut, but not bad. He kept rambling on to me about what had happened and that it was all a misunderstanding and not his fault. Somewhere in the middle of that, he started saying stuff about the knife and that he was gonna show me how Pappy had tried to cut him. Next thing I see is this switchblade coming at me. Somehow, I got Keith calmed down and away from me so that I could get out of the apartment. I ran the 8 or 10 blocks to the diner and told Scott what was going on. He called Keith to talk about it, who claimed I misunderstood what he was saying, and that he didn't really want to cut me. Scott had me wait at the diner for about an hour so Keith had time to pass out, then sent me home again.

Once I got home, I tried to go to bed, but about 2 hours after I got there, Keith tried climbing in bed with me. I tried playing like I was asleep but he kept rubbing my back and talking dirty to me. When I could see the possum thing wasn't working, I told him to get out of my bed and leave me alone. He tried again, but I started kicking at him, so he left mumbling something about "I'll leave ya alone. You'll be ALL alone ya miserable little cunt"

He moved back to Maryland with his parents shortly after this to go to truck driving school. I stayed with Scott a few more months, then moved out on my own into an even smaller apartment nearby.