Jim v1.3

He smoked cigarettes. I didn’t. He drank coffee. I didn’t. He knew how to shoot a pistol, how to crack ribs with his fist, how to turn grown men into scared, little children with his eyes alone. I didn’t.

After a while though, I learned. The cigarettes and coffee. Not much of the other stuff. Not to the extend of Jim. Not that he practiced it regularly. Just that he did it more often.

A pack a day of smokes. I held them the same way. In between and at the bottom of the middle and forefinger. I exhaled the same way. Slowly. Through the mouth first, then through the nostrils.

A Cup of coffee a day. Three creams, four sugars. Stirred twenty times to the left, wait a little, then twenty times to the right. Took a sip and then lit another cigarette.

I dressed like him, talked the same politics as him, and even drove the same car as him. Now, I wouldn’t say I wanted to be like him, it just turned out I ended up doing a lot of the same things I did, like him. It just happened that way. Maybe he just got there before me.

It was him, Jim, who I asked for a job. When nothing else was left, when poetry couldn’t feed me, when acting wasn’t loving me, when art was busy with art’s own thing, I asked him for a job.

I hadn’t seen him in over two years. I hadn’t talked to him in over two years. It wasn’t like we got into a fight or anything dramatic like that. We didn’t chase after the same girl, or argue over drug money, or accuse each other of cheating at a high stakes poker game. We just drifted. As people did. As friends, sometimes, did.

I joined that theatre company. Toured the country. Performed poetry at cafes and galleries. Doing plays and shit like that. Doing what I loved doing, believing Tom and his talk about becoming a world-renowned, multi-disciplinarian actor/writer/director/dancer/poet/motherfucker.

I threw myself into that world. For two years.

It was fun. I fucked a lot. Did a lot more drugs. Drank a lot more alcohol. And it was all free for the most part. Met a lot of weird and interesting people. Drove all over the city and flew all over the country. Couldn’t really complain because I was doing shit that not many people from where I was from, The Valley, ever got to do.

But the more I did that, the more I became this big-talk bohemian self-proclaimed beast of a writer of Los Angeles, the further I walked away from Anna Lisa Kristina. No matter how many microphones I kissed, and no matter how many stages I stepped on, and no matter how many people were listening and clapping and high-fiving, none of it, not a single invigoratingly beautiful second of it, could help my real life, the real life I wanted with her. To live in Normal, California with her as my wife. Because art, the art I was doing, the art I was loving and in love with,  didn’t pay for shit. And didn’t make Security or Stability. It made no money.

So I called him up one night after two years.

“Hey, Jim.” I said. “It’s me. Xavier.”

“Xavier. Haven’t heard from you in a while.” He said as excited as someone like him could get. “How’ve you been?”

“Hanging in there, ya know.” I replied, testing out the waters. “Doing some writing and acting stuff.”

“Yeah, I heard, Hollywood boy.” He said. I could tell he was smiling. That made me a little more comfortable. “Where you at now?”

“Here and there. Sometimes Eacho Park, sometimes Eagle Rock. Depends on the girl.” I said, doing my best man-up voice. “Most of the time, though, I’m out in East Los rehearsing with my theatre group.”

“That’s cool, bro. Listen, man, I’m proud of you.” He said. Actually proud of me. “You got out of here. Doing what you like to do. That’s good, man. Real good.”

“Yeah.” I paused. Then said, “Say, I hear you’re the manager of The Glass Stiletto now.”

“Where’d you hear that from?” He asked. “Did Long tell you? Or was it dumb ass Corn?”

“I don’t remember.” I replied. “I just heard you were.”

“Well, yeah.” He said. “It pays the bills, ya know. But I hate it. I wish I was doing what you were doing.”

“Well, listen. That’s kind of why I called.” I said, a little worried how he’d react. “I need a job…”

Here I was, asking this guy, my friend, a friend who I hadn’t seen or talked to in over two years, for a job. And a job at a strip club, nonetheless. I was so desperate. It almost didn’t matter. But I felt like shit asking him for this favor. I always felt like shit asking him for anything. This was Jim. Jim…

“Of course, my brother.” He said without hesitation. ” But I didn’t think your kind of class would be caught dead in my dump.”

“Naw, man. It’s not like that.” I defensively said.

“I’m just fucking with you, bro.” He laughed. “you start Monday. Bring your ID and your social security card.”

“Alright.” I said, sighing, in relief.

“And Xavier.” He said, getting serious. “Are you sure you want to work here?”

I paused for a second. Thinking about all the composition books that were filled with shitty poetry and shittier stories. I thought about the theatre group and how we were headed nowhere. I thought about my sister and her husband and her kid. And how the fantasy world of the New Artistic Revolution was a beautiful place to be, but how Normal, California was falling apart because I’d been gone for so long.

Fuck yeah, I was sure.

“Why not?” I replied.

“Cool with me then.” He said satisfied. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Alright. Thanks man.”

“No problem.”

We hung up our phones.

And that’s how I got the job at the Glass Stiletto.