After that, after he got his new room, things were a little better. At least he was free to pursue his social life unhampered. He'd discovered that he projected a form of melancholy attractive to a certain kind of woman, the semi-artistic, wise-wound kind in large supply at Martha Graham. Generous, caring, idealistic women, Snowman thinks of them now. They had a few scars of their own, they were working on healing. At first Jimmy would rush to their aid: he was tender-hearted, he'd been told, and nothing if not chivalrous. He'd draw out of them their stories of hurt, he'd apply himself to them like a poultice. But soon the process would reverse, and Jimmy would switch from bandager to bandagee. These women would begin to see how fractured he was, they'd want to help him gain perspective on life and access the positive aspects of his own spirituality. They saw him as a creative project: the raw material, Jimmy in his present gloomy form; the end product, a happy Jimmy.
Jimmy let them labour away on him. It cheered them up, it made them feel useful. It was touching, the lengths to which they would go. Would this make him happy? Would this? Well then, how about this? But he took care never to get any less melancholy on a permanent basis. If he were to do that they'd expect a reward of some sort, or a result at least; they'd demand a next step, and then a pledge. But why would he be stupid enough to give up his grey rainy-day allure - the crepuscular essence, the foggy aureole, that had attracted them to him in the first place?
"I'm a lost cause," he would tell them. "I'm emotionally dyslexic." He would also tell them they were beautiful and they turned him on. True enough, no falsehood there, he always meant it. He would also say that any major investment on their part would be wasted on him, he was an emotional landfill site, and they should just enjoy the here and now.
Sooner or later they'd complain that he refused to take things seriously. This, after having begun by saying he needed to lighten up. When their energy flagged at last and the weeping began, he'd tell them he loved them. He took care to do this in a hopeless voice: being loved by him was a poison pill, it was spiritually toxic, it would drag them down to the murky depths where he himself was imprisoned, and it was because he loved them so much that he wanted them out of harm's way, i.e., out of his ruinous life. Some of them saw through it - Grow up, Jimmy! - but on the whole, how potent that was.
He was always sad when they decamped. He disliked the part where they'd get mad at him, he was upset by any woman's anger, but once they'd lost their tempers with him he'd know it was over. He hated being dumped, even though he himself had manoeuvred the event into place. But another woman with intriguing vulnerabilities would happen along shortly. It was a time of simple abundance.
He wasn't lying though, not all the time. He really did love these women, sort of. He really did want to make them feel better. It was just that he had a short attention span.
"You scoundrel," says Snowman out loud. It's a fine word, scoundrel; one of the golden oldies.
They knew about his scandalous mother, of course, these women. Ill winds blow far and find a ready welcome. Snowman is ashamed to remember how he'd used that story - a hint here, a hesitation there. Soon the women would be consoling him, and he'd