Billy Was Billy

They were spacious studios for rent, suitable for a young man who had just passed the bar exam and had begun work for the state. In fact, he noticed another Tulane graduate across the street occupying what he assumed was a studio apartment identical to his own. His name was Mark, something or other, and he was seeing a beautiful woman.

Chris commuted to the downtown office where he had just begun working on the case of the death row inmate Jack Stowe. He returned home in the evening and sat out on the balcony and watched Mark, he couldn't remember his last name, sit out on the opposing balcony across the street with the beautiful blond woman, perhaps actually a red head or brunette who had taken measures. He had the suspicion that Mark did something in patent law, although he wasn't sure.

One night, laying in bed, he thought of what it might be like to be laying with the beautiful blonded woman. What a luxury it seemed to lay next to this woman nightly.

The following day, a Saturday, he passed her up close in the grocery store which lay at the ground floor of the studios. They passed each other. Up close, he noticed how angular she was, as if she was all elbows and knees. Her face was angular. Yet, there was nothing objectionable about the angularity. The angularity made her all the more appealing, was like a promise that she would always be pronounced and present. That and her beautiful skin and this trace of an idea that she was concealing something, a need, a sorrow.

That evening, he saw them sitting on their balcony across the way. They were drinking something red out of a pitcher. Sangria? Through Mark's curtains, music wafted into the night. Latin music.

That night while drifting off, Chris closed his eyes and imagined laying next to her. It seemed like such a luxury to count on being able to come home to Mark's girlfriend every night.

***

Chris drove out through the marshland to the state penitentiary. The land seemed haunted by the ghosts of dead Indians. The marsh Indians had lived in a perpetual damp Utopia marred by occasional bloody warfare with the Indians of the north. He had read up on the region. Where the Indians of the north were farmers, the marsh Indians remained hunter gatherers until the bitter end. They ate cat fish, wild boar and grandfather moss.

Chris had studied anthropology in college and had read up on the Marsh Indians before moving down south, and as he drove to the penitentiary, in his mind he populated the landscape with the ghosts of the Marsh Indians.

After passing through an endless green corridor of impenetrable forest, the pen loomed in front of him with its towers and turrets. He was ushered into its darkest depths where he met with Jack Stowe, who had been sentenced to death for the double homicide of his wife and his wife's lover Billy Le Blank.

"I hated that Billy Le Blank from the start. He seemed, I don't know how to put this, blank."

"Like his name."

"Yeah, like his name. Billy Le Blank, pulling up in that pick up truck."

Jack Stowe had a grisly quality Chris associated with being in the Pen for 10 years. He had no hair and seemed excessively gaunt. He kind of looked like Ben Kingsley, the English actor, although his face was pale. Suddenly, and with a knife-like intensity, he thought of Mark's girlfriend's skin.

"And so you're telling me that he would come and actually sleep with your wife while you were in the house."

"Hells yeah, he did. That no good Billy Le Blank made me a cuckold in my own home."

"What did you do?"

"What do you think I did? I cursed them out. I told him to get out of there, but he wouldn't leave. They just laughed at me. Once I came home and found em there..."

"Having sex?"

"Yeah, having sex right on the living room couch with the TV on."

"That's fucked up, man."

"Damn right that's fucked up."

"How long did this go on for?"

"2 years."

"2 years? That's fucked up. Why didn't you leave?"

"Had no where else to go. Besides, it was half my house."

"Why didn't you get a divorce?"

"I was afraid Stacey would take the house and that was all I had to my name."

He had a point there. There was something overly fragile about Jack Stowe. He could imagine Jack's wife Stacey getting the house and getting everything, leaving him out on the street.

Back at work he asked his boss Hank if he had heard Jack Stowe's story.

"It's real fucked up," said Hank.

Jack Stowe was slated to fry in the autumn. He had exhausted all his appeals. The rest of the legal process was mere of a formality.

Driving home in the evening from the pen, Chris stopped at the liquor store and got a small pint of Bim Black. He didn't buy full fifths because he knew that if he did he would drink half the first night and then half the second night and would be at half mast for the entire work week.

He stood in his spacious kitchenette and emptied the contents of the whiskey into a glass, and then went out on the balcony to watch Mark and the beautiful blond woman drink sangria and dance to salsa music. After the day of listening to Jack Stowe discuss his fucked up relationship, he felt happy to be alone. But at night, he couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to come home to Mark's girlfriend, to crawl into bed with her, to know that she was there. The thought helped him drift off to sleep.

