Billy
In a spectacular stroke of luck, when Jesse knocked on Billy’s door the following evening, Billy was refining the choreography of Grace’s school dance. Which meant he was dressed in his dance pants and a soft, oversized light blue sweater. And he was even wearing shoes.
Maybe our luck is changing, Billy thought, but not out loud.
He opened the door to find his handsome new neighbor standing with a shiny smile on his face, a bottle of red wine in one hand, and two wine glasses, held by their stems, in the other.
It filled Billy with an odd and hugely unfamiliar feeling. It was good, nonetheless. Though he couldn’t have found the words in that moment, it was a sense of rightness. This is how life should go. You should be nicely dressed in your home when a gentleman knocks on the door to visit you, and he should be holding wine and smiling. And maybe he should say something like, “Is it OK? Because I really should have called first.” And then you can say something like, “Not at all. Do come in. I was just working on some choreography.”
Heaven-like, yet so completely forgotten. Such an ancient piece of history.
“How do you feel about neighbors who drop by unannounced?” Jesse asked, still smiling. “Mild irritation? Irrational hatred? Homicidal rage?”
“Not at all. Do come in. I was just working on some choreography.”
Amazing. It was almost akin to a life.
“What are you choreographing?” Jesse asked, settling himself on Billy’s couch. He set the bottle of wine and the glasses on the table. “I wasn’t sure if you’d have wine glasses. I didn’t want to assume you would. Then again, I didn’t want to assume you wouldn’t. I wrestled with myself a lot about that.”
“I’m working on that dance for Grace to perform at her school.”
Billy stepped smoothly, aware of being witnessed, into his kitchen. He opened the cupboard and took down two of his own wine glasses. They were hand-blown, insanely fragile, with unique stems, no two quite identical. Syncopated, Billy thought. Syncopated for the more sophisticated.
He carried them back into the living room and set them on the coffee table in front of Jesse, who properly admired them.
“What about a corkscrew?”
Billy felt his face flush red. Right up to that moment, he’d been living the dream. Caught up in that image of “this is my life, and it’s just like everybody else’s life.” Of course he had lovely wine glasses. Who doesn’t, save a barbarian? But he had no corkscrew. So now Jesse knew he never used the glasses.
He didn’t answer the question. But, apparently, he didn’t have to. His red face and his silence had given him away.
“Next best thing,” Jesse said, standing and digging a hand down into his jeans pocket. He was wearing lightly faded blue jeans with a white button-down shirt and a tie. A tie! It made Billy proud that someone would put on a tie to come visit him. “Swiss Army knife.”
“Were you a Boy Scout?”
“How did you know?”
“I was only kidding. Actually.”
“I was, though. I really was a Boy Scout. In fact, I pushed it all the way to Eagle Scout. You?”
Billy laughed. Blushed. “Not nearly. Not even. I wasn’t the scouting type. Camping is not my style. It has bugs.”
“It does indeed,” Jesse said, his words followed by the pop of the cork coming free. He held it up as if it were prize game he’d just shot. “And bears. And mosquito bites itch unmercifully. Tell me about Grace and dancing. In fact, tell me about Grace in general. What’s going on between that girl and her mother?”
“Oh,” Billy said. “That.”
He sat on the couch, a foot or so from Jesse’s knee, and accepted a glass of wine. It stirred something in him to hold the insubstantial glass by its stem. He took a sip of Jesse’s wine, feeling the light warmth of it settle into his stomach. So many memories.
“This is lovely,” he said.
“Glad you like it. Had to make up somehow for my rudeness. Barging in like this with no invitation. And I don’t know what you would normally drink.”
“Water,” Billy said, and it made his guest laugh. “I would normally drink water. For budgetary reasons,” he added, so Jesse would not think he was a barbarian. “So, Grace. Her mom has a drug problem. As best I can figure, she had a couple of years in recovery and then fell off the wagon in a big way.”
