Rita Goes, The Boys Depart

Brain and Jesse are off after five nights of craziness on South Beach. Jesse looked happy today, really relaxed for once. I impressed the need for him to take a break from the overbearing family he works for and lives with. I reasoned that even if he spent just the Winter here, he might find another person named Jesse under there. I saw this when he doing the Beyonce dance during our hurricane party; he was all out there dancing barefoot on our patio, in all that wind and rain, enjoying the applause and hoots.

At one point in the early afternoon I had to place a call to The 7th Gay Calvary at Fort Brickell, where they had held up during Rita. Our regular, outside bar had filled with straight partiers who found no other haven. They were a fine bunch of customers, but there was no doubt they had never been taught "grab-ass" by the masters of the 7th Gay Calvary. The 7th arrived, bugles in hand, with great speed, set up their command post in the inside bar and did what they do best: drink heavily and grab ass.

All turned out fun for everyone, except for the new member of The Imperial Guard, above, who was a little shaken by the sergeants of The Palace boot camp. We didn't say it was going to be easy...