Jimmy the Fin
by Quinn Tyler Jackson

Best friend I ever had, Jimmy the Fin. He wasn't no Fin, really - we called him that because he was always sporting this five dollar bill over his shirt pocket. Said it was his lucky fin. First fin he ever won, I guess. Lucky. Jimmy was lucky.

Knew Jimmy since we was kids. Did all the usual stuff together: throwing stones, chasing dogs with sticks, climbing trees, kissing the girls and making them cry. Jimmy had this real way with girls. Lucky. Jimmy was lucky with girls.

He started betting the way we all did - on crap shoots. Jimmy could shake those dice, do his lucky magic, and pull up a seven just when it would win him enough money to take us all for a soda. That's sort of what this story I have to tell is about. Not about dice, no, Jimmy grew out of dice and into poker, like the rest of us. Only so much fun you can have on boxcars, snake eyes, baby needs a new pair of shoes. Come to poker, Jimmy could play any game going, straight faced and tight laced, hours on end. Jimmy had the gift when it came to gambling.

But this is about the time that me and Jimmy was walking for a soda. He's got his fin hanging out of his pocket, his hair all slicked back, looking sharp, really sharp, flipping two bits as we go, whistling Dixie. Out comes Missy Leduc from the drugstore, and Jimmy sees her, follows her with his eyes, and he says to me, "Ain't she something?" Well, he didn't go and say that with his mouth or nothing like that, but his peepers followed her all the way across the street, and I'm thinking that's what he's thinking, just from the look on his face.

"She's something, Jimmy," I says. "You got a thing for her, don't you? I can see it in you."

So we go into the store, and after he buys him and me a soda, he goes over to the till with a bottle of some perfume. Real fine smelling stuff, I guess, but I'm not much on all that. He says to Joe, the clerk, a friend of ours from the old days, "I'll flip you for it." Jimmy was always flipping for stuff.

"Heads, you get the perfume, tails what's in it for me?" says Joe.

Well Jimmy, he hums and he haws, because he ain't got nothing to give Joe. We already spent all his money he had on the soda. But he wants that perfume, so he can give it to Missy. Jimmy, he's lucky, though, and I've seen him go from two bits to a C-note in nothing flat if you hand him some dice or a deck. But coins, they ain't like dice or a deck, you can't really give them your lucky spin, they got this mind of their own, they're in God's hands, so I'm jabbing Jimmy in the arm to get him to come on and he pushes my arm away and says, "Tails, I'll give you my fin."

"That thing ain't been legal tender since Custer's last stand," says Joe. "You were born with that in your pocket, Jimmy, I'd hate to take it away from you. But sure. Tails, you give me your fin. I could use some of your luck."

"How much that perfume stuff cost anyways?" I ask.

"Two dollars," says Joe.

"Jimmy, this just ain't right. Even if that wasn't your lucky fin, that perfume's just a deuce, and you're be giving him a fiver for it?" I look at Joe and says, "Can't you spot him the deuce, Joe?"

Jimmy paid me no mind, tossed up his two bits, and slapped his meat hook down on it. Ain't no way you can back down out of a flip once you've gone and thrown the thing, it just ain't right, so I shut my yap and turn away.

"Tails!" says Joe. He reaches over, pulls out Jimmy's lucky fiver, big smile on his face. "Sorry about that, Jimmy, but a bet's a bet. Tell you what, though," he says to Jimmy. "Take the perfume, on me, it's only fair."

So me and Jimmy walk out of the store, our soda half done, Jimmy with this pretty little bottle for Missy Leduc, and he's looking all butt naked without his lucky fin hanging out of his pocket.

"Why'd you go and put up your lucky fiver on that bet?" I ask. "You ain't never not had your lucky fiver on you, Jimmy."

Now Jimmy the Fin, he can play a game of fours, whores, and one-eyed jacks with a face made of brick, but he looks over at me, grins a kind of confused, rambunctious grin, and says, "Today is my lucky day." Women can do that to a man, you know. Missy Leduc did that to Jimmy, that day.

So he runs down the street, with this sweet smelling bottle of stuff in his hand, like a big kid, chasing after her like he was running from a bull on his tail, and he taps her on the shoulder. Just like that. Nothing fancy, just a little bottle of perfume, a smile, a few words. He had this way with women. They're over there chatting it up, she's all smiles, giggles, and grins, kissing him on the cheek, thanking him I guess. Finally, he comes back to me and asks me if I have any money.

"I'd have paid for the bottle rather than see you lose your fiver to Joe if I had any money, Jimmy, you know that," I says. "I'd have floated you the deuce."

He just gives me a look like I ain't never seen from him before, and shrugs at me.

Nicest guy I ever knew, Jimmy the Fin. Lucky in cards, lucky with women, lucky all around. But he lost his fiver and now here we were, with no soda left in our bottles, and damn it was hot, and he had nothing in his pockets to take Missy Leduc dancing and eating with.

"Georgie," he says.

Now, the only man who ever borrows money from Georgie is looking to get his kneecaps broken, and I tell Jimmy this. He knows it already, but Jimmy, he ain't thinking straight, and so we head for Georgie's place. Five minutes later, he's walking out of the place, flipping them sweet bills like they were his. But I know they ain't his. They are Georgie's bills, not Jimmy's, and if Georgie don't get them back, Jimmy won't be dancing with no woman come the end of the week. But Jimmy was in love, and he was my friend, and friends don't go making no trouble and noise when their friends are in love, so I keep my trap shut.

So Jimmy goes walking down the road, tells me to find something to do while he takes Missy Leduc eating and dancing, and I do like he says and find things to do. It wasn't two days later that I come across Jimmy, all busted and broken.

"I ain't got my luck no more," he says to me.

"You lost it when you lost that lucky fin of yours," I says.

He looks at me, right square in the eye, real sad looking, all cut up, and says, "There just some things you got to do for love."

I pat him on the back, real gentle so I don't hurt him no more, and offer to buy him a soda with the money I made washing windows for Cooperman at the grocery store, and Jimmy comes along. Best friend I ever had, Jimmy the Fin.

Copyright © 2002 Quinn Tyler Jackson
All rights reserved

About the Author

        Quinn Tyler Jackson has been writing since he was twelve. At various stages of his career, he has been an artist's apprentice, antiquarian bookseller's assistant, gas jockey, freelance editor, literary agent, stay-at-home father, and computer software and hardware consultant. Through it all, he has always written poetry and fiction and has usually, when presented with two paths, taken the one that holds the promise of enlightenment, however worn.

        He is a member of Mysterium, Ultranet, the Poetic Genius Society, and he has been a member of the Editors' Association of Canada, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Association for Computing Machinery. He lives in Western Canada with his wife and three children, where he continues to nurture his lifelong fascination with language. You can read more of Mr. Jackson's short stories at his website, JacksonStories.