“So who takes care of Grace?”
“We all do. Rayleen takes her to school, and Felipe picks her up and walks her home, and then she stays with me until Rayleen gets home from work, and then she’s with Rayleen all evening and all night.”
Billy thought he saw a slight change in his guest on that last sentence, a brief flicker in Jesse’s ever-present smile. Nothing worrisome. More as though a thought had pulled him briefly out of the conversation.
“Mrs. Hinman upstairs even makes clothes for Grace on her sewing machine,” Billy added.
Jesse reached up and loosened his tie slightly.
“That’s unusual,” he said.
“I suppose it is, in a place like this.”
“A place like what?”
“Well. You know.”
“Poor and run-down, you mean? No, I think it’s unusual anywhere. But maybe a little less so in a place like this. The people with the least to give always give the most. Haven’t you noticed that?”
“Hmm,” Billy said, because he did not want to admit that he hadn’t spent enough time around actual human beings to gather many observations.
Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat sauntered into the room and rubbed against Jesse’s legs. Jesse reached down and scratched the cat behind her ears.
“So these are all you?” Jesse asked.
At first Billy had no idea what Jesse was referring to. Then he realized Jesse was looking at his photos.
“Oh. Yes. That. My past life.”
“What kind of dancing?”
“Oh, you name it. Classical. Tap. Modern. Jazz. Even some ballet.”
“What made you leave it all behind?” Before Billy could even answer, though, Jesse said, “No, sorry. Never mind. Too soon. That’s for about two bottles of wine down the road, isn’t it?”
“If not ten,” Billy said.
They sipped for a few moments in silence. In fact, it was so quiet that Billy was aware of the sound of Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat’s purring. Meanwhile Billy dove down inside himself, chasing an elusive…something. There was something familiar about this. About Jesse, or drinking wine with Jesse, or the way he loosened his tie. Not that he thought he’d ever met Jesse before. It was not that kind of familiarity. But what kind was it? No matter how hard he chased it, it always managed to turn a corner and disappear, like the name of an actor that’s just at the tip of your tongue.
“So what’s the cat’s name?” Jesse asked, startling him.
Billy wondered if he’d jumped enough to expose his pathologically flimsy nerves.
He laughed. “I’m not sure you even want to know. First, before I tell you that, I have to tell you she’s really not my cat. She’s Grace’s cat. And Grace named her.”
“Ah. Got it. I promise to take that into account.”
“Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yes. The whole thing. It started out as just Mr. Lafferty. But then that got too confusing because there used to be a person by that name. So then she changed it to Mr. Lafferty the Cat.”
“And then she found out it wasn’t a boy cat.”
“Nice to know you’re following along.”
“Wait a sec. Isn’t Mr. Lafferty your neighbor who killed himself in my apartment upstairs?”
“The one and only. This used to be his cat.”
Jesse set down his wine glass and picked up the cat. He held her under her arms, looking right into her face. The cat dangled amiably, still purring.
“So. Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat,” he said, addressing her earnestly. “I do believe you have a story to tell. Care to talk about it?” After a silence, Jesse held the cat snugly to his chest. “That reminds me,” he said, this time to Billy. “I wanted to invite you to come to my apartment for the smudging ceremony. We’re going to have a talk with whatever’s left over of this Mr. Lafferty. The person,” he added quickly, looking down at the cat. “See if we can’t make some kind of peace. The more neighbors who’re willing to come, the better. After all. You knew him. I didn’t. What was he like?”
“He was horrible. He was a bully. And a bigot. But he liked Grace a lot.”
“Good. I’ll see if I can get Grace to come. There should be somebody there who isn’t holding any hard feelings about him. I know you’re not big on going out, I get that—”
“I’ll come,” Billy said quickly. “I can do that.”
