Over the next
couple of weeks, Billy tells me and Adam all about the wild love affair that he
and David are having.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he says one morning while
buttering his toast. Adam shoots me a glance and kicks me under the table.
Adam
and I am so happy for him but I become perplexed when Billy won’t introduce him
or even bring him home for us to meet. We are not sure that David even exists.
Billy dances out
of the room eating his toast and I turn to Adam and say “Ow!”
Bill slides into
the kitchen and slips into the seat that was just occupied by Billy. He leans
into Adam and I with his elbow on the table. “Tom and I have met David and he is
just lovely.” Bill tells a story about the night that David and Billy met at
the center.
According to Bill it turns out that he and David almost have a thing
but that Billy swooped in and grabbed David when he was about to make his final
move.
David it turns
out is an ex marine that looks like George Michael from Wham. Adam and I look
at each other.
Bill reminds me
of and looks a lot like Charles Nelson Reilly. Now add severe buck teeth and a bigger
lisp and you have Bill. Bill pours himself a bowl of cereal. He makes a face
when he sniffs the milk in the carton but carries it along with his bowl into
the living room.
Later that
morning after everyone has gone to work; Adam and I climb to the roof. I have
paused from looking for a job. Everywhere I go, they don’t need anyone or they
just hired someone. Today we will spend hours up there getting sun. It’s a
quick trip up through the trapdoor in the roof in Tom’s bedroom at the back of
the house.
We learn to be
quiet, because every day there is someone new sleeping in Tom’s bed. While he is at work, Tom lets his “dates” from
the night before, wake at their leisure.
When Tom is approached randomly by us
about what he does for a job, he skirts around the issue. Every morning he
sneaks out the front door wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase. Even Bill
doesn’t know what he does. Adam and I begin or quest to get an answer and
question everyone.
We even try to follow Tom one day but he becomes wise and
gives us the slip.
Adam and I joke
that Tom aka “Leatherman” is a mild mannered accountant by day but keeps bad
guys in a “Sling” at night. Bill almost kills himself with laughter when he
overhears our scenario. ‘That’s hysterical,” he says sounding like Sylvester
the cat. The spit even sprays off his tongue when he says it.
Bill is gross,
weird, not smart, sad and slightly dumpy. As much as I torture him I regard Bill
as my lifesaver and I find a protective place in my heart for him. I would
never let him know this but I show him in other ways. I am Bills ear when
someone has lead him on all night and then leaves him flat at last call.
This becomes a
nightly conversation. Bill weeps at the foot of my bed while I listen. “I just
want to be loved,” lisps Bill.
To be continued……
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.