Devilcountry (13 page)

 
         
 
Jimmy, the main cook and one of the day
managers hated working with Pudgie, especially when Lisa would come in.
 It caused such a disruption.  Pudgie and Jimmy’s parents had grown
up together on Long Island, so they were like family, which means Jimmy had
nothing in common with Pudgie, was forced to be around him, couldn’t get away
from him, and despised him because he was talentless, disrespectful and fake.
 Pudgie and Gino had followed Jimmy out to California.  Jimmy was too
nice to tell them no.  As Jimmy put it, “Letting those assholes follow me
out here was the biggest mistake of my life. I swear to fucken Christ.” He did
the north, south, west, east on his chest and head with his
hand
 grabbed
up the crucifix hanging around his neck and kissed it for
forgiveness.  Then he did a double swig of his Martinelli medicine, which
was Jimmy’s own concoction of vodka mixed in with apple juice.  Sometimes
he’d use gin instead to hide the smell from Dickie or Carin.  “I was just
too nice to Pudge when we were kids.  I can’t help it.  It was the
camp counselor in me, helping the helmet kid out.  Boy did it swing back
around on me, you know?”  He swigged some more.  Trying to swallow
his regrets.  “I was the dipshit who told him, you gotta follow your
dreams!” (Swig swig), “I mean isn’t that what you’re supposed to tell kids? How
did I know he’d turn into a bug?  He’s nothing but a taker.  
Him and that puke, Gino.
Assholes!  Both of them!” (
swig
- swig).

 
         
 
Lisa sat down at the counter in her
sweats.  She never wore anything flashy, always looking like she’d come
from a workout.  The effect may have been lost on others but to me it was
stunning.  She ordered her usual, a plate of spaghetti with one meatball
on the side.  Pudgie knew her order and instinctively grabbed the plate
Jimmy was working on to fill another order and made it Lisa’s.  Swig-swig.

 
         
 
They talked about agents.  I
listened in from ten feet away pretending to stock an already stocked
refrigerator.  Geraldo stared and pointed at me while laughing with Tavo
and Marcos from across the kitchen.  If anything I was comic relief.
Neither Pudgie or
Lisa seemed to notice.  I was the
perfect extra.  Lisa chimed in with her money shot.  “So you’re
coming next week, right?”

Pudgie played dumb. “What’s next week?”

 
         
 
“I told you, Steven wants to meet you;
he’s looking for a new Charles Bronson.  I told him you were perfect.”
 It’s important to note at this point that along with a crisp, high voice,
Pudgie was no less than twenty pounds overweight, possessed no cheekbones,
had no clue who or what a Charles Bronson was, and gorgeous blue eyes, which
were contacts.  Lisa loved what she saw.  She knew she couldn’t solve
or save it, so she loved it.
 
They
had dry-humped with full-release several times on the sofa in her condo.
 
He had borrowed precisely $751.62 for
car repair and tanning cream.
 
Things were pleasant between them.

“Are you sure?” Pudgie purred.

 
         
 
“Of course I’m sure.  You’ll be
ready, right?”

 
         
 
“Sure, why not?  What should I
wear?”

 
         
 
“I don’t know.  
Anything
that will accent your shoulders, maybe?
 Steven loves broad
shoulders.  He says he wants to sign the next James Caan.  You’ll do
fine.  No monologue, it’s just lunch.  I think he wants to go to Nate
and Al’s.” Maybe this was Pudgie’s moment.  He got sweaty under his fake
silk shirt.

 
         
 
“Whatever.  Sounds good…you want
another meatball?”  Before she could respond he stabbed another ball off
Jimmy’s plate with a fork and held it up for Lisa.  
Lisa
refused
,
Pudgie started eating it directly
.
 Swig-swig...

Lisa left, fully satisfied from the food and her
nurturing of a total asshole.  Pudgie got on the phone, “Gino? Holy shit,
you will not believe what just happened…Lisa was in here…with the tits…she’s
got a development deal…C-cup…she’s setting me up with that guy from CAA.
 They went to college together. It’s some kind of action flick with James
Caan, yeah! Can you believe it?  Jimmy Caan!”

