Billy was cool, not classy, but cool, sort of a slick city kid that everybody knew. A young John Travolta with a clip-on tie, right down to the slight swagger, or hesitation in the way he turned around and fooled with his sunglasses. You'd watch him do it a million times. The girls loved his sweet style, and the guys liked Billy because he was the coolest of the cool.
He treated everyone well and was a good worker, he did the job. Of course, he never was much of a student, didn’t have the education you’d expect from his demeanor, but with a smile and personality like Billy’s you had confidence in the man, the way he handled himself, so it didn’t seem necessary to look carefully at his credentials.
I hooked up with Billy when I was a college student looking for work. A friend got me the job where I met him. Yes, we worked together, and among the group of maybe seven or eight young men, the others were either married or heavily working on it. Billy and I were the free souls - didn’t have to hurry home after work. We had time to walk to the bar across the street for a drink with our boss. Never a big drink, one beer, or maybe a soft drink.
We worked for a big organization and this guy wasn’t really our boss, more like a director for some of the projects we worked on during the day. So it wasn’t going to get us a good recommendation, or promotion. We went over to the bar with him just because we liked the guy and he liked us. Like Bill, he was affable.
The boss was Richard, about thirty something. Bill and I were in our early twenties. Oh, and I called Bill either Billy or Willy – probably because Richard did.
Richard and Billy had been working there a few years before I got hired. Their relationship was like big brother looking after little brother, that sort of thing. I never thought Billy needed looking after, but I guess Richard did. He knew him longer than I did.
When I started getting chummy with Bill he dragged me along when he walked over to have a beer and a talk with Richard. It was time for comparing notes on the day – that sort of thing. I didn’t mind tagging along. I didn’t have anything else to do.
At first I didn’t get Richard. He was a nice guy, a little different. I might have been leery waiting for his other side to show. I didn’t know much about him. I heard he lived with his mother and took care of her. Then after a while I found out that his mom was old and sickly and kept Richard busy taking her to doctors appointments and getting medicine, making arrangements for somebody to watch her, all that sort of thing.
He was always worrying about her, I got the sense it was real important to him to keep her happy. She must have raised him well, because Richard was truly a genuine, caring individual, not just to me and Bill, but to everyone.
Now looking back I think I was lacking in my ability to quickly perceive Richard as the spectacular individual he was - certainly a man beyond my experience. You see, I was a bar keeper’s son from a backwater town and had never known such an honorable, caring person. Now I’d say the likes of Richard few of us have had the opportunity to encounter.
So there we’d be at the counter in the bar, a beer for Bill and I and Richard with a mixed drink. It was a businessman’s kind of place. Subdued lighting and rather quiet. In those days they didn’t have music blaring all the time.
“So how’s things going for you, Billy? You being good?” Richard asked loosening his tie.
“Can’t find any trouble to get into,” Bill said with a grin.
“Yes, I’m sure you’ve looked.” Richard said softly sarcastic and smirked.
Bill reached into his pocket.
“Hey, here’s the five bucks I owe you.” Billy pushed five crushed bills across to Richard.
“That was fast," Richard said as he gathered the money. “Are you sure you don’t need it?”
“Naw, I’m going home after this, and we get paid tomorrow anyway.”
“You have tomorrows pay spent already?” Dick asked.
“By the time I pay everybody I owe I will, and the old man always needs something he never gets for himself,” he said.
“Hey, Jackson,” Dick leaned over my way, “You’re the quiet one. If you’re hanging around with this guy, don’t loan him any money. Or, worse yet, don’t loan him your car.”
“I got it fixed, didn’t I?” Bill said.
“But I had to pay the hundred dollars deductible,” Dick said.
Bill put his arm around Dick and said, “You’re going to get it back.” He was sincere.
“I know I will.” Dick said with a smile. “Five dollars at a time.”
They both laughed at that, and they impressed me at how genuine they were. It seemed each found something in the other they both needed, like a family bond between brothers the way brothers should be. They relied on each other for support.
Kenny Rogers and his musical group, The First Addition, was in town this week and all of them hung out at this club. They were scattered around the bar. There motel must have been nearby. They had a hit with What condition My Condition was in. It would be only a few months before Kenny would sub for the Smothers Brothers during the summer months. he group would go to the background while his solo career would skyrocket.
Mickey Jones was the drummer. He and I had talked on previous nights. He saw me and came over to say hi. Mickey, quite a congenial guy, told me last year he was the drummer for Bob Dylan on a world tour. That was a good resume credit for him. Kenny was here, but he had a girlfriend, or a wife, and they stayed off at a side booth with their heads together.
“How’s your mom doing?” I heard Bill asked Dick.
“She’s about the same. Ornery as ever. How’s you dad?”” Dick said.