Billy looked down at his wine glass, and, to his surprise, saw there was barely a sip left. When had he drunk it? He hadn’t even been aware. But, now that he’d noticed it, he felt that old familiar feeling creep into his muscles. The warm tingling. It was just one glass of wine. But he had barely eaten. And he hadn’t had wine in more than a decade.
He sat still a moment, watching Jesse pet the cat, and chasing that feeling again. Something ancient yet familiar. But why did it keep evading him?
“Oh, you need a refill, neighbor,” Jesse said.
He leaned forward, and the cat jumped off his lap and up on to Billy’s. Jesse had to lean across Billy to some degree to fill his glass, which brought him closer. His blue-jeaned knee just barely brushed Billy’s dance pants. And he smelled good. Fresh. A scent that could have been a hint of cologne, or maybe just his laundry detergent, or it could have been the way Jesse smelled all on his own.
Billy swallowed hard and grabbed on to the feeling that had evaded him.
Of course. Of course.
Attraction of the heart. Nothing base, though. Not that crass, purely physical attraction, but rather one of those romantic admirations that make your heart swell painfully. The kind that make all the colors in the world suddenly brighter, and have you smiling at strangers, and sending wishes of joy to people you hadn’t noticed a moment before. Like love, only newer and less fully formed.
No wonder it took time to pin down. Now that was an ancient memory. No wonder he’d had a hard time recognizing it.
“There,” Jesse said, and sat back. He looked straight into Billy’s eyes. “Better.”
Billy glanced away and drank half the wine in one long gulp.
“I hate to have you thinking I came down here with any ulterior motives,” Jesse said, clearly changing the direction of events. “I really just want to get to know my neighbors. But, while I’m here, I was hoping to ask you a couple of questions about Rayleen. If that doesn’t seem too rude.”
A soft, wiggly line of pain etched its way down between Billy’s ribs and settled in a spot between his stomach and groin. He stared into his wine glass for a moment, then drained it in one more long gulp.
It’s not that he had ever thought otherwise. He wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t that. Still, there was something pathetic in that moment.
And that, Billy thought, is our life. Not that other lovely thing, where we answer the door in a nice outfit and tell the handsome man with the bottle of wine that we’re happy to take a break from our choreography to visit. Nice try, he thought. No, this is our life. The one in which we realize we might be falling in love a split second before the beloved asks if we’ll help fix him up with someone else.
Yeah. That one.
“You OK?” Jesse asked.
“Yes. Fine.”
“I just thought…well…you know her.”
“Yes and no,” Billy said. “I do like Rayleen a lot. But just the other day Grace and I were talking about all the things we don’t know about her.”
“You still know her better than I do.”
“True.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like me.”
“Don’t be silly,” Billy said. “How could anybody not like you?”
Then he flushed, and probably reddened, and looked down into his glass to have someplace to look.
“You’re empty again,” Jesse said.
“I am.”
Billy held his glass out as far as his arm would reach. So Jesse could fill it without leaning in.
“Seems to me there’s something very special about her,” Jesse said. “But don’t get me wrong. I’m not a stalker. If she’s not interested, I don’t intend to push. There’s just a hint of something mixed in her signal. I think. I suppose I could be seeing what I want to see. I could be wrong. It’s happened before.”
Billy breathed in deeply. He realized, in that instant, that he had a chance to potentially draw those two together. Maybe. Eventually. Or, with a few words, he could drive them apart. Definitely. Right now. Forever. All that power rested with him.
“I think there’s some pain from her past,” Billy said. “I shouldn’t even talk about it, because I don’t know. But she’s an unusually good person. If I were you, I’d give her more time.”
Jesse reached over and patted Billy’s knee, causing his whole body and brain to go numb as a style of evasion.
“Thank you, neighbor. I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. When I’ve invited the other neighbors, I’ll let you know when the smudging ceremony is set to take place. Then I’ll offer something more like a formal invitation.”
“You don’t have to go,” Billy wanted to say. That, or the more pathetically direct, “Stay and talk to me.” But all he said was, “Don’t forget your wine glasses. And your Swiss Army corkscrew.”