 
         
 
James Caan was a regular at the store.
 He used to come in wearing a slim-fit salmon-colored Jos A. Bank dress
shirt from Fred Segal, white cargo shorts and penny loafers without socks.
  The effect was lost by the addition of a striking, black fanny-pak.
 No one had the courage to tell Mr. Caan he was wearing a fanny-pak.
 “Listen,” continued Pudgie, “what do you think I should do? ...
Yeah?…really
?
 
An
eightball? Okay!  I can’t believe it!
 
Cool, bye.” He hung up the phone.  Pudgie searched the room.
 His eyes landed on me two feet away crouched down in front of a fully
stocked refrigerator trying to not look like I was eavesdropping. “Craiginator!
 How about a Thai massage with full release from Maggie Q’s stunt double?
 I need you to pick up a package for me.”

Pudgie floated the rest of the shift.  
He joked
,
he flirted, kissed babies
.
 Pudgie was happy.  The store ran well.  Jimmy swigged less.
 Everyone working on the crew was happy for the rest of that shift.
 Jimmy cooked his off-the-menu chicken.  Marcos made a spicy Mexican
fish head soup that was the best substance I ever experienced. There was
harmony, for a while.  

I don’t think Pudgie realized his true calling.
 If Pudgie was inspired, then great things could happen.  Even simple
things like getting through a lunch rush became effortless.  Hopefully
Lisa would guide him to a deeper understanding of this.  Jimmy wouldn’t.
(Swig Swig).
  

The massage I would later receive was more of an
aggressive handshake over my midsection by a poorly dressed Thai woman followed
by twenty minutes of complaining in broken English about where to find
Vegan-only hair care products at cost. I thought about Lisa, my lost Juliette.
          

JIMMY DIED

He
walked into oncoming traffic, drunk out of his head on vodka. He reeked of
apple juice according to police.

 
         
 
When I started at The Big Pizza Jimmy
took me in.  There were different groups of people where I worked, all
bound by the various cultures with which they identified. There were New
Yorkers, Brazilians, Latinos, and
me
.  Jimmy
represented the New York side of the coin.  To this day I am grateful to
him.  I could not have survived The Big Pizza without him. His kindness
and decency could only be outmatched by what he could pull off in a kitchen.
 These days I watch those reality shows about cooking and chefs and I
giggle.  None of them were any match for Jimmy.  He was a cooking
genius.  Most of the items on the menu had been culled from his ideas.
 I don’t think he saw any commissions.  He was unschooled, but a
culinary artist of mammoth proportions.

 
         
 
Sometimes he would cook chicken in a
vinaigrette sauce with oregano, parsley, and
whipped potatoes
on the side that was, and still is, the greatest taste I’ve ever known.
 It was never on the menu, too expensive.  It was just a way for
Jimmy to burn time after the lunch rush had passed.  This was one of the
perks of working in a restaurant.  The behind-the-scenes, impromptu concoctions
of the cooks riffing off of ideas they had.  
Experimenting
and pushing the envelope.
 Customers never got to see this stuff.
 But the busboys, the drivers and even the guy who dug through our trash
for recycling got to taste stuff that four-star chefs and customers would never
be able to get near.  Watching Jimmy cook was like watching Charlie Parker
jam at four in the morning in front of three drunks.

 
         
 
 Jimmy was soft-spoken, with light,
feather-blond hair and a classic Brooklyn accent.  Only he was from Long
Island.  Jimmy was blessed and I think he knew it.  I think that’s
why he’s dead.  His drinking got the best of him.  One time he passed
out in the middle of ringing up a customer.  Eventually he got fired after
passing out in the doorway of the store like a vagrant, while waiting for a cab
to drive him home after a shift.  Dickie had to step over him to get
inside and collect his take for the night.  Dickie had been a drunk
himself before Carin met and married him but he had no sympathy for Jimmy.
 In fact, Dickie pinned a note to Jimmy that read, “Lay off the Apple
Juice, you’re done!”

