This is a story about Billy. Billy wasn’t his real name.. but that’s not important. I’ll call him Billy anyway.. after the time-irreverent protagonist who suffered a similar yet vastly different predicament in one of Billy’s favorite novels. I can talk of Billy’s life with reasonable accuracy for as long as I knew him here. Before his disappearance that is. After that, a lot of it is conjecture but I will ascertain that I am reasonably certain of the facts. How true the facts themselves are, well, I’m not in a position to decide. This is the story as I know and believe. And let’s face it, it’s a good story. This is Billy’s tale. Wild Billy’s Circus Story even, if you’re into that sort of music. This is a tale about finding your calling. This is a tale about being yourself. I think.
Billy was a moderately talented young man, growing up near downtown Los Angeles.. somewhere between Alameda and Jefferson, the exact geographical details aren’t of overarching importance. Billy grew up in a working class family, his father a high-school teacher and his mother, well, an occasionally employed secretary. It was a quiet home, and a quiet childhood, devoid of any undue excitement and unpleasantness. A very unremarkable existence if you will. Billy never went out much, the brilliant Southern California skies never held much fascination for him. So he stayed indoors, and read. He read whatever he could find. His father being an English teacher helped somewhat. There were always a few F. Scott Fitzgeralds and Raymond Chandlers lying around the house… and Billy developed the habit of reading voraciously from a reasonably early age. The last time I visited their house it really did seem like there were books everywhere.. open, closed, new, used, hardback, soft cover.. pulp, non-fiction.. yellow, white, off-white and burnt black from that time a 4th of July firework snuck into their living room through a half-open window. So yes, Billy read, a lot. He started writing too, a detective ‘novel’ when he was about 11 years old, filled with cardboard characters and long-legged ladies, and lots and lots of gunshots, all in all quite a good achievement. And if I were to pinpoint a point in time when Billy’s troubles began, I’d probably say that this was it.
For Billy, you see, had an adoring family. And they encouraged everything he ever did. They had never had the opportunity to make much of themselves, but in Billy they saw promise, and they never ceased to encourage him. And the ‘novel’ was an achievement worthy of considerable adulation, or at any rate, that’s what Billy’s parents felt. His father, gushing with joy at his only son’s ‘prodigious talent’, talked about Billy’s incredible achievements to anyone and everyone who gave half an indication of interest. Soon, Billy Sr.’s colleagues and students knew of Billy, and the information started percolating through the neighborhood (Billy’s mother, though by nature less effusive still couldn’t help the natural instinct of parental pride). Billy beamed, and the neighbor kids started resenting him, as you did any kid who your parents asked you to aspire to when you were young. Billy continued to read and write at a decent rate, and his talent grew, at least to the eyes of his immediate (and thus far only) audience. High school came by soon enough, and Billy’s teachers always seemed to single him out for praise in English class. And on top of all this, his mother bought him a guitar for his thirteenth birthday, and soon Billy discovered he wasn’t half-bad at this either. I don’t really blame him for his subsequent swollen-headedness. It happens so often that kids feel neglected when their parents don’t support them enough. One rarely pauses to think what could happen if the converse were true. What if your parents were the most supportive parents in the world? Wonderful, caring people who also, had entire and complete faith in your abilities and your talent. You would form a very bloated sense of self-importance, and this is precisely happened to our Billy.
Ah Poor Billy. It’s not like he wasn’t talented. Au contraire, he certainly had the certain spark of something that distinguishes the few from the hoi polloi. But the world is a large and competitive place. Billy could sing, but there would be boys in the school choir who could sing better than him. He could write, maybe even better than anyone in his high school, but that was such a small cross-section of humanity. He could play his guitar too, and his grades were excellent, but the same arguments applied. There would inevitably be the occasional newspaper article about a child prodigy somewhere, achieving things higher and faster than Billy. And Billy would feel a wave of jealousy washing over him, to be got rid of by finding excuses for the other person’s success.. they had more opportunities.. they probably weren’t even that good.. all the things we all do from time to time, except this was Billy’s life.. and being perceived as good soon started becoming overwhelmingly important for him. He always loved displaying his considerable talents, but whenever he came across something like this. An individual who may have been (shudder) better than him.. his show-offy tendencies went through the roof. Playing in the school band, he would break out into an unscripted guitar solo, throwing off the rhythm of the song, he would hijack his English class to read them his latest poetry.. and the teachers were mostly okay with that.. it was, after all, Billy. Another repercussion of his insecurities was his meanness to those he perceived as inferior to him, and this was a considerably large number of people. I remember being in Math class with him once in junior year of high school (yes, that’s how I knew Billy.. though no one ever really knew Billy.. Billy was far too good for that).. and this other kid, Robby, went up to the board to do some basic algebra problem and floundered. And Mr. Thompson, the teacher, tried to help him out, and Robby was still stuck. So the teacher asked for a volunteer. And Billy just sniggered, and went up to the board and did the problem himself, and looked at Robby as he wrote on the chalkboard. And he sniggered as he walked back to his desk, barely acknowledging the teacher’s “Well done Billy”, barely even acknowledging Robby’s existence except as a source of considerable humor. He would do things like that a lot. More and more as we got towards the end of high school, and our horizons started broadening beyond the few blocks where we had grown up. And Billy discovered more and more people who could, perhaps, be more talented than him. And he began to become more of a show-off, and he began to become more bitter, and mean. As you can probably surmise, he didn’t have too many friends. Always the odd hangers-on, the losers to whom he represented everything that they could never be. But never a real group of friends, the kind we take from high school into life and end up growing up and growing old with. But that’s not very surprising now is it? Billy could be a real dick sometimes.
