Friday The Thirteenth

I don’t like Friday the 13th. I’m not superstitious. I merely have a dread of bad luck. If I see a large pot hole on the freeway I don’t aim for it. I try to avoid it. That only makes good sense. A bad luck day is a good day to stay home. But a hexed day can get you no matter where you are. And the bad luck does not need to hit you personally. It can be a friend. Or even an old acquaintance. And suddenly you’ve got bad luck too. you’re stained by your friend’s misfortune. Friday the 13th is bad. A bad luck day…

I guess I am superstitious.

Okay, so it’s Friday the 13th. I’m getting in my car. A hard rain is approaching. My phone rings. I ignore it. The text says, “Jimmy Craven here.”

I haven’t talked to this guy in years. I used to run around with him back when I lived in The City. 35 years ago. He owned the European Guest House, a youth hostel on Minna Street. We used to go to bars and pick up women. I liked him. He was a go-getter. But not a suit and tie guy. He found a way to make a fortune and still be a fringe dweller. I admired him for that. Still, ambition sets your head on a certain way. Every move he made had an angle. Which is okay, I guess. I admired his animal instinct.

Shit…I’m sure he’s still a go getter.

We ran around together back in 88 and 89. The late 80s were a great time for clubbing. He liked me because I had a way back then of attracting women. In that respect I was his lure. That’s okay. He was always willing to pay for drinks. Like I said, I liked him. He knew how to have fun. We were young. That’s right. Mid thirties is young.

I had some fun times back then. Hanging out in The City and hitting the clubs with Jimmy Craven. I’m sure I had a lot of fun. I don’t remember much of it. If I mull over those days, stuff will come to me.

But what’s the point of that?

Anyway, I called him right back.

“Well, I’ll be damned, Jimmy Craven. How you doing?”

“I’m doing great.”

“Still got that Hotel in Flagstaff?”

“Oh yeah.”

He sold the European Guest House I think in 90 and bought a Large Old Historic Hotel in Flagstaff. Clark Gable and Bob Hope and BOGART and many other celebrities from the golden age slept there. He upgraded the place with a live music venue and three cocktail lounges.

So how you doing?” he asked.

“I wrote a novel last year.”

“Wow, that’s great.”

“Yeah…”

“Was that the one you were always tearing up and starting over?”

“No, but this one’s published. I got it on Amazon.”

“No shit! Can I read it?”

“You sure can. Cost you 12 bucks.”

“I’ll buy it!”

I’m sneezing on the phone.

He tells me how he married a Ukrainian woman and she cooks this beet soup that will sure as hell dry up my Cold.

“Send me the recipe.”

“I’ll do it.”

Then he gets to what I at first suspected was the point of his call.

“Remember that guy Buffo used to work for me?”

“Of course I remember him.”

“He hung himself.”

“No way.”

“He hung himself. The guy hung himself.“

Aw Man. I remember him so well.”

Maybe the reason I remember him so well is because he was the exact opposite of Jimmy Craven. He had zero ambition.

“He was trying to get some social security but with no work record he had nothing on the books. They wouldn’t give him a dime. That was enough to push him over the edge. I guess if you never worked you don’t exist.”

“But he worked for you.”

“He never declared his earnings.”

“Oh, yeah…that’s right.”

“His whole life he worked under the table.”

“Don’t they have poor pay for old people, long as you’re a citizen?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Shit.”

“All I know he was depressed and he hung himself.“

On Facebook You Never Die

So now I’m thinking about him. I remember his real name, James Bulsa. I remember he friend requested me on Facebook way back when. I never responded to his request. I’m bad on Facebook. I never go on there. Until lately.

He’s still on there.

The friend request message he sent me ten years ago is still on there.

hi don I hope you are well jimbo told me you are good in california I really look forward to talk to you. I live in kentucky, am a farmer since 2005 I work with cows, horses, and grow big gardens out here, secluded but peaceful, I grow tomatoes,potatoes,corn,peppersetc. this summers yield has been excellent. write me back you were always such good friend and made me laugh alot! jimmy bulsa ( chevron coupon salesman)

8/9/2013

The photo he updated around the same time is still on there.

