A Horse Named Sorrow

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165 38 L ook­ ing over at ­ Jimmy-in-the-jar on the man­ tle, I re­ al­ ized I ­ needed to find some­ thing to put him in for the jour­ ney. I re­ mem­ bered he had a vel­ vet sack, Jimmy did—pur­ ple as I re­ called—and I ­ rooted ­ around for it. He’d kept his drug par­ a­ pher­ nalia in there: a bong, roach clips, pipes, ­ papers, roll­ ers, all that. I had an ink­ ling it was big ­ enough to hold Jimmy. But I ­ couldn’t find it, and I was knock­ ing over boxes in the ­ closet, which was ­ filled with all our junk. Even ­ though Jimmy and I had al­ most noth­ ing in the way of pos­ ses­ sions, we had boxes of crap: ­ papers, art sup­ plies, books, I don’t know what—­ clothes. The past. I knew that bag was in the ­ closet some­ where, in a box. Bur­ ied. There ­ really ­ wasn’t any­ where else it could be. It was a stu­ dio after all: one big room and one big win­ dow and a fire es­ cape. Oth­ er­ wise, we just had a mat­ tress and box­ springs up on cin­ der ­ blocks, scav­ enged book­ shelves, my ­ folded-up easel in the cor­ ner, a ­ stained round table and re­ ject café ­ chairs with miss­ ing legs from dump­ sters (Jimmy ham­ mered on ­ two-by-fours and got them to stand). All our ­ kitchen stuff was from ­ thrift ­ stores: ran­ dom ­ knives,­ spoons and forks, bowls and tum­ blers, mis­ matched pep­ per and salt shak­ ers. Our ­ clothes lay in piles. Be­ cause the ­ closet was full of boxes. Frus­ trated, I ended up with my back to the wall, my knees up, face in my hands ­ between my legs, about to lose it. Pull. 166 I gave up on the vel­ vet bag, and went out to get a cup of cof­ fee. Where I ran into Law­ rence. “Hey, Sea­ mus.” ­ Lawrence’s gra­ tui­ tous hug. “How’s Jimmy?” The faux sin­ cer­ ity, elic­ it­ ing my ­ passive-aggressive re­ sponse. “Dead.” “Wow, I’m sorry.” “Yeah,” I ­ sighed. “You wanna talk about it?” “No ­ thanks,” I of­ fered, as ­ nicely as pos­ sible, be­ fore turn­ ing and or­ der­ ing a cof­ fee from the cash­ ier. But Law­ rence in­ sisted: “You gotta make it into art, Shame.” “Nah, ­ Jimmy’s too big for that,” I said, hand­ ing over my money. He ­ looked at me, vexed: “I’m se­ ri­ ous, Shame.” I ­ didn’t re­ spond, walk­ ing over to cream my cof­ fee. I knew he meant well. He be­ lieved in art as the so­ lu­ tion to every­ thing. But I’d never ­ painted Jimmy; I’d never photo­ graphed him. ­ Jimmy’d al­ ways been un­ con­ tain­ able—he’d got­ ten loose in my life like a toxic cloud, bled ­ through the win­ dow cas­ ings­ between my ­ dreams and wak­ ing life, ­ between ­ thoughts of him and­ thoughts of every mun­ dane thing from pea­ nut but­ ter to a bar of soap.­ Jimmy’d put ­ Cristo to shame be­ cause Jimmy was art on the scale of crea­ tion, and ­ that’s why I had to take him back and out on the road. He was an un­ fold­ ing story still, an on­ go­ ing dy­ namic event ­ between my­ psyche and the world it ­ called home: a genie out of the bot­ tle. I had to go find him. What could I say? I’m tak­ ing Jimmy on a trip. He’s tak­ ing me. We’re going off travel­ ing to­ gether. By now Law­ rence was pull­ ing the front of his pants down a bit so I could see his ­ underwear’s elas­ tic band: ­ Wouldn’t You ­ Really ­ Rather Have a Buick? I ­ didn’t smile. “You being care­ ful, Law­ rence?” He nod­ ded im­ pa­ tiently, too ­ quickly. “Be care­ ful, Law­ rence.” I ­ hugged him. 167 “I’m hav­ ing a show . . . ,” he in­ formed me. But it ­ trailed off as I­ barked, “call me,” know­ ing I’d long since ­ stopped an­ swer­ ing the phone, inter­ ested only in the mes­ sage ­ machine’s re­ frain. Of ­ course he...