And we grew up.. gradually.. surely.. into the world beyond our little childhood domains. Everyone started doing their own thing now.. even more so than during high-school. Billy got into the Creative Writing program at UCLA, with a minor in Applied Math, and he thought that was the dope. Vindication for all the years of being better than everyone else. And it was quite impressive, frankly speaking. I was doing my own thing at Cal State LA. I’d have liked to study Literature but Journalism seemed like an easier way to make some money, and plus I didn’t have Billy’s innate writing abilities. We stayed in touch occasionally. I never could make up my mind about whether I liked him or not He was alright, he was well-read and he was interesting, but he just wasn’t a very pleasant person. Nor was he very happy. I was about to say that Billy wasn’t destined to be happy, but as it turns out, Destiny has its own way of proving such statements incorrect. But the time about which I’m now talking about certainly didn’t find Billy a very content individual. He was always quite good, but as his world expanded, he rapidly started discovering that there were other people just as talented, if not better, at every field that Billy prided himself on being good at. He just couldn’t land that scholarship, or that publishing contract, or that hot girl (yes Billy prided himself on his attractiveness too. If he acknowledged ay physical shortcomings he always felt certain that his immense talents would win any girl over. Reality failed to subscribe to his world view). And this continued.. through undergrad to grad school. I was working as an underpaid reporter for an online news site then.. and Billy went to USC for the creative writing Masters. We met for a drink once every few months or so… as I said I found him interesting enough.. as a person and as a conversationalist.. but never did invite him out with my friends. Billy was no fun. Grumpy old man Billy, all of 23 years old then. We were sitting under dim lights at Hank’s one night, one of my more preferred dive bars in the city, dark and introspective with a great jukebox and an impassive stone angel on the opposite pavement. Billy had a couple of Newcastles in him, and he was talking about this girl in his class who had landed this publishing contract.
Billy was a moderately talented young man, growing up near downtown Los Angeles.. somewhere between Alameda and Jefferson, the exact geographical details aren’t of overarching importance. Billy grew up in a working class family, his father a high-school teacher and his mother, well, an occasionally employed secretary. It was a quiet home, and a quiet childhood, devoid of any undue excitement and unpleasantness. A very unremarkable existence if you will. Billy never went out much, the brilliant Southern California skies never held much fascination for him. So he stayed indoors, and read. He read whatever he could find. His father being an English teacher helped somewhat. There were always a few F. Scott Fitzgeralds and Raymond Chandlers lying around the house… and Billy developed the habit of reading voraciously from a reasonably early age. The last time I visited their house it really did seem like there were books everywhere.. open, closed, new, used, hardback, soft cover.. pulp, non-fiction.. yellow, white, off-white and burnt black from that time a 4th of July firework snuck into their living room through a half-open window. So yes, Billy read, a lot. He started writing too, a detective ‘novel’ when he was about 11 years old, filled with cardboard characters and long-legged ladies, and lots and lots of gunshots, all in all quite a good achievement. And if I were to pinpoint a point in time when Billy’s troubles began, I’d probably say that this was it.
For Billy, you see, had an adoring family. And they encouraged everything he ever did. They had never had the opportunity to make much of themselves, but in Billy they saw promise, and they never ceased to encourage him. And the ‘novel’ was an achievement worthy of considerable adulation, or at any rate, that’s what Billy’s parents felt. His father, gushing with joy at his only son’s ‘prodigious talent’, talked about Billy’s incredible achievements to anyone and everyone who gave half an indication of interest. Soon, Billy Sr.’s colleagues and students knew of Billy, and the information started percolating through the neighborhood (Billy’s mother, though by nature less effusive still couldn’t help the natural instinct of parental pride). Billy beamed, and the neighbor kids started resenting him, as you did any kid who your parents asked you to aspire to when you were young. Billy continued to read and write at a decent rate, and his talent grew, at least to the eyes of his immediate (and thus far only) audience. High school came by soon enough, and Billy’s teachers always seemed to single him out for praise in English class. And on top of all this, his mother bought him a guitar for his thirteenth birthday, and soon Billy discovered he wasn’t half-bad at this either. I don’t really blame him for his subsequent swollen-headedness. It happens so often that kids feel neglected when their parents don’t support them enough. One rarely pauses to think what could happen if the converse were true. What if your parents were the most supportive parents in the world? Wonderful, caring people who also, had entire and complete faith in your abilities and your talent. You would form a very bloated sense of self-importance, and this is precisely happened to our Billy.