“The old man keeps stealing my cigarettes and moving from one chair to another, so I know he’s alive ... I guess he’s doing okay,” Bill answered.
Bill had a cute, blonde, girl friend that Richard always asked about, and treated like the girl his son was going to marry. Bill in turn would always want to know how Richard and his lady friend enjoyed the play they went to, or the dinner they had at one of the fine restaurants in town.
I’d see these two guys every day at work and they’d always check on how the families were doing and kept each other informed. Dick had an good income and refined taste. Bill barely had enough cash for gas in his car, and his tastes were questionable. Bill's lack of education and poor upbringing were limiting factors. Having been raised in a rough part of town and his family never had the money or interest to properly care for Bill. Somehow, Bill learned to be always kind and considerate of others.
When Bill and I started to hang out together I found out more about him than just being a nice guy. He and his girl friend had an up and down relationship, and during one of those down times Bill came to me after work. “Hey, Jackie, what are your big plans for Friday night.”
“I don’t know, I usually don't think that far ahead. I don’t have anything planned." He looked at me disgusted, not accepting my answer. "The usual, I guess. There’s a couple of good places with folk music near campus,” I said.
“Folk music? You’re kidding me, right? What is this folk music? You know that went out years ago. Why don’t you come out to Gahanna?”
“What’s that?” I never heard of that.
“Dancing. Music. Girlies, Jackie.” He replied simulating dancing and using his hands to outline the curves of the girlies.
"Well, talk it up ... I'll think about it." It was hard not go along with Bill. He could say the right things to anybody, and I couldn’t see any changes when he talked with somebody else. It wasn’t like he tailored his talk to suit who he was talking to. He was always the same, and everyone loved his act: confident and friendly.
As we were walking through the lobby on our way to the parking lot and our cars after work one afternoon I remember looking at the reflection in the large glass front windows and seeing the president of the company and his entourage heading for the stairs on his way out.
The fellow was always very well dressed, busy and in a hurry. In the year and a half I worked there I’d only seen him occasionally and he was always rushing somewhere, in or out, moving quickly. To me he was like a wild character from a book or a movie, overly energetic. I’d never seen him stand in one spot.
Bill and I just came from the studios and entered the lobby when the president started down the large open spiral staircase. Two other men in suits were trying to keep up with the boss and were talking to him and waving papers at the same time.
The president saw Bill, waved and called out his name in greeting, and then came down rapidly and directly over to us. He didn’t see me at all, but he and Bill had a happy little chat while the two men in suits pulled suddenly back in silence and waited patiently to resume their pursuit.
After a minute of chatter the president left smiling and waving back to Bill. The doorman and the receptionist meanwhile were waving goodbye to the President, but he only saw Bill and called back again to Bill as he raced out the door.
When he was outside and climbing into a waiting chauffeured car that pulled in front for him, Bill turned to me and said, “He’s a nice guy. You ought to get to know him.”
Bill’s mom had passed away a few years before I met him, he lived at home with his father. The old man, that's what Bill called him.
“You shouldn’t call him that,” I said. “You should call him father or dad.”
“He’s seventy-two. That’s an old man, isn’t it?” Bill snapped back with a grin.
“Yeah, that’s old,” I said. I couldn’t argue his point, and it wasn't unkind when he said it.
“See, Jackie,” he said putting his arm around me. “You stick with Billy now, and you won’t go wrong.”
Gahanna was on the opposite side of the city. Bill kept talking me into going there, until I agreed. He gave me directions and I met him there on Friday night. He was at a table with a crowd of people when I got there. There were a lot of people in the place, all of them our age, and like Bill said, “Plenty of girlies.” Part of the building was a bowling alley, this part, all bar.
I found a place to sit in the group of tables he and his friends occupied, and met a few people as the night wore on. We introduced ourselves in the rush of the crowd and noise of the band, but nobody got anybody’s name. It didn’t take long for me to get into the mood. The band was great, everyone dancing. I had a few beers and danced a few times. California Dreaming, Hang on Sloopy, all the favorites rang out.
By the night’s end I figured out that Bill knew most everyone in the club, or at least they knew Bill. I noted also that this wasn’t a college crowd, these were inner city kids that didn’t go to college, the working class.
The girls were a little tougher, a lot of make up and ratted hair, the in-crowd. The guys were tougher looking too, tee-shirts, jeans and slicked back hair, street wise; definitely not the college crowd.
For a few months on weekends I went to Gahanna and met with Bill and his crowd. I met some girls, and once in a while I’d go out with one of them. Other times I’d meet Bill and we’d drive in my car or his, and he’d take me to other night spots in the city, places I’d never consider going on my own. We went to older, city bars. The one’s in the downtown, with neon lights and belly dancers. Little neighborhood bars where older bands played. The kinds that have been doing the local clubs for years. Small places, with black curtains you went through, before you saw the black lights and heard the black rhythm and blues bands.
