Psycho Jack Turns 44

(Part 2 of 2)


The Dim Sum turn-table groaned under the mass of Chinese delicacies and we began spinning the thing back and forth, spooning heaps of gooey mystery meats, dumpling shaped dough-like items and rice ensconced noodley wads. Deano won the prize for ‘gluttonous bastard of the show’ by merely exhanging his human scale plate for one of the larger serving dishes and then creating his own mountain of grotes.

In like fashion, Deano eschewed the little fork and began wielding the serving fork like he worked here, Ron and I ate relatively normally. Psycho was doing his routine of crude jokes with a mouth crammed with fish. “So...thna fuggin’ bittch sez, ‘So yewr thna one who pissed in Bill’s sagxaphone!” and at this Jack lets out a huge, prolonged guffaw, head back,his paw slapping the table, food and spittle twisting from his mouth. It doesn’t matter that the joke made little sense, Jack himself is the real punchline. Ron sort of titters, I sputter under my breath and Deano pays no attention whatsoever, preferring to focus on the task at hand.
I made good on my rice quotient and was nearing capacity when Psycho spun the table, stopping it so the plate with the yellowy thing with legs was directly in front of me. “Hey, Man.. ya gotta try some of this shit.. it’s jellied eel!”

Psycho’s face had that kind of gleeful look that a four year old gets when he’s eating mud in front of his mom. I tried to wave it off saying, “ I thought Eels were already pretty much jelly”, but PJ would have none of this and before I could put my Tsingtao back down, he had shoveled some of the gelatinous muck onto my plate.
Another of the things that are descriptive of Psycho Jack is his unfailing generosity. And this is one of the reasons I like to hang with him. I’m not speaking of material things necessarily, although Jack is no slouch in this department either, pulling down a cool 60 plus G’s a year as a Certified Welder (and that’s with more than two months a year just fucking off between jobs), but more to the side of his general nature. He will not let you alone at the dinner table, acting like a sort of deranged grandmother, filling your glass, insisting that you sit ‘on the fuckin’
couch man’.. because it’s the most comfortable place in his house and always walking you to your car whenever you leave.

This kind of behavior seems jarring, coming from a galoot like the man that Psycho appears to be. But there are deep roots in his upbringing. Jack’s Dad was an Army Corps of Engineers lifer and was responsible for large crews of men who constructed major bridges, roads and other public works like Dams, even putting in a stint on the Panama Canal (although my information comes soley from Jack and by nature should be suspected of inequities). He was a huge guy,and sadly, he died last year- in Jacks arms- (which is another amazing story that I will relate in the future), but on one visit to Seattle about eight years ago, I got the chance to meet him.
He looked like a brawler, even at 60 or so, with great sausage fat fingers on ball glove hands, his neck was as big as my waist then. He said little, sitting on my couch, the three of us drinking a beer. Jack beamed at this visitation like it was holy. He was nervous and more bumbling than usual in his Father’s presence and before long, Dad stood, hitched his trousers up and said he had business in town. Jack glowed the rest of that day and revealed tidbits about his Dad that I had not known.

True to fashion though, he never told me his Dad’s first name and I never thought to ask. But he did tell me that shortly after Jack was born, Dad moved off to Thailand, took up with a Thai girl and promptly re-married, leaving Jack’s Mother to raise the infant, soon-to-be hellion by herself. Jack would receive letters as he grew, along with support checks. But to my knowledge, it was cursory information and had no effect on Jack save a longing to truly know his Father. So, by way of default, Psycho was taught right and wrong, good and bad by his Mother.
To say that Mom has made a lasting impression on her wayward boy is understated. Jack as the dichotomite,to this day practices the kind of politeness and decorum that would make Mrs. Manners swoon with praise. For instance, No one that I know is more the doting son than Jack. He has taken care of his Mother since before I knew him, backing away from the extra inning at the ball game, leaving the party early so that he could ‘go see about Mom’. He has set Mom up in a local Assisted-Care facility that’s close to his house so he can bring her home for Holidays and other special occasions. The few times that I have NOT heard Psycho cuss like water is when he’s in the presence of his Mother.

For these things, I have towering respect and it makes me willing to put up with other, less savory aspects of PJ’s bespeckled personality.
He says ‘M’aam’ to the waitresses, and ‘Sir’ to older gentlemen and even though he later lets a few choice ones fly, this kind of verbal social grace seems to pave his way to sweetness. In addition,Jack will not touch his food until every one at the table has been served. Even if someone else at the table has begun to hog away at his meal, Jack will sit patiently until the last plate lands.Most of us ‘Friends Of Jack’ thank the Army for J’s salted vocab, but I can remember when we were in DECA class at Evergreen and Jack would catch hell for cussing in front of our teacher, Mr. Ellis. “ Ahh...Sir.. ahh what the fuck was that thing with the school store inventory again..” and while the class gasped and tittered Mr. Ellis would scold Jack, knowing that it would make no difference at all.
I stared at the rice and jelly on my plate, a wooze of Jack Daniels pushing my brain halves around like a school yard bully.

