There’s nowhere to go but down when everyone around you is supporting you. That’s all Jimmy could think as he held the gun to the hooker’s head. Jimmy had gone insane, at least that’s how the entire outside world would classify him.
He didn’t really want her to go down on him, he just wanted to see if she’d do it. For any reason. Because she might recognize him as a celebrity. Because of the gun. Because she wanted to – that would really be something.
Instead, she stared at him, like a deer caught in the headlights. Huh? Does not compute. Was she really this stupid? Or was this her defense mechanism?
Jimmy was at the end of his rope. He was everybody and nobody. Famous, but not as famous as he wanted to be. Comfortable but not wealthy. He lucked out, having landed an iconic role as an English butler on a Disney channel show. But his English accent was fake, and he was amazed that he hadn’t been booted off the show yet. He wasn’t strong-willed enough to quit. After all, times were tough – and always so for actors, it seemed.
Being praised for being a TV butler was a tight space to find himself in. Eleven years on the same damn show. And everyone on it was so, damn nice. It wasn’t like being a real actor, it was like waking up to find out he’d been a grade school teacher who’d just been awarded a life-sentence to tenure. Well fuck that. It was time to jam a pistol into a hooker’s throat and dare her not to go down on him!
Huh? It sounded like what everyone else who might see him right now would say. Huh? Jimmy Doolan did what? Does not compute. Not even tabloid worthy. Didn’t happen, doesn’t make sense. That wasn’t Jimmy. Back to work Jimmy. Hey, see you in the morning, Jimmy. Another great day.
Great for who? Jimmy’s Facebook fans? God, fuck Facebook. Some early 20’s Harvard grad stands on the shoulders of Friendster and MySpace and cracks the code into the collective obligation. Spend your precious time acknowledging friends of the butler to service the network while drinking red wine in your underwear and listening to some nagging wife make demands in the background.
The hooker stared at Jimmy for a moment awhile longer, before finally having the audacity to turn and walk away from him. “I gotta go,” was all she said.
Huh? Jimmy looked down at the gun in his hand. Had he been spared? Was this yet another blessing? Another bullet dodged in his otherwise safe little Hobbit-hole of a life?
Jimmy stood there, watching the hooker walk away from him.
He ran several scenarios through his head but none gave him the confidence to do anything else besides stand there and accept it. Finally he blurted out, “What if I pay you?” The hooker stopped and turned. She looked at him. Glanced around.
“How much you got?” she asked.
Jimmy lowered his gun. “Five hundred,” he lied. “Cash,” he added.
The hooker’s heels clicked on the pavement back toward him. “You got a place?” she asked.
Jimmy’s heart raced. It wasn’t over yet.
“We can get one.”
She stopped a foot from him. “Where?” she asked.
“I just had a gun shoved in your face and now you’re ready to go fuck me in some hotel?”
The hooker just shrugged. Huh?
Jimmy fought the urge to shoot her in the kneecap just to see what she’d do then. He figured it was inevitable she’d scream, call for help, or simply nag him to take her to the hospital and, as before - annoyingly - disconnect events in her head.
So Jimmy shot her in the face.
She dropped quickly. No more confusion. She was dead.
Jimmy was still disappointed things didn’t go better, but he took heart that at least one less stupid person existed in this world.
Jimmy went to work the next day. People noticed he seemed to be in a bad mood. Jimmy felt hopelessly trapped. Killing a hooker didn’t make him feel better.
He was shocked when the police showed up and arrested him in front of everyone – including the live studio audience. TMZ, People, CNN and the world later… Jimmy found himself laying on his back, dying of boredom and self-loathing in a jail cell - where he knew he belonged. He was a little bit thankful toward the system that a misguided son of a bitch like him could be caught; a single handprint from grabbing the hooker's purse, matched against a DUI arrest from his early 20’s and - bingo-bango, there’s your life sentence, bub.
Jimmy glanced over at the poor soul in the cell next to him. The man looked just like him.
Jimmy realized he was staring at himself in a mirror. He didn’t look anything like the butler he played on TV. And the jail looked more like some kind of a hospital.
Jimmy glanced up to see the TV playing above him. The Disney channel was on. A friendly, warm-hearted butler smiled and greeted the other people on the TV.
Huh?, was all Jimmy thought.
