At the intersection of 7th Street and Hammond, out of a corner bodega he stepped, carrying a six-pack of beer.
He was older, of course. He must have been—nearly forty.
His dark hair threaded with gray was longer than she recalled, his eyes were deep-socketed and red-lidded. His skin seemed darker, as if smudged. And he was wearing civilian clothes, not the bright blue prison uniform that had given to the most hulking inmates a look of clownishness—his clothes were cheaply stylish, a cranberry-colored shirt in a satiny fabric, open at the throat; baggy cargo pants, with deep pockets and a brass-buckle belt riding low on his narrow hips.
She saw, in that instant: the narrowed eyes, the aquiline nose, the small trim mustache on the upper lip. And something new—through his left eyebrow, a wicked little zipperlike scar.
He stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at her, and then very slowly he smiled as a light came up in his eyes, of crafty recollection.
“Ma’am! You lookin’ good.”
L
INDA
Y
ABLONSKY
is the author of
The Story of Junk: A Novel
. As a journalist and critic, she covers the contemporary art world for
T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Artforum, W, Elle, Wallpaper
, and other publications. Current projects include a memoir of life in New York during the 1970s, and a new novel.
jimmy o’brien
by linda yablonsky
Over the winter of 1980, I caught hepatitis and had to stay home for a month. No drinking, the doctor said. He didn’t say anything about smoking pot.
If your thinking tends toward the dark side even when life is sunny, hepatitis can feel like the end of the world. You can’t get out of bed. You read depressing books. No one wants to come near you. Not that you want anyone to see you with a pimpled yellow complexion and jaundiced eyes. Then there’s the bloat of your belly. That alone can make you want to die. Spoon the pain of inflammation into your cup of humiliation, and you have a flawless recipe for despair.
Jimmy O’Brien was my savior. He nursed me from a safe distance. Five thousand miles, he said. He had left New York and was living on the Big Island in Hawaii, growing Mary Jane. His mother in New Jersey had seen an ad for the land and invested all her savings.
During my illness, his phone calls and the product he sent me, ostensibly to sell, made all the difference. Smoking his weed lifted my spirits. It relieved my discomfort. Watch the mail, he’d say. I’m gonna send you a present.
Jimmy was always nice to me. Up until the time Alice shacked up with him, I thought he was gay. What else was I supposed to think? He was with Johnny Giovanni every time I saw him, and Johnny was undeniably queer. Don’t tell my girlfriend, Jimmy would say, but it wasn’t an affair. It was theater.
Johnny called himself a “body artist” and Jimmy was his foil. They went around town together just for show. Photographers dove after them. They were both six feet tall and kinky, in a comic sort of way. The fashion crowd adored them. The tabloids reported their escapades. We looked. We lusted. We laughed. Oh God, Alice would say. Who are they?
Johnny was a prancing spider, thin and swarthy. He cultivated a scruff of beard. On the street, his jacket opened on a bare, buff chest that he shaved and polished. He tied leather straps across it, pulling them taut under his nipples. No matter what the weather, he never wore a shirt. Just quilted black jodhpurs, wraparound shades, and, usually, a skullcap of black leather that was more like a hood. We had mutual friends. They looked after him. He had genuine talent, but he couldn’t take care of himself.
Jimmy was an Adonis, an angel cake of manhood, light on his feet. He moved with a swing of his narrow hips and a toss of his long blond hair. It fell past broad, square shoulders as chiseled as his jaw. I could never take my eyes off him. High cheekbones, blue eyes, wide mouth set in a permanent grin, he titillated and growled, he giggled like a girl. He could also pose a threat. Danger lurked in his hands. Hardly an hour would pass without him offering to punch a guy out.
He wore the same outfit day and night: a white T-shirt, black leather pants molded to his muscled body, black leather cuffs, and a black leather jacket that set off the golden rain of his hair. In hot weather he traded the leather pants for jeans just as tight, a Bowie knife tucked in his boot.
We’d meet up at Johnny’s for a drink and a toke, and go dancing, except that Jimmy didn’t dance. He’d get a drink and rest his head in a woofer, feeling the beat. No music could be loud enough.
Jimmy always had his ear to something. A telephone, mostly. It’s my girlfriend, he’d say as he dialed. It’s my bookie. It’s my mom. He didn’t have a job. His work was being Jimmy.
He lived with the fashion model who supported him. She was often out of town on a shoot or in Europe for the collections. He knew all the models because of her. He liked pretty women. If you saw them passing a joint, chances are they got it from him, along with diet pills, tranquilizers, and cocaine. He always had a roll of cash. He didn’t worry. He didn’t have to think.
Never take the subway, he said one night when we couldn’t find a cab. The subway was beneath him in more ways than one. He was a king.
I saw him eat now and then, usually breakfast at five a.m., after the clubs had closed. Generally, he lived on drugs and drink. His usual routine was to stay up for eight days and then take a day of rest. Alice called him a miracle of modern medicine. Her father was a doctor and after he met Jimmy he said the same thing.
Alice was divorced. She lived in a suite of rooms on the second floor of her father’s sprawling duplex on the Upper West Side, on the park. She kept a full bar in her sitting room. She had cable TV long before the rest of us. Her mother had been an alcoholic who died young, and Alice was moving in the same direction. She worked in a boutique off Fifth Avenue, modeling swimsuits and designing displays. One afternoon, Jimmy stopped by with a bottle of champagne. The sales staff gathered around him with the customers in the store. When the boss arrived, Alice was fired. Jimmy was her consolation.
He’s been here for three days, she said, when I went to see her. They hadn’t slept at all. She was sitting on her bed, doing her nails. Heavy chains were nailed to the wall above. Leather cuffs dangled from the chains.
Jimmy wasn’t just the best sex she had ever had, he was the best fun. I can’t describe it, she said. Bondage appealed to her. Something about the resistance, she said, nodding toward the cuffs. The friction. The harder he pulled the more she wanted him. They fucked all day, all night. They had takeout. He made phone calls and then they fucked again. Of course, there was booze. Of course, there was pot and cocaine and pills. I’ve never been so wet, she said. It’s heaven.
Alice was my best friend. She was almost as tall as Jimmy, but had dark curly hair and wore exaggerated makeup. When she laughed you could see bubbles in the air. More often she was sad, adrift. She felt like an orphan. In her laugh you felt the depth of her.
Jimmy appeared with a bottle of Johnnie Walker. He downed some pills with it and rolled a joint. It was football season and there was a game on TV that he wanted to watch. The only thing that Jimmy liked better than getting stoned was football. And guns. He collected firearms and subscribed to magazines for enthusiasts. In high school, he’d been the quarterback. His only ambition had been to go pro but something had happened. He’d broken training. He’d gotten a girl pregnant. He’d beaten up the captain of the team, I don’t know. He had stories.
Now he was back on the phone. Not to his girlfriend. His bookie. He bet on games and he won the bets, for himself and others. When the game was over, he passed out.