My pizza with William
I'm not mean, just forgetful. So when I
told Will to meet me at Ruta Maya's coffee house in downtown Austin,
Friday at 5:15, I didn't allow for the pre-Christmas traffic.
Bummer.
Anyway, he was late. Fine by me. I could
sit down, smoke a cigarette, drink a cup of mocha java and wonder
whether meeting one of my readers was such a good idea. I didn't think
he'd be an asshole -- that's my job -- but I was worried he might be
one... boring... fuck.
And I wasn't even sure what he looked
like. I'd only seen a couple of photos on the web and I knew from my
photo on the web that these images could be misleading. After all, I
look much, much better in real life.
Worse yet, he wasn't just visiting. He
moved to Austin to go to the University of Texas (home of Ricky
Williams). So if I didn't like the guy, I'd have to ditch him from time
to time in the future.
About 5:30, I saw a young guy hanging
around outside the coffee house. He was smoking a cigarette. I didn't
think Will smoked, but he was the only one I saw who looked like he
might be Will's age, 18. I decided to take a chance and see.
"Are you Will?"
"No," he said. "Chris. Why do you ask?"
"Ahhhh, I'm supposed to meet someone named Will but I'm not sure what
he looks like."
"Well, people are always saying I look like someone. I'm a poet, maybe
you've seen me around."
Great, I thought. Now I'm involved.
"No, I don't think so. Thanks anyway." I went back to my table and
decided if he followed me I'd hit him up for five bucks. Fortunately,
he stayed outside smoking his cig.
About five minutes later, Will walked in.
He looked like his picture.
"Sorry I'm late," he said. "There's a lot
of traffic."
"That's my fault," I said. "I should know better. But as usual, I'm
ill-prepared for this meeting and life in general. Want some coffee?"
We started to stand in line, but I decided
if I was going to be any fun at all I'd need some libations. I gave him
five bucks, told him to get some coffee and I'd be right back.
I went next door to the Lavaca Street Bar.
I was dressed in a black baseball cap with the letters PRESS
embroidered across the top and a long black overcoat. I knew if I
wanted fast service -- or any service at all -- I had better take out
my money and wave it around, lest they think I wandered in from the
homeless shelter a few blocks away. Money doesn't talk, it orders. I
got a drink quick. Two drinks. Then three. Scotch and soda.
I returned to Ruta Maya's. Will was
sipping his coffee and my five bucks lay on the table.
"Hey, I said it was on me."
"That's okay," he said. "I came prepared. I got some money before I
left."
Good, I thought. More booze money. I
stashed the bill in my pocket and we talked awhile about what it was
like writing on the web. He's got a web site too -- at least until he
gets busted by America Online.
"You know, I tried writing like you for
awhile," Will said.
"So every other word was fuck?"
"Pretty much."
The booze started to kick in and I was
feeling festive. This kid's not bad, I thought. Think I'll show him
Austin. At least my part of Austin.
"Let's go to Lovejoy's," I said. "Two
dollar pints every night."
"Sure."
"You've heard of that place, right?"
"Yeah. In your column"
"There you go."
We hit the streets and again I was
ill-prepared. I wore cowboy boots, not the greatest walking shoe. Clip,
clop, clip, clop. A carriage drawn by a Clydesdale passed us. Clip,
clop, clip, clop. Having established the rhythm of the night, we headed
to Sixth Street.
I pointed out clubs along the way. First,
a blues joint called Antone's (he had been there the week before), then
Babe's (I had played music there the year before), a massage parlor
called The Midnight Cowboy (we both swore we'd never been there before)
and various music joints and tourist traps littering Sixth Street.
When we got to Lovejoy's, I gave him the
drill.
"Look. They usually don't allow anyone
under 21, but I'm gonna try to get you in. Otherwise you're going to
have to watch me drink from the sidewalk. Just kidding. You can watch
me drink inside."
I went to the bar and talked to Jen, the
bartender. I told her my nephew from Las Vegas (Las Vegas? Why in the
fuck did I pick Las Vegas?) was in town for the weekend and I was
showing him around and would it be all right if he came in and just had
some coffee and I swear I'll watch him and he's a great kid and I would
never put Lovejoy's in jeopardy, bla, bla, bla.
All lies, except for the last part. I
would never put Lovejoy's in jeopardy. If the Texas Alcoholic Beverage
Commission had come in, I would have stuck with my lie all the way to
jail and would have added that I had stashed Will in a laundry bag and
smuggled him in through the back door.
Anyway... Will got in. And he got to watch
me drink many beers, which I'm sure impressed him.
I introduced him to some of the regulars,
such as Mary, who wanted to use me as a decoy to get rid of some guy
who was hitting on her. I'm a great decoy.
"Sure, Mary, I'd love to hang out with
you. Let me introduce you to my nephew, Will from Las Vegas."
"Hi, Mary."
"Hi, Will. Has Jasper been showing you Austin?"
"Uncle Mike? He sure has."
Hmmm. I might have to choke the shit out
of this kid before the night is over.
