Billy Goat Hill

by Mark Stanleigh Morris

  The curse of man, the liquid destroyer, the poisonous genie of blended grain mash is out of the bottle and washing away all of the voices. I am into the voice repellent big time tonight, and nobody, not even sweet, loving, wonderful Melissa has the power to put the genie back in the bottle.

  I brush Melissa off and draw back my cue, my eyes blinking to find some focus. I let the cue rip, nearly falling down in the process. The cue ball slams into the wedge just as Melissa removes the rack. I see Carl shooting at cosmonauts as a horde of billiard balls collide in a nuclear carom, the sound of the impact clanging off the walls and reverberating with the pounding beat of the jukebox. Melissa flinches and curses at me, her patience dwindling and then gone. She glares across the table, angry as a carnie working the midway caught in the line of fire by an impatient kid hungry for the big prize.

  Nearly as jangling as the scattering of the billiard balls, my senses collide, throwing my already anesthetized perception into total disarray. Palpable tremors signal through my bones sending crabs of alarm scurrying around in my gut.

  The room begins to move, like a merry-go-round starting up, and the jukebox wails an ominous warning as “Mama Told Me Not to Come” by Three Dog Night blares from the far end of the room. The eerie message thumps throughout the smoke-filled bar, a musical harbinger announcing the accession of an alcoholic’s madness.

  The room tilts sharply with a spine-jarring jolt that causes my legs to buckle and the billiard balls to topple off the table. Like oversize marbles, the balls clunk hard on the floor and disperse randomly around the barroom. Squinting through the smoke-laden air, I watch in disbelief as the balls, now far more than sixteen in number, begin to scrabble around and arrange themselves at my feet.

  To me, the floor appears as a muddy flat. I recoil and gasp as the balls slowly shift into forms, shapes, characters—letters of the alphabet! First an M, then an I, then an S, until the word Mississippi holds statically, coagulated in a paste-like muddy gruel. Then, in a dizzying, anagrammatic, kaleidoscopic swirl, the balls reconfigure to form the word—MURDERER! Horrified, I stare at the floor as the accusation throbs in my face like a blinking neon sign.

  I fall back and try to shake off the vision, but it won’t go away. As suddenly as before, the balls rise up from the floor and hover miraculously in a precision V formation two feet above the pool table. Weaving back and forth, my wobbling legs barely holding me up, I rub my red-rimmed eyes and try desperately to blink away the apparition. But my eyes grow wide as the numbers and colors drip off of the billiard balls and splatter on the pool table like melting wax, leaving behind blinding-silver metallic eyes that taunt me with sporadic charges forward and back. My hallucination is as real as the panic sweating out of my cramping body. I hear Three Dog Night howling for my blood, and I begin to cry.

  Then, in a sudden fit of terror-induced rage, I lunge forward and wildly swing my stick at the ghostly balls. They scatter about like plump rats evading an attacking broom. The cue stick shatters violently on the edge of the pool table, a large splinter rebounding up to the ceiling where it sticks like an arrow meeting its mark.

  My darkening fate looms all around me as the silver balls take up a radial formation and begin circling like blood-sniffing sharks. They poise to strike, filling me with dread, pushing me down, down, deep inside my fear. I blubber out a cowardly whine and then scream out, cursing incoherently at the demons only I can see.

  In the mirror behind the bar, I see a face white with panic and wet with the desperation of brain infesting fright. I wrench myself around and lunge toward the door, sure that the army of silver fiendish eyes will chase me to my death. I stumble through the crowded bar knocking aside people, chairs, and drink-laden tables in my path. I am frantic to make it to my car, to the trunk, to the only weapon that offers a defense against my helpless paranoia.

  The music keeps at me, pounding from behind as I charge out the door. But the silver balls do not follow me into the night. Instead, I fear they have tricked me into my retreat only to take my precious Melissa prisoner. The warped manifestations of my hounding guilt have come to strip me of my only link with reality—my Melissa!

