Incensed Jimmy Marks Softens, But Keeps Curse On Author

Jimmy Marks, Spokane’s Gypsy Mouth, has added a new credential to a dubious career that includes cursing the city and calling off a brief bid for mayor on the advice of his dead father.

Now he’s a literary critic.

Marks was frothing mad over Jack Olsen’s new book. The work of nonfiction explores a gang of California Gypsies who may have seduced and then slowly poisoned a number of wealthy seniors in order to inherit their estates.

Believing Olsen has given Gypsies “a black eye on both sides,” Marks showed up in full battle gear at Olsen’s Saturday night reading at Auntie’s bookstore.

He took a front row seat, wielding an unlit 10-inch Cuban cigar like a war club. On his head a ballcap proclaimed him a Romani (or Gypsy) senator.

Jimmy Marks in a bookstore makes about as much sense as me trying out for the Chicago Bulls.

First off, Marks can’t read.

Second, when I spoke to him earlier in the day, he didn’t even know the title of Olsen’s book.

“Don’t you dare tell me,” he said, pausing a few seconds. “I know. ‘The Killer Gypsies.”’ Try “Hastened to the Grave,” Jimmy.

Marks is merely jumping onto a Gypsy bandwagon that got rolling last month, when Vanity Fair magazine ran an excerpt of “Hastened to the Grave” (St. Martin’s Press, $24.95).

Gypsies across the country - presumably ones who read - were hacked off enough to lay a curse on Olsen and his family. In Gypsy parlance, curses are called “ramyas.”

Marks claimed his appearance at the reading would make the ramya official. But as the senator listened attentively, Olsen, a cagey journalist, worked a spell of his own.

He read from page 46, which chronicles the historic reasons for the Romani culture’s inherent distrust of the non-Gypsy (gaje) world.

For centuries, Gypsies have been slaughtered, tortured, abused and made societal scapegoats. In America, Gypsies were commonly thought of as baby snatchers.

“I doubt they ever kidnapped a child,” observed the gray-bearded Olsen, 73. “They’d have to be crazy to do that. They get in enough trouble just breathing.”

As Olsen spoke, Marks wiped away tears. It was a rare display of emotion from a man who usually tries to shout his enemies down.

“I kinda liked this guy,” Marks told me after Olsen had left the podium. “I came here to chew him out and what I heard was the absolute truth. I had tears in my eyes because it hurts.”

Not that Olsen is off the hook.

“Oh, no,” snapped Marks, coming back to reality. “It still stands.”

According to the Gypsy senator, Olsen must pay him a fee to remove the curse.

And how much would that be? “Never reveal your price,” counseled Marks. “Otherwise you might be lower than he is.”

Marks knows about curses. A dozen years ago, he laid a doozy on the city after police raided his South Hill home looking for stolen goods.

Last year, city officials cried uncle. They paid the Marks clan $1.43 million to call off the curse - and a nasty civil rights lawsuit.

Though the litigation is over, Marks said the curse still stands.

Need proof? John Talbott was elected mayor.

Ever the skeptic, Olsen believes Gypsy hocus-pocus is a load of hokum. That’s fortunate. Had he turned tail and run, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy a whopping good yarn.

“Hastened to the Grave” is seasoned with quirky characters and a plot of murder most foul. It tells the tale of a foxy San Francisco gumshoe who calls herself Rat Dog Dick. After a client dies, she builds a convincing murder case against the Gypsy con artists.

It’s no more a slam against Gypsies than “Son,” Olsen’s book on Spokane South Hill Rapist Kevin Coe, is a slam against white males.

Marks knows this. After presenting Olsen with a hat, he declared the author an honorary Gypsy King. Then they co-signed copies of “Hastened to the Grave” and went out for drinks.

“We’re good buddies now,” said Marks. “He even gave me his personal number at the island.”