An old restaurant and bar on a ghetto side of downtown was almost a regular spot on my late-night runs with Bill. There was a man there at played a console organ and sang Fats Domino and Ray Charles songs. He did Green Onions by Booker T, and the MGs, and Walk on the Wild side.
By then time had passed, and I was burning out on Gahanna. All of it was becoming less attractive to me. Five months had gone by, eight months into it and it was old routine. I was slow for not realizing sooner that I was living Bill’s world. That didn’t occur to me at first. We were best of friends in our way, we worked together. That cute girl friend of his eventually went away completely. Then it was Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and sometimes Sundays we'd be running around.
I was a registered student at Ohio State, and becoming less and less registered when fall turned to winter and winter turned to spring. Work was more important to me than scholastic endeavors. After all, I was working in my chosen field. Wasn’t that the reason I was attending college – to work in my chosen field? And wasn’t it fun to run with Bill?
One night we were at the downtown, side street bar where the fat guy played the organ. And played, and played.
“Bill, I think I’m tired,”
The fat guy worked out bluesy stuff lately. It was all starting to sound like Green Onions.
“Tired?” I could tell by his act he was doing his best to revive me. “Jackie’s tired? Why Jackie’s always tired.”
“Nah Bill, go on. I know I just sit and don’t talk a lot. I don’t mean being this low, I mean bored, you know. I just want to do some other things." I looked around the dark, gloomy room. He knew what I was saying. I turned to look at him, "I’ve been thinking about another job too, I've talked to some people, and now it looks like it might happen.”
Somehow I didn’t explain what was happening to me. About being tired of the late night running, old clubs and mob-type characters, the race track, hoods in black ter- shirts who were all nice guys when Bill introduced me as his friend. The girls with too much make-up and ratted, wild hair packed in their tight-fitting everything.
“Let’s take a trip,” Bill stood up from the bar stool, clapped his hands together and was immediately excited.
“Where do you wanna go?” I asked dubiously and sipped my beer.
“Chicago. Ever been to Chicago?”
I shook my head in the negative. He had an answer for everything.
“Chicago’s a good time, Jackie. We can go on a weekend.”
“How are we getting’ there?” I already knew the answer.
He put his arms around me, “You’re going to drive us there.” He beamed his genuine smile.
“Why don’t you drive?” I said, though I knew that answer too.
“My hunk of junk wouldn’t make it out of town, that’s why.” He was right again. His rusted hunk of junk wobbled down the street and was running on bald tires.
The next few days he talked it up. The following weekend we were both free, so we planned that I would be over to pick him up after work. I figured out the driving time and the route to take, and it looked like traffic would be no problem. We were leaving after work, a good time to get out of the city.
Chicago. I was thinking about it as I drove over to his place. I hadn't been there. It would be interesting, a few hours drive. I’d been over to pick him up a couple of times when we went to the small clubs on his side of town, so I knew the way.
Bill lived in an average, rundown looking house in an older part of the city. Why am I going to Chicago, and on a weekend? What’s Chicago mean to me anyway. I never thought about going to Chicago before, it never appealed to me.
When I pulled into the drive Bill was nowhere to be seen, but his “old man” was in a wicker chairs on the porch, smoking.
“Hi there,” he called to me and waved as soon as I got out of the car.
Bill’s dad was an old man. He went through three packs of Camel non-filter cigarettes a day and looked like it. He only had one lung and coughed a lot. He was wrinkled and tired looking. I’ve known a few men in their seventies, happy, energetic, alive men, Bill’s dad wasn’t one of those.
He was more like the old, whiskey drinking veterans that lived in the old solder’s home and spent their days in the bar near the bus stop that catered to them.
“Billy’s in the house,” his raspy voice filled with solace, yet goodwill. As soon as he spoke Bill came out of the house.
“What you doin’ now, Old Man, givin’ Jackie a hard time?” Bill reprimanded him jokingly.
“No, I ain’t givin’ him a hard time, smarty ass.”
Bill gave his father a one arm hug and a big smile.
“Oh, go on with ya," his dad said. "Where’s my smokes? You take ‘em?” His father got the words out, then coughed, it came out awful sounding, lasting longer than any well-man’s cough.
“Sounds like you need another smoke, old man,” Bill said, then “Come on, Jackie. Let’s go look for the old man’s smokies.” I followed Bill into the house.
Although it was still light outside it was dark and old inside. There were dreary window curtains, walls were a smoked up dull yellow, and the carpet a style that must have been new when Bill’s father got married, a dark, blood red and black patterned Victorian. His father’s worn armchair was threadbare, and next to it a large stand-up ashtray overflowing with butts and ashes. They had an old couch with a cover draped over it. It all looked as if Bill’s mother had arranged the room before she died, and nothing had ever been moved since. The pictures on the wall, the old bureau, all of it so very worn and neglected.
