Billy

by Liz Zuercher

Growing up on an Illinois farm with alcoholic parents I learned two things.  First, the land is everything, the source of your security, and you do whatever is necessary to keep it.  Second, never count on a man to take care of you.  It will leave you feeling trapped, bitter and disappointed.

The first lesson was a given.  Real estate was solid.  It would always be there for you, if you worked hard to preserve it.

The second lesson was a little harder for me to learn than the first one, even though my parents had illustrated this concept pretty well.  I figured once I left home and could chart my own destiny, I’d make better decisions than my mother had.  But I hadn’t accounted for what love does to a girl, starting with Billy.

I was eighteen, newly graduated from high school and in love with Billy Millsap, when he told me he was leaving town to find his fortune in Chicago.  That’s the way he said it.

“Cassie, babe, I can’t get anywhere in this podunk town.  I’m gonna find my fortune in Chicago,” he said.

“What are you going to live on, Billy?” I asked, ever the practical one.

“I’ve got some money saved up, and I’ll get a job doing something,” he said, a faraway look glowing in his green eyes. 

God, he was good-looking.  I couldn’t think straight when I looked into Billy’s eyes.  He was a farm boy, who couldn’t stand farming.  He didn’t like getting his hands dirty, and to be a farmer you have to appreciate soil.  He thought he was better than that, made for more important things, and he was going to find them in the big city. 

“I want to be in a place where there are possibilities.  There are no possibilities here for a guy like me.  I know I’m meant to do something important, Cass.  And if I stay here I’ll never be able to realize my potential.”

Billy talked like that all the time.  He talked about potential and realizing it and taking the bull by the horns and venturing forth into the world beyond Central Illinois.  He wanted adventure.  He wanted to expand his horizons.  And he wanted me to come with him.  Between his sparkling eyes, his golden tan, tight muscular body, his kiss and his seductive words, I was sold.  Besides, I’d wanted to get away from home for years.

Things had gone from bad to worse at my house, so when Billy said, “Come with me Cassie,” I leaped off that cliff.  To my way of thinking, I was at the edge of an abyss and there was another ledge just within jumping range, if I got a little head start.  And there was beautiful Billy on the other ledge holding out his arms, ready to catch me, urging me to jump.  Behind me, no one was paying attention.  My parents were both in a drunken fog, going through the motions of life, and my sister was a space cadet who flew under the radar, staying out of everyone’s way, sleeping with every farm boy in a twenty-mile radius.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see her fly the coop soon, too.  So I decided to jump toward Billy and his shiny dream of adventure and possibilities.

We arranged to leave early on a Wednesday afternoon in July, when both our fathers would be out in the fields.  We figured it would be easier to slip out of the house then.  And we kept it a secret so no one could talk us out of it.  His folks might have tried to do that.  I figured mine would shrug their shoulders and say, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”  At least my father would say that.  I expected more of my mother.  I thought she would be upset, maybe even shed a tear, but I was wrong.  The mistake I made was in not just leaving a note for her.  I decided to tell her I was leaving and wasn’t coming back.  I don’t know why I did that.  Maybe I wanted to think someone actually cared about me and what I was doing.  I should have known better.

I sobbed most of the way to Chicago.  Billy tried to console me with his “our dream is coming true now” talk, but already I was wondering if I’d done the right thing.  I knew it was good for me to leave home.  There was nothing for me there.  But I felt guilty, leaving my mother in that situation.  Still, I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be the caretaker, was I?  The young girl was not the one who was meant to make the home environment safe.  That was the parents’ responsibility.  It was all backward at my house.  I could see that.  I thought I was the one who was supposed to keep my mother safe, be the buffer between my father and mother.  I tried to protect her from him.  But I couldn’t do it any more.  All the way to Chicago I kept saying over and over, “I’m sorry Mom.  I’m so sorry.”

“She’s the one who should be sorry,” Billy said finally.  He must have had his fill of my guilt trip.  “She and your father.  They should be sorry about how they treated you.  It’s not your fault.”

“But what will she do without me?” I asked.

“She’ll get along,” he said.  “She’ll have to figure it out for herself.”

He was right, of course.  Still, I worried about whether she’d survive.  I didn’t worry about Carolyn.  Even spacey Carolyn had enough sense to know a bad situation when she saw it and opt out.  My mother, on the other hand, was too deeply mired in it to be able to see a way out.  To me, it didn’t even seem like she wanted to be free of it.  Could she possibly still love my father after all he’d put her through?  And what about him?  Did he give two hoots about her, or Carolyn or me?  It sure didn’t seem that way.

We drove the rest of the way to Chicago to the sound of Rock of Chicago on WLS radio.  Country was king in Colfax.  We didn’t listen to rock music much.  But the heavy beat coming from the car radio thumped in my chest, making me feel even more anxious about what I was doing.  At the same time it awakened a new animal in me, and I started to feel like I was finally beginning to run free.  The sense of oppression I had lived with for most of my life started to fall away, like ice calving from a glacier, cracking then sliding into the cold waters below.  The closer we got to Chicago, the more I felt my old life and its limitations fall away from me, and I started to look forward to my new life with Billy. 

