I am staring slack-jawed at a huge oil painting of Jimmy Hoffa. He looks nothing like Jack Nicholson.
We are standing in the foyer of Hoffa’s former Teamsters Local 299, a multi-colored brick bunker in downtown Detroit, prepping for a photoshoot with our client. We market prescription drug programs to numerous companies and unions across the country. We need a shot for our annual report, so we’ve piled in a bunch of camera equipment and lights.
The lazy comparison back in the ’90s was to compare Detroit to Beirut, which was always in the news. Abandoned buildings, windowless, tons of graffiti, overgrown lawns, packs of stray dogs, block after tattered block. Gasoline was not in short supply. That’s what we saw driving our Hertz rental van on the way in from the airport. The armed guard at the union hall told us to try to time the streetlights and avoid stopping on the red if possible. It was obvious we were out-of-towners. Keep the map low, too. If you look lost, you look like prey. He said someone stole their security camera off the pole—on the supposed safe side of the barbed wire.
Neta is connecting all the cables, and the lightboxes pop open like squared-off glowing flowers. She also does make-up. I chat quietly with Richard, a quiet man with a loud red beard. He is our art director, and the best graphic designer I’ve ever worked with. We point and wave our arms and try to visualize the shot. Michael, a smooth talker from Dallas, with a flowing mane of salt and pepper hair, is the man behind the camera. He dips in and out and sweeps the air with a light meter. It’s not the best venue for a shoot we all agree, but we’ll make do. We always do.
The big deal is tomorrow when we go to Ford.
I don’t remember the client’s name. It was one of those two first-name combos, like Frank Earl or Andy Francis, something like that. It’s been decades since I thought about this shoot, so I am fuzzy on the details, even as I comb through my diary. I’ve got a couple of Detroit stories from that business trip that I want to get on paper. But I also need some local color about Detroit to round out my stories. I need some fucking shade and depth. I’m writing with one arm tied behind my back.
That’s why I call Jimmy. We met during an online writer’s forum and chat from time to time. Local color? Jimmy owns the entire box of crayons in that regard. He is Detroit, so I punch in his number. For some reason I imagine he has a rotary phone nailed to the wall, surrounded by a bunch of names and phone numbers penciled into the paint. An iPhone offers no romance, and I am a sucker for sentimental nostalgia. My favorite color is patina.
Hello, operator, can you connect me to Klondike 319, please….
To my surprise, Jimmy picks up. He writes fiction 24/7 and pumps out pages like a human woodchipper. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are a churning fog. Non-stop. Visualize Fargo but with words not aerated flesh peppering the horizon. I’m not sure if Jimmy owns long-johns, with an ass flap. I never felt the need to ask.
Jimmy, here.
Hey, it’s David.
What’s up, man?
I explain why I’m calling. I ask a bunch of questions. Jimmy is patient, shares a tidbit here and there. Fills in a blank or two. Hoffa’s home-away-from-home was off Trumbull in an area called Corktown. He knows it well. He was just in Nancy Whiskey’s the other day, right down the street from where I was about thirty years ago. Trippy.
I can feel the story congealing in my head. Jimmy also tells me that we likely had dinner at a local institution called John Muer Seafood, and he’s right. Our client was a regular and we sat center stage and ate fish, fish, and more fish, and washed it down with a sea of 15-year-old single malt scotch. The room was dark and clubby, and the service was flawless and deferential. We closed the meal with a special cocktail, made just for us. It was a heavy concoction infused with licorice and back-room deal-making. They might as well have served it in a hollowed-out cigar.
Hold on for a second, someone’s at the door…
As I wait, my mind drifts back to Mark Fidrych and old Tiger Stadium. I was a Yankee fan growing up, so I watched a lot of “away” games. I was a Ron Guidry guy—Louisiana Lightning. His slider was so wicked it sliced off kneecaps. Then there was Fidrych, that herky-jerky spastic fuck. Talking to the ball, pacing, patting the mound. How could you root against that—or him? I was going to ask Jimmy if he ever saw The Bird pitch live. But I thought better of it. My imagination had already assigned him to a barstool in a small joint near enough the stadium where he could hear the action—as he sat with one eye on the TV and the other on the pool table because he was up next. Jimmy is wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and pencil-thin tie. He might be drinking Canadian Club whisky but it's pretty dark in there, so it's had to tell.
Sorry about that. UPS.
The call drops before I can respond. Damn it.
I was going to ask him Lafayette or American?
So much to discuss but the famous Fidrych vs Yankees Monday Night Baseball showdown was on my 11th birthday, and I was there with my grandfather. Despite the sellout, we parked free at a church in Corktown where he knew someone.