Thursday, January 09, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Cheap Wisdom: The Ballad of Jim K.

By Tod Goldberg

For the last three months my friend Jim has been living in my house. During that time, he has worn the same hooded sweatshirt an average of five times a week, has drunk seven bottles of good scotch and has continued to purchase the worst (and cheapest) toilet paper money can buy for the guest bathroom, which, because he lives in the guest room, is now called "Jim's Bathroom." He informed my wife and me today that he thought this would be his last week as our official boarder, unless next week was, or, unless the week after that was. Whichever, some week soon he'll be leaving us to take over a strip club he's buying. Again.

"Do you think he'll really leave?" my wife asked.

"Ever?"

"No. This week."

"Well," I said, "he's out of money, he only eats when he steals food from his mother's house, he's burned all the CDs he said he wanted to burn, he doesn't have a girlfriend anymore, he asked me yesterday if I thought he was getting fat and asked me the day before if I thought he was getting gray, he applied for a job parking cars and was denied, he went to see Two Weeks Notice alone and later tried to convince me that he wasn't depressed in the least. So, yes, I believe he will be moving out at some point."

My wife pondered this for a moment. She's known Jim for eight years, during which he has been married, divorced and sued innumerable times. "I don't think buying that strip club again is such a hot idea. He should just stay here until he gets a real job. Something without naked women."

"You're probably right," I said. "But on the upside, I'll be able to use my bathroom again without worrying about that scratchy tinfoil TP."

"Why did he quit his job at that mortgage company?"

"I think it had something to do with a girl," I said. "Or girls. Maybe he was unhappy doing spreadsheets all day. Maybe it was because he is uniquely qualified to peddle flesh. One of those."

In truth, of course, he quit his job and moved in with us because he was staring his mid-30s flush in the face and realized that he had yet to spend one good day of work doing something he actually enjoyed. I haven't minded having Jim here--it's been a bit like reliving my fraternity years but with considerably less time spent drinking 40 dogs of Crazy Horse and considerably more time spent advising Jim about the relative merits of not sleeping with every skank he encounters--and even my wife has commented on what a pleasant and unobtrusive roommate he's been.

He's been unobtrusive because, well, he doesn't have anything to do. By the time I wake up at noon, Jim's already read the paper, eaten a bowl of Special K and plotted out his afternoon.

"What have you got planned today?" I'd ask him after swallowing my thyroid medication.

"I gotta run by my mom's house around 2 to look at some papers [read: "I told my mom I'd wash her car if she makes me lunch."], I'm gonna watch the Laker game at 6 ["I'm going to lay on your couch in my underpants until 9."] and then I'll probably work out ["I'll do sit-ups on the floor and then I'll wander into your office to see what you're writing/pick your brain about mundane sports trivia/see if you want to order a pizza."] and go to bed."

"Sounds fulfilling," I'd say and then I'd go do my thing, he would go do his thing, and my wife would do her thing, which, generally, is yelling at me for doing my thing.

Today was different. Jim woke up late, around 10, and immediately began asking my wife if there were any home improvement projects he could assist her with. I should have known it was a sign. "I've been thinking about stripping out the ugly wallpaper in the master bedroom," she said.

"Perfect. I'll do it," he said and he did. Later, after he bought us two Domino's pizzas using our Entertainment Card, he informed us of his impending departure and it all seemed to make sense.

Of course I'll miss him whenever he leaves, if indeed he does, and of course I think it's a bad idea he's going back into the strip club business (in the way it could possibly be bad having a friend who owns a strip club), but at the end of the day, it will be nice to see him happy again, it will be nice to be alone with my wife and dogs again, and it will be nice to have my bathroom back.