 Johnny recounts tales of his various sexual encounters, his lust for a tattooed dancer he calls Thumper, and his bar-hopping with Lude throughout various footnotes.The reader also slowly learns more about Johnny's childhood living with an abusive foster father, engaging in violent fights at school, and of the origin of Johnny's mysterious scars ("House of Leaves", p. 505).More information about Johnny can be gleaned from the Whalestoe Letters, letters his mother Pelafina wrote from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institution.