Ah Poor Billy. It’s not like he wasn’t talented. Au contraire, he certainly had the certain spark of something that distinguishes the few from the hoi polloi. But the world is a large and competitive place. Billy could sing, but there would be boys in the school choir who could sing better than him. He could write, maybe even better than anyone in his high school, but that was such a small cross-section of humanity. He could play his guitar too, and his grades were excellent, but the same arguments applied. There would inevitably be the occasional newspaper article about a child prodigy somewhere, achieving things higher and faster than Billy. And Billy would feel a wave of jealousy washing over him, to be got rid of by finding excuses for the other person’s success.. they had more opportunities.. they probably weren’t even that good.. all the things we all do from time to time, except this was Billy’s life.. and being perceived as good soon started becoming overwhelmingly important for him. He always loved displaying his considerable talents, but whenever he came across something like this. An individual who may have been (shudder) better than him.. his show-offy tendencies went through the roof. Playing in the school band, he would break out into an unscripted guitar solo, throwing off the rhythm of the song, he would hijack his English class to read them his latest poetry.. and the teachers were mostly okay with that.. it was, after all, Billy. Another repercussion of his insecurities was his meanness to those he perceived as inferior to him, and this was a considerably large number of people. I remember being in Math class with him once in junior year of high school (yes, that’s how I knew Billy.. though no one ever really knew Billy.. Billy was far too good for that).. and this other kid, Robby, went up to the board to do some basic algebra problem and floundered. And Mr. Thompson, the teacher, tried to help him out, and Robby was still stuck. So the teacher asked for a volunteer. And Billy just sniggered, and went up to the board and did the problem himself, and looked at Robby as he wrote on the chalkboard. And he sniggered as he walked back to his desk, barely acknowledging the teacher’s “Well done Billy”, barely even acknowledging Robby’s existence except as a source of considerable humor. He would do things like that a lot. More and more as we got towards the end of high school, and our horizons started broadening beyond the few blocks where we had grown up. And Billy discovered more and more people who could, perhaps, be more talented than him. And he began to become more of a show-off, and he began to become more bitter, and mean. As you can probably surmise, he didn’t have too many friends. Always the odd hangers-on, the losers to whom he represented everything that they could never be. But never a real group of friends, the kind we take from high school into life and end up growing up and growing old with. But that’s not very surprising now is it? Billy could be a real dick sometimes.
And we grew up.. gradually.. surely.. into the world beyond our little childhood domains. Everyone started doing their own thing now.. even more so than during high-school. Billy got into the Creative Writing program at UCLA, with a minor in Applied Math, and he thought that was the dope. Vindication for all the years of being better than everyone else. And it was quite impressive, frankly speaking. I was doing my own thing at Cal State LA. I’d have liked to study Literature but Journalism seemed like an easier way to make some money, and plus I didn’t have Billy’s innate writing abilities. We stayed in touch occasionally. I never could make up my mind about whether I liked him or not He was alright, he was well-read and he was interesting, but he just wasn’t a very pleasant person. Nor was he very happy. I was about to say that Billy wasn’t destined to be happy, but as it turns out, Destiny has its own way of proving such statements incorrect. But the time about which I’m now talking about certainly didn’t find Billy a very content individual. He was always quite good, but as his world expanded, he rapidly started discovering that there were other people just as talented, if not better, at every field that Billy prided himself on being good at. He just couldn’t land that scholarship, or that publishing contract, or that hot girl (yes Billy prided himself on his attractiveness too. If he acknowledged ay physical shortcomings he always felt certain that his immense talents would win any girl over. Reality failed to subscribe to his world view). And this continued.. through undergrad to grad school. I was working as an underpaid reporter for an online news site then.. and Billy went to USC for the creative writing Masters. We met for a drink once every few months or so… as I said I found him interesting enough.. as a person and as a conversationalist.. but never did invite him out with my friends. Billy was no fun. Grumpy old man Billy, all of 23 years old then. We were sitting under dim lights at Hank’s one night, one of my more preferred dive bars in the city, dark and introspective with a great jukebox and an impassive stone angel on the opposite pavement. Billy had a couple of Newcastles in him, and he was talking about this girl in his class who had landed this publishing contract.
“I’ve read her stuff.. she isn’t amazing.. but she knows what the audience wants.. I can’t write like that”
And I nodded in assent.. same old Billy.