  From out of the trunk comes the Excalibur, the magic sword of the Duke of Flatbush. In my muddled mind, I recall how it had been handed down, bequeathed from a Royal Duke to a simple peasant boy, a fatherless ghetto rube whose lonely destiny had been forged in the heartless shires of the City of Angels. Like the sacred sword, I have been heated white-hot and hammered true on the anvil-like hill of the sacrificial goat, and quenched in the second of three baptismal ponds, and blessed by the high priest of the Caverns of Cavendish.

  I stand here shivering and cowering in the dark parking lot, my alcoholized blood oxidizing with each rapid gulp of night chilled air. Alone and scared, I begin to mutter fragments of the Paternoster as one of faith might do in preparation for death. Slowly I focus my intent. With all of my might, I grip the bat firmly in both hands and plead for an end to the madness.

  A faint electric hum emanates from the bat. A tingling vibration enters my hands and climbs up my arms. Growing in intensity, the energy marches across my chest, swelling my muscles, then jolting me with a strange surge of rejuvenating power. Instantly, I am cleansed of all fear and now see clearly what my destiny requires of me. I was born to be Melissa’s knight in shining armor.

  An alcoholic’s pathetic nirvana floods into my heart, and my psychosis takes me on a quantum leap propelling me past the present to the future and beyond. I clutch the wooden avenger firmly and feel my strength swell tenfold. Empowered with newfound courage, I prepare to answer the call. Excalibur hoisted high in the night sky, poised to sever the head of the dragon called guilt, I charge back into the smoke-filled abyss.

  Booze gives breath to my slobbered battle cry. “I’ll save you, fair Mi-s-s-sala!”

  I, Sir Wade of Ruby Place, stumble forth in search of another drink, determined to rescue the beautiful maid in distress—my darling, sweet, beautiful, loving Melissa.

  I am a lonely wayfarer, a lost fool who has strayed so far from home I no longer know who I am. My soul is thrown away and I am without hope. If only I could find a safe place, a protected haven away from and untouched by the madness of this world, I would convert to it. For in this darkness I am alone. Won’t someone help me—please? I didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident. I didn’t know the man was there. I didn’t mean to kill him. I’m sorry! Please forgive me!

  I fall back through the barroom door, the bat flailing wildly in front of me. I hear Melissa scream and strain my eyes to see her, but the darkness has me by the legs and is pulling me down. Just before everything turns black, I imagine I see angels who know me from days gone by…

  “Do you think God knows about us?”

  “Luke, is that you?”

  “Never look back, Wade.”

  “Sergeant Cavendish, is that you?”

  “Remember, Wade, Jesus is the best friend you can ever have.”

  “Rodney, is that you?”

  “By His boundless mercy, God offers everyone the privilege of being born again…”

  “Esther, is that you?”

  “No, Wade, it is I.”

  “What? Who’s there? Who are you?”

  Who do you think I am?

  “I don’t know. Who are you?”

  Seek Me and you shall know Me.

  “How?”

  Knock and I shall answer the door.

  “I don’t understand.”

  You must open your heart and let Me come in.

  “But why would you want me?”

  Because I love you, Wade.

  “But I am no good. I’ve done something terrible.”

  All men fall short of the glory of God.

  “But, I’m a…murderer!”

  I know you as I know the truth of all things. I have a plan for you, but you are the one who must choose to change.

  “How? How can I change what has already been do
ne?”

  Trust Me.

  “Hey, Parker!”

  The clamp around my skull instantly twists a full turn tighter. “What!” An astringent belch makes its way to freedom.

  “Rise and shine, Wade—this isn’t a Holiday Inn.”

  With considerable effort, I raise my face off of a cold fiberglass plank. A gelatinous string of drool stretches between the plank and my swollen lower lip as my eyes focus just enough to make out a human form. I am pretty sure it belongs with the voice. “Bob—is that you? Am I in the tank again?”

  Deputy Bob Serrano intentionally clangs his collection of keys on the steel cell door. I can see enough to tell his bushy, black mustache is turned down in a severe frown. “I’m afraid so.”