He’s still on there.

On FACEBOOK you never die….

Not much about him. Lived in Cleveland Ohio. Grew up in Palma, Ohio. Went to Normandy HIgh School. Class of 74. Was born in 1956.

Found a photo of his family:

I found a recent photo. Fairly recent:

This photo is under Jim Bulsa, a more recent home page (2018) with 14 friends. His original home page, under James Michael Bulsa (with the photo of him posing with a horse) is from 2012. As James Michael Bulsa he has 44 friends….

Facebook is cranky like an old car

So I’m scrolling around looking at his friends. He’s got quite a few with Hari Krishna names. That’s where you become a Krishna and give yourself a Hindu or Indian name. I’m not up on the practice because I’m not a Krishna. I just know they do it. They assume a brand new identity.

Trust me, that’s what they do.

So I’m scrolling back and forth between his home pages. I’m trying to find out if any of his friends mentioned his death. I’m thinking, what’s the point of this? I’m thinking this when SHAZZAM! new information pops up. An announcement from his sister that Jim passed away on July 20. That’s six months ago. Several friends offer condolence posts.

Why did this just pop up?

It wasn’t there a minute ago. Information from six months ago pops in and out like a cranky piston on a beat up old car.

That’s Facebook.

Anyway, now I know when he died.

Turns out Jim Craven didn’t call me specifically to share Buffo’s suicide. He called just to say hi. And while he’s saying hi, Buffo’s untimely death suddenly occurs to him. That makes sense. The last time I talked to Jim Craven was five or six years ago. Buffo was one of the handful of people Craven and I knew in common.

I’m thinking, why am I bothering with this?

I never accepted James Michael Bulsa’s friend request

I’m feeling like shit I never accepted his friend request.

There’s no reason for me to feel like shit.

Is there?

Here’s the thing. I’m not normally a callous person. Granted, I can appear callous. But if somebody, a friend, needs to communicate, I’ll more often than not be there for that person. It’s hard to ignore people in the flesh. But on the computer, on Facebook…I almost never accept a friend request. Maybe because I don’t take Facebook seriously. I don’t know why. Everybody’s on it. The dead are on it. You remain on it for eternity…

Now I’m mulling over my Jim Craven days

Back then, my mid to late thirties, I ran a coupon business. I printed and sold Auto Mechanic Coupon Packets door-to-door. It was an easy way to make money without working too hard. I printed the packets for 25 cents a packet and sold them for thirty five bucks a piece. You can see the profit margin.

The coupon packet was really just a sheet of paper but when you folded it up and stuck it in a hard envelope it suddenly acquired bulk. The auto mechanic offered the free service coupons as loss leaders. I kept whatever I sold the packets for. Sometimes I’d sell a packet for ten bucks just to make a quick sale. Other times I stuck to the full price and offered two packets for the price of one. Often I ended the day with a couple dozen sales in my pocket.

It was like printing money.

And as long as I put in the time cold calling I always made money.

It didn’t take me too long to figure out I could hire other people to do my selling for me. I was a go getting of sorts in those days. Jimmy Craven had a wealth of manpower at the European Guest House. I hired a few of the kids that were staying at his hostel. Put them on the street. Payed them a commission on what they sold. Most were the Euro Trash that drifted in and stayed a couple weeks or so. They were energetic but the language often defeated them. Others, more reliable, were the part timers that did handy work for Jim Craven. Kids from Houston, Memphis, Cleveland, etc….

One of those was Jimmy Bulsa.

I don’t know why Craven called him Buffo. That was his nick name. It stuck because all the other roust-a-bouts called him Buffo. I never took him seriously because nobody else did. I liked him. I remember that much. I liked the fact that he had less ambition that a turnip…and yet he hustled. He wasn’t afraid to get in front of people.

That’s what I admired about him!

