Sunday, July 24, 2005

Mystery Friend JHK (MJK)


Back when I was in art school, I stayed for a while in the basement of my brother's duplex(years later, I would move back there to start my painting) which made it hard for my friends and I to party with chicks, as I wouldn't dream of imposing on my bother and his wife.
One friend, Rick, stayed at the dorm of a local Catholic College. My buddy, Rob, stayed with his dad and step mom shared a room with a guy who was running up his long distance bill. So Brian and I decided to get an apartment together.
The place we found, was an upstairs apartment with 2 possibly three bedrooms. The front room, which faced the street, had a small room to the right that was missing the french doors. Brian said he'd take that and hang curtains. The room at the top of the stairs, facing the door, was mine.
As you walked in to the left, before you crossed the hall to my room, was another room we thought of renting out or turning in to a dining room, as beyond that was the kitchen. Across the hall was the bathroom. At the back of the hall was a small room where the stairs used to come up when it used to be a single family home. between that space and the bathroom was a small shelfless pantry with a closet big enough to put a matress in.
"Maybe we can find some one who'd want to rent that out," Brian and I reasoned. Rob, my buddy from Jersey said he might know of somebody.
His name was Jim but he had another name he preferred you called him. He was the talk of our class and all the girls wanted to do him. He had a Flock Of Seagulls type hair style, except that one whole side of his head was shaved from the part on down. He wore faded jeans, ripped (artfully) tee shirts and had studded leather bracelets.
I first encountered him in the student lounge. His dollar was all crumpled, and the change machine wouldn't except it,so he pantomimed to me he wished for a new dollar. Which I gave him.
As soon as he moved in, it was really cool, as he had met a lot of people on the punk rock scene in town. But Brian, the other roommate, wanted to party every night, where I had to work and Jim had aline of females who wanted to sleep with him waiting. By Friday, Brian was bored and would go back to his home town to hang out with his friends, while wild parties after punk rock shows went on all weekend at the apartment and all kinds of people were having sex in Brian's bed. Then Sunday afternoon, everybody'd clear out, I'd go to work and Brian would come back not knowing what transpired that weekend. Once again he would bitch all week about how lame Grand Rapids was (compared to PawPaw) and clear out Friday and the whole thing would start again.
Jim was okay, but you never felt he was being honest with you, that he was agreeing with you so you'd like him. So there were all these different sides to him. Later, the Rollins Band did a song about him.
But I liked him. I got to meet a lot of interesting people through him. He hooked me up with some guys to form my first band. He introduced me to the woman I married (fuckin' bastard)
But he will always remain amystery because you're never really sure who he is.

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