  I met Bob Serrano one night at Buster’s Bonanza Room not long after Buster’s had become my newest home away from home. He and his partner were doing a routine walk-through. It was a quiet night on the beat, and we ended up talking for a while. He came back later without his uniform and patiently listened to my long, carefully edited cop story about the mysterious Sergeant Lyle Cavendish.

  Bob started hanging out at Buster’s, I soon found out, after his daughter died of leukemia. Though now a Christian and a recovering alcoholic, he continues his regular walk-throughs and goes out of his way to stay in touch. There must be something about me that cops can’t resist. They always seem to want to keep tabs on me. Anyway, Bob sees a lot more in me than I’ve ever seen in myself. All of the regulars at Buster’s are friends of mine, but none quite like deputy Bob Serrano.

  “Easy with the keys—please, sir.”

  “Oops. Gee, am I bothering you?” He bangs the keys again, except harder.

  I wipe a bare forearm across my mouth. The spittle leaves a gooey snail-trail from elbow to wrist that instantly begins to dry. From the way my head is throbbing, much less the damage to my face, I conclude it must have been a bad one. “Did I hurt anybody?”

  Bob swings the jail door open and steps inside the tank. “Yes, well—not seriously, anyway. Melissa’s feelings are a different story, though.”

  I look up at Bob. “Aw, she’s okay. She probably won’t talk to me for a day is all, maybe two.”

  My bloodshot eyes clear enough to see the disgust plastered all over Bob’s face. He can’t resist stating the obvious. “You don’t deserve a woman like Melissa.”

  He is right, but it isn’t the first time he’s said that. “Shoot, Bob. I don’t deserve a friend like you either, do I?” My lip is badly swollen and the grin I show him isn’t worth the pain, but it does force his stern-set gaze to give way to a half smile.

  “Nope, you sure don’t.”

  I want to lay my head back down, but I am afraid to give Bob another reason to yell or bang his keys. Grunting, I haul myself up to a sitting position. “Did I do any damage?”

  Bob hooks both thumbs in his gunless gun belt, the holster empty in accordance with jail rules. “According to Buster, you owe him three hundred bucks.”

  The hard stare he’s putting on me causes the skull clamp to tighten another turn. “Geez…what’d I break this time?”

  “You don’t remember any of it, do you?”

  There is a suggestion of pity in Bob’s voice that I don’t care for. I guess a part of my ego isn’t fully pickled yet. I shake my head and feel stiffness in my neck. “No, Bob. I guess I don’t remember a thing.”

  He sighs and clenches his jaw. “Wade, you really outdid yourself this time. According to forty-plus witnesses, you went out to your car, got that Duke Snider bat of yours, and proceeded to belt a billiard ball through every one of Buster’s windows.”

  “Cleared the place out, did I?”

  “Don’t sound so proud of yourself. When you finally ran out of balls, you went outside and tried to get everybody to sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ with you.”

  “Good grief.” I wearily try to rub the kink out of my neck.

  “You caused some grief, all right. The watch commander says I have to charge you this time.”

  “Geez.” I close my eyes and will against a sudden pang of nausea.

  “You know how many times you’ve lain on that bench sleeping it off?”

  I shake my head and start to tune him out. His message already sounds too much like a lecture. “I haven’t kept a count.”

  “You’ve had nine public drunkenness detainments in the last two years.”

  His poorly veiled disdain cuts me. I know it will sound stupid, but I say it anyway. “I’m sorry, Bob.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are, but that isn’t all of it.”

  Give me a break. “What?”

  “Buster says you darn near took Melissa’s head off with that bat of yours.”

  “What!” I feel the blood drain from my face.

  “That’s right—you should be scared. Apparently she tried to stop you. You were out of control. Everybody knows you didn’t mean it, they all know how much you love her. But for the grace of God, Wade, you could have killed her.” He clenches his jaw again and looks away, signaling something worse is coming.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Buster says the bat clipped one of Melissa’s pierced earrings and ripped her earlobe in half.”

  “Oh no!” Panic floods my veins. I struggle to get up on my feet.

  “Sit down!”

  “Huh?”

  “You haven’t heard the worst of it yet.”

  “What?”

