22 6 I hadn’t packed up and left right away, think ing it a fool’s er rand— which every one agreed it was. And yet I was a fool, so what kind of ar gu ment did that make? Besides, he’d asked and I’d prom ised, and all the nay say ers with their chorus of “de men tia, Sea mus” couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back to gether again. Fact was, I couldn’t bear our place on Guer rero Street once he was gone any way, even though I never left it for more than beer, cof fee, and ramen. Some thing there watch ing me all the same, tell ing me to pull. Pull my self to gether. I’d look at that bike in front of the fire place, and the two Best Foods may on naise jars on the man tel that were Jimmy. They’d tried to talk me into urns and wooden boxes and other bour geois ac cou tre ments at the crem a tor ium. No sir, as in life, so in death— Jimmy goes in a jar. Best food I ever had. Let Them Eat May on naise mocked one of my hor rible Marie An toi nette paint ings star ing down at me from the wall. I’m the first to admit I had lit tle if any tal ent, but it was San Fran cisco, so of course I had to be an art ist. Besides, I was an emo tional wreck and being an art ist gave that some dig nity, no bil ity, ca chet. Con so la tion, if noth ing else. So I painted, mostly ther a peu tic black-andgreen ab stracts, with flashes of orange when I was feel ing par tic u larly anx ious or had had too much cof fee. I liked doing it, and there was a scene of folks who even thought my paint ings were good. I’d hang them in cafés, have open ings, the whole cha rade. Peo ple even bought them. I 23 was too guilty to sell them for more than a hun dred bucks, so I got a name as a real cool art ist: “The real thing—he’s not in it for the money.” And what was I in it for? I never painted any thing that was worth more than the can vas it was spilled on, so who can ex plain the added value of ninety dol lars? It was just a guilty Catholic’s ver sion of greed (highly dis counted, but still profit able). Or maybe it was more about the greed of just being some body, be cause I had a vague sense that deep down I wasn’t any body at all. “Let them buy shitty paint ings!” Marie An toi nette would say if she were me, which is a ri dic u lous hypo thet i cal no tion. But I painted her all the time after that, since it seemed ap pro pri ate. Let Them Buy Time shares, Let Them Get 2 for 1, Let Them Shop 24 Hours a Day, Let Them Gob ble Pro zac. Jaded. I never under stood the term. Jade is pretty and worth some thing, yes? I was rusted if I was any thing. Too long in the rain. Going out in an orange blaze of muted, anon y mous, common-as-dirt ox i da tion. Noth ing pretty or val u able about it. And then Jimmy . . . in the nick of time. ...