My Best Friend Jimmy

The Fire that Started it all.

"I'll take some of this, this, this, this and I think a little of this." Jimmy said childishly as he moved down the line of food piling burgers, potato salad, coleslaw, and mac and cheese and everything else that there was to eat.

"You are so going to get the shits tonight."

"Am not! I have the Fallon stomach. Nothing can disrupt it!"

"Yeah we'll see about that one!"  I said as I walked over to the campfire where everyone was sitting with Jimmy running to catch up with me. We sat down in the crowd of people all huddled around telling stories about when we were in high school and all the shit that we would pull and get away with. It was nice reliving those memories and not the terrible ones that I remembered. Everyone wanted a chance to talk to Jimmy and I, so it was a little bit stressful, but we really enjoyed getting to know these people. Finally, it was time to see who could tell the funniest story. Jimmy and I both gave each other the same knowing look that we were going to slay at this. Everyone around the fire voted that Jimmy should go first.

As everyone chanted "Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy", he got up and put his hands up in the air and said, "Okay, okay, okay!" and shot me that quick little smile that he always does. He told that damn story that I knew he was going to tell.

"Okay. So back in the days when Jess and I were on SNL with Will Ferrell and Horatio Sanz," everyone immediately started cheering at this point and eventually quieted down. "we went to this bar in the city. Just me, Jess, and Will. We were just sitting there having drinks and bullshitting as we usually do, and we see Horatio walk in with this absolutely gorgeous girl. We saw them sitting there and we knew what we had to do. We sent over a bottle of wine and a note that said, 'I can't help but admire you from across the room. Even though we dated for eight years and we broke up because of your extreme micropenis, I still want you.'." At this point, everyone was just about on the ground rolling in their own piss. Jimmy had a way of telling stories that I could just never master. "As he read it out loud, we saw the girl get up, take her wine, and dump in on him, just like in the fucking movies." He took a break to get his giggles out. He was killing it. "So he gets up after the girl leaves and waddles into the bathroom. So we all get up and follow him into the bathroom but when we get in there, we don't see him. So Will bends down and looks underneath the stalls, and he points at a pair of New Balance sneakers that Horatio always wears. So Jess shushes us and backs us up. She fucking kicks down the door and what the hell do you know. Its not fucking Horatio. Its fucking Mayor Rudolf Guilianni sitting on the shitter. All the sudden, the other door opens and Horatio comes running out just laughing. Turns out he knew it was us the whole time and told that broad to do that to him! Needless to say, we ran and didn't stop until we got back to Will's place where we all cried ourselves to sleep." Literally no one was breathing because we were all laughing the hardest we ever had. He bowed, giggled and sat back down next to me.

I was up next. There was no way in hell that I was going to be able to top that. At least I knew it. I got up and knew exactly what story I was going to tell. I shot a look at Jimmy and he held up his phone, wide-eyed, and it was Nancy. "Go! Go!" I said as he quick got up and ran over to where all the cars were parked so he could have a quite and private place to talk. Great. Now my story telling game was thrown off and I knew exactly how that conversation was going to end.

As I told my story, I kept looking over to where Jimmy was pacing back and forth with his phone up to his ear and chopping the air with his hands. I knew exactly where it was going and I could tell it was going there fast. Every once in a while, he'd run his hand through his hair and pull on it. I was friends with him too long not to know that that was his tell that he was about to cry and he didn't want to. All of the sudden, he stopped dead in his tracks, brought his phone away from his head, looked at it, and threw it against the gravel road.