The Life and Death of Jesse James

Jesse shoots himself in the stomach.

Who shoots himself in the stomach? If you’re trying to off yourself, it’s one of the worst ways to do it, because you’re going to take about a week to die, and what are the odds of someone not noticing you’re missing that whole time? Especially if you’re so lovable. So it comes as little surprise when we next learn that Jesse has a history of mental imbalance, and that he’s spent time in rooms made of rubber. Hey, he’s had a tough life. In September of 2005, for instance, he was in New Orleans helping Katrina victims, when he had a flashback to the horror he had experienced on 9/11. Apparently, he had gone semicatatonic. Bush’s America will do that to you.

So off he goes to the funny farm again. He loses Internet privileges, but Alice, Jesse’s sister, is in touch with him, and keeps Audrey and Janna up to date. Happily, Audrey is not so far gone that this doesn’t snap her ass back to reality. Or at least, some semblance of it. She decides she’s not moving to Colorado. Sanity returns. Life starts the process of returning to normal. She even takes up romantically with a younger man. You go, girl.

But Audrey keeps in touch with Janna, and then, when he gets out, with Jesse. And of course, they start up again. The young man she can actually touch doesn’t stand a chance. And once again, she’s prepping to leave it all behind and go to Colorado.

And then the next shoe drops. (I’ll warn you now — this beast does not walk like a man. It’s got more than two feet.)

Jesse dies.

Liver cancer. Which, I guess, is why he shot himself in the gut. Or maybe it was the 9/11 trauma. Or the aftereffects of the sexual abuse heaped on him by the drug dealers his father had loaned him out to when he was a kid. There’s so much pain in Jesse’s past, it’s mind-boggling. It’s amazing that he carried the load as long as he did. It would have broken me. Or you.

So Audrey, of course, is devastated. For one shining moment, life was possessed of the kind of magic most people only read about, and now, shockingly, terribly, the magic is gone, and she is alone. She sinks into a terrible funk. Her friends circle the wagons to help her heal.

Round about the time Jesse kacks it, the lovely girl to whom I’ve given my heart unceremoniously dumps me. No warning. Two months after we move in together. There’s a story there too, but that one requires massive embellishment to make interesting, because unlike Audrey’s tale, mine is one you’ve heard before, and it’s always dreary. Mine is normal. Mine is mundane and human and crappy. You know the drill. Suffice to say, I’m hurting too. But Audrey’s pain is much more real because, of course, hers involves La Muerte. I don’t mean to sound cynical. I feel her pain, even though part of me thinks it’s fucking ridiculous.

So, to do my part, I come up with the brilliant idea of taking Audrey to meet Harlan. Aside from being one of her heroes, he’s a charming, funny guy, and a hellaciously entertaining motherfucker. I don’t think I can bring her out of her funk — I’m in one of my own — but Harlan sure can. So I pick her up, and we drive to Harlan’s place. And he does right by her. We have lunch at the home he shares with his lovely wife, Susan, and he’s fully on. Audrey feels a bit lighter. She smiles. And I’m the good friend. I hold hands, I hug, I listen. I do all the things a friend does in these situations, but I have to be honest here — in the back of my mind, I perceive her situation to be analogous to that of the Dungeons & Dragons player who has spent five years developing a Level 12 Elven thief that gets massacred by a Level 14 Orc warrior. Yeah, I feel your pain, but Jesus H. Christ, my heart was broken by a woman I’d actually fucking met, lady!

Whatever. You do what you can with what you’ve got, and this is hardly the time and place to point out that her experience, as real as it feels, is all based on what is, essentially, fantasy. So I go with the flow, and I stand by my friend.

Then, just to add insult to injury, Audrey’s beloved dog Stan dies. He’s very old. It was coming. But only a week after her Elven thief . . . I mean, her one true love croaks. That’s a tough week. (And I do feel genuine sympathy for this one. He was a cool dog. We’d hung. I’d even put him in a short I made. He was a natural performer, and had no star ego, although he did bite me the first time we met. I forgave him ages ago. He is missed.)