Bill’s wife had to work the next morning. She was up early and because he was used to it, Bill was up too. For a change, he was able to linger, to lounge around. She was the one who had to shower, get ready, get dressed, get gone. Her bus came at 8:15. If she missed it, she’d be late to work.
Sue made coffee for Bill while she was in the kitchen. She made tea and an instant oatmeal for herself, sat by herself while she had her breakfast.
Bill stayed in bed. He drank his coffee there and took a moment in his life to do nothing. Doing nothing was good as long as it was only momentary. He was not one who did well with unstructured time. He’d asked Sue if she wanted a ride to work. She’d declined because she liked the walk to the bus and the bus ride. As well, she wanted Bill to be able to rest.
He did nothing for as long as he could. The trouble with doing nothing was there was nothing to do and with nothing to do his mind went to places it should not have gone to.
First no-good place was reliving his trip to the workhouse. If he thought about it, he could hear the gavel banging down, Judge Shul telling him in no uncertain terms “Policemen don’t lie.” He wondered as he lay there if that judge really believed that or if it was something he was obligated to say due to his position.
Having been forced to cop a plea to something he simply did not do still made Bill sick to his stomach. On top of that it pissed him off and that anger heaped on to all the anger he’d always had. For his part, he knew this now, he’d had anger long before he knew he knew he was angry. Maybe, just maybe, if he’d known he had anger at its onset, he might have gotten help for it. Maybe. Who knows? Who knew? Most likely his father wouldn’t have let him go for help anyway, even if he’d known he needed help.
The judge had made the mistake of asking Bill if he had anything, any last thing, to say. Maybe he thought Bill was going to apologize, but that wasn’t close. Instead, Bill started to say that he wanted to say that “it” didn’t happen the way the police said. Or, what he actually said was “I just want to say that the policemen l…” He never got out that “l” word which was lied. Or, he got the word out sort of but the gavel banging down even before he could complete saying the word stopped it from being heard.
He remembered being taken into custody right then and there, being put in handcuffs and led out from the courtroom to the holding cell. He remembered seeing his wife’s jaw dropping and her standing there with her mouth open.
And that was just the start.
Second no-good place, he didn’t know why, was up on Springfield Boulevard with his best friend and his step-brother. They’d encountered some kids one of whom had a beef with Bill’s step-brother. They were all about sixteen.
The kid picking on Bill’s step-brother was much bigger than him but he was just about Bill’s size so it seemed right to Bill to intervene which he did without hesitating. He was direct, straightforward. He stepped between the two of them and stood face to face with that boy.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size,” Bill said.
This stopped the boy in his tracks and he backed off, but since their group was bigger in number than Bill’s group, one of the other boys stepped up to Bill. Trouble for Bill was the boy was the runt of the litter, much smaller than Bill.
Bill took a moment and sized up the situation. He quickly, maybe rightfully, determined that their little mutt wasn’t worth his effort and turned to walk away.