Jesse laughed as he gathered them up.
“I had a sense about you,” he said. “I’m a good judge of people. And you’re what I call ‘good people.’ I knew that when I first laid eyes on you.”
Billy rose and walked him to the door. All three or four steps of the way. He said nothing.
“Thanks,” Jesse said, his voice soft. “It meant a lot to me, what you said. More than you know.”
Then, before Billy could react, Jesse stepped in and embraced him. Billy stood stiffly, unable to even raise his arms to hug back.
“Back to your choreography. After all, what’s more important than Grace’s big performance? Maybe I’ll go. Is everybody going?”
“I haven’t asked everybody. I’m going to be there.”
As if it were a completely possible thing. As if he weren’t out of his mind in even suggesting such a ridiculously unlikely event.
“Maybe I’ll go,” Jesse said.
Then he let himself out.
“Goodnight, Billy,” he said, from two steps down the hall.
Billy opened his mouth to answer, but no words flowed. Apparently there were none left inside. So instead he just raised one hand in a weak, pathetic little wave.
? ? ?
Billy lay awake all night. Never closed his eyes once. Which is likely the only reason he received no visit from the wings.
? ? ?
“Don’t hold my hand too tightly,” Billy said.
“Why not?” Grace asked. “I’m the only thing keeping you from running away.”
Billy felt Rayleen take his other hand and squeeze it gently.
“Not quite,” she told Grace. “I’ve got him, too.”
They stood in the hall, staring at the front door of the building. Through the glass inset of the door and out into the street. The street!
Billy was dressed in jeans and ridiculously white tennis shoes. He’d had them for a decade, but had never worn them. Not even in the house. Even the soles were still a perfectly untouched white, like a fresh snowfall before anybody wakes up to tramp around in it. He looked down at them disapprovingly, then out at the street again.
Billy felt something rise from his chest and into his throat, and he tried to swallow it back down. But, whatever it was, it remained unaffected by swallowing.
Rayleen asked, “Got your keys?”
Her voice sounded tinny, with a slight echo. Far away. As if Billy were drifting away from the moment. Which he supposed he was.
“Of course I’ve got my keys. I only checked my pocket six times. God. Can you imagine what a disaster that would be? If I went outside and then got locked out?”
“Just checking,” Rayleen said. “Ready?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Seriously? You’re not going?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going. I said I wasn’t ready. And I never will be. So let’s just hurry up and do this thing before I change my mind.”
Rayleen swung the door inward, and a blast of morning air hit Billy in the face.
It reminded him of red wine. Scary. Distantly familiar. Too long forgotten. Nice.
Together, almost as one entity, they stepped out on to the stoop.
“You OK?” Grace asked, peering up at his face.
But Billy’s throat had tightened and his chest had constricted, so it would have been impossible to answer. Instead he gestured forward with his chin.
They stepped out to the stairs and began to descend.
Five concrete steps. Only five. Billy began to calculate how many years it had been since he’d climbed them, either up or down, but he soon realized the answer wouldn’t serve him well, and so changed the subject in his brain.
Over his head, he heard a bird chirping an excited song in a canopy of trees.
“They still have birds in L.A.?” he attempted to ask, but no sound emerged.
He tried to think, to remember. If birds sang in the trees outside his apartment, he would have heard them from inside. Had he? He couldn’t remember positively, but he didn’t think he had. Did that mean he was now alive in a way he had not been until this very moment?
Duh, as Grace would say.
He whipped his head around to see his building, now three buildings down the street from him. He had walked outside, on to the street, and three buildings away while pondering songbirds. But, now that he saw it back there, looking so distant, the panic found him, caught him, knocked the wind out of him. It felt like a vise crushing his chest. His face felt cold, yet he could feel beads of sweat break out on his brow.
He stopped dead.
