I'm not sure whether life clogs up the nostrils, damming them up and slogging in filters, or whether life and love just open the flow, all miry and dank. Maybe both. See, Jimmy has left me. My Jimmy Bob McFadden, tall man, walks slightly hunched over, sports rectangular lenses so chic and cool. He used to say we'd be two rickety old people on an old-time verandah swing, watching grandchildren, and we'd kind of glance at each other and then hobble lickety-split to the shady bedroom behind the kitchen.
Jimmy Bob comes from that bitch called the US of A — let’s put it all in small letters — the us of a. He’s impatient with anyone whose brain is like pink cotton candy. He despises line-ups and makes comments like “It’s just my luck to be here now." Before Jimmy appears, everything’s all quiet and serene, but when he places his size 15s on the war path, extras materialize from under the front desk, from behind life-size silver urns, swinging in from the streets - all push in line before Jimmy, who is really coming across like an American.
My Jim (he calls himself Jim, and yeah shit he has a right to - seems like every Tom Dick and the H guy have a brother or uncle or pa named Jimmy and then Bob; Jimmy Bob) thinks he’s different, while he’s wearing his telltale madras shorts and orange baseball cap; also, I think possibly a button-down shirt with short sleeves. He's got buttons at the points of collars, sneaking in at the back, and in the middle of each front pocket. I figure Americans like lots of buttons that have no other function than to stand out looking ornery.
Meanwhile, Jim is saying he loves me. He just zooms right in to my face, staring google-eyed. He’s kinda weird. Once Caroline and I took our Jim to High Park's restaurant. You gotta drive no more that 20 m.p.h., and that’s a long time to spend in the car in the company of a loon. I bet he was thinking that about Caroline, as he answered all her questions with pertinent details and a good measure of verbal respect, like, "I beg to differ" and telling her she sings like Ethel Merman when all she wanted was to sing "Over the Rainbow" in her special high voice.
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