Jim and Janis
He said he'd once been the Lizard King
but that was some years ago
He'd gone into obscurity or normal life depending
on where you live or who you know
There wasn't any recognizing him except for a sullen growl
and without the awareness I'd hear it
No irony to note a beer gut which stretched his
Iron Butterfly (original) to a Mothra girth tee-shirt
Jim had watery eyes and a smoker's smile that promised things
like Flicks candy at the movies "Let's go see The Who tonight!"
and his smelly weed smell filled the car before we went in to the show
and he laughed all during Keith Moon jumpsuited white
going through hotel walls and exploding drums
but slept through the rest
I had to wake him up to drive me home. Which wasn't even my home.
You'd have to believe me even if you've heard worse
He married Janis, The Pearl, and she had the jewelry
to prove it. More ropes and dangles and beads than a treasure chest
and one precious bag of baby teeth from a groupie
She'd go do her county social work then come home in the old Saab
with the driver's side pushed in from some accident and the thick fix-it putty
on the door looked like Janis' cheeks
and her hair mostly covered it but he
would come in sweating from the deck stoned and horny
would brush it back and sing 'if they say I never loved you
you know they are a liar...'
And sometimes it would make her laugh see-through
like a snapping flag whipped by warm Tamalpais lofts
or she would hard line him
"Fuck, Jim —Did you actually work on the deck today?" and out came a bottle of Comfort
Jim and Janis lived in an A minus frame on a Marin slope
dusted grey eucalyptus no firebreak two cats a dog
and her 14 year old daughter Lisa, Janis had had her secretly in Port Arthur
who baby-sat me when she stayed home (she never did)
I was taken on as the neighborly obligation since my mom worked nights
(Jim and Janis both came from middle-class manners) so long as I behaved Mom said
but after school special kid I was, I could go back into her tiny teenage room
as if it were my personal vestal, chastised and excited
thrilled at going through absent Lisa's drawers (rule-lined notes refolded, heavily penned instructions for sex, sewing needles scabbed brown, foil bon-bons and pipes, bent brass screens) and pretending I was her
3 years younger I felt inadequate for my debutantage, lying on her bed under the Alice Cooper poster
smelling the warmed over yeast dregs from empty Lowenbraü bottles stacked in her window
watching dust blaze in the light through the narrow window the dusking light of prayer and reflection
gilding piles of girl clothes and a left-over shoe
wishing wishing wishing my breasts existed
Maybe I was never there?
Lots of people claim now they were there when it happened in 1970
but Jim says it was just Janis and she says it was a goddamned good thing
'He was plain out of his mind in a Greyhound waiting room, writhing and trying to climb pillars -I could have been a bulldagger with pure murder in my heart, ready to send this princey prick to his maker."
'Ah naww sugar, you never would have.' Jim chuckled 'I could see your heart. Pure as maidenhead butter...'
Now Janis laughs as drinks and smokes scatter the table and I am witness audience to the show, which draws in the dog who scratches under the rocking chair Jim sits in, his belly cradling a brown liquid bottle
Jim still writes and self-publishes but not in his name. There are books of his poetry in the bathroom
The Golden God Mr Mojo Risin Wild Child is a deck-builder. Free-lance.
'Dadmiral approves' he smirks 'but he doesn't know why I don't build houses while I'm at it. Decks just seem too incidental...'
Janis pours herself another drink from Jim's bottle, and he plays with the colorful necklaces that drape her neck.
'I love standing out on a cantilever, no railings, flying out there...'
They were stars in the sense of billboard charts and concert sell-outs
They were stars in the sense of the night sky and I was seeing their light arrive after the fact
Janis wanted love full-tilt, hip-checked and can't even play the game
more than a starving person dreams of a piece of buttered bread
Her muses aligned and told her to cut her heart and bleed
and from her blood she would distill desire into a perfume, a personal scent
From her voice she would
She had sung herself raw and cashed checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars
Drinking made her feel like a party it was only the money that kept the party going -all the boys she flirted with kept their eyes on the dealers and the sylphlike band girlfriends- a blowjob put her on her knees and she refused the gig (eventually) Sex was a strategem a studio track to be laid down a plane to catch a dozen phone calls and all of them eventually hung up
A gravemarker for Bessie felt like the only thing done right but it still felt cold
Her flask was just empty at midnight when she thought of scoring dope at the bus station
Jim had visions even without dilution and spoke them in type shared them
But no one had ears, seemingly blind too just wanting to feel his ass in tight leather
men and women felt along his seams 'Forget it, man -let's screw'
He had been at a large screening party and been given a Visine bottle and told it was liquid acid
He took multiple drops on his tongue, sniffed some
and finally dosed his eyes with the rest.
Hours later, Jim had arrived alone at the LA bus station
waiting for a bus which had his mind like luggage stowed and tagged.
With every arrival he awaited the porter while the shine on the blue plastic seats throbbed at him responded to his gaze enlarged inflated into organs and expelled shit and elongated and secreted a sheen as a godhead the celestial lingam burning long and orange quaking with jism and then he felt a wing brush his aura -his vision took in a enormous Sun God with fanned feathers and green and gold talons- It brought shade, even while it beamed with light and untouchable heat and he was its child its egg its treasure
'That was me,' Janis said, 'I stood over him. He was in a fetal position in the corner of the room next to the lockers and lookin' like a bad trip, so I thought I'd talk him through it...
(to be continued)
