Billy Boy

Chapter One The boy awoke to the snuffles of a woman softly sobbing in the bed across the room near the open window. For a moment he thought he was dreaming of his dead mother. Then he heard snoring and saw his father's undershirted back turned toward the woman, who was whimpering, "Where am I? Oh God, what has happened to me?"She looked at the boy, surprised to see him. He rolled off his foldaway cot already dressed in Levi's and a white cotton polo shirt and white socks. He kept his eyes away from her as he tied the laces of his black tennis shoes and combed his hair with his fingers. The room stunk of whiskey and cigarettes."Who are you?" she said. "Where am I?""You came here with him," the boy said. "He's my daddy.""He's too young to have a son your age. Why are you here?""This is our room," the boy said."I've never done anything like this before."The boy nodded. He had pretended to be asleep when his father brought her to their hotel room after the saloons closed. A half bottle of bourbon lay on the floor on top of her white cotton dress and her earrings and her white gumsole shoes. The boy figured she was a waitress or a nurse. A cool breeze blew across his father, who slept nearest the window. They heard from down below a street-sweeping machine blasting water into the gutters."Please tell me you wasn't laying there watching me all night," the woman said."I was asleep.""You promise?""We drove all night and all day and into the night again to get here. I was tired.""Your daddy wasn't tired.""He didn't do the driving."With a snort, the boy's father slapped at a fly on his face, sat up and opened his eyes. He had the look of a cowboy, wide shouldered, lean, blond hair rumpled, firm jaw that needed a shave. He licked his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of a golden hairy wrist. He shook a cigarette out of a pack of Camels on the windowsill. Using the lucky Zippo he had carried through France and Germany during World War Two with his old artillery unit, he lit the cigarette and inhaled. He coughed."Billy Boy. Where you going in the middle of the night?" he said."The sun'll be up in a few minutes.""You don't need to clear out because of her. She's leaving.""You filthy rat, you got me drunk," the woman said."Billy Boy, I'm truly sorry about this. I didn't set out last night to bring a woman to the room."The woman clutched the sheet tighter around her breasts and began weeping again, weakly. "I don't know your name," she said. "What's your damn name?""I'm Tyrone, remember? You said I look like Tyrone Power with a bleach job.""Please, Jesus, I'll never drink again," the woman said. "What is your name, really?""Troy."The woman looked around at the greasy wallpaper with faded roses on it."This room is trashy. What hotel is this?""The Half Moon," said Troy."You told me you kept a suite downtown at the Blackstone," she said."I'm liable to say most anything, Marie."Hearing him speak her name, the woman looked at Troy with interest, seeing anew his opaque blue eyes that could frighten a person, his hair, crushed by the pillow, with yellow curls around his ears and forehead, streams of cigarette smoke coming from his nose and drifting around his lips. She dried her tears on the sheet and reached for Troy's cigarette to share it. She looked at the boy and frowned."What are you staring at?" she said."I'm leaving.""You going to try for a bag at Colonial?" asked Troy."Yes sir.""Not much chance for a new boy at a place like that.""I'll try, though.""They'll be rough on you," Troy said."I expect they will.""Maybe you'll see Ben Hogan," Troy said."Hope so.""Tell Ben I said 'hidy.'""More of your bull," the woman said. "You don't know Ben Hogan. Do you?""There was a time I could beat him.""Sure there was. Two years ago when he was three-quarters dead and lay crippled in the hospitShrake, Bud is the author of 'Billy Boy' with ISBN 9780743227483 and ISBN 0743227484.