BEST, james marshall

Jessie Williams; 27; straight; local; psychiatrist
When your father is a professional basketball player, then you play basketball. When you’re not very good at it, then you find something else. Despite never being able to live up to his father’s legacy or expectations, with a name like the one he carried, he had to make sure he was damn good at whatever he got into. So how did Dr. James Marshall Best get to where he is now?

Jimmy was born to a loving mother, Helen Summers and a father, Marshall Best that wasn’t really around much. Which would seem odd considering the fact that he was such a huge family man. At least, to his real family. Jimmy’s father was a professional basketball player that had given his mother, the bartender at a strip club, a lot more than an autograph while he was in town playing the Lakers. Even though he was the youngest of 4, Jimmy was raised as an only child. He always knew who his father was, but his mother filled that role for him and the two of them were best friends. Helen, Jimmy’s mom, didn’t keep anything from Jimmy. She told him all of her problems and he would use his little mind to find the best solutions for her which would usually be a hug and a smile. While he watched his mom work hard despite getting a pretty decent sized child support check from his father, it made him want to have better for her and gain acceptance from his dad, despite him only asking him about sports. And so he studied hard and worked even harder. James was a very smart kid and managed to skip the first grade. Despite his father’s talents, he wasn’t really one for sports and his disdain for gym class would turn him off to them completely.

His father would retire from basketball when he was about 15 years old and wanted all of his kids to know one another. He would fly Jimmy out to Boston to meet his 3 sisters. At this point in his life, he was ok with not really knowing that side of the family. Sadly, he really had no intention of getting to know any of them. It was simply too late and they all had their own lives at this point. The sentiment was returned by his half siblings who would make fun of him. Jimmy saw nothing but spoiled women and was unimpressed with them, but would be respectful of his father. The two of them didn’t really have a relationship, but his mother asked him to respect the man. Things didn’t go well and so Jimmy decided that he wouldn’t care to be in his sisters lives. With that bridge burned, he would return to life in Los Angeles and work hard to finish school. Since his birthday was late in the year, he graduated high school at the age of 16.

Jimmy received a full scholarship to attend UCLA and it was there that he would receive his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Being away from his mother for the first time, he would grow a lot during his time at UCLA. He would fall in love, have a pregnancy scare, lose his girlfriend to his best friend, and lose said best friend. He experimented with some things that he wasn’t necessarily proud of, but also make a few mistakes that would shape him to be a better person all around. He would complete his four year degree in three years time by attending summer and winter sessions. Upon completion of his studies there, he was accepted into Harvard Medical School and he would move to Boston. Older now, he was able to be closer to his father and would be more successful with getting to know his sisters now that they were all adults. After he graduated, he would do his residency at Hospitals in Boston, however, he wanted to move back to California to be closer to his mother.

Jimmy would be offered a job at Caulton Asylum, pending his passing of the state exam of course, and he would relocate to Newport Beach, CA. He is brand new and starts his job in June, 2013 and is looking forward to putting that degree he worked so hard for on the wall of his own office. Jimmy also plans to teach a course at the local university to help him pay off this mountain of debt he managed to get under with his graduate studies tuition. He now lives in a nice house, drives a nice car, is single with no kids, and is still young and successful.