Page 29 - WTP VOl. XI #1

silence had grown awkward. “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t—”
“Billy Blinsky.” The man sounded simultaneously joy- ous at their reunion and disappointed, even disgust- ed, at not having been recognized.
Mitch opened the door a few more inches to get a better look. “Billy?”
“Before your very eyes.” The man stepped forward into the light and seemed to strike a pose.
Mitch stared. Surely this man was lying, a scammer. In college Billy had been the most presentable of his friends, a well-groomed and well-read Business Ad- ministration major who looked and sounded like he could’ve been president of the campus branch of the College Republicans. Still, right about the time Mitch was straightening up, Billy had seemed to go in the opposite direction, sliding into some kind of down- ward spiral. And now that Mitch looked closer, he could almost recognize this man as Billy. Or as Billy might look today if the downward spiral had contin- ued, accompanied by horrible lifestyle choices.
“So you gonna let me in or what?”
Mitch tensed inwardly. He had never been good at telling people “no.” But this man? Besides the home- less-stoner appearance, Mitch wasn’t sure he really was Billy. And even if he was, the last time Mitch had let Billy into his home things had ended badly.
It had been a few years after everyone had gradu- ated, a year or so after Mitch and Becca had mar- ried. They were living in a cramped upstairs apart- ment on Second Avenue, struggling to pay off their student loans. Billy, already declining although cer- tainly nothing like the wreck of a man on the porch now, had turned up and asked if he could crash on
their sofa. Becca had been against it—the apart- ment was tiny—but Mitch had persuaded her that it would be all right since Billy wouldn’t be there long. “Couple days and I’ll be back on my feet,” he had assured them.
But when Becca couldn’t overhear, Billy had said something a bit more worrisome. “Just need to lay low for now.”
“You’re hiding from someone?” Mitch had asked.
“Couple days, I’ll be gone,” Billy had replied, and Mitch had read in his eyes that he shouldn’t pursue the question.
A couple of days soon turned into weeks. Instead of lying low, Billy left the apartment each evening after dinner. Long after midnight, Mitch and Becca would awaken to hear him at the door, fumbling with the key they had loaned him. In the morning they would shower, dress, and eat breakfast as quietly as pos- sible while he lay on the sofa snoring. Becca worked nearby and could come home for lunch, and she told Mitch that Billy was usually still asleep at noon. More than once he seemed to have just gotten up when Mitch arrived home from work in the late afternoon. Some nights he brought people back to the apart- ment, people that Mitch and Becca had never before met and that sometimes seemed downright scary.
“Just gettin’ my shit together,” Billy had casually re- plied when they had finally gotten up the nerve to ask him about his plans. “Tryin’ to find my place in the cosmos.”
Although self-controlled to the point of seeming prim, Becca at first had accepted all this surprisingly well. After a few days she even appeared to loosen up a bit, kidding Billy with what sounded like genuine affec- tion. But near the end of the third week, as suddenly as a light being switched off, she changed. “This has to stop,” she said to Mitch when Billy wasn’t around.
“I didn’t ask for it, not any of it. You invited him in the first place—you get him the hell out of here.”
From Becca, this was practically an outburst. Mitch had never before heard her use even such a mild curse word as “hell,” and in fact he had never heard her use any such word again in the ten or so years since that night.
Mitch hated making scenes. So he procrastinated. But Becca persisted, and one awkward evening Billy came in unannounced while they were discussing what to
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