Bill found the cigarettes and took them out to his father.
The were pictures on the mantle of Bill’s parents, one of Bill, another of an older brother, I never heard what happened to him, he was never mentioned. I looked carefully at the photo of Bill, from his high school graduation - the kind of photo done with a soft focus lens and all the skin blemishes removed and the eyebrows painted back in.
Bill came back in and took me to his bed room, dark and small with a rumpled bed and clothes on the floor. He had a couple of forty-five records, Shout by the Isley Brothers and The Way you do the Things You do, by the
Temptations. A small, old record player was on the floor in the corner.
After a few more minutes of standing, looking around, doing noting, I said, “Well, Bill, are you about ready to go?”
“Where?” said Bill surprised, like he had no idea what we'd talked about.
“Chicago,” I said, "that was the plan."
“Naw, let’s go out somewhere instead. There’s a new group playin’ close to here. I heard ‘em the other night and they’re real good. You’ll like it.”
I looked at him in disbelief. He wanted to throw out everything we had talked about. He was the one that wanted to go to Chicago.
“Hey, I was all set to drive to Chicago. We have the weekend off and everything,” I was a bit confused by the sudden change of plans.
“Naw. Chicago’s too far, besides it’ll cost too much,” Bill said.
“Well, yea, it’s a long drive. I don’t have to go. I was just set to go. I thought you came here to pick up what you needed.”
“Well, you’ll like this band,” Bill said. He was bent over combing his hair looking in the mirror on his dresser, combing with one hand and tapping it into place with the other. I watched him working carefully on his hair.
I blew out a breath in exasperation and shook my head, “No, I don’t think I’m going to make it, Bill." I started moving for the door. "I’m just going to get on back. I left in a hurry and I can do some things and maybe go out to one of the places on campus. There’s some guys from my hometown I haven’t seen for a while. I think I’ll catch up with them.”
When I headed out Bill came out to the porch with me. His father said goodbye. Bill walked with me down to my car.
“You want me to drop you off at the club?” I asked.
“Naw, some guys are comin’ over later, I’ll ride over with them.”
“Okay, see you later, Bill.”
I got in my car, a bit annoyed for the way it all turned out, but didn't let him know. What good would it do?
“See ya, Jackie. You be a good boy now.”
He waved and I nodded as I pulled away.
Bill was a nice guy, but he made questionable decisions and bad luck. You’d think at least if he had better taste he could have made better choices in life ... he could have improved his luck.
We started moving our separate ways after that. I changed jobs. Shortly after I lost track of Billy.
About fifteen years elapsed before my work brought me back to Columbus and in contact with someone who was talking about local television and mentioned Richard. When I heard his name my head turned. I listened a while and sure enough, they were talking about the same Richard. By the wound of it, he was doing well and a little farther up the corporate ladder. He’d moved to Cincinnati. A day or so later I picked up the phone and gave a call to his company’s headquarters. It took a little work, but I got a hold of Richard.
We had a nice chat. He sounded well. A lot of time had passed since I last spoke with him. I felt I had changed quite a bit since then, but Richard sounded about the same fine fellow, maybe just older, more reserved, as we both were, I suppose.
As we talked about current events, then reminisced a while, the old names came up one at a time. He mentioned a few that I only half remembered, names of people that either still worked for the company or lived close by and kept in touch with Richard.
He didn't mention the obvious, “What about Bill?” I finally asked. “Have you seen Bill?”
The slight awkwardness was unexpected. There was a deliberate pause. His tone was different, hesitant, but only slightly.
“Billy, nobody has seen him. Uh, he had a bad time. I guess you didn’t hear ... "
"What? I haven't heard anything. What is it?"
"Billy was sent up for fifteen years.”
“In prison?” I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked.
“Yeah, he got ... I think, fifteen years, that’s what I heard. Uh, that’s all I know. No one’s heard anything about him for quite some time.”
So Richard didn’t know any more, or say anymore. That news stopped our talk there. We said our good byes with promises to keep in touch.
I hung up the phone and sat there a while. That was the last I heard About Willy. I don’t know anymore, never heard any more, and don’t expect to. Whatever he got sent away for I would bet it wasn’t guilt of a crime that got him into trouble, more likely it was poor associations, that and plain bad luck.
Ahh, my buddy Bill. When I think of him, I can miss him. Geeze, he was a popular guy, charming and a charmer. We had some fun for a while, before drifting apart, going separate ways. The news about him ... how awful. It’s really too bad about poor Bill. I mean everybody loved him, we all really did. He was such a sweet guy.
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