My rose colored glasses were firmly in place by the time we caught view of the Chicago skyline.  “Chariots of Fire” played on the radio and I imagined myself running with abandon on the shore of Lake Michigan, fresh lake water lapping the shore with a gentle whoosh, the famous Chicago wind blowing through my hair.  What a romantic I was back then.  I thought Billy and I were forever, that from then on everything in my life would be a glorious adventure and that I’d left all my troubles behind me in Colfax.  I was so naïve.

We moved in with Billy’s friend, Joe, who had a place on the north side of the city in an area of old brown stone houses converted to apartments.  We had to walk up three flights of narrow wooden stairs to get to the apartment.  The risers creaked and groaned with each footstep, and I often wondered if one of them would give way, trapping my foot in jaws of rotted wood.  Or I envisioned the rickety railing collapsing, catapulting me headlong down the stairwell.  But none of that ever happened, and in fact, I came to appreciate the noisy stairs, because they signaled Billy’s arrival on nights I sat up late waiting for him. 

Those nights reminded me of the ones I spent waiting up with my mother for my father to come home.  The only difference was that I drank Diet Pepsi instead of Coke and there was no rum in my glass.  There was also no cigarette threatening to start a fire, because I had vowed never to be like my mother, never to drink and never to smoke.  I was determined to make something of myself, not be dependent on the whims of some man for my well-being.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Billy and I were happy in Chicago.  He found a job selling building supplies, something that suited him to a T.  His smooth charm and shining good looks eased his way with the customers and his company’s management alike.  Everybody loved Billy.  The only bad part about Billy’s job was that he had a territory, and that meant he had to travel a lot, all over the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan.  I quickly discovered that I was more on my own than I had thought I would be.  But I didn’t mind, as long as Billy came home to me when he said he would.  I didn’t like surprises much, even then.  My experience with surprises to that point had not been good, so I liked to have a routine and I liked it to stay that way.

I got a job, too.  I was hired by Marshall Field’s to sell house wares.  That included dishes and cookware and linens and small appliances.  And I found out I was good at it.  You’d think such a young girl wouldn’t be believable in the house wares department, that the smart corporate wives who shopped at Marshall Field’s wouldn’t take much stock in what I said.  But I discovered I had a way of making them feel comfortable, like they were talking to their sisters or their daughters, and I made it a point to learn all I could about what I was selling so my information was always correct.  People respect that level of preparation.  But the most important thing about me as a sales clerk was that I listened to what the customer said.  I listened carefully to them so I knew exactly what they were looking for, and with my knowledge of the inventory I could almost always come up with the precise item my customer needed.  I really enjoyed making the customer happy, and I built up a clientele who came back again and again to buy from me.  Management liked that.  They liked me, and within a year I had risen from clerk to assistant department manager.  Life was good.

After a while, Joe moved in with his girlfriend and left the apartment to Billy and me.  I used my discount at Marshall Field’s to get some great decorator items that spruced up our thrift store furniture.  We had a home together, just the way we’d dreamed.  The tree lined streets of our neighborhood welcomed us every day as we came home from our jobs, and the aroma of baking bread from the bakery a block away woke us in the mornings.  We could walk to the lake and ride our bicycles through Lincoln Park.  Billy loved the Cubs, so we got bleacher seats in Wrigley Field whenever we could.

The only wrinkle in my smooth Chicago life was Billy’s continuing search for adventure.  I had thought our escape to Chicago together and our life there would be the adventure, but for Billy it was only the beginning.  As my Grandma Elsa would have said, “That boy has itchy feet.”  She also would have said, “If you gave him the world and a fence around it, he’d still want a slice off the moon.”  And Billy certainly did want a slice off the moon.  Grandma Elsa never knew Billy, but she must have known someone just like him, because her sayings described him perfectly.  Billy got bored easily.  He was restless and needed to push the envelope of our lives.  I, on the other hand, wanted consistency.  That difference between us began to spell the death knell of our relationship, almost before it even really got started. 

The final straw came on my nineteenth birthday as I waited for him to come home and take me to dinner, like we’d planned.  I sat there listening for the creak of the stairs until midnight, when I finally fell asleep on the sofa, tears forming a crust on my eyes.  It wasn't the first time, but it would be the last.

The next day, with still no sign of Billy, I gave my two-week notice at Marshall Field’s.  I was done.  When Billy rolled in two days later, acting like nothing was wrong, not even apologizing for missing my birthday, I kept my plans to myself.  I knew he’d try to sweet talk me out of leaving, and I didn’t want to take the chance I’d give in the way my mother always did. 

Three weeks after my birthday, while Billy was out selling drywall in Iowa, I wrote him a goodbye note and left it on the kitchen table with my apartment keys.  With all my belongings packed in one small blue suitcase, I took the bus to Los Angeles.  Why Los Angeles?  Partly it was because Los Angeles sounded glamorous and as a child I dreamed of being a movie actress.  But mostly I thought California would be as far away from Illinois as I could get.  I didn’t want anyone coming after me, and I didn’t want to be close enough to give up on myself easily and go home.  It was time for me to have my own adventure.