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97 24 When I couldn’t find a camp ground or state park near Jimmy’s red hoops, I’d stay in what ever small town was nearby. Like me, Jimmy ob vi ously liked back roads and empty places as that’s where his red line took me. I’d sit in din ers, or cof fee shops, won der ing what it was like to live there, es pe cially for queers. And I’d look at the chairs and booths and people’s clothes and won der if any of their threads had made it onto Jimmy’s bike. I’d see pos sibil ities and make up sto ries about how Jimmy had done them some small kind ness and se cretly yanked a string from their sleeve. In Hay fork, out on High way 3, I came upon a sock lying on the side walk as I ex ited St. Brigid’s, three wishes the richer. And I picked it up, and that’s when I started col lect ing strings too. Not for poems—I think they were prayers or wishes, but even I wasn’t to tally sure. They gave me an idea for a new kind of Marie An toi nette paint ing: Let Them Be Lost Souls and Let Them Ride Bi cy cles Cross-Country Tak ing Their Lovers’ Ashes Back the Way They Came, and Let Them Pull. This time, though, Marie An toi nette would merge with Our Lady of Gua da lupe, whom I’d just seen in all her glory and wished be fore in the church. I liked how she was clothed in the sun, mandala-like, and she’d been my fa vor ite Vir gin Mary for years besides as I’d al ways known she was ac tu ally To nanz tin, an Aztec god dess who’d been co-opted by the Span iards. Queer that way (that’s why me and Jimmy had her in jar can dles all over the house). I sud denly wanted to paint her a thou sand 98 times and gar land her in strings and may on naise jars, bi cy cle parts, band ages, AZT pills, third eyes, and Chi nese char ac ters for good, holy, and bet ter. But never any image of Jimmy. No sir. Jimmy was the light be hind her. When Jimmy had started to lose inter est in the scene of San Fran cisco, we went to the ocean or the woods, or both. Handy Jimmy sewed straps on his pan niers, so we could each carry one to use as a back pack. Of course I needed a sleep ing bag and found an old Boy Scout bag at Com mu nity Thrift. “Maybe I should get a bike too, eh Jimmy?” But he just looked at me. “Nah, biking’s over.” Never once did he ride Chief Jo seph in San Fran cisco. Jimmy had a way of let ting you know some ques tions he didn’t want to an swer—a look away and down—so I didn’t ask, or just let them fall aside, ig nored. Once, we took a bus out to Mt. Ta mal pais and walked the rest of the way into the hills to a camp ground he’d read about that looked out through the oak trees to the Pa cific be yond. We watched the sun set there and made a fire and baked zuc chini and po ta toes all wrapped up in foil, with tofu dogs we cooked on sticks. We smoked pot and drank whis key from a pint flask, and then we talked about Tom Spanbauer’s The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, a mag i cal story about a bi sex ual In dian boy and a cow boy and the higher form of homo sex ual love that they found to gether alone in the wild er ness. I can still see Jimmy’s face in the fire light, the shad ows that his pro nounced brows and chin and Adam’s apple made, flit ting about him while he went on and on about how im por tant a book he felt it was. Then we made love the same way they did in the book. No, there was no body like Jimmy—my cow boy, my In dian. An other time we hiked the...
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