A Horse Named Sorrow

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61 16 Up in Son­ oma ­ County some­ one had ­ painted that Kat­ mandu Bud­ dha on a barn and it made me think of ­ Jimmy’s ­ third-eye tat­ too. “It was very cool once,” he’d said as we ­ lolled on the bed, “but so were a lot of ­ things. I wanna get rid of it.” I ­ agreed with him, it was sort of ri­ dic­ u­ lous, es­ pe­ cially com­ pared with the beau­ ti­ ful Chi­ nese one­ etched on his side­ burn that re­ minded me of his good­ ness. Yet after a while the ­ third-eye tat­ too ­ seemed so sweet. ­ Jimmy’s mis­ take. ­ Jimmy’d get shy when I’d run my fin­ ger ­ around it. It was a black cir­ cle with a red dot in the cen­ ter, more a ­ bull’s-eye than a human eye. “The third eye is the ­ bull’s-eye, silly,” he’d ­ razzed me when I’d men­ tioned it ­ looked more like a dart­ board than an oph­ thal­ mo­ log­ i­ cal spec­ i­ men. “How ’bout add­ ing a tear?” I said an­ i­ mat­ edly. “I never ­ killed any­ body. Shut up,” he said, fur­ row­ ing his brow. “So, the real third eye—is it open, Jimmy?” “I found you, ­ didn’t I? Must be.” He ­ winked. “Ah, Jimmy, I’m not ­ third-eye stuff. Hell, I ­ wouldn’t even wanna know what I ­ looked like ­ through a third eye. Prob­ ably like one of my­ friggin’ paint­ ings.” He ­ looked of­ fended and fur­ rowed his brow again. “Hey, I like your paint­ ings.” “Do you ­ really?” “Yeah, I do.” 62 “Why?” “I don’t know, it’s like you turn your anger into some­ thing funny. I don’t know how to do that. I mean, my ­ poetry isn’t funny.” “Your tat­ too is funny.” “Fuck you,” he said with a smile. The tim­ bre of his voice. “Your anger is ac­ tu­ ally kinda sexy, Jimmy.” “Nice to know it makes some­ one happy.” “See? ­ You’re sar­ cas­ tic. ­ That’s a kind of funny.” He nod­ ded and ­ sighed. “If we were ­ clowns, Jimmy, you’d be like the hobo clown with the frown . . . and I’d be like the white face­ paint ­ psycho kind.” He guf­ fawed. “You’re not as crazy as you think you are.” “And ­ you’re not as se­ ri­ ous, Jimmy. You al­ ways laugh after you cum.” “Maybe ­ that’s be­ cause sex is sort of ri­ dic­ u­ lous once ­ you’ve got­ ten it out of your ­ system.” “Or maybe we need to have more sex so ­ things are fun­ nier?” Brows high, the ques­ tion that was my face. He guf­ fawed again. “You are crazy.” And he ­ kissed me. And not long after that we were naked and ­ pretty soon we were laugh­ ing too. And then Jimmy was up on his feet and ready to go out for cof­ fee. And like we did a mil­ lion times (I wish, but it was more like a few dozen, Jimmy not being here that long—it felt like a mil­ lion all the same), off we’d go to sit in cafés like two kids with our pro­ jects. He’d lay out his ­ strings, a hand­ ful he’d tied to his wrist that morn­ ing after re­ mov­ ing them from the bike. Me, I’d sit and ­ sketch up new Marie An­ toi­ nette ideas: as Ro­ nald Rea­ gan (let them eat ­ ketchup); as a Pal­ es­ tin­ ian teen­ ager (let them live in ref­ u­ gee camps for three gen­ er­ a­ tions); as two guys hav­ ing sex (let them laugh like ­ clowns). “You’re more of a per­ former than a ­ painter, I think,” Jimmy said. “I’m no art­ ist, am I, Jimmy? These ­ things are crap.” He ­ laughed, and then he ­ stopped when he saw I ­ wasn’t say­ ing it hu­ mor­ ously. “Maybe you ­ should take an act­ ing class or some­ thing.” 63 “Yeah, then we could be­ come porn stars and laugh at each other,” I­ sighed. He ­ rolled his eyes. “I just mean it’s good to try some­ thing dif­ fer­ ent for a ­ change.” “Like fight no more for­ ever?” He...