Billy Blades's Ship Has Sailed

I got back to online dating immediately after Billy Bullfight terminated my contract, relationship-wise, mostly at the behest of girlfriends who insisted I should distract myself (and amass more Billy Stories, which I suspect was a slightly self-serving motive). So, because dating is something of a team sport among my local network of gals, and also because goddamn if I was going to be unaware of the down-to-the-minute, not-if-but-when of Billy Bullfight's return to electronic matchmaking, I bit the bullet and reactivated my profile.

(I see you've failed to change your status to "divorced" now that we're both back online, BILLY.)

Immediately, I got "favorited" by somebody whose overview details included a tiny thumbnail of him in what appeared, at that minute scale, to be a questionable flat-brimmed baseball cap/sports-jersey "street" style combo, and the fact that he was already somebody else's baby-daddy. He looked to be all of 22, and from the one main image I saw, I would have bet on the probability that he had his (undoubtedly exceedingly Caucasian) surname tattooed somewhere on his own body in Olde English font. 

I did not click through.

So the summer progressed, I racked up a few ridiculous Billy yarns, and just as my three-month subscription was about to expire, I happened to browse back through the various "connections" that had been made with my profile and saw a picture of a possibly... kinda... actually pretty darn... waitwhat? whoah, hell-O there! Billy I didn't remember seeing before in any previous notification. My exact thought was something like "WTF how did I miss this one?!"* 

*(accompanied by involuntary grabbing motions in the direction of my computer screen, because I am subtle).

(Of course it is, otherwise it wouldn't be Billy-Blog-worthy).

It became clear after the first two pageloads of his profile that I had seen him before, but he'd changed his main picture from the unfortunate prior Wiggerz4Lyfe-ish icon to a totally respectable, dare-I-say gahtDAMN snapshot of himself flashing a genuinely happy smile, while rafting or climbing or engaged in some such outdoorsy activity that's high on my sexy-points list. I had about 48 hours left before the lines of commo were set to be cut off, so I jumped into (highly-delayed-action) action. It was like my final cyber Hail Mary.

And it worked! Even despite the fact I'd ignored his indication of interest for a good two months based solely on my shitty superficial assessment skills, as soon as I made contact he messaged me back immediately to say, in effect, "Thanks for (finally) writing - yours might be the most memorable profile I've seen."

We emailed. We texted. With every exchange I learned something increasingly attractive or intriguing or just fucking cool about him - we had some obscure, long ago and far away life-experience stuff in common, he did interesting things, he was pretty into being a dad, and the cherry was that one of my friends actually knew him in-person and attested to his real-world hotness and general seems-like-a-decent-guy-ness. So we set a date.

On my profile, I had included a photo of me from the roller derby facet of my life. Picking up on this, he suggested we meet at the local roller rink for a skate date. Nonconventional, physical, and likely a little out of his comfort zone with potential for mutual embarrassment and/or bodily injury? I giddily sent something like:

"Really, roller skates on a first date? That, sir, is a bold opening gambit... I'm in!"

...to which he quickly texted back: "Well... I'll be on blades."

(.................Oh.)

***

You've probably heard this one before: What's the worst part about being a rollerblader?

(No no no, not "telling your parents you're gay." It's realizing you're also a cop.)

***

Punchin' Judy and I have a mutual friend who also used to work at The Homebar with us. Will is a hugely-tall guy, he has kind of clumsily thrown himself at every female coworker to cross The Homebar threshold, over the years, and to my knowledge never once sealed the deal. It's legendary by now, because he actually seems relieved to be able to assume the platonic-pal role once his halfhearted advances get turned down. So in summary:  he is terrible at women as elusive moving targets, but wonderful at women at point-blank, stationary Friend-Zone range, because he's super sensitive. He's a listener. He's a damn good honorary-girlfriend, and when added all together, the sum of it was that he was known at The Homebar (quite openly) as Big Gay Will.

(One time Will actually wore a kerchief. Nope, not Halloween.)

Even he jokingly called himself "Big Gay Will" from time to time, as if he was so obviously hetero it was just a funny lark, but here's the thing: he really might have been gay. Not in the fabulous, self-loving, "And, so what?" way that I adore and support, but in a kind of pent-up, closeted-even-from-himself way that I still adore and support, but come on. Come ON.

So one time, I had this dream that Big Gay Will was having a very important package delivered, but it had to come to my house because it was a secret from his family, who was visiting or something. And in the dream, I came home and there on my porch was Big Gay Will's box. Like an enormous refrigerator box, size-wise. So I dragged it inside and during the dragging, that monster came a little untaped and from it, spilling out like a slot machine jackpot, came an everlasting cascade of rollerblades.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will rest my case and allow you to draw your own conclusions from here.