We lost touch gradually, as often happens. I never heard from Billy, and I never heard of him either, the next big name under the Hollywood spotlights, the next hottest screenwriter, writing smooth modern comedy with a heavy dose of irony. No doubt he was trying, couldn’t ever fault Billy for not trying, but sometimes things just don’t work out that way I guess. He was talented enough to always eke out a living, do better than the average trier.. but maybe he just wasn’t good enough to be happy. Or perhaps his self-expectations just never approached anything approximating reality. Occasionally he popped up on my Facebook feed, some photos from another open mic night he did in some Hollywood cafe, or some poetry he got published in an online journal. As I said, not unimpressive, just not the big-time fame that he always desperately felt he deserved. One of my articles for the website went viral and my work was all over the social networking globosphere for a couple of days.. before I slipped into anonymity. It was a good break for my career, and it got me back in touch with Billy. He sent me a congratulatory text, “Well done”. Just that. Nothing more.. If I didn’t know him I probably couldn’t have found the notes of resentment in those nine characters. So we started texting again, thought never got around to meeting. He was busy, working on many projects in different areas.. grumbling when they didn’t quite get the adulation and attention that would catapult Billy into the upper echelons of the city’s elite intellectuals and I was busy.. trying to write.. and regain my fifteen seconds of fame for a less fleeting time frame. He was always too self-obsessed to really ask (or pretend like he cared) about what I was doing but I was used to it by then.. I’d known Billy for a while. But his updates and occasional piercing insight and constant disillusionment all made for interesting text messages and I got back to him when I could. I sometimes got the feeling he was lonely, but I never had the time to dwell more on that thought. He definitely wasn’t happy, but that was just Billy.
And then one day the text messages just stopped. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Why would I? But the days rolled on.. into months and before I knew it, I’d lost track of the last time Billy and I had been in touch. I was curious, so I Facebook stalked him (I never pretended to be the most morally upright individual.. also it was a reasonable thing to do under the circumstances.. what else could i do?) and his profile had had no activity for a year. Except for a persistent set of posts by his ‘friends’.. mostly ‘Hope you’re okay’ kind of messages.. and it made me wonder if Billy had been sick. But surely if he hadn’t replied to these wall posts… that didn’t mean? I contacted one of our mutual friends, I knew she’d been with Billy at USC, and they couldn’t have graduated that much longer than a year ago. Karen got back to me soon… and the truth turned out to be unsettling. Billy had disappeared. Just like that. Leaving everything behind, just taking what was on his person. People had been surprised but not really… he had apparently been seeking psychiatric help towards the end of his Masters at USC (I didn’t know about this.. but I felt guilty when I knew. Maybe I should have met him for a drink after all) and people had noticed razor scratches on his arms.. albeit horizontal not vertical. He had started getting worse and worse.. (I’m guessing this is after he stopped texting me, because he didn’t seem that badly off then.. just lonely and discontent.. ).. and his depression gradually became more evident. He still came into class, but the hollows around his eyes had grown deeper .. and he had virtually ceased talking to other people. And then one day, he just didn’t come in. Soon, the news of his disappearance got out. But Billy was gone, and no trace of him was to be found. It had been all over the local news reports, apparently, Karen said, but I admitted I had heard nothing of the sort. I guess when you work as a news reporter you rarely pay attention to the events that you don’t cover. Billy had just stepped off of reality straight into a Radiohead song. His disappearance did lead me to getting together with Karen though. Once when we were in bed she told me that Billy had, a long time ago, asked her out on a date.
And then one day the text messages just stopped. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Why would I? But the days rolled on.. into months and before I knew it, I’d lost track of the last time Billy and I had been in touch. I was curious, so I Facebook stalked him (I never pretended to be the most morally upright individual.. also it was a reasonable thing to do under the circumstances.. what else could i do?) and his profile had had no activity for a year. Except for a persistent set of posts by his ‘friends’.. mostly ‘Hope you’re okay’ kind of messages.. and it made me wonder if Billy had been sick. But surely if he hadn’t replied to these wall posts… that didn’t mean? I contacted one of our mutual friends, I knew she’d been with Billy at USC, and they couldn’t have graduated that much longer than a year ago. Karen got back to me soon… and the truth turned out to be unsettling. Billy had disappeared. Just like that. Leaving everything behind, just taking what was on his person. People had been surprised but not really… he had apparently been seeking psychiatric help towards the end of his Masters at USC (I didn’t know about this.. but I felt guilty when I knew. Maybe I should have met him for a drink after all) and people had noticed razor scratches on his arms.. albeit horizontal not vertical. He had started getting worse and worse.. (I’m guessing this is after he stopped texting me, because he didn’t seem that badly off then.. just lonely and discontent.. ).. and his depression gradually became more evident. He still came into class, but the hollows around his eyes had grown deeper .. and he had virtually ceased talking to other people. And then one day, he just didn’t come in. Soon, the news of his disappearance got out. But Billy was gone, and no trace of him was to be found. It had been all over the local news reports, apparently, Karen said, but I admitted I had heard nothing of the sort. I guess when you work as a news reporter you rarely pay attention to the events that you don’t cover. Billy had just stepped off of reality straight into a Radiohead song. His disappearance did lead me to getting together with Karen though. Once when we were in bed she told me that Billy had, a long time ago, asked her out on a date.
