Gun Church

Forty-Three

And there he was, Jim leaning on the front fender of his F-150, a broad and goofy smile painted across his face. Again, as with Renee and in spite of myself, part of me was joyful at the sight of him. Seeing him there-his quirky, rough-hewn looks, remembering our morning runs, shooting together in the woods above the falls-made me acutely aware of what I’d sacrificed and how lost I’d been since returning to New York. The St. Pauli Girl’s dire warnings notwithstanding, there was a measure of warmth and comfort in Jim’s being here. Although I knew it wouldn’t last, it freed up my limbs enough that I might approach him without completely freaking.

Yet even as I crossed the street, the warmth and comfort flowed out of me, down through my legs, out the soles of my old shoes, and onto the cold and pitted pavement of Avenue A. As I crossed the street, Jim Trimble’s goofy, boyish smile morphed into that knowing, superior smile of his. From the day Jim first walked into my classroom and tried to be the teacher’s pet, I’d had my niggling little doubts, doubts that I’d willingly, even eagerly, overlooked. But there was that smile again and my doubts were now full blown. I could feel my limbs seizing up on me. I was within a foot or two of him when panic fell like a shroud. Angry horns blared as I stopped dead still in my tracks. I was buffeted by the winds of passing cars and self-doubt. A cab was bearing down on me. I winced, bracing for the impact. A strong hand pulled me out of the way and I thumped into the side door of the old pickup.

“Are you crazy?” Jim was shouting at me. “Christ almighty, Kip, I didn’t go through all this shit for you to end up road kill.”

I wanted to speak. I really did, but the panic was choking me, making it impossible for me to string thoughts together. Jim had no such trouble.

“The way you wrote about this park in BeatnikSouffle,” he said, “I thought it would be a real dump, but it doesn’t seem so bad.”

I managed a syllable. “What?”

“You described Tompkins Square Park as a kind of a hellhole. I watched an interview you did once where you said you meant the park to be allegorical. That since Moses Gold’s most famous poem was called ‘Rumors of Purgatory,’ it was only fitting he winds up living here as a homeless junkie.”

“What?” It seemed to be the extent of my vocabulary.

“Get in the truck, Kip.” Jim’s voice was inhuman. I’d disappointed him already.

When he pulled away from the curb, I heard the familiar scrape and rattle of the exhaust. I once again lost track of time and place, my mind racing with myriad scenarios, one worse than the next. I wasn’t conscious of where Jim was driving to or what would come next. I remembered Renee’s warning not to piss him off, how it would be bad for Amy, and I rediscovered my voice.

“Our books live in our readers’ heads, Jim, not ours. Writers forget their books after they’ve written them.”

That explanation seemed to meet with his approval and the temperature inside the Ford’s cab rose a few degrees.

“What’s going on, Jim? What’s this about?”

“You,” he said. “It’s always been about you.”

“Me?”

“Sure, who else?”

“I’m a little confused,” I confessed.

He shook his head. “You know, when I set this all in motion, I thought you’d have figured it out by now. From everything I’d read about you, I knew you were a sharp guy.”

It. This. What the fuck was he talking about? Renee had said something similar about the chapter from Flashing Pandora, that she had hoped I would have understood. I was ready to mention that to Jim, but I stopped the words before they got to my lips. I knew Renee was involved in whatever it or this was. What I didn’t know was the extent of her involvement. She had warned me about Jim, after all, and I wasn’t looking to hurt her anymore than I had already.

“These days I’m about as sharp as a bowling ball. Too old. Too many drugs. It catches up to you.” I took a deep breath, a long pause and said, “So, you’ve been reading GunChurch?”

I didn’t think the question was particularly amusing, but Jim apparently found it quite wry and witty. “Yep,” he said, still sort of chuckling. “Started reading it after I borrowed your car that weekend. What a great book. It’s inspirational and-hold it!” He tugged the steering wheel hard right and we skidded to a stop, my head nearly slamming into the dashboard. “Got to belt yourself in there, Kip. I can’t afford to lose you now.”

I held my tongue, asking instead about the unexpected stop.

“Look.” He pointed at a red neon sign, Maggie’s Joint, above a bar.

It took me a second to time travel, to picture the place without the red neon, when its facade was very different, and I was a much, much younger man. “The Hunt Club,” I whispered almost involuntarily.

He seemed surprised. “You remember?”

“This was my life, Jim. I’m not likely to forget this place. Most of the stories I told you up in the woods started with me here.”

“You, Bart Meyers, and Nutly, right? Bet you couldn’t measure how much pussy you got here over the years,” he said.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

I kept forgetting about just how much Jim loved hearing those stories of the Kipster’s exploits and how much he loved my books. I’d had so little respect for myself for so long, I found it difficult to fathom his fanboy obsession. Fanboy! Fuck me, so that was it, I thought. Maybe that’s what this had all been about, Jim’s obsession and Renee’s hurt and anger at my abandoning her. Maybe Jim was just as angry as Renee at being abandoned, maybe angrier. It was easy for me to forget sometimes just how young and naive Jim and Renee actually were. Weak with relief, I felt I could breathe again, finally.

“Come on,” I said, slapping Jim’s shoulder, “let me buy you a drink.”

You’d have thought he’d just won the lottery, and he was out of the truck like a shot.