Ron poured a round and proposed a surprisingly unslurred toast, “ Ahem... I think we can all agree that our Pal Jack here is the ‘Man of Honor’.. yes?..OK..Here’s to Jack, a living example of why Men who never get carried away...should be!” We clapped and pondered what Ron had just said, and Deano pushed his plate away triumphant. “OK..OK.. I GOT ONE!” Psycho honked, and Ron spilled the last of the venom into our besmirched glasses. Psycho stood up with a look in his eyes that made me think that someone else was driving, “I don’t know how old I am because a goat ate the Bible that had my birth certificate in it. The goat lived to be twenty-seven.”
Our bleary party of four chortled together smacking glasses and China Girl whisked through clearing plates. She flitted by, depositing the grub ticket next to me, she smelled of fresh melon or maybe rice candy. I groped for a fortune cookie. Deano grabbed the bill from the tray and leaned over towards me,“I’ll get a third, you and Ron get a third and we’ll pick up the tab for Jack, cool?”

I nodded and belched, thinking that, really, Deano probably ate HALF the food there, but I was too packed with libations to complain.


The fortune cookie disintegrated in my paw and I fumbled the paper out. ‘Psychics will lead dogs to your body’ it said and I must have screwed up my face alarmingly because Jack notices and says, “ What’s up Buddy?..You Ok?” I look over at Ron, who has a similar lemon puss look going. He begins laughing and hands the fortune to Deano, “ That Wasn’t Chicken” Deano cracks, and I realize that there is something rotten in Rat City. Jack grabs his belly and shakes like Santa, slapping his knee and Ron says, “ It’s those stupid fake fortunes again, isn’t it!”
We made for the door and while the three of us stepped into the sobering brisk, I could hear Psycho thanking Vu behind us,” No shit man, it was great, No, No.. really..hey, we’ll be back Vu!.. Your the man!” The glut of food and alcohol had slowed Jack’s vigor to a more manageable level. Deano and Ron were crossing the street diagonally and Jack caught up with me as I stepped into the crosswalk. People were milling about the well-lit storefronts there and I tried to imagine White Center as it was in ‘74. The effects of urban renewal were finally trickling into the now mostly Asian community and I liked the orderly look of the new sidewalks and street lights.

PJ patted me on the back and we fake-punched each other like juveniles while Deano and Ron opened the doors of the Tortilla truck. Now, this is where things got weird in a hurry. And it’s another solid reason why I like to visit Psycho’s World. Nearly without fail, each and every time I hang with Psycho Jack, something will happen that will change the outcome of my day from boring, ‘pay-the-bills-and-let-the-dog-out’ normalcy to ‘Look-Out-Train-Comin’ wild. No sooner had we slammed the Van’s slider door shut, that we heard a rushing, rumbling noise coming from behind and to the right of the back of our position. The noise grew to be enormous and we all craned in different directions to ascertain the source.
A great white Blur roared past the back of the van, and with brutish intent, plowed T-bone style into a small compact car that was crossing the same intersection that we, only seconds before had crossed on foot. The force of impact spun the little car like a top and the Blur continued on, blowing out an aluminum light standard, hitting several more cars parked in Marv’s Broiler lot, then, lurched back onto 16th and blasted away due south. We were


so close that we could hear the tires popping as they hit the curbs and we could smell the burnt rubber and foul smoke. We had jumped out of the Van I think, by the time the big shit diesel of a car had left the scene, and above the moans of the little cars driver and passengers, we could hear the rumbling exhaust and actually still see the hideous white beast that had done this car-nage. It was stopped at the light where 16th crosses 99th street, about 200 yards away, leaning on the rims of it’s shredded tires, idling grossly.
Psycho yells, “ HOLY FUCK! DID YOU GUYS FUCKIN’ SEE THAT SHIT!!!” In the seconds that followed, the four of us bumped our way towards the wreckage. I could see the smoking car as it painfully began to turn the corner towards the Old Round Bank.
It was a '68 Eldorado Coupe, but that was all I could tell from the distance. Psycho turned toward the three of us and said, "Hey,...I got an idea!....let's go bowling!"
. SAR