(Ahhh... yes, sure, it's true that they "weren't your size," Will.)

***

Anyway, so Billy Blades and I had a roller-date. 

I'm not really sure what I expected. On the one hand, I was pretty interested in talking to him face to face, but on the other, I still didn't have a firm grasp on whether I would even recognize him in person - such was the chameleon nature of his photos. To that end, I made sure to arrive at the rink slightly early. Alone. On an open skate night. Technically, in the late afternoon hours of "Wacky Wednesday."

If, like most of us, you've not been to a public roller rink since somewhere around third grade, and if, as was my situation, you are not at said roller rink to sit on the sidelines with a celebrity gossip magazine while your small uncoordinated offspring teeters around in circles, let me tell you what this is like: you immediately feel like a suspected pedophile.

I mean, parents are looking at you so hard that you even start to suspect yourself after a minute or two. Who knows, maybe it has to do with the odd lighting, or the "manic clown" theme decor, or the blaring kid-friendly music, or the fact that the one other adult in the place who's actually wearing roller skates is a middle-aged, denim shorts-clad, mulleted dude with a creepy pencil 'stache and shifty eyes who is also clearly NOT here with a child under his charge. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the particular roller rink where we'd arranged to meet happened to be exactly right next door to a topless "gentlemen's" club (totally true story because WTF, zoning?). Maybe it had to do with the fact that I am a pretty short female, and this:

(No, glaring mother of a 6-year-old, I'm not taking pictures with this thing.)

Holy shit, Billy Blades could not arrive fast enough.

And then he did.

And he was beautiful.

And he was charming and irreverent and smart, in just the right proportions.

And yeah, he was wearing roller blades, but I swear to god that man made even roller blades hot, or at least he made me forget he was on them while we skated around and talked. At some point the conversation turned to sailing, and that's right about where I started to get blown out to sea.

He knew the same spots in the Bahamas that were dear to my heart. His retirement dream was to run away on a sailboat, too. Sitting on a bench while that awkward "expanding Solo cups" skating game was underway, he casually finished my thought (between mild bouts of delightfully horrific jokes about the "stretching-machine" Mr. Jorts -  who by this time was one of the finalists in the cups game, ogling the leggiest tweeners as they straddled ever wider in skates - probably had in his basement):

"You'd just need the right partner to make it work."

And lingering eye contact.

Aaaand scene (begin montage).

(Terrible humor and the same endgame? Be still my beating heart, Billy!)

Right there. Right there I saw it clearly:

Our wheels touched and I envisioned Billy Blades and I skating around on the deck of our sloop, shamelessly escalating each other's most tasteless jokes right into the sunset. He side-smiled at me and I started to think about multi-faith relationships - could I convert him to roller skates? It didn't matter, love conquers all. He brushed my knee with a gesturing hand and I started to think about how dual-religion families raise their kids - would our little ones start off on skates or blades? Would our liveaboard be called the SS Quad or the SS In-Line? Or maybe some combination of the two?

A random little boy toddled up to us, interrupting as Billy Blades was about to expound on the splits-stretching pulley system Mr. Jorts secretly strapped himself into by night just to be able to skate to the painful end of the cups game amongst the most coltish of prepubescent girls. And this child, clearly sent as a divine messenger, handed me a tiny blue hair clip, then wandered away. "Perfect," my brain immediately realized, "Here it is, a sign: something borrowed, something BLUE."

The bench beneath us started to rock as if upon gentle waves, the years-of-burnt-hot-dogs-and-stale-cotton-candy odor of the dark rink gave way to fresh sea-salt breeze and bright sunlight, the incessantly high-pitched shrieking of children became the music of chattering seagulls, and Billy Blades, O captain my captain, my co-pirate, glanced knowingly at me. Our 16-wheeled, seafaring life together, the one we'd both been unwittingly, perfectly leading up to with our every waking move, every day of every past trip we'd both made around the sun without each other up to this point, had begun.

(But not in a creepy jean-shorts-mullet way.)

"I have to go to hockey soon," Billy Blades said. It wasn't exactly how I'd imagined his marriage proposal being phrased, but I, unfazed, accepted.

With full sails, we set our course toward the doors, as not only were our lives destined to change today upon meeting, but, it turned out, he also really did have to get to hockey. And anyway, I admitted to myself, parents would definitely not approve of us consummating our starcrossed love right here in the concessions area. Somewhere hidden in the laser-tag room... maybe, but not right here. Next time. Next time.

We navigated out to the parking lot, where Billy Blades had parked right next to me. Even our vehicles were drawn together by an unseen force! I looked at him. He squared off to me. This was going to be it: the defining before-and-after moment. From here, forces joined, we would set sail on the greatest journey of all!

