Jimmy inherits the wind (March 5, 1998)

March 5, 1998

 I can't help thinking how odd it is that Jimmy is now director of a library.

 His manipulating himself into the post is less puzzling than the desire for it, though that is looking at it from a much more distant perspective.

 "We grow old, We grow old, we drink our coffee cold," T.S. Eliot wrote in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufock, and in Jimmy's case, it is true.

 Age makes conservatives of us all, even Jimmy.

 When we were young, we believed Jimmy would be a king, someone akin to JFK, with an ability to convert the world to his purposes. In our hometown, adults feared his influence over their children, some even moving out of the state to avoid his stealing their children's souls.

 As a rock and roll star, Jimmy could have become another John Lennon, only he grew too bored too quickly, and preferred quite nights alone at home with the TV and a snack from Quick Chek.

 Like a cat, Jimmy always managed to land on his feet. When he got fired from a job, he found someone to support him. When he got thrown out of an apartment, he managed to find someone to take him in.

 More than once, I saw doom for him, only to watch him twist it into an opportunity. He was never short food or computers. He rarely had to walk to work. And he always managed to find himself in a position of authority, when he had to earn his keep.

 I have seen him working in a variety of jobs, from his days loading trucks in the Little Falls Laundry to those days waiting on customers at the Ledgewood Dunkin Donuts. But when he first got his part time job in the library, I thought: "Now isn't that quaint. He found a niche."

 I didn't know how large a niche at the time, nor did I think it would ever amount to a career. I must admit I admired him when he stretched it out into years, working his 20 hours a week, living off Rick, and when that failed, finding himself a room with a hot plate where he could cook and remain comfortable without having to seek a second job. Year after year, he kept that post, and then, late last year, the director decided to retire.

  And because he was there so long, the trustees gave the job to him, grandfathering him into the position so that he would never have to get a degree.

 How odd!

 One more brilliant manipulation in a life of such manipulations, and yet, sadly, something of a letdown, a settling for less, when my own expectations remained high for him, even when his own had cooled.

 "We grow old! We grow old! We drink our coffee cold."