Chain of
Misfortune
HOMELESS IN A LAND OF
PLENTY
PART 4: BILLY
By Jack Random
[According to
the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the leading causes of homelessness
are: a lack of affordable housing,
job loss, pervasive poverty, mental illness, substance abuse and inadequate
services. This is the fourth and final part of Homeless in a Land of Plenty.]
BILLY
He wasn’t born
an ass. He had to work on it. No, it was a family affair. It takes a village. He came from a long line of bullies,
jerks and fuck-ups. No one in the
Barr family could hold a job for more than six months. They had construction skills, fix-it
and automotive skills but they were asses. No one could stand to be around them for long and they couldn’t
stand to take orders from anyone.
Billy was
working on a personal record at just over three months as a mechanic at the
local cannery. He made a couple of
friends he drank a beer or two with after his shift. He got along with his boss reasonably well. The guy left him pretty much alone as
long as he did his job and he did.
His drinking was under control.
He had a shot of whiskey with his coffee in the morning and that was it
until after work. For once in his
sorry life things were looking up.
His problem
was he needed a woman. There just
weren’t many in his circle. The
women who came around the bars he went to weren’t the kind you developed a
relationship with. They were
one-night only adventures. Billy
didn’t mind that but he really wanted something more.
When he met
Alice he thought she was special.
He liked her. He wanted to
spend time with her, talk with her, get to know her and go out like normal
people. She had a way about
her. She looked into his eyes like
she knew who he was, like she was willing to know, like she was willing to
try. But before he left the bar
one of his buddies pulled him aside.
“I know that
skank,” he said.
“Fuck you,”
replied Billy. He was in no mood
for this shit. His mind was
set. He was taking her home.
“No, man, I
know her. I used to hang out at
this place on the west side. She
was a regular. She’s a skank,
man. She’s a fucking addict.”
Billy stood
there with his mouth open. He
could tell his buddy was as serious as a three-car pile-up. This was no bullshit.
“Okay,
man. Thanks for that.”
Everything
changed at that point. He was
surprised Alice even got in the car with him. He felt like breaking her in two. He was madder at himself than he was at her though. How stupid could he be? If he stopped to think, he could be
pretty fucking stupid. He knew
that. The problem was he allowed
himself to get his hopes up. He
allowed himself to believe that a good woman could fall for him.
“Stupid is as
stupid walks,” his father used to say.
Billy had a hard time with that saying. To him it was just stupid. His father treated his mother like shit. Why she stayed around he could never
figure out. Now he figured he was
a lot like his father. After years
of working to prove he was somebody else, he saw himself walking in his
father’s shoes. He hated his
father. So now he hated
himself.
He didn’t mean
for Alice to tumble over in the street.
It was the rage. The same
rage for which the males of his family were infamous. It built up and exploded like a whistling teapot. When it boiled over there was nothing
anyone could do. He stepped on the
gas and watched her tumble and lose consciousness as she lay quivering in the
street. It felt like it was
happening to someone else. He felt
bad but not bad enough to take responsibility and not bad enough to do
anything. He didn’t call 911. He didn’t do a goddamned thing.
The next day
he skipped work and started drinking early. He was pretty drunk when two cops came to his door in the
early afternoon. He hesitated to
answer the door but his car was out front and he couldn’t think straight.
“Are you
William Barr?”
“Yes, sir.”
His speech was
slurred and his eyes bounced from side to side like a man with something to
hide. The cop speaking to him was
a woman. That surprised him. The male cop stood behind her and tried
to get a glimpse of the room.
“Can we come
in?”
Again he
hesitated. If he had any options
they didn’t come to him. Did they
know what he’d done? Had someone
seen what happened? No way. The cops didn’t care about some skank
whore with a story.
“Sure,
officers.”
When he turned
around he realized the mess he’d created in the course of twenty-four
hours. There were pizza boxes and
cookie packages and assorted trash everywhere you looked. If they could arrest him for being a
pig he laid the groundwork.
“I’m sorry
it’s such a mess.”
“No problem,”
said the woman. “Sometimes we get
distracted. We forget to clean the
house up. It happens.”
“Yeah.”
He sat on the
couch while the cops remained standing.
“What’s up?”
he asked them.
“Where were
you Wednesday evening between six and seven?”
“Six and
seven?” he repeated. He hadn’t
figured out a story. It didn’t
occur to him that he would have to account for his time.
“That’s right,
sir.”
“Uhm, yeah, I
was at O’Brien’s down on Seventh Street.”
“Is that your
story?” the woman cop asked.
He didn’t know
what to say. He felt his face go
flush. He could never play
poker. People could read him like
a cereal box.
“What’s this
about?” he finally sputtered.
The male cop
finally weighed in. “It’s about a
woman who ended up in the hospital because some jerk decided to floor it when
she stepped out of the vehicle.
You like hurting women, Billy?
Is that what gets you off?”
Cameras, Billy
thought. There must have been a
camera. How else would they
know? Still, he decided to play
dumb. “Admit nothing,” his father
always said.
“I don’t know
what you’re talking about.”
“We have it on
video,” the woman cop said. “That
motel has a problem with drug dealers so they set up cameras. They caught the whole thing.”
He could feel
the sweat emerging from his pores, welling on his forehead, revealing the truth
of his guilt and shame.
“It was an
accident,” he said.
“Sure it was,
Billy. Sure it was. Look, we don’t want to drag your ass
down to the station. We don’t want
to book you and throw you in jail.
It’s your lucky day. We
just want you to take responsibility.
We have an agreement drawn up.
You admit no wrong but you agree to pay the woman’s medical bills. How does that sound?”
So he was
right. The cops didn’t care. But the hospital wanted someone to
pay. They had their insurance guy
check it out. Billy shook his head
and signed the papers. In the end
he really had no choice. He could
hire a lawyer and go to trial and he’d probably end up doing the same damn
thing.
He skipped
another day of work and another day after that. When he finally showed up they told him he was fired. They didn’t want his kind around. Sure. Who did? He was
pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
When the mask came off he was gone.
Then the
hospital bill came in. Two
thousand for the ambulance alone.
The total came to over five grand.
He was already in debt and behind on the rent. He maxed his credit cards and destroyed his credit. No one would give him the time no less
a loan. He was down and out. He decided his best course of action
was to sell everything he could for cash and take off. He sold his appliances, his TV, his
sound system and everything else dime to a dollar.
Before he could
get away clean the repo man got his car and the utility company turned off his
power. He spent what little cash
he raised for three days at a cheap motel, a lot of booze and some drugs to
ease his pain. He was done. They kicked him out. He was out on the street without a pot
to piss in. He was homeless.
A homeless
brother took pity on him and told him to go down to the bridge. At least he’d have a place to lay his
weary head.
The bridge
people didn’t care who he was or what he’d done to get there. Most if not all of them had their own
ghosts. After a few days he knew
everyone at the camp. He
apologized to Alice, who shook her head and told him she had her own apologies
to give. She told him about Gary
who told about Louise. Louise
apologized to everyone. That’s the
way she was. They were all equal
under the bridge and their lives turned over. The past was buried and the future was a blur. All that remained was the moment. Survival was a full time gig.
Copyright 2019 Ray Miller
