Junkman and Other Stories

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Movie bit player, private detective, explorer, journalist. These are
some of the jobs that Jim Christy has held, enabling him to create the
type of picaresque fiction that has been endorsed by authors June
Callwood and Charles Bukowski.

“Picaresque” means “hardcore.” In his fiction, one sides with
the Vancouver down-and-outers who want to assassinate former B.C.
Premier Bill Van Der Zalm, not the lazy, brutal cops who hassle them. In
this atmosphere, one youth tells his buddy that he is “Looking to see
whether I got shit on my dick,” after he anally rapes a third pal’s
girlfriend.

Christy’s rawness should not discourage regular folk. Ordinary people
can appreciate “The Burn,” his tale of a botched robbery, especially
if they are able to identify the “talk show host who reminded him of
the guy used to be on the cover of Mad Magazine.” This reference, and
another to Johnny Carson, places the story between 1982 and 1992.

The author, like his characters, may cut corners. In “A Stand-Up
Guy,” the one-armed barroom B.S. artist may actually be Elvis
Presley’s brother “Nestor Baron.” Fortunately for Christy, this
“believe-it-or-not” cliché is usually found in tales with
supernatural overtones, which are absent here. In “Panama Red,” a
yuppie newspaper cultural editor meets a female punker in a hostile New
Wave bar and the two go off together. Where’s the payoff—in the
sequel?

These stories work on several levels. In “Under a Lucky Star,”
Kenny, the protagonist, picks up an anonymous boy for sex. This act’s
creepiness is heightened by the fact that the man has not seen his
teenage son for years.

Walking on the wild side? Let Jim Christy be your guide.