“But I said no.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He was always too self-obsessed, and I didn’t really think he was cute”
“I see”
I felt guilty though I’m not sure I had reason to. This was nearly a year since Billy had last sent me a text message. I think we all accepted he was dead. A life never quite scaling the heights that the person living it would have felt that he was entitled to scale. Poor Billy.
But why am I writing this story down? And it isn’t nearly the tale about ‘being yourself’ that I promised in the first paragraph now is it? As Sinatra’s grave reads, ‘The Best Is Yet To Come”. The days passed by at their own pace, and I went through the motions of living.. gradually gaining a greater foothold in the reporting industry.. I worked for the LA Times now, and earned .. well.. enough. Billy was never really on my mind anymore.. there was really no reason for him to be.. people fade away all the time, even if for Billy’s case, it seemed to be slightly more literal than that. I think this is where I should insert a caveat. The proceedings start getting really really weird from now on. Like batshit crazy. Don’t believe me.. or do.. these are the events as I believe occurred. And whether I should be more affected while relaying them is a purely subjective question. I accept that they happened.. and I accept that they seem very very improbable. But I accept them.. and I feel it my duty, not as Billy’s best friend, he never was nice enough to have one of those, but as one who believes in the power of stories and who loves the written word, to write this down. Hell.. true or not.. I can’t deny that it’s an absolutely brilliant story.
But why am I writing this story down? And it isn’t nearly the tale about ‘being yourself’ that I promised in the first paragraph now is it? As Sinatra’s grave reads, ‘The Best Is Yet To Come”. The days passed by at their own pace, and I went through the motions of living.. gradually gaining a greater foothold in the reporting industry.. I worked for the LA Times now, and earned .. well.. enough. Billy was never really on my mind anymore.. there was really no reason for him to be.. people fade away all the time, even if for Billy’s case, it seemed to be slightly more literal than that. I think this is where I should insert a caveat. The proceedings start getting really really weird from now on. Like batshit crazy. Don’t believe me.. or do.. these are the events as I believe occurred. And whether I should be more affected while relaying them is a purely subjective question. I accept that they happened.. and I accept that they seem very very improbable. But I accept them.. and I feel it my duty, not as Billy’s best friend, he never was nice enough to have one of those, but as one who believes in the power of stories and who loves the written word, to write this down. Hell.. true or not.. I can’t deny that it’s an absolutely brilliant story.
I’d often wondered what became of Billy’s possessions, the ones he’d left behind as if he was just stepping out for an evening walk.. well.. no one goes out for an evening walk in downtown Los Angeles.. but you know what I mean. I got a call one day from his landlord.. turns out no one had applied for an apartment at his complex for a year.. so they had left Billy’s room undisturbed.. till now.. when would-be tenants had emerged. So they were trying to pass off Billy’s possessions to his family and his friends, and I was one of the emergency contacts that Billy had put down in his application (I was surprised by this.. but the surprises were just starting). So they asked me to come by and see what I could pick up. I went in that weekend.. and it felt strange seeing the apartment.. after so long. But maybe that’s just me.. empty apartments just always affect me.. lonely ghosts of their occupied selves and all that. I felt a little awkward, violating someone’s private space, even if the owner was to all appearances never returning to castigate you for doing so. I took a couple of his Bukowski novels (hey it would be a shame to let them gather dust right?) and I couldn’t find much else. I couldn’t think of much else to take.. but DVD on his desk caught my attention. It was in one of those old-fashioned plastic CD cases.. and had CP1919 scrawled across it with a blue sharpie.. I couldn’t tell if it was Billy’s handwriting. Upper case letter are always harder to distinguish. At least to amateur graphologists. I took the books, I took the DVD, and I left feeling strange.. and sort-of missing Billy’s company for the first time in.. umm.. ever. I felt like a dick. I should’ve been nicer to him. Maybe.
I forgot about the DVD for a while. It must have been some 2 or 3 months after I’d gone over to Billy’s old place. I was looking for my W2 form.. and emptied out my backpack. I didn’t find the tax form.. but Billy’s CP1919 DVD fell out, a little dustier than it was when I had put it in there. My Macbook didn’t have a DVD drive so I put it in my PS3 instead (technology right?) and
I forgot about the DVD for a while. It must have been some 2 or 3 months after I’d gone over to Billy’s old place. I was looking for my W2 form.. and emptied out my backpack. I didn’t find the tax form.. but Billy’s CP1919 DVD fell out, a little dustier than it was when I had put it in there. My Macbook didn’t have a DVD drive so I put it in my PS3 instead (technology right?) and
everything just got a whole lot stranger.
A whole fucking lot.