He lowered his chin and I raised mine, flush with anticipation.

He looked deep into my eyes, right into my soul, and smiled. He knew me.

I coyly asked if he'd like to go out again, knowing it was a frivolous question, knowing he understood the implied meaning: when would we pick up where we'd left off, on this, our ever-after life of adventure and romance on the high seas?

"Uhh," said Billy Blades, "I've kind of just started seeing someone else, so I probably shouldn't."

(You really should have thought of that before I married you in my head, Billy.)

Um.

So wait. 

Now when we sail off over the horizon, this other gal is going to have to come too? What kind of a stupid third-wheel fairy tale is this? My captain's been bewitched by another siren and we haven't even gotten off the fucking dock? I mean, we don't need a second-mate, Billy. In fact I'm kind of starting to question your Captaining ability if this is the way you're going to staff our bo---

And then.

And then...

...he shook my fucking hand and bade me good day.

(I believe the old saying goes: "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning; handshake in strip-club parking lot, sailor--hold on, have you even read the script, Billy?!")

Lightning. Roiling storm clouds. Swells building to mountainous tossing walls of water. Suddenly, gale-force winds whistling out of an ominously-dark sky, drowning out the polite farewells from our mouths. Our future, heeling over at an alarmingly unsustainable angle, rigging groaning and snapping, sails ripping at their seams, me stumbling and falling on the heaving, splintering, foam-washed deck. And then right before my eyes, Billy Blades swept overboard by a crushing wave, never to resurface despite my frantic, wind-whipped scanning of the whitecaps.

I mean, realistically, of course he was lost at sea. 

Nobody can swim with fucking rollerblades on.

Meet Billy Boulangerie (or: Don't mind the Cryface)

Billy Boulangerie is a chef who loves him some pastries - both making them and, more to the point, eating them. He's been a steady character in the Susie Solo Chronicles for years now, and I have photos of his wild, Winfreyesque weight fluctuations to prove it. I mean the dude can seriously put away some croissants and creme brulee. And really, anything else made of sugar and fat.

(Billy Boulangerie could never have been faithful to me, because ice cream.)

The first time I met Billy Boulangerie, he was in town to visit my best girlfriend, Punchin' Judy (I have only ever been in three fistfights in my life, and all three were with a drunken Punchin' Judy). Judy and I worked at a bar together (we'll call it The Homebar), and she had met Billy Boulangerie on a Bahamian trip she had just returned from, and thought it would be a good idea to toss him into the fucked-up social mix that was our lives, back then.

The is a three-part story. There is a moral here. You know, for those of you (rather unlike the three people involved) who are about morals.


PROLOGUE

So, Judy and Billy Boulangerie and I all hang out one of the first nights he's here. Judy is working at first, so I take her Billy to a nearby restaurant to eat while we're waiting for her to get off her shift. Naturally, it takes me about one mug of beer and .06 seconds before I start asking him really uncensored, personal questions. He turns out to be one of those rare Billys that can instantly hang (you have to figure, anyone who's been around Judy for more than two minutes and is still standing (homegirl is formidably awesome) should be able to take a lot and dish it back - and Billy Boulangerie delivered). So we get along, in an offend-nearby-tables-with-children way. Also, I discover that either: 

a) he has a sort of unintentional-tic wink that has uncanny timing, or 

b) he's not above trying to score with Judy's girlfriends.

The night is short, I deliver him back to The Homebar where Judy is wrapping up, and part ways with them.

Now, let's get to the meat of the soap-opera.

PART ONE: SUSIE

Billy Boulangerie calls me the next day while I'm tending bar at another place I worked at the time (hey, undergrad life's a bitch and it takes a whole lot of drink-slinging to get through it with an intact mortgage and no student loans - done and done!). He's home alone, since Judy's working till fairly late, and bored, and knows nobody else in Fort Billy. I survey the scene, assess all four drinking patrons I have at the moment, and am thrilled at the prospect of someone *interesting* coming in to entertain me.

An hour and a half and about four double Crown-Rocks (him) later, I get off-shift and join him on the other side of the bar. I jokingly tell him about The Curse Of The Daybar, the punchline of which is passing out usually by 11 p.m., and we sort of start bonding.

At some point, we trade hats. This will be funny, we decide, to observe Judy's reaction when we walk into The Homebar together. This is because, though I love her to death and I know she loves me as well, well... we know each other too well. We've both indulged in slightly scandalous decisions. And we both know it because girlfriends talk about that shit. (Also, because one time when Billy Brylcreem was still on my scene, she took my phone after I was in bed and drunk-dialed him for an attempted booty-call).

