walked zombie like into the crowd and to him, it seemed to take forever to get through the throng nearest the stage. He was there standing beside the MC and both of them were looking at him. A huge cheer rose from the crowd as Billy mounted the stage and was introduced.
“Billy Nelson, this is Joe Cocker.”
“I know,” was all Billy could say.
Billy had no idea what was said to him at that moment – he was still in awe. This was one of his all time heroes standing there beside him, shaking his hand, talking to him in front of a crowd of yelling, boozed up and doped out head bangers. All of a sudden everything became clear and even more shocking.
“What song are we doin’?” said Mr Cocker.
Billy may call him Joe when he’s talking to anyone else but to his face? No Way! He deserved respect. But sing a song, was he kidding? Billy stood there looking like an idiot, shaking his head.
“You can sing can’t you? That was you I heard on the demo?”
Billy just nodded.
“You do know why you’re here, don’t you Billy?” asked the MC.
Billy shook his head.
“You won! We ran a competition for somebody to sing a song with a famous guest artist, and you won!”
If he could get them to say it all one more time Billy’s numb brain might have been able to absorb it! Now he was thinking of Jen and wishing she were here. She’d be very surprised. Billy could sing okay – the problem was he had never sung in public, in front of anybody, ever … except Tony and his band a few times but to Billy they didn’t count. Now here he was standing on a stage with Joe Cocker no less, and everybody was expecting him to sing. He didn’t know whether to faint or cheer. He thought about Jen again and knew the song he wanted. He nodded at the MC and turned to Joe, sorry, Mr Cocker. “When a Man Loves a Woman?”
He nodded but frowned a little as well. “You don’t want, want to start off a bit lighter do you? You know, something a little rock ‘n roll maybe?”
Billy just looked at him and thought, “What the hell did I know about performing? About as much as I knew about quantum physics really,” so he bowed to undeniably greater knowledge and nodded. Billy looked again and realised Mr Cocker was drunk, or if he wasn’t, he was on something. At least his Life looked relatively intact.
Surprise rendered Billy blind of his normal perceptions but as his feet returned to earth, he began to see a little clearer again. It was not always easy for Billy to constantly be seeing two visions at once, and being able to identify which ones were Life and which ones were not. He concentrated on one, almost always Life, the reality part if you like, and only acknowledged the other when and if he really needed to. Life, reality, could hurt, maim, kill. Get hit by a bus, you die. The other side, threatening as it appeared at times, Billy knew to be relatively innocuous, and also that it would come for him … one day.
“You start, I’ll follow.”
So he did. The drummer initiated and the rest of the band broke into what Billy recognised immediately as ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’. He sang, and he was good enough that they let him stay up for an entire set. Mr Cocker even let him solo a few times, though never an entire song – after all, the paying public were there to see him, not Billy. For Billy, it was a brilliant night. Afterwards he got Tony and introduced him to Mr Cocker, identifying him as the one responsible for sending in the demo tape. Mr Cocker gave Billy his Agents’ details and instructions to ring, and his assurance that a good word would be left on his behalf. Billy was ecstatic and as they left, people, girls and guys, patted him on the back, congratulated him. He felt like a star and unbelievably light headed, so much so that he remembered nothing of the trip home in Tony’s’ big brothers car.
Tony’s brother just happened to be in jail so his car wasn’t real useful to him at the moment. Billy’s Dad had been right about one thing … Tony’s brother was a drug addict but he’d been put away for dealing, not using.
Dad! Reality hit home again as they rounded the corner into Billy’s street and the ambulance sat in front of his house. Its bright, side-mounted lamps illuminated the front yard with an eerie off white glow, glaringly contrasted by the flashing red domes. Dad!
Chapter Seven
“Billy in Training”
The whole world appears ill equipped to handle the likes of this boy. He stands in faded and torn jeans, a t-shirt small enough to be a crop top and a filthy
cardigan. His apparent impunity to any living soul is obvious when nobody approaches him. Not a soul saw his arrival and none lifts a hand when he stands amongst them, staring up at the sky as if seeking enlightenment, arms outstretched as if receiving the word of God.
At times he appears to smile and at others his concentration is obvious. He stood sometimes for hours on end, before nodding assent and smiling to himself, and then simply disappearing. Nobody is able to substantiate how this happens, simply one second he is there and the next he is not.
Similar incidents are reported three times over fours years in different cities and
States. They remain unconnected, even though up to forty witnesses are procured. But no laws have been broken so in all cases, further action is deemed unnecessary.
Chapter Eight
“Billy the Man”
The view was nice – water, boats, high rise buildings off in the distance, but very few people. Billy didn’t see any of it. Sure, he knew it was there, and sitting on the patio there like he was gave him the greatest exposure, but he really hadn’t seen anything for months now, not since that night when they pronounced his Dad dead. In his chair of course – eyes still open, and Billy was the only one that could tell you he was still watching that damn television. Billy knew that kind of thing happened if your grasp on something in Reality is strong enough.
It didn’t shock him as much as his mother did. She held Billy responsible, made a scene she did, enough for the ambulance guys to actually restrain her. They ended up taking her with them in the back of that same ambulance, sedated and strapped in a stretcher beside her husband. Tony didn’t hang around. He knew his limitations.
For the first time since that night, Billy was actually considering going back, to see that his Mum was okay, and to see Jen. He hadn’t looked much at Reality for a while. You know how it is. Grief does funny things to people, and in Billy’s case, it sent him off.
Right now he sat beside this old guy and Billy couldn’t recall whether the old man owned this place or rented it. He knew he’d liked it there. The old man had died too, yesterday afternoon actually, and his sleeping corpse had sat outside on his patio all night and most of the day. He was still enjoying his view, not unlike Billy’s Dad and his bloody TV. Billy heard a noise on the upstairs balcony and decided that now was the time.
“Hey, hullo, is there someone up there?” He stepped away from the patio area so he could look up to that balcony and be visible to anybody there. An elderly lady holding a watering can peered down. “Ma’am, the man down here, in the unit underneath you. I think he’s, well, could you just ring an ambulance?”
That little old lady peered at Billy for a few seconds. Then without a word she walked back into her unit, and methodically closed her balcony door like she’d probably done a thousand times before. She began closing her curtains and Billy realised he was on his own. He walked to the patio door and found it unlocked, of course. The phone hung over the kitchen bench and after