I don’t know if you’ll believe what I’m about to tell you. I doubt you will, to be honest. You might have been more willing to be convinced if I hadn’t played it so cool from the beginning.. but that’s just me. I don’t get very affected by anything.. even something as potentially life-altering as that which I’m about to describe. Also.. I didn’t have too many emotional stakes in all of this.. Billy’s victory or his defeat.. or his sadness and joy don’t mean all that much to me. It’s an outsider’s view. But it’s a fascinating view nonetheless..and one I’m glad I had the opportunity of having. Enough self-explanation.. I’ve already talked much more about myself than was necessary for the story.. so here goes..
The picture quality was hardly HD.. more like the VHS tapes I used to watch in the early 90’s. Grainy.. something of the mystic associated with it just by virtue of the quality of the moving images. It started out zooming out from a face, clearly human, clearly familiar, more and more so as the camera gained perspective. It was Billy. I nearly choked on whatever it is I was munching on then (possibly edamame seeds but again I drift.. ).. It was Billy looking slightly haggard, and clearly not in the most restful of states.. there was no audio.. I turned the volume way up to affirm.. nope.. just static. His hair was awry, and his Breaking Bad t-shirt scuffed and dirty (he’d always been a fan of Walter White.. he would be I suppose).. he looked like he’d been unprepared when he’d .. clearly.. been abducted. But by whom? The strangest silent film of all time was just beginning.
A whole fucking lot.
I don’t know if you’ll believe what I’m about to tell you. I doubt you will, to be honest. You might have been more willing to be convinced if I hadn’t played it so cool from the beginning.. but that’s just me. I don’t get very affected by anything.. even something as potentially life-altering as that which I’m about to describe. Also.. I didn’t have too many emotional stakes in all of this.. Billy’s victory or his defeat.. or his sadness and joy don’t mean all that much to me. It’s an outsider’s view. But it’s a fascinating view nonetheless..and one I’m glad I had the opportunity of having. Enough self-explanation.. I’ve already talked much more about myself than was necessary for the story.. so here goes..
The picture quality was hardly HD.. more like the VHS tapes I used to watch in the early 90’s. Grainy.. something of the mystic associated with it just by virtue of the quality of the moving images. It started out zooming out from a face, clearly human, clearly familiar, more and more so as the camera gained perspective. It was Billy. I nearly choked on whatever it is I was munching on then (possibly edamame seeds but again I drift.. ).. It was Billy looking slightly haggard, and clearly not in the most restful of states.. there was no audio.. I turned the volume way up to affirm.. nope.. just static. His hair was awry, and his Breaking Bad t-shirt scuffed and dirty (he’d always been a fan of Walter White.. he would be I suppose).. he looked like he’d been unprepared when he’d .. clearly.. been abducted. But by whom? The strangest silent film of all time was just beginning.
So there Billy was on camera, bewildered, a bit like a deer caught in headlights, to use a cliche… but that really was the first image that sprung to mind when I saw him. The camera stopped zooming out after a bit.. and now I could see Billy centre-stage in his entirety and his immediate surroundings, though who his captors and his cinematographers were I still didn’t know. He was surrounded by.. by.. a creative man’s dream. Don’t know what else to call it. There seemed to be bookshelves all around him rising a foot or two above Billy’s head height.. and they seemed packed.. I couldn’t make out the contents. Behind Billy was a writing desk and a computer.. and next to that was a gigantic sound system, I could make out the multiple subwoofers. And the guitars.. wow.. I hadn’t seen anything like that except in a guitar store. Where the bookshelves ended, the guitar rack began. Now I don’t know too much about guitars (though like almost every schoolboy growing up in the 90’s.. I’d tried my hand at playing Sweet Child O’ Mine sometime).. but I knew the big name ones.. and really.. they all seemed to be there. On that magical guitar rack. A Gibson Les Paul, next to a Fender Stratocaster, next to a Rickenbacker.. and the acoustic guitars just seemed to be Martins and Taylors.. and I’m sure to a connoisseur of the instrument there would be a lot more to pick out.. but this is what I identified.. for sure.. at a first glance. There was a timestamp at the bottom of the tape.. 5th May 2014.. the day that Billy had last been heard from. So they’d started filming the very day of the abduction. It was all just so weird.. but the next frame just tipped the scales straight into a William S. Burroughs fantasy as visualized by Terry Gilliam.