***

In the morning, he drove out to the state pen with the turrets and the towers like a panopticon presiding over the marsh, the evil spirit of the marshland itself embodied: the soul sentient eye. The guard ushered him into the inner sanctums and depths, the areas of little rooms of solitary confinement in which the lights were always on day and night, where television sets were still black and white and drinking fountains were attached to the backs of toilets.

Finally, they allowed him inspect the Chair itself.

The Chair had always been a significant part of his life. Ever since a child, ever since discovering the evil men do to their fellow man in a thinking, rational fashion which poses as goodness, he had been both fascinated and terrified by the idea of the Chair. A firing squad seemed more humane. Even a hanging seemed like preferential treatment to the Chair electrified, a thing of both comfort, for sitting, and for dying. It was an absurd parody of justice, with the viewing window, the switch, the executioners abnegation of culpability. Any child could see.

And there it was, the destiny of Jack Stowe, the contemporary crucifix.

He rain his fingers along the smooth, wooden arm. Oak?

"You should have left, Jack."

"But I couldn't leave."

"You could have, Jack. You could have left."

"Where could I have gone?"

"Anywhere, Jack. You could have gone someplace else, started over."

"With what? I don't have any skills or abilities. I don't have any talents. That house was all I had. Allison was all I had, and I loved her," he began to cry.

***

"So, when did you first get the idea?"

"They idea of what?"

"To, you know, to kill them..."

"That's what I've been trying to say! It wasn't premeditated. At least it wasn't premeditated for a long time. I just came home one night and found them in bed and it occurred to me that I could do it and suddenly I found myself doing it! It was like my mind was being controled by some evil force! It was like I had no control over my actions, and so I just went to the kitchen, got a knife..."

"That's horrible, Jack."

"I know! I know it's horrible."

"Once I came home, and they were having a barbecue. Billy Le Blank and his friends and some friends of Allison who had originally been our friends. I saw them through the window in the kitchen. They were hanging out in my yard grilling burgers..."

Jack Stowe had a kind of high pitched plaintive country boy way of talking.

"I went out there and everyone said hi to me and I realize that, hell, these people who I thought were my friends think I'm a piece of shit! You know when you're in a situation that's so fascinatingly horrible, you don't want to leave because you are fascinated at how horrible it is? I cracked a beer, sat down and just watched everything. And it was like everything going on was for my benefit. Everyone was looking at me when they spoke, like they were all shitting on me. I couldn't take any more and started to cry. Then I stood up and said, 'why do you people hate me so much? Allison's best friend Sarah said, 'we don't hate you. We just think you're kind of a bummer is all, Jack!"

"A bummer?"

"Yeah, they thought I was a bummer!"

"That's fucked up."

"Hell, yes, it was fucked up! And there's Billy Le Blank grilling burgers using my barbecue. He's got these sunglasses on. He looks like fucking Alec Baldwin standing there, smoking a cigarette grilling burgers."

"A bummer."

"Yeah, a big bummer!"

"Weird."

***

"Have you ever heard Jack Stowe's story?" Chris asked Warden Jones.

"Yes, I have," said Warden Jones.

Warden Jone's office seemed like a Warden's office from the movies. Lots of books. A picture of Jesus. It was like the theosophical center at the heart of the panopticon.

"What do you think of it?"

"That's a fucked up story," said Warden Jones.

"Yeah."

"But it's no reason to kill someone."

"That's true. But it definitely supplies a comprehensible motive."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I don't think Jack Stowe deserves to die."

"That may be the case, but what are you going to do about it?"

"At this point, I'm not sure what I can do."

"Would you like a peppermint?"

"Ok."

Warden Jones handed Chris a peppermint. They sat there, sucking on peppermints looking out over the marshland.

***

It was the regularity of the event that seemed the most momentous thing. As far as he could tell, she was always there every single evening when Mark came home. She had committed to being there in the evening. At the end of the day, they had committed to coming home and sleeping with each other every single night.

He had long since received the impression that he probably wouldn't get along with his neighbors across the street: with the woman or with Mark himself for that matter. He read this notion in the things of their lives, the hybrid car Mark drove, the Sangria, the salsa music, and the Avocados he saw piling up in the woman's grocery cart. Always Avocados. The things of their life seemed to appose his things, which consisted primarily of a 1992 Grand Am, Johnny Cash and ingredients for spaghetti sauce.