  Now I see pain in Bob’s face. He can’t look at me as he says the words he knows will rip my heart right out of my chest. “Melissa took off. She’s left you, Wade.”

  I start to my feet again, but a sledgehammer of dread hits me in the solar plexus. I can’t breathe. Bob says something about bail being a thousand dollars and then disappears, leaving the jail door standing wide.

  He returns with a Dixie cup of water and hands it to me. In shock, I take the cup and drop it, water splattering back up in my face. Bob backs out of the cell again, but I don’t notice.

  I slip off the bench to the floor, water dripping from my face, and in my mind I am suddenly lying on the bottom of the middle pond. I frantically rip at my pockets, sure they are full of deadly ball bearings, holding me down, drowning me. Then my hands are stuck and I can’t get them out of my pockets and this time I know Mac can’t save me—he’s been dead for thirteen years!

  “Here,” Bob says, handing me another cup.

  “Huh… what?”

  “Come on, pull yourself together. Don’t spill it. You’re shaking like a frightened animal.”

  I manage to raise the cup to my mouth, but I can’t drink. To me the water looks as green as the water in Three Ponds. I set the cup down on the floor. Bob grabs me under the arms and raises me back up on the bench. “I’m pathetic,” I mumble.

  What Bob hears is a muffled whimper, a cry for help. He sits down next to me and hands the cup to me again. This time the water looks potable. I down it.

  I need a drink, I think to myself, not daring to say it out loud.

  “What you need is God, Wade,” Bob says with the consoling tone of a friend. “I know you’ve heard this from me before, but it’s the truest thing I can ever say to you.” He looks straight into my ashamed eyes. “You have got to get straightened out, and you are not able to do it on your own.” I couldn’t do it myself, either. I was a discarded, rusty, bent, twisted-up old nail lying in the dirt. To tell you the truth, I wanted to die.

  “But one day, after someone who is now one of my dearest friends sat down with me for the hundredth time and said the same thing I am saying to you now, I decided to take a chance on God. I got on down on my knees and told Him I needed Him and that I couldn’t make it without Him. I surrendered my will to His and asked Him to help me.” Bob squeezes my shoulder. “I finally agreed to go with my friend to an AA meeting.” It was very hard in the beginning, but the Lord helped me through.

  “But I lost my wife because I didn’t get help soon enough.
I don’t think it’s too late for you to get Melissa back.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes, I do. God taught me to believe in miracles.”

  I sit here letting what Bob said soak in, remembering that the last time I talked to Luke he made a speech of his own. “I hate to say it, Wade, but you are a drunk just like Earl.”

  “You were too young to remember anything about Earl,” I argued, knowing full well if I remember Earl’s drunken tirades, Luke remembers them, too.

  “What time is it, Bob?”

  “Trying to change the subject?”

  “Give me a break, will you.”

  The desperation in my eyes wears him down some. “Two in the afternoon. It’s Saturday, in case you’re wondering.”

  I endure another turn of the clamp. “Why didn’t you rouse me earlier?”

  “You got bail money on you?”

  “No.”

  “There’s your answer.”

  Bob sits next to me, patiently waiting, allowing me to think. He is right, of course. I have to do something about the drinking, but not AA, for crying out loud. Hello, my name is Wade. I’m an alcoholic. HI, WADE! “Geez.”

  “It’s not geez, Wade, it’s Jesus.” He grins.

  “You’re not going to let up, are you?”

  “It’s your life we’re talking about here, and I’m willing to fight for it.”

  “Did you see Melissa?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did she say she was going to her mom’s house?”

  “Nope. She mentioned San Diego, though.”

  “Yeah, her mom lives in San Diego.”

  “Good.”

  At least I know where to find her. Her mom didn’t like me much before and I figure this debacle will drop me about fifty more rungs on the ladder. The lady has a very long ladder. “How much is my bail again?”

  “A grand.”

  Assuming Melissa hasn’t cleaned out the bank account, I figure I can probably get my hands on about two hundred dollars. “Which bondsman will cover me if you tell them I’m your friend?”

  “Well now, here’s where the good news comes in.” He grins. “Your bail has already been made.”