Jimbo was tall and impulsive, Stephen short and thoughtful. Jimbo was six feet five inches of solid muscle, one big six-pack, an all-star swimmer on the high school team; Stephen was flabby, five feet five inches tall at best and quite spherical. His classmates called him ‘bowling ball’ or ‘nerd’. Teen-agers can be cruel. Jimbo and Stephen were like a single person, one the body and the other the brain, always linked together. “Hey, Jimbo, great swim the other day; where’s your buddy, Stephen?” asked Linda after their ten o’clock class, a rare opportunity to capture Jimbo’s attention without Stephen hanging around. “Having a snack before lunch, Lin,” answered Jimbo, casually, as he bathed in her smile. Sweet Linda and her tight sweaters; nice Stephen, fat Stephen. The rumor was that Stephen did Jimbo’s math homework, but it was only true some of the time. Jimbo told Stephen great stories about sex and scandal that Stephen used in novels later, when he was a famous writer. Jimbo gained weight after hopping a freight train that cost him a leg in his senior year of high school. Catching rides on freight trains was a terrible habit and, of course, he couldn’t swim competitively anymore. Stephen never missed a day at the hospital during Jimbo’s convalescence. Stephen was thin then, with the help of weight-watchers, even thinner than Jimbo. Stephen majored in English and then went on to receive a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Maryland, where he became a Professor. Jimbo earned his living as a car mechanic after high school.
Time passed. Jimbo married Linda and had a daughter. Stephen married Ruth, a journalist, and also had a daughter. Their daughters were in the same class in high school. Linda and Ruth got along well enough, but it was tense for awhile when Jimbo’s daughter broke out with all those pimples and didn’t make the cheerleaders’ team, while Stephen’s daughter was the star gymnast and Miss Popular. But that blew over, such things often do. Jimbo and Stephen remained close, with three legs and a common spirit between them. Stephen threw a party when Jimbo was promoted to service manager at Wayne’s Auto Shop. Jimbo celebrated with champagne at an expensive restaurant when Stephen’s first novel was published, and said, “Screw it, he’s an asshole,” when a critic didn’t like it. Jimbo took good care of Stephen’s car. Stephen read his fiction to Jimbo before publishing. They laughed together and cried on each other’s shoulders, as the occasions called for, year after year. They loved each other, these lifelong companions, really, that’s all it was, they loved each other, these two men, these buddies.
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