By Misti Lake
Date: 10 March 2001
Billy's Pathos
I.
an alchemist sits in his garden drinking Crystal Light
lemonade...he is thinking about his mortality
he is not a ladybug
he is not a caterpillar
when he dies people will miss him
and wonder where he went
when he was a little boy
he saw a ghost
and kept it a secret
even from his mother
it was the ghost of his cousin Donny
who was run over by a drunk driver
three days before his tenth birthday
Donny's ghost didn't frighten him
he wasn't menacing or melancholy
in fact, he was exuberant
running around in circles on the ceiling
dancing to "Thriller" by Michael Jackson
and "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" by Wings
...the phone rings and the alchemist ignores it
he keeps forgetting to turn the ringer off
II.
two little girls are playing with Barbie and Ken dolls
one little girl is blonde and five years older
the younger little girl is mischievous
she makes her Barbie sneak into the other little girl's Barbie's
dream house
and steal pork chops from the plastic refrigerator
"I'm telling my mommy!" the blonde little girl who is five years
older cries out
the mommy strides into the den
she tells the mischievous little girl that is wrong to play that way
Barbies shouldn't steal
anymore than people should steal in real life
the mischievous little girl is hurt and mad
it was just pretend
she doesn't think she deserves a lecture
she puts on her red and white number socks
and leather boots that zip up along the side
and walks home in the snow and ice
III.
Barney is sitting in a karaoke bar on the Lower East side
he's at the bar
drinking his fifth vodka gimlet
some goofy white girl is making Janis Joplin roll over in her
grave with her off-key rendition of "Piece of My Heart"
but Barney isn't thinking about the goofy white girl
it's bad enough that he has to hear her
he doesn't want to look at her
so he looks at the bottles on the shelves
and thinks about the girl he loved in high school
she could do back flips
she was beautiful
her teeth were white
and her handwriting was art
he loved her and she let him
for awhile
then she married a mortician
they make a lot of money
even more than plumbers
IV.
everyone says she's schizophrenic
but she doesn't see it
here is an excerpt from one of her rambles,
faithfully recorded by her boyfriend, Billy:
Everyone should live on ships. Pirate ships, not space ships- that comes
later. Think of the highways and animals and pollution and shopping malls.
Too much congestion, too much confusion, too much crowd too much loud.
It's graceful on the sea and no one can get you. We wouldn't have to eat
rats or shoe leather. There would be gardens. We would go to the gardens
and pick things up. But when the rain comes that's something else. We would
have to have weather technicians on each ship. And hairdressers and cooks
and firemen and babysitters. But no politicians or policemen. Oh, god.
There's someone at the door. Tell them we don't want any. Don't answer
the door- don't open it! You keep letting them try to kill me!
Back to the Heart-on-Sleeve Corner