Billy Summers

Billy writes about the Hot Nine: Taco Bell, George Dinnerstein and Albie Stark, Big Klew, Donk Cashman. He spends one morning writing about how Johnny Capps more or less adopted a bunch of Iraqi kids who came to beg candy and cigarettes and stayed to play baseball. Johnny and Pablo ‘Bigfoot’ Lopez taught them the game. One kid, Zamir, maybe nine or ten, used to chant – ‘He was safe, mothafuckah!’ over and over. Other than ‘Gedda hit’ it seemed to be the only English he had. Somebody would pop out to the shortstop and Zamir, sitting on the bench in his red pants and Snoop Dogg tee and Blue Jays cap, would scream, ‘He was safe, mothafuckah!’ Billy writes about how Clay Briggs, the corpsman they called Pillroller, kept up a lively and pornographic correspondence with five girls back in Sioux City. Tac said he couldn’t understand how such an ugly guy got so much pussy. Donk said it was fictional pussy and Albie Stark said, ‘He was safe, mothafuckah!’ which had nothing to do with the issue of Pill’s lively and pornographic correspondence, but which broke them up every time.

Billy exercises between stints at the laptop: pushups, situps, leg-lifts, squat thrusts. For the first two days he also runs in place, hands held out and down, smacking his palms with his knees. On the third day he suddenly remembers – duh! – that he has the house to himself, and instead of running in place he pelts up and down the stairs to the third floor until he’s out of breath and his pulse is racing along at a hundred and fifty per. He’s not exactly going stir-crazy, not after less than a week, but long spells of sitting and writing aren’t what he’s used to, and these bursts of exercise keep him from getting squirrelly.

Exercise also aids thinking, and on one of his sprints up the stairs Billy has an idea. He can’t believe he hasn’t thought of it before. Billy uses the Jensens’ key to let himself into their apartment. He checks Daphne and Walter (both doing well), then goes into the bedroom. Don is a certain kind of guy, likes his football and NASCAR, likes his BBQ ribs and chicken, likes a few brewskis on Friday night with the boys. A man like that almost certainly has a gun or two.

Billy finds one in the nightstand on Don’s side of the bed. It’s a Ruger GP six-shooter, fully loaded. Beside it is a box of .38 centerfire cartridges. Billy sees no reason to take the gun downstairs; if the cops bust in on him, he’s certainly not going to shoot it out with them. But you never know when a gun might come in handy, and it’s good to know where he can lay his hands on one if the need arises. What need that might be he can’t imagine, but there are many twists and turns as one hops down the bunny trail of life. No one knows better than he does.

He gives Bev’s plants a squirt each with the vaporizer, then trots back downstairs. Outside he can hear the wind picking up, blowing across the vacant lot on the other side of the street. The forecast is for rain and even colder temperatures. ‘You might not believe it,’ the lady weatherperson chirped that morning, ‘but there may actually be some sleet mixed in with it. I guess Mother Nature can’t read the calendar!’

Billy doesn’t care if it rains, sleets, snows, or shits bananas. He’s going to be in this basement apartment no matter what the weather is. The story he’s writing has taken over his life because for the time being it’s the only life he has, and that’s okay.

He’s had two brief communications with Bucky Hanson. Last night he texted Are u ok? to which Bucky responded Y. He texted Has the money been paid? to which Bucky responded, as Billy expected, N. He can’t call Giorgio, even with his burner, because the cops may be up on his phone. And what would he get if he took the risk? Almost certainly a female robot telling him that number is no longer in service. Because Giorgio is no longer in service. Billy is sure of it.

In the alternate world of his story, Billy has reached Operation Phantom Fury in November of 2004. He thinks that part may take ten days, possibly two weeks. When it’s done, when he’s put the story of the Funhouse to rest, he’ll pack up his shit and get out of town. The checkpoints will be gone by then, may be gone already.

He sits at the laptop, looking at where he left off. Two days before the assault commenced, Jamieson ordered Johnny and Pablo to get the baseball kids off the base, and they all understood what that meant: they were going in again, and this time they’d be staying in until the job was done.

Billy remembers Zamir looking back at the gate and giving one final cry of ‘He was safe, mothafuckah!’ Then they were gone for good. All these years later they’d be grown men. If they’re still alive.