Let me try and remember him

I remember vividly this:

Back then. 1988. 1989. Around that time. When he was in his early thirties, Buffo bore a striking resemblance to Micky Rourke.

He was scruffy around the edges but with the dimples and the engaging smile. I remembered this because I often commented on it. He’d laugh. He got off on the fact that he looked like Micky Rourke. Anyway, it definitely helped when he got in front of people.

And yet, I don’t remember him being much of a salesman. The times he banged doors for me were few. Maybe he stopped working for me because I stopped hauling kids around like a modern day Fagan. I got tired of the complaints. My phone rang off the hook with irate customers demanding refunds. Sometimes I’d send them a refund. More often I ignored their demands. Ultimately the Mechanics would refund the customers and I would be compelled to reimburse them. More than once I lost contracts over the mountain of complaints. They became the bane of my existence. The only way to keep the complaints down was to do all the selling myself. I knew how to ease in the disclaimers…how to make a sale without misrepresenting the product. There’s an art to it. But these kids, the best ones, the ones that turned in sales, they simply put the customer under the Ether with damned lies.

And people often woke up irate.

So I stopped hauling kids around. My go getter days ended around the time I bought my first boat and suddenly my rent was drastically slashed…

I just mulled a memory

Jim Bulsa stopped selling for me but he kept selling stuff door-to-door. One time I encountered him on Haight Street, mixing with the tourist crowds. He was going business-to-business, selling jars of vitamins. If you ask me, that’s a real tough sell. He pitched business owners but he also confronted pedestrians. I get a lonely feeling remembering that. He also sold music cassettes. I ran into him more than once on rainy days out front of the DMV on Fell street. He stood under the entry with a large flat of these tapes. He offered a tape for a donation. He offered me a tape. I’m sure I declined. I suspect these were hard times for Buffo. I wish I had bought one of his tapes. Maybe I did.

I do remember he offered me a tape for free. I think it was a Elton John tape, with that song BLUE EYES on it. Yeah, that was the one.

The San Francisco Temple

Those Hindi names. Or Indian names. The names the Hari Krishna people give themselves when they’ve been reborn. I don’t know if Jim Bulsa had a Hindi name. But he was a Krishna. I remember now. I remember him telling me how he had been a Krishna.

“No shit…You were a Krishna?”

“That’s right.”

“You wore the robes and beads and begged at the airport?”

He laughed and nodded. “That’s right.”

“You shaved your head and painted your forehead?”

“I did.”

He explained to me what it was about. How it worked. How you became a Krishna and how you lived. I remember asking him a lot of questions because I was curious. But I can’t remember the questions. This was thirty five years ago and he was not a major figure in my life. Even the shared stuff from major figures in my life I don’t remember.

So how can you expect me to remember?

I have this vague memory of being on the street with Buffo. Maybe we were out selling my coupon packets. We were done for the day. We passed a Hari Krishna house. I think it was on Dolores street. A large Edwardian, festooned with banners, and crowding the balcony a collection of robed figures with the tell tale shaved heads.

“I’m going in there,” Buffo said. “You want to come along?”

I declined.

“They serve free lunch.”

I still declined.

I remember watching him climb the stairs to the entry. He was on familiar ground. He had lived at the San Diego Temple…or whatever they call it. This was the same deal, basically. He was completely at ease going in there. Being among the Hari Krishna’s. A pack of castaways willingly transformed into oddities. Copies of a strange little bald-headed holy man. He was at ease with them.

Because he had been one.

But something happened and he fell out. He backslid. Still, his affinity for them remained. Those converts were somehow his people. I remember thinking, he’s probably better off with them than out here with the rest of us. Did I really think that?

I’m thinking it now.

And maybe that farm in Kentucky were he grew vegetables. Maybe, just maybe, that was a Hari Krishna retreat. I just googled it and, yes, there is a Hari Krishna Farm in Kentucky. I imagine him living there for a spell. Several years even. Happy to be there. Until he fell out again…

Could be he’s among those strange souls now.

Finally at peace.