What I remember about Jimmy is what stood out
about him from the others.  Jimmy wasn’t looking for fame or acting roles,
or anything.  Jimmy was a wanderer.  A searcher.  
A seeker of truth.
 Or maybe he had found it and was
just killing time.  One night he took me to a sex show.  It was a
club I had been to a thousand times but could never get to where the good stuff
was going on.  He took me around back, where the garbage was.  We
hopped a fence.  Avoided a few bouncers, turned a few corners, and voila!
We were inside.  “Don’t worry, I know the manager,” he said.  Which
made no sense since we’d just broken in, but I said screw it, you just
gotta
roll with it sometimes.

 
         
 
We walked in the back.  He poured a
tequila shot down the buff she-male’s throat
who
was
working the door to the V.I.P. room and we were in.  All I had done was
offer Jimmy a ride home after a particularly grueling shift, and before you
know it, I’m watching a tightly-bound, petite, blond-haired, bubble-butted,
half-naked USC freshman get her ass whipped by a guy dressed like he was on his
way to a Renaissance Faire.  She would scream out as his riding crop
connected with her pink, exposed, ass cheeks.  He’d then pause, scratch
his chin, stoop to one knee and contemplate his work.  The girl, tied up
with her reddened ass on display was panting and breathing hard through the
black satin cloth that had been stuffed into her mouth.  She had orgasmed
repeatedly and was being allowed to
breathe
it out a
bit.    She was tied to a crucifix-type barricade by her hands
and feet and with additional ropes criss-crossing her midsection.  She was
wearing some type of black corset, but her panties had been ripped away clean
and were thrown on the ground nearby.  There looked to be some kind of
drooly substance clinging to the laces in the back.

 
         
 
In truth, the only thing I could think of
doing to her to add to the mix was maybe taping a “Kick Me” sign to her back.
 I’m not the most creative, or mature, in these types of situations, so I
was relieved to know
she was being handled by a professional
.
  Her blond hair was sweaty and tussled up.  Her mascara ran
down her cheeks making it look like un-gay Morrissey had just broken up with
her and now she was working through her grief.  She had a look of
privilege to her.  She was
well-fed
, healthy, no
tattoos, and the outfit she was wearing was new and expensive.  I could
see the private high school from which she had just graduated.  I could
see her horse in its stable, wondering when she’d be back.  I could see
her father on the morning train headed to the city reading his
Wall Street
Journal
, smiling contentedly, knowing his daughter was in good hands and
chains.

The room was packed with the elite of the L.A.
hip and here I was in the middle of it.  Man, I thought I had a tap on
what was cool, but Jimmy was the man.  This was the kind of access I knew
I would never get again.  So I enjoyed it.  My eyes sat transfixed as
my jaw dropped open at the sight of unharbored, uncensored, consensual S &
M.  It was fun for me to watch dainty, well-nourished theater-types get
whipped and beaten by hipster pro-am porn guys.  I found it very
cathartic.  Those were the kind of powerful experiences that Jimmy had a
lock on. I marveled at his power.  His abilities.  
His
grace and his talent.
 I was a layman at picking up vibes from
around the universe but Jimmy showed me that anything was possible.  You
just have to be open to it.

 
         
 
I looked over at Jimmy, wondering if he
felt the same sense of awe I was feeling.  He was on his cell phone
talking to a buddy back home about the Yankees making the playoffs.  The
look on his face read, “I’ve seen this crap a thousand times”; Jimmy could get
into any club. Climb over any social hurtle that the Gods of Cool put before
him.  It was effortless for him what Pudgie and Gino spent a lifetime
trying to achieve.  But none of it mattered to him.  None of it
challenged him.  He was like me in a lot of ways.  He’d been struck
by similar visions his whole life.  But unlike me he knew exactly what to
do with them.  He was totally focused and fluid in his actions.  He
had felt the calling to be near Carin and help her by designing most of her
menu.  It was effortless for him.   Handing over his recipes
like they were chemistry notes.  He had made and lost a fortune over and
over again, abandoning it to his own sense of apathy and boredom.  He
didn’t care that the lord whispered its truths to him.  In all honesty, he
wanted to be left alone.  To him, even Jesus Christ was just a needy,
attention starved little boy constantly nagging at him.  Jimmy was like
the most beautiful and regal ship in the harbor, but bored of sailing.  Jimmy
was born cool, and every day after was spent trying to live it down.