But he still thought about what it meant to come home to her in the evening. The coming home and the falling asleep seemed infinitely preferable and more important to the kind of sex life you were supposed to have. He wondered if they reallized that.

As he drifted off at night, he began to think that imagining sleeping with her was in fact even a greater luxury than actually sleeping with her. It was perfectly safe, for one thing. There was no chance of Billy Le Blank entering the picture. There was no chance of her realizing his metaphysical condition dangling on a rocky outcropping above the Sea of Japan. There was no chance of him becoming Jack Stowe.

***

Billy Le Blank had been married to Sandra Le Blank and had two little daughters. At the trial, apparently Sandra Le Blank and the daughters had all testified to the fact that they wanted Jack Stowe to fry. The two little daughters said they wanted Jack Stowe to die.

So, for Billy Le Blank's two little daughters, the Chair was the instrument of revenge. They possessed a totally different vantage that he had had onto the Chair as a child.

He pulled up in front of Sandra Le Blank's house one Tuesday morning to try to broach the subject of clemency.

"Well, as long as you're here, you'd might as well take a seat. Billy always approved of hospitality and you're just doing your job."

"Thank you Sandra, that's awfully cordial of you."

"You're welcome."

Sandra Le Blank busied herself in the kitchen with coffee. She had even fastened a little apron about her slender waste. She was a pretty woman in her mid 40s with a hairstyle he associated with people living in the country who appeared on talk shows.

"What's a nice young man like you mixing with trash like Jack Stowe for?"

"If there is going to be prosecution, there has to be defense."

"Well, I guess that's true."

"How are your daughters?"

"They're staying with my mom. You know how it is. They've got lots of space and are getting ready for college and I stil haven't gotten over my husband's death, after all these years."

She broke down weeping. She rested her head on his shoulder. Suddenly, they were kissing. Chris fell into the act of kissing Sandra Le Blanc with a passion he never knew he possessed. It was like the years of toil and isolation, like sentries, finally stood aside revealing Sandra Le Blank's body. It was not angular, but was rather full and firm. It reminded him of the foothills in the countryside somewhere. She was clean and sweet smelling. The couch was scratchy. He wanted her totally in every aspect without reservations.

After, laying in each other's arms, he didn't broach the subject of clemency.

***

"So, how did it go?" Jack Stowe asked him.

"She wasn't home."

"Wasn't home? Well, where was she?"

"I don't know. I'm going to try on Friday."

"You do try! You go and try! We're talking about my life here! My life. Shit."

***

"Care for a peppermint?" asked Warden Jones.

"Sure."

"You know, I never planned on becoming a warden."

"It doesn't seem like the kind of job you plan on," Chris said.

"I wanted to become a baptist minister."

"What happened?"

"Fear of public speaking."

"Do you ever feel guilty?"

"About what?"

"About executing people?"

"If I didn't, then someone else would."

"Why don't you just let someone else do it?"

"Do you mind if I get a bit personal?" asked Warden Jones.

"Ok."

"You're a young man. Young men think they can change the world. But once you get a little older you realize the world is just an evil festering thing. It festers. Do you know about the Indians that used to live around here?

"A little."

"They ate babies."

"They ate babies?"

"The baby eating tribes. Fry them up and gulp them down."

"That can't be true."

"Don't believe me, look it up."

That evening, Chris looked it up. Sure enough, it wasn't true. It was a popular myth concocted by Christian missionaries to justify the murder of Indians.

***

On Friday after making love, Chris and Sandra went driving around the town.

"I hate this old place," said Sandra. "I've always hated it."

"Where would you rather live?"

"I don't know. I've never been anywhere." Everything she said came out in the form of mild protest, as if she were protesting her lot in life. In an eerie way, her way of talking reminded her of Jack Stowe's. Everything couched in the form of mild protest. He tried to put the similarity out of his mind.

"Billy always said that anywhere was as good as anywhere else."

"Was Billy good to you, Sandra?"

"Billy, oh. Well, I suppose so. I mean, he wasn't bad. Billy was wild! Billy always had this thing about him. He wasn't the most popular, the strongest, the smartest, but he was Billy Le Blanc and we all wanted him."

"Who is all?"

"All of us. We went to school together. Everyone wanted Billy Le Blank. Everyone."

They drove down a gravelly trail and in view of the swamp, made love in the front seat of his Grand Am.

