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June 15, 2005
Jim
I was responsible for turning Jim onto Lambrettas. He and I lived at this flophouse on Rausch Alley known as the Crossroads and he had admired my SX200. He knew that Lambretta's were what you wanted; Vespa's were simply too tinny. I took Jim over to the Batcave and before long he had a Series II TV175 of his own. He would smoke Winston's and talk about how he was going to ride it to Seattle and visit his kids, who had gone with their mom when she left him.
Jim had a pretty impressive résumé, but he was frank about the mental collapse that had thrown his life into chaos. Many people at the Crossroads had similar stories: bad luck or bad genes (or a combination of the two) had landed them there, at the last rung above homelessness. For me, after living in the Rambler, it was a step up. For others (like Jim) it was a step down. The scooter, however, was a very large step up from the bus: For Jim no less than the rest of us, it symbolized freedom.
He spent long hours every day at the Batcave fixing up the Series II. His purposeful ignoring of its cosmetics was refreshing. When the sidepanels were rusty, he primed them and left them unpainted. The primer attracted dirt, but it protected the metal underneath. He was content to leave the passenger seat uncovered; he wasn't taking on passengers. While the piston broke in, Jim would go on rides with us to Palo Alto or the airport.
He did make the trip to Seattle on his scooter. Evidently the scooter performed flawlessly. He described motorscootering long distances as more like flying than like driving. But something had changed in him: His cynical distrust of institutions had morphed into something more paranoid. It was going to take more than riding a scooter from San Francisco to Seattle to win back the love of his family.
The Crossroads had fallen into receivership and the new manager was an untrustworthy and greedy lawyer; I worked for him anyway. Eventually we all claimed some rights as tenants and got a small settlement. I lost track of Jim as I built a new life around working in cafés and flirting. The next time I saw him he scared the Bejeebles out of me: His hair had gone totally wild and his always penetrating eyes seemed even more so. He smelled of the street. "Eric Webster" he declared with some finality. We talked for a while and parted. Several years later I was living on Clementina Alley (still south of Market!) when I saw him again. He looked cadaverous. His eyes were all that spoke. In them I looked for recognition but saw only fear. I shivered as if I had seen a ghost. It was the last time I saw him.
At the Crossroads one night, Jim and I once argued over which version of "Mr. Tamborine Man" was better, the Byrds' or Dylan's. In typical mod fashion and with the hubris of youth I claimed the former. Jim thought otherwise. He claimed that the Byrds owed their careers to Dylan. Come to think of it, he was probably right about that too.
Posted by Underblog at June 15, 2005 6:33 AM
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Comments
this is a sad and frightening tale. I often fear that I might one day stumble across a former friend turned messed-up street person.
Posted by: Sherman at June 15, 2005 8:50 AM
poor Jim.
Posted by: Sherman at June 15, 2005 8:50 AM
I remember Jim...
I like this entry. Touches my delicate fragile human soul chord.
It's hard when we care about people, they are our friends and we want to trust that they'll be ok, course, doesn't always happen that way.
Posted by: heather at June 16, 2005 3:38 AM
Last time I saw Jim was when he told me his TV 175 was stolen. He slept on the street next to the Lambretta and some swine sniggled it as he dreamed of wind and passing scenery. Nicely written, Eric, I'll reccommend you for the Bukowski prize for really short short stories.
Posted by: Walter Alter at June 17, 2005 9:52 PM