I didn’t get close to James Polo until a week before he moved to Chicago the first time and not the time he found out his aunt was on heroine and had to move back a week later. His time in Chicago the first time, though not as brief as the time second time, was brief nonetheless. I was able to give him a job where I was working—the manager, despite his strange appearance, trusted me with her life—and trusted my recommendation. His mad eyes used to focus on the cash register with respect—not unlike his laughter, deep and haughty—and his relations with girls, though not unusually conquestive, were quite admirable nonetheless—like that girl Jill who I was always slightly weary about until she made off with James’ money and I became something more than slightly weary about her. Round this time I started making it in with a girl from the west side named Marybeth who, despite not having a clue about modern culture, was a fun dame for the picking. Her brown eyes would trap me and I couldn’t escape her dark, sweet skin. She loved jazz which was not a turn-off to me although she never really knew anything about the musicians and I never bothered to tell her—she loved listening to the music, blissful in her ignorance and I loved listening to her listening. James never really knew Marybeth which was for the better possibly because of his admirable relations with girls and possibly because I wanted to keep her a secret for some bewildering reason—a reason which will elude me until a similar circumstance arrives and I will be able to recall, with the same amount of jest and resilience, exactly what it was I was doing and why. But Marybeth’s and James’ mad eyes would never meet, though each felt a kinship with the other through some sort of Osmosis coursing through my body into theirs—I was a vessel for communication between the two strangers, in a way, or in many ways, or in every way. I’d been hysterical yet stark ever since they both exited, within roughly a week or each other—James liked weekly increments and Marybeth just liked exiting, which made things not so much easier but at the very least less confusing for me. And when Old Swifty—who’s real name was actually Swifty and I’ve always sort of admired him for that—came back into town and enlisted in the same academic study program as myself, my fears tended to ebb for the time being. I was by no means the same caustic individual who had befriended both James and Marybeth—and with Swifty, I was even sort of mellow, earthy, easy-going, and somber. It is these qualities that I found particularly confusing coming from myself but not in a bad way so much as a curious way. My own frantic eyes were beginning to sag with the beat of the slow music I was slowly evolving into admiring. I was, at first, beginning to enjoy my newfound self but I quickly grew tired of it as I have been known to grow tired of a great many things. But Old Swifty left in a fashion appropriate with his name and I sat there, thinking of Marybeth and James Polo again. And I thought of James Polo’s giddy lisp when he became excited; and I thought of Marybeth’s eyes when she became tired had had to struggle to keep them open and when the time was right she would just shut them for a while; and James Polo’s cats, who would crawl around almost in syncopation with the rhythm of James’ jazz music; and the James’ music collection itself and how diverse and intriguing it was to me at the time and has since been taken over by my far superior music collection; and I think of Marybeth and James never even knowing each other and still becoming instrumental in my own personal makeup. And I think of the person I’d become without Swifty gone. And I think of the person I’d become if only one thing was different enough to throw the whole equilibrium off kilter. I think of it all. |