The Marijuana Chronicles

Jimmy was an Adonis, an angel cake of manhood, light on his feet. He moved with a swing of his narrow hips and a toss of his long blond hair. It fell past broad, square shoulders as chiseled as his jaw. I could never take my eyes off him. High cheekbones, blue eyes, wide mouth set in a permanent grin, he titillated and growled, he giggled like a girl. He could also pose a threat. Danger lurked in his hands. Hardly an hour would pass without him offering to punch a guy out.

He wore the same outfit day and night: a white T-shirt, black leather pants molded to his muscled body, black leather cuffs, and a black leather jacket that set off the golden rain of his hair. In hot weather he traded the leather pants for jeans just as tight, a Bowie knife tucked in his boot.

We’d meet up at Joh

Jimmy always had his ear to something. A telephone, mostly. It’s my girlfriend, he’d say as he dialed. It’s my bookie. It’s my mom. He didn’t have a job. His work was being Jimmy.

He lived with the fashion model who supported him. She was often out of town on a shoot or in Europe for the collections. He knew all the models because of her. He liked pretty women. If you saw them passing a joint, chances are they got it from him, along with diet pills, tranquilizers, and cocaine. He always had a roll of cash. He didn’t worry. He didn’t have to think.

Never take the subway, he said one night when we couldn’t find a cab. The subway was beneath him in more ways than one. He was a king.

I saw him eat now and then, usually breakfast at five a.m., after the clubs had closed. Generally, he lived on drugs and drink. His usual routine was to stay up for eight days and then take a day of rest. Alice called him a miracle of modern medicine. Her father was a doctor and after he met Jimmy he said the same thing.

Alice was divorced. She lived in a suite of rooms on the second floor of her father’s sprawling duplex on the Upper West Side, on the park. She kept a full bar in her sitting room. She had cable TV long before the rest of us. Her mother had been an alcoholic who died young, and Alice was moving in the same direction. She worked in a boutique off Fifth Avenue, modeling swimsuits and designing displays. One afternoon, Jimmy stopped by with a bottle of champagne. The sales staff gathered around him with the customers in the store. When the boss arrived, Alice was fired. Jimmy was her consolation.

He’s been here for three days, she said, when I went to see her. They hadn’t slept at all. She was sitting on her bed, doing her nails. Heavy chains were nailed to the wall above. Leather cuffs dangled from the chains.

Jimmy wasn’t just the best sex she had ever had, he was the best fun. I can’t describe it, she said. Bondage appealed to her. Something about the resistance, she said, nodding toward the cuffs. The friction. The harder he pulled the more she wanted him. They fucked all day, all night. They had takeout. He made phone calls and then they fucked again. Of course, there was booze. Of course, there was pot and cocaine and pills. I’ve never been so wet, she said. It’s heaven.

Alice was my best friend. She was almost as tall as Jimmy, but had dark curly hair and wore exaggerated makeup. When she laughed you could see bubbles in the air. More often she was sad, adrift. She felt like an orphan. In her laugh you felt the depth of her.

Jimmy appeared with a bottle of Joh

Now he was back on the phone. Not to his girlfriend. His bookie. He bet on games and he won the bets, for himself and others. When the game was over, he passed out.

Don’t go, Alice said. I don’t want to be alone.

Sometimes Jimmy called to complain about his girlfriend or Joh

I lived in the Village. He was in Spanish Harlem. I took the subway. I had to change trains a few times. It took forever. You gotta get out of that habit, he said. He looked mad.

He had a one-bedroom on the eighth floor. He poured me a cup of coffee and locked himself in the bathroom. Excuse me, he said. I gotta go shoot up.

What a joker. I laughed. And I waited. I sat on the leather couch in his living room, thumbing through the gun and fashion magazines on the coffee table. Thirty minutes later, he emerged in full makeup and a dress.

Am I gorgeous or what? he said, sashaying across the room, a hand on one hip then the other. His gravelly voice had become a breathy falsetto. He ran his tongue over his lips. Think I could get a guy to pick me up in a bar? he twittered. I could go for some handsome devil in a suit.

His slinky blue frock clung to his body, which suddenly seemed curvaceous. The slender legs were good and he walked in his girlfriend’s gold heels as if born to them. I took out my lipstick and applied it, partly in self-defense.

You ought to be a model, I said.

I know, he replied. I’m wasting my time taking bets. C’mon, he said. Come out with me. Let’s see if we can pick up a couple of jocks!

There was a mirror on the wall and he checked himself out in it. Did his girlfriend know?

Don’t you breathe a word, he barked. She hates when I wear her clothes. But see? They fit me better.

I couldn’t say. I’d never met her. I was thinking of Alice. His eyes met mine and fluttered. He asked for help with his zipper.

He was naked beneath the dress.

Jimmy wasn’t hugely endowed, considering the rest of him. It didn’t matter.

Let’s go watch the game, he said, and led me into the bedroom. The bed was large and had a steel frame. Its white satin sheets glowed in the waning sunlight from the windows. He closed the blinds and turned on the TV at the foot of the bed. Under it was a large black suitcase. He opened it. Don’t peek, he said. When I looked up, he was holding two sets of leather cuffs on short lengths of chain.

Jimmy’s tongue filled my mouth and I didn’t resist. I was stoned and feeling amorous. He undressed me. Take a breath, he said, attaching a metal clip to each of my nipples and screwing them tight.

That hurts, I said at the pinch. I was surprised by how much it excited me.

Lie down, he said, and I did. He cuffed my wrists and ankles, and hooked the chains to the bed. A flame of desire leapt through my body from my toes to my eyes. They were burning. I opened my legs. I needed air.

I knew you’d like this, he said. He turned on the television. He rolled a joint.

Jimmy!

Don’t rush me, he said, and busied his hands in the suitcase. Blood rushed into my ears. I was throbbing. He lit the joint and took a deep toke. Watch the game, he said. Relax.

How does anyone fall in love? I couldn’t guess. I thought about money. Money was something you could measure and count. It added up to something. Love was intangible and confusing, impossible to manufacture or predict. Escaping it had more pitfalls than embracing it.

Jimmy!

He put tape on my mouth. He sat down to watch the game. I heard the sound of a crowd cheering, of helmets cracking, men grunting. He turned back and held himself over me, caressing me with his hair and licking me. He tightened the screws and I bucked. He was hard. You look beautiful, he said, and kissed me again. His mouth was soft and his tongue was long. What was I doing? Most of the time, I preferred women to men. But they weren’t Jimmy.