Firstly, it started at a Dutch angle, clearly the cameraman wasn’t the best.. but then the camera turned around to the person holding it.. and I let out an involuntary exclamation.. something between a gasp and a scream. The camera…umm.. the camera thing shall we say was somewhere between Kif of Futurama and Marvin the Martian.. green and furry.. and I think he had two eyes.. but it was hard to say.. he (I’ll assume it was a male.. if they even had gender distinctions) was humanoid in some regards.. but in other ways I don’t have the descriptive powers to really talk about what he looked like. Now there was another of those.. things.. on the screen.. and they seemed to be communicating with each other.. touching their fingers to each other.. or whatever passed for fingers.. tendrils on the ends of their arm-like structures. And the screen went blank.. and after a few empty frames came back on 6/5/2014 (apparently aliens used the British dating convention) . And yes they did very much look like stereotypical aliens.. so much so that I wondered if this was an actual hoax.. and you have to admit.. that’s way more likely than Billy being actually abducted by aliens.. even given the odds that Drake’s Law gives us. But Billy never really did have a very good sense of humor so maybe he wasn’t in on it, even if it was a prank. I don't know it was a prank. Somehow I don’t think so. You’ll see what I mean when I get a little further on. But really, I can’t know for sure.. all I can do is describe faithfully what I saw on that strange strange DVD. I think I’ll switch to a more organized format.. just describe the days as in a diary.. date and events and so on. I’ve already described the first day pretty much.. I won’t lie to you.. I started to doubt my sanity. I took a week off work.. and stayed back.. with enough food to last a while.. playing and documenting Billy… the star of the movie which will be with me for the rest of my life. I didn’t go out in that time.. nothing outside could possibly be as interesting as this.
Wild Billy’s Circus Story
Firstly, it started at a Dutch angle, clearly the cameraman wasn’t the best.. but then the camera turned around to the person holding it.. and I let out an involuntary exclamation.. something between a gasp and a scream. The camera…umm.. the camera thing shall we say was somewhere between Kif of Futurama and Marvin the Martian.. green and furry.. and I think he had two eyes.. but it was hard to say.. he (I’ll assume it was a male.. if they even had gender distinctions) was humanoid in some regards.. but in other ways I don’t have the descriptive powers to really talk about what he looked like. Now there was another of those.. things.. on the screen.. and they seemed to be communicating with each other.. touching their fingers to each other.. or whatever passed for fingers.. tendrils on the ends of their arm-like structures. And the screen went blank.. and after a few empty frames came back on 6/5/2014 (apparently aliens used the British dating convention) . And yes they did very much look like stereotypical aliens.. so much so that I wondered if this was an actual hoax.. and you have to admit.. that’s way more likely than Billy being actually abducted by aliens.. even given the odds that Drake’s Law gives us. But Billy never really did have a very good sense of humor so maybe he wasn’t in on it, even if it was a prank. I don't know it was a prank. Somehow I don’t think so. You’ll see what I mean when I get a little further on. But really, I can’t know for sure.. all I can do is describe faithfully what I saw on that strange strange DVD. I think I’ll switch to a more organized format.. just describe the days as in a diary.. date and events and so on. I’ve already described the first day pretty much.. I won’t lie to you.. I started to doubt my sanity. I took a week off work.. and stayed back.. with enough food to last a while.. playing and documenting Billy… the star of the movie which will be with me for the rest of my life. I didn’t go out in that time.. nothing outside could possibly be as interesting as this.
Wild Billy’s Circus Story
Day 2: 6/5/14
The camera zooms out even more. Billy is in the centre of a seemingly gigantic dome.. made of fibre-glass or some such transparent material. It looks like an arena. An amphitheater of sorts. And there seems to be bleachers outside it.. running all around in a circle. Billy is at the center.. with his bookshelves and his guitars and his writing desk. Difference from yesterday: Billy has been seemingly magically been given a mini-kitchen.. and a refrigerator. And a TV too, and a sofa in addition to the chair at his desk. Honestly, if everything else were ignored (and it can’t be) Billy seems to be possessed of a very well-equipped recreation room. He doesn’t do much all day, he still seems jittery.. but no one comes talk to him. I’m not sure but I think i see people on the bleachers.. well.. “people”.. I can’t tell how many but the numbers seem to increase as the day goes on. The camera cuts some scenes.. not the best editing.. it skips forward from time to time. Billy seems to be trying to calm himself down by talking to himself. He curls up on the sofa, after having made himself a sandwich, possibly ham, I can’t tell.
Day 3: 7/5/14
Day 3: 7/5/14
Billy wakes up with a start. He seems to be crying. There is more stuff in the central space of the dome. Something that looks like a port-a-potty and a shower stall.. and a bed… king-size.. with, if I’m not mistaken, a 2001: A Space Odyssey themed bed sheet. Good movies do get around. He lies on the bed almost catatonic all day. Film skips forward to almost twelve hours later and not much has changed. One of the aliens comes up to him, Billy is paralyzed with fear. The alien backs off.
Note: Then the movie (I guess I have started calling it that) jumps a few days. This happens periodically, as will be evidenced by the timestamp which I include before each ‘diary’ entry.
Note: Then the movie (I guess I have started calling it that) jumps a few days. This happens periodically, as will be evidenced by the timestamp which I include before each ‘diary’ entry.