***

Dropping Sandra off, stopping off at the liquor store for a pint of Bim Black, sitting on on his balcony, he realized that he despised his neighbors across the way. He hated them intensily. There they were, spending another evening with that mindless Salsa music playing, that jug of ridiculous fruit-doctored wine. But he still couldn't fully wrap his mind around their commitment to each other just as he couldn't understand Sandra's commitment to the scoundrel Billy Le Blank. Jack Stowe's position on the other hand seemed infinitely comprehensible.

As he visited Jack Stowe weekly, he kept on putting off the question of asking Sandra about clemency. It was the best sex he had ever had. He realized that he was just factoring into Jack Stowe's life as another scoundrel, but it was as if he couldn't stop, as if he had lost control.

"What do you mean, she isn't giving you an answer."

"She says she can't make up her mind."

"What do you mean she can't make up her mind? It's either clemency or not? What's the big decision?"

"I don't know, Jack."

"Who are these people?"

"I don't know, Jack."

"It's either life or death, clemency or revenge. What's the big problem?"

"I don't know Jack." He felt mildly annoyed and then ashamed by his annoyance.

In the evening, Chris the state appointed attorney of convicted murderer Jack Stowe, went to visit Sandra Le Blank. He sneaked up to her house in the evening and lay with her in the darkness. At 29, he felt as if he had entered into his first mature adult relationship. It was a relationship with no set boundaries of commitment, revolving around the bed and spending aimless afternoons watching the rain pass over.

When he returned to his place, he did not think about what Sandra Le Blank was doing. He did not ask her if she was seeing someone else or if she wanted to go steady. He didn't care. He observed himself not caring. Not caring was something new.

***

"You've changed," said Warden Jones.

"You think?"

They were staring out over the marshlands. Chris did not hate Warden Jones as he hated his neighbors the salsa dancers. He knew that he should hate him, but for some reason he didn't.

"You know, I met my wife Jerry when I worked as a garbage man. I used to take out her garbage."

"Really."

"Then, one day she asked me out. We were married the following Tuesday."

"What?"

"We drove to Las Vegas, got married, and got busy real quick."

The marshlands were endless. The only sound was that of their mouths working the peppermints which Warden Jones kept in a carved, wooden box on his desk.

***

Sandra Le Blank's body unfolded before him this insatiable landscape daily tuning itself with his own landscape of desire. Being with her required absolutely no effor, the opposite of effort, whatever that was. Being with her, he felt transformed, alive.

"You've changed," said his boss Hank. "I don't know what it is."

"What do you think of me?" he asked Sandra one evening as they lay in bed. "I mean, in comparison with other men you know, have..."

"Have been with?"

"Well, yeah."

"Well, for one thing you're not really what I'm used to."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing, I usually prefer, you know, big men, and you're more, just, well average."

"Oh thanks."

"And for another thing, you're not like Billy."

"In what sense."

"Well, Billy. Who was like Billy? We all wanted him, you know, oh, don't take offense when I say that! Please don't take offense. You're real. You're the first real thing I've ever had I think, and you're smart, but Billy was Billy and we all wanted him."

"Do you ever think of clemency?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, clemency. I mean forgiving him. You know Billy wasn't exactly a saint."

"What are you saying?"

"I mean, perhaps he doesn't deserve to die."

"You're talking about Jack Stowe? You think he doesn't deserve to die? You're saying that the killer of the father of my children doesn't deserve to die? He deserved to die before he was ever born!"

"How is that possible?"

"How is that possible? It's possible because sometimes demons are born into this world that should have never been born and deserve to die before they ever see the light."

"I'm sorry."

"What do you mean, you're sorry!"

"I'm sorry," Chris said.

Drifting off to sleep, he imagined laying next to the angular woman. The angular woman! He had missed her fragrant non-presence, her permanent angularity, the sense that she was hiding something, a secret state that she didn't show anyone, even Mark who over the course of the last 4 months, had suddenly gotten fat but who had improved as a salsa dancer.

***

Finally, the day of the execution came. Jack Stowe was handling it as could be expected: with a great deal of tears, rage and repentance. Although, Chris felt distant from Jack Stowe now, distant from Sandra Le Blank sitting next to him in the gallery who he had stopped seeing casually. He felt distant from Warden Jones who stood in the execution chamber and threw the switch, causing a certain amount of volts or watts to flow through Jack Stowe, putting him out of his misery. But when Jack Stowe died, Chris felt something inside himself die. That night, laying in bed, he felt blank.