Jimmy Mason’s was a cookhouse that served as a flop for prostitutes and junkies. It was an eyesore with paint flaking off the front and a couch sitting in the yard, rotting, foam poking out of the tears in the fabric. Two patrolmen leaned against the back porch.
The porch door led into a lime-green kitchen, linoleum peeled and cracked, wallpaper stained brown where it wasn’t stripped off by idle hands fueled by synthetic energy, a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, and a stack of pizza boxes in a corner. Sauce pans with brown residue sat on the gas stove.
The kitchen opened onto a living room with two faded, stained, and torn flower-print couches and a lawn chair facing a television on the floor. An ashtray overflowed next to a disheveled Monopoly board, a half dozen cans, and an empty plastic handle on a coffee table constructed of a sheet of plywood balanced on two cardboard boxes. Pink, green, and yellow money had rained on the party. Empty beer cans had been crunched and stashed throughout the room, and a portable cassette player with a cracked face lay on its back next to the television.