Having secured Mary, we went over to the
coffin table (it's a table made out of a rosewood coffin... long
story), where I introduced him to a couple of Austin artists. Visual
artists. Real ones.
"Will, this is one of Austin's most
distinguished artists, Doug Prince," I said, tongue squarely in cheek.
Ha! That's like introducing Howard Stern as a New York dignitary. Don't
get me wrong. Doug's a great artist. But distinguished? He's a drunken
carouser... like me. Thing is, he looked distinguished that night. He
and his buddy Eric -- another artist -- donned monkey suits.
"Why so dressed up?"
"We had our company Christmas party?"
"No shit?" I asked. "I mean, no shit you've got a job?"
"Yeah." He gave me his card. It looked real. Apparently Doug and Eric
did artwork for some video game manufacturers. Eric rattled off a bunch
of games he designed and I remember that I was very impressed by the
titles. Unfortunately, I can't remember even one of the titles now. I
want to say Tomb Raider. Eric didn't work on that particular game, but
I still want to say Tomb Raider.
It was good to see Doug. I hadn't seen him
for six months. And since he had just been to a Christmas party -- and
was, therefore, toasted -- I decided (me being me) to fuck with him.
"Hey, Doug, do you remember?..."
I loved doing this to Doug. After the word
"remember" I could pretty much make up anything I wanted. He couldn't
remember shit, but he'd pretend to remember and assume he had been in
an alcoholic blackout at the time.
One night at Lovejoy's when he was
thoroughly plastered, we sat at the bar and he told me all about this
trip he had planned for us. We were going to go to New Orleans and work
on a big art project, a wall mural I think. Being plastered myself, it
took me awhile before I realized that he had confused me with another
Jasper -- Jasper the artist. It's understandable. We share the same
unusual name and we both used to work part-time jobs as club doormen.
True, the other Jasper is 6-2 and 250 pounds and I'm 5-7 and 155
pounds, but... I can understand the confusion.
I tried to tell Doug I was Jasper the
musician, not Jasper the artist, but he wasn't buying it. So I went
along with the story, made plans for the New Orleans trip, told him
where I'd meet him and when, and promised to arrange airline tickets
and motel rentals.
I never heard what happened. I figured I
wouldn't bring it up until I was absolutely sure he'd forgotten about
it. Besides, for all I know he took the trip to New Orleans, freaked
out when I didn't show up, got drunk off his ass that night and then
woke up the next morning in a motel bathtub -- packed in ice with a
kidney missing.
Cool.
"Hey, Doug, remember when I flew to
California to get away from the Lovejoy's crowd, only to find the plane
was filled with you and six other Lovejoy's regulars off to Las Vegas?"
(True story.)
"Hey, Doug, remember when I wouldn't let
you in through the back door at Lovejoy's and Andy (the manager) said I
had to let you fuck me up the ass?" (True story. To a point.)
"Hey, Doug, remember the trip to New
Orleans when you lost a kidney painting a wall mural?" (Bald-faced lie.)
Shit. I'm doing the same thing I did that
night at Lovejoy's. I'm supposed to be talking about Will, but I'm off
on a Doug Prince tangent.
Then again, it's not like Will needed my
guidance. He fit in quite nicely at Lovejoy's. And even though he
didn't get laid that night, neither did I.
(Damn! I should have gotten him laid. At
least drunk. Hell, I should have gotten him drunk AND laid, in that
order. I should have taken him to one of my old haunts -- The Midnight
Cowboy -- and set him up with Vanessa or Tiffany or whoever was on duty
that night. Ever see The Last Detail?)
Where was I? Oh yeah... Doug and Eric took
to Will right away. Guess they didn't notice he was drinking coffee.
"Hey, has Jasper shown you around Austin?"
Doug asked. Why does everyone keep asking that? What did they expect me
to do, hide him in a laundry bag?
"Uncle Mike's shown me a few places," Will
said. Seriously, I might have to choke the shit out of him some time.
Five beers and a 30-dollar tab later (had
to buy some friends drinks and a cigar or two, right?), we left
Lovejoy's for the long walk down Sixth Street to our cars.
"I need to sober up. Let's get some pizza."
We bought street pizza at Pizza Manna's
and gobbled it as we took in the strip.
"Too bad we didn't see Daniel Bull," Will
said.
"Yeah," I agreed. "But you can't expect to meet him the first night
out."
For good luck, I made sure to tip the King
of Sixth Street -- Austin's semi-famous street musician. He was parked
in front of Babe's, as usual, slapping out the funk on his solo bass
guitar.
I gave Will a ride to his car (clearly the
most dangerous part of the night) and went home.
Not bad. No boredom, no injuries. Hell,
I'd do that again.
The next morning I get this e-mail from
Will:
-
- Hey, man, I just wanted to once again
express my extreme gratitude for your showing me around town and
introducing me to so many cool people. You and your friends are all
great people. Contrary to what you may believe, meeting and speaking
with all of you tonight has made me want to become an artist more than
ever before.
Holy shit! What have I done?
* * *
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If
you can read anything else into it, you're on your own. Copyright 1999
by Mike Jasper.
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