Even in winter, the dealer's girlfriend wears short-shorts and a glitter top.
I'm pestering Jimmy Bob for details. He obliges me with this slight wardrobe description.
"How old is she?" I need a picture, 3-D, colour, wide screen, the works. What I really want is to lie under my Jimmy with his wondrous cock, which sounds out there I know, but it's a fact—Jimmy has the most beautiful cock I've ever seen. Transparent brown over layers of permanent purple and indigo blue. Gloss, never matt. And he's got these chestnut balls tight underneath. The man has cool genitals.
"Around his age." Jimmy says.
"And that would be?"
"A mite younger than you, dear," he says.
I move on to parking lots.
There are two parking lots, one near the building and one larger across the street. Jimmy doesn't like to park his car in the large lot. He says he feels like a sitting duck. The dealer raps on the window, Jimmy rolls it down, hands over cash, gets the package.
I need more info on the dealer. Like did he ever do time and for how long. Turns out the dumb ass was driving, windows down, stereo blaring, speeding along, enjoying the high life, and the cops were on him. One year in the slammer.
"Does he have a grand piano?" I interrupt.
"Yeah, white."
"Why all this white shit? White carpets, furniture?"
"You thinking he's thinking white is pretty, looks rich? He sits his ass on that white sofa, carpet's under his feet. Got it?"
"Yeah, I got it."
I look in the rear view mirror. My Honda CRV has blind spots, left and right.
"So you're sitting on the sofa and . . .?"
"Shooting the shit, I guess—details, huh? OK. Turning the rock into powder."
"Like how?"
"Grinding it."
"With what?" Now I'm getting it. Jimmy's in an apartment, mostly white plush, and he's gabbing away, keeping his hands busy, flattening the rock with the TV remote, turning the rock into mewling powder fine enough for a baby's ass. When he finally gets home, he hears the slam of his metal front door and settles himself on this yellow chaise lounge, remnants of his second marriage—Susan got the house, Jimmy Bob secured the chaise lounge he sits on to eat, watch TV, churn out his articles, sleep. He says it would take three weeks to clean his house if I ever cross the border to visit him. His friends think he has a phantom girlfriend. It's getting embarrassing, he says. He never goes out with women anymore. Jimmy's place is a disaster. I know because he emailed me some Jpegs. He's fastidious about his drugs.
Until the dealer shows up, and he's usually late, the girlfriend makes small talk. She's always high and talks in a squeaky girl's voice slurring her words and Jimmy can't make heads or tails out of what's she's saying. He's tried staring at her, focusing really hard, shutting out stray thoughts, and reading her lips. Usually he just smiles and nods. He says it works every time.
"How much you think your dealer makes?" I ask.
"About a quarter a million," he says.
"For all that risk—that's all?"
I know my funny man. I know his saliva gathers in the corners of his mouth when he gets carried away with an idea, he giggles after he comes, and his scalp gets itchy—but I don't know his insides, couldn't wing my way through his mind in the dark. Jimmy looks at me.
"I have this friend, whose boyfriend writes for the Canadian Air Farce, makes two hundred K's easy, writing jokes, no worrying about a slammer door --- jail or coffin."
"I don't make that kind of money. Never will." He looks out the car window. "Don't you think you should get out of this lane?"
"Mind if I open the window?" I say. "I'm going to turn on 860 AM and check out the traffic. You OK, baby?" His glasses are at the end of his nose which isn't a long way down. I push them up.
He's staring out the window and I say, " So you get something hard and ground the coke some more and then what?"
He stares at me. "You don't care that you're making me uncomfortable, do you?"
"Nope," I say and it's true, I don't. I'm clear and smooth, not a ripple on these waters.
Jimmy has a card, a smooth old credit card he uses to divide the powder, patting it into a neat straight line.
I touch his crotch. "Then the straw, right? You got a supply?"
"Yeah, I got a supply."
"And what if you don't, if you're all out of straws?"
"I roll a bill."
I wiggle my fingers, staying in place, playing the piano over his cock. Jimmy starts to grin. We're off in a single lane heading off the 401 onto Yonge Street north. Ten minutes to his hotel.
I know the rest from what he's told me: the rush, not mellow like weed, doesn't creep up purring or roll in like Sandburg's fog. It's a feeling in his throat, he says. I know this because a guy, not quite family, but close, explained the whole ritual to me. I have a fondness for rituals although I have few in my life. It's not that I don't try. Every week I create new rituals and resolutions accompanying them. I'm a soul in search of one sustained ritual, which is why Jimmy coke routine intrigues me.
"How about coke and sex?" I ask him as we pull up to the hotel's entrance.
He leans over and kisses me on the lips. "How about sex?" he says.
I haven't seen Jimmy Bob for two months now. Haven't found a coffee mug either. When I get around to it, I buy cheap red wine and at five o'clock, I pour myself half a cup and add some orange juice to disguise the rancid flavour.
I'm looking for a house. Maybe there'll be enough room for Jimmy Bob or someone with a name like that. A man with a shining indigo cock, who gathers foam at the corners of his mouth when he talks, and offers me presents in the middle of rush hour traffic on a hot summer day.
Coke and Sex on the 401 During Rush Hour
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