Rayleen stopped with him, but Grace walked a couple more steps, hit the end of his arm and bounced back.
“What?” she asked.
But Billy couldn’t speak.
“You need to go back?”
“Are you OK?” Rayleen asked.
He shook his head, and found the movement weirdly unsettling. As if he were only barely balanced, and any sudden moves could send him flying.
“You can go back,” Rayleen said. “If you need to.”
“Just a little more, Billy,” Grace whined. “Please? Just down to the corner.”
Billy shook his head again. More carefully this time.
“OK,” Grace said. “Well, that’s OK. You did good for your first time.”
They both let go of his hands at exactly the same time, apparently not thinking he might be a helium balloon, and they might be the only ballast pinning him to the earth. Without the warmth of their hands to ground him, standing on the street three doors down from the safety of his home was unimaginable. What had he been thinking?
He began to run.
It should only have taken a few seconds to reach his own front door again, but instead time stretched out, betraying him. He told himself it could only be an illusion, but it was such a vivid illusion, and so extreme. Still, in what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes, he arrived back at the front door of the building, twisted the knob violently, and tried to push his way through. Instead he bounced off again.
He tried again. It was locked.
A flare of panic struck him, a reaction similar to throwing a bucketful of grease on to a fire that had already been burning well enough to overcome him.
He steadied himself, and pulled in a big, manual breath.
“This door doesn’t lock,” he said out loud, surprised by the return of speech. He must have been doing a good job of calming himself. “We’re just not turning the knob correctly.”
He tried the knob again. No, he realized. There’s really only one correct method for turning a knob. And this door was locked.
He thought about trying to catch up with Rayleen and Grace, but that would involve moving in the wrong direction. He looked for them, to see if they were close enough to hear him if he yelled. But they were nowhere. They were gone. They must have turned a corner, but Billy didn’t know which corner, or which way they would have turned.
The only way out of this would require getting the attention of one of his neighbors inside.
Not Jesse, he thought.
He pounded hard on the glass of the door with the backs of both fists at once.
“Felipe! I’m locked out! Can you come open the door?”
He waited. Nothing.
He looked up at the second floor. Was it Felipe’s apartment that faced the street, the one whose windows he could see from the stoop? Or was that Jesse’s? He didn’t know, because he had never been upstairs.
“Mrs. Hinman!” he screamed.
A few desperate seconds later he saw the third floor window pop open, and Mrs. Hinman’s head poke out.
“My goodness,” she said. “What on earth is all that shouting about?”
“I’m locked out,” Billy said, and hearing his own words out loud forced a few hot tears to flow. He couldn’t hold them in, no matter how hard he tried.
“Well, my goodness. There’s no need to make such a fuss about it. Why didn’t you take your key?”
“I did! I did take my key! To my apartment! This front door doesn’t lock!”
“Well, of course it does, dear, or you wouldn’t be locked out.”
“Since when? Since when does this front door lock?”
“Oh, ten years at least.”
Billy sat down hard on the concrete stoop, his back up against the door. He couldn’t see Mrs. Hinman from that position, which seemed like an improvement.
“Or at least eight or nine,” he heard her say.
All the fight had gone out of him. He pressed his back harder against the door, feeling drained and sick. He still needed to get in, but he only had just so much energy left to do anything about it.
“Can you come down and let me in?” he called, not sure if his volume would even reach her.
“I suppose I could, though the stairs are awfully hard on my knees.”
“Can you please hurry?”
“Now why on earth would you ask me to hurry when I just told you the stairs are hard on my knees?”
Billy squeezed his eyes closed, semi-resigned to being stuck in hell. This is what happens when you go out. This or something else uncontrollable. You leave your safe environment and things just happen, and then what do you do? Well, there’s really not much you can do. You’re stuck. It’s what you get.
The door behind Billy opened in suddenly, spilling him on to his back in the hallway. He looked up to see Jesse standing over him.
“You OK, neighbor?”