Back in 1977, an uptight college grad assistant touring us incoming freshmen ladies through the campus of California State College encountered one James King and friend out and about carousing. I knew I had seen him before, maybe met him before somewhere. As he and his friend stared us all down, trying to be so cool, the grad assistant warned us to stay away from the “townies.” They were the bad boys, trouble from the get go and looking only for cheap thrills and the latest crop of freshmen young ladies to take down to the gutter with them. Worse than that she said, they were musicians!
I met Jimmy King soon there after on the corner of Third and Wood, in front of the old Shake N Dog. He said that he met a lot of people on that corner, including Joe Grushecky. The next time I saw him he was sitting with my one roommate in Sepesey’s Tavern. He looked as though he had lost his last friend. I overheard a bit of his sad exchange of tales of bad love and woe on his part and whispered to my roommate that his lament sounded like a bad Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen tune. Jimmy heard my comment and went from sad to thrilled mode simply because someone else in the room knew who Tom Waits was. He fired music trivia questions at me. I can only remember now that one of them, the final question, was for me to name Johnny Otis’ son. I was an instant friend because I knew who Shuggie Otis was. The deal was sealed when the roommate pointed out that he and I both had the same photo of Hunter S. Thompson hanging in our kitchens too.
My group of friends hung out almost nightly with him and his friends. He had just pieced the first, original 4-piece James King Band together and was pretty miserable overall. In a way, it was the worst time of all of our lives. We were all either heartbroken or just lost in general coming in but had the time of our lives actually in wholesome play while the rest of the town talked on about us all. Jimmy threw the greatest parties, but the best times were way after hours when it was about 6-8 of us, with all our clothes on having silly dance or singing contests or playing limbo. Jimmy always had great ice cream and wine in his frig and, of course, had all the party supplies for a series of memorable reggae parties.
One night he came knocking at our door saying he had seen the movie"Wolfen" and was afraid to stay alone. We just laughed and he passed out on the couch only to wake in the middle of the night to an empty apartment. His drummer had stopped to say there was a party at Jimmy’s and that’s where we went. He really was afraid of scarey movies, and he knew he didn’t need an excuse to stay. That was the first of a few couches of mine that had his body groove molded into it.
Jimmy King started the tradition of cleaning out all my leftovers the day after Thanksgiving that first year in California. When I fell in love with Mr. Toye, Jimmy was like our child for the next 16 years until we actually had our first baby. What was known as Jimmy’s room turned into a nursery about the time he started to straighten out his life. The day he told me he had cancer, we exchanged bad news. In an effort to make light of the matter, he teased that he would return to haunt my old house that he loved so he could see me naked having sex. He said he’d let me know he was in the house by knocking an unlit candle from the mantle.
On May 9, 2003, I was at a friend’s house early in the morning trying to get tickets for Springsteen when I knew, just felt it, that Jimmy was slipping away soon. I left there that morning knowing before any phone calls came that he was passing. I yelled at him a few times when I put flowers on his grave that he didn’t listen and should have sought more medical opinions. I yelled at the grave because he had blind faith in his doctor and didn’t ask about medications such as Procrit that might’ve made him stronger.
Since he got sick through today, I buy a much smaller Thanksgiving turkey because I prefer not to have much leftovers the next day to remind me that he’s not coming by to eat. The day I realized I was leaving my long-time marriage and moving out on my own with my son, I was downstairs in that big old house when I heard a noise upstairs. The house had 21 windows and it was a warm spring day when most were open. None in that room near the mantle were open that could’ve explained a brisk breeze knocking the candle from the mantle that made the loud noise I heard downstairs. Jimmy was on my mind a lot then even before the candle fell...
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