Day 14: 18/5/14
Billy seems to be in a calmer frame of mind. He’s walking around.. and at one point even almost ventures out of his ‘living room’.. but then he decides not to. He looks fresher.. and there seems to be a wardrobe closet next to his bed now, which explains why he has on a new set of clothes. I can’t really make out the outside of the dome.. the camera is very focussed in on Billy’s central space. Billy walks to the bookshelf and takes a book from it. He reads it for a while before falling asleep on the bed. The camera zooms in on the book. Slaughterhouse Five. Kurt Vonnegut.
Day 15: 19/5/14
Billy plays guitar all day, taking occasional breaks to eat sandwiches. An alien tries to approach him.. but Billy is still scared. I can’t really blame him. The aliens aren’t very pretty.
Day 30: 3/6/14
Much seems to have changed in the fortnight that the video does not document. Billy smiles to himself, as he’s playing something on this nylon string guitar that he’s picked from the extremely well-stocked guitar rack. In fact, it seems to have got a wider variety of guitars than when i first noticed it. I haven’t seen Billy smile in real life ever really, let alone on this video. It’s an unfamiliar sight, among all the unfamiliar sights my TV had shown me in the recent past. The lights reflect off of the ochre veneer of the guitar.
Day 35: 8/6/14
Day 35: 8/6/14
He sits down at his desk to write, and, for the most part, seems to do so uninterrupted throughout the day. He takes a break.. to.. walk out of his central space. The camera follows him at a safe distance. It really does look like a giant glass-covered dome, the kind that encloses communities in Stephen King stories. There are ‘people’ on the bleachers.. and from what i can discern.. they’re the same alien looking aliens that I saw before. There seems to be some agitation in the crowd as Billy walks over.. a few feet from the barrier of the dome. Billy turns back. The expression on his face is hard to read.
Day 36: 9/6/14
It looks to be an uneventful day. Billy just reads all day, then sits at his desk and jots down something in one of the many notebooks his captors have provided him. From what I can make out he’s reading more Vonnegut. I suppose he identifies with the weirdness. And with Billy Talbot of course. He’s practically living out a Kilgore Trout novel.
Day 50: 23/6/14
Whoever edited the tape seems to have skipped past the days after this.. of Billy getting used.. to whatever he was getting used to. I guess this is the day when Billy finally meets the aliens face to face. They’re trying to communicate with him.. and verbal communication doesn’t work. They try this for some time. Then they reach out their tendrils and, Billy, tentatively, links fingers with them. He isn’t scared.
Day 55: 28/6/14
The camera zooms out. and reveals Billy at the centre standing on a stage of sorts.. guitar in hand. He tunes his guitar, plugs it in and starts playing a song. The bleachers outside the dome look full.. and they seem to burst into life as Billy plays whatever song he’s performing. He looks.. happy..
Day 67: 10/7/14
Day 67: 10/7/14
Billy sits on a chair on the little stage next to his bed.. one of the notebooks in his hand. He has his spectacles on. I think he’s reading his own poetry? He finished reading, steps off the stage and keeps the notebook by the bedside table. He takes off his spectacles and goes to sleep on his bed without a change of clothes, a strangely peaceful look on his face. The lights go out.
Note: The tape ends here.. almost abruptly.
Epilogue:
Well, what do you make of all that then? Unbelievable? Well, you’d be crazy not to think so. Honestly, I don’t expect my story to be believed by too many people. My only hope is that people read it by virtue of it being an entertaining story, albeit with the requirement of that willing suspension of disbelief feature we read about all so often. I personally believe it’s true.. but I have my reasons. For one, I don’t doubt my sanity (not yet anyway) and I know what I saw. I know it was Billy, and I doubt the tape is a fabrication. It’s too umm.. ‘real’.. Billy could never fake emotions very well. You could always tell when he was jealous of somebody else’s achievement, taking the attention and adulation that Billy always felt like he rightly deserved. And occasionally, very occasionally, when Billy finally felt that he was getting or about to get his due, he looked pleased enough to burst into brightly colored balloons and sail into the SoCal skies. Here, at the start of the tape, he was scared, very scared. I could tell, you could too if you’d have seen the tape for yourself. And gradually, as he got more comfortable in his surroundings, and he realized the strangeness of his predicament, Billy started looking more content with his life than I, honestly, had ever seen him. And really, if you think about it.. why not? For once, he was being appreciated at the level he had always wanted to be appreciated at. He had always been firmly convinced of how special he was, and now to his audience he truly was. Everything he ever did was a marvel to them, something new. Billy was endlessly fascinating to his audience. So it just seems reasonable to me that he would be happy.
But do I have the tape? Na. I mean I do.. but, in the perfect end to Wild Billy’s Circus story, leaving ample room for people both convinced in it and disbelieving of it, the DVD just magically stopped playing after I’d finished watching all of it. It happens. It happened. Make of that what you will.
I think I’ve rambled enough. Most of these conclusions are my own, subject to interpretation. All I know is what I saw. And I’d never ever seen Billy look that happy. Billy always did feel like he ought to be the center of the universe. And in some ways, I guess, he now is.
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