Billy b - summer before Sr. Year at THS!
There are many reasons that I didn't go back. New job and new responsibilities. Terre Haute is home and well home is home. My blood is to thick for Indiana and I have never been able to properly express myself in the humidity of July and August. Mostly, I am a poor reforestation of the man I left Terre Haute searching for. I don't think anyone there would give to shits that I am fat as a Christmas Goose. However, this reason shames me and I just couldn't go back with not putting my best foot forward. Dumb I know. Guess what I am hiding behind my weight one more time, because let's face it that's exactly what I do.
I left The Haute lost and I have drifted ever since. Chasing an idea that I can actually be ok living on my own and in my own skin. I have spent a lifetime searching for acceptance everywhere but where I should have look and that is in my own minds eye.
I wish to all the old gods and new ones that I could see myself just for one second thru the eyes of my friends and co-workers. That my over compensation would good and weight is just a crutch. That it is not needed because even without it I matter and I make a difference. I never saw this in high school. I see a glimmer if it now. I see it out there in the near future and I see it in the form of my tower! I know my tower is closer! I see it on the horizon, it fades in and out but I see it shimmering in the distance on my path.
However I know it has never been my body that made a difference. No. That's not what anyone ever loved Billy b for. Instead it was what was under the service that he tried so hard to hide so he could be like his brothers and every other high school boy he ever met.
It was his heart, his soul, and his beautifully flawed mind. His heart is still the size of the moon and is forever giving. He is still empathetic even if it was rare that he showed this growing up. He feels. He feels on a level very few can understand.
His mind makes him unique. His mind makes him have a lot to offer far beyond anything else. He is the smartest if smart Asses, trained by the legendary Ben Laycock. His wit is fast and hard and he never met a line he didn't want to push as far as it could go. He accepts his mind is flawed and it gets stuck like a record player on a scratch. However more importantly it can create worlds. It sees things in a unique and wonderful perspective that the light will inevitably out shine the dark. That there is good in this world and in the end the human spirit isn't a cruel and evil husk.
Twenty years is a long time to live wandering the secret highways of addiction, hate, and fear. Twenty years is to long to hide from the man you were born to be and from the life you seek. I have no regrets not going back. However there are people that I miss and wish I could see, and to them I say if KA wills it, then our paths shall cross again.
To Poogie Adler, my good buddy Chip, and Hammie Horns, I love you my brothers! I miss you and we shall speak soon!
To the rest of my classmates I say:
“So don't worry about tomorrow
Take it today
Forget about the cheque
We'll get hell to pay
Have a drink on me
Have a drink on me
Yeah
Have a drink on me
Have a drink on me
On me”
Have fun, enjoy the memories and I'll see you next time around!
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