Anyway, Billy Boulangerie and I move on to another downtown Fort Billy watering hole. There are mojitos. There is more bonding. There are a few missed calls from Judy, who is now off-shift and wondering where the hell we are. The last thing I clearly remember is ordering a Tanqueray-10 martini, dirty, up. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this particular series of words, completely unfamiliar in all my drinking history, comes out of my mouth.

(Young Sergeant Susie, a role-model and a Patriot.)

I wake up the following morning at home, in my own bed, and by all appearances I was fully-functional up to the end. Lights are off, the door is locked behind me (meaning nobody else had to drag me inside), I'm in pajamas, my teeth are brushed. I have several voicemails and missed calls on my phone, which is just outside my front door (helpfully delivered by a Homebar coworker on his way home).

The first is Billy Boulangerie, and he sounds very glum. There is a lot of sighing, unfinished sentence starts, and apologizing. His first words are: "I'm really not a bad person, I know what you must think..." and his ending statement is "I apologize for me... and for your own actions."

OK, I'm a little confused. Though I know I didn't succeed, my first thought is that I must have tried to hook up with him, to some extent? Jeezus, was I trying to make out right in front of Judy? (Would not put it past Drunk-Susie.) Was there a scene? There's a moment of panic, but I think about it, and I think about the Judy I know, and think about them scheming together, and I suddenly see the obvious, funny truth: 

It's been a setup all along!

Judy knows how patchy my late-night memory can be (let's just call it time-traveling), and this most certainly smells like a signature Judy piece of trickery. It's sort of funny, to think that that evil little slut has recruited Billy Boulangerie into a little gambit to make me think these things - probably to test what I do or don't tell her, and to laugh at my tortured conscience.

Yeah, Judy: foxy and creative-points to you, but I'm onto it. Good try.

The second message is just goddamn nonsensical. It's Billy Boulangerie again, hard to understand this time because he's laughing (or possibly stuffing petit fours into his face while talking?), saying something about how he should have known I'd instantly call Judy, apologizing again (presumably this time for participating in her mean little scam).

How lame, I think, that they couldn't even keep a straight face for an entire day after trying to plant the (probably easily-germinated) seeds of self-doubt. It would have been actually kind of a funny prank, had they kept their shit together.

PART TWO: JUDY
 
Judy is off work, and Susie and Billy Boulangerie are AWOL, even after repeated calls. She makes the following statement, verbatim, to another Homebar bartender: "I'm starting to think Susie is a little bit of a liability in this situation."

Those bastards finally show up, late and looking guilty as hell. Well, maybe not guilty, but fucking drunk, that's for sure. Why the hell did it take them so long? Why the hell is he wearing her hat? Judy knows the sordid details of Susie's ridiculous and occasionally-scandalous dating life and she starts to think about the potential for trouble. She's also probably stewing over her own as-yet-unexploded recent debacle with another best friend's long-term boyfriend.

(Guess who doesn't live in little ol' Fort Billy anymore? Oh hey, Judy.)

So Susie and Billy Boulangerie are here, and everyone hangs out for about a second before Susie swaggers unsteadily off to the bathroom. Judy secretly hopes, in her black little heart, that Susie passes out in there, and when nobody sees her again for awhile, her spirits rise. Ridicule will ensue, and Judy will be at the forefront of the torch-weilding mob of HomeBar villagers! Little does she know, Susie's Get-Horizontal-Immediately-In-An-Appropriate-Place-At-All-Costs circuit, which is for the most part an utter failure, has been miraculously tripped. Susie's brain, currently battered down to the reptilian nub by Tanq-10 and rum, has hit survival baseline and has forced her to blunder out the door and through downtown Fort Billy to put herself to bed, charging blindly forth without a moment to lose on social conventions like words of goodbye, the paying of her tab, or re-assuming possession of various personals strewn across the bar.
 
Judy has a cocktail or two with Billy Boulangerie, but Susie has obviously wrecked him before 10 p.m. and the babysitting of her VIP guest is a real damper on her further drinking plans. He agreeably volunteers to go home to bed, she drops him off and sees him pass out, and heads back out.

Back at The Homebar, Susie's phone is still on the bar, completely forgotten (along with numerous other expensive pieces of personal property) by Susie in her reeling beeline for home. As Judy talks to a bartending coworker, Susie's phone rings. Judy looks at it, and sees that it is Billy Boulangerie.

Who is supposed to be passed out, night over.

At this moment, she knows her suspicions have just been confirmed.

It's been a setup all along!

Billy Boulangerie and Susie are definitely trying to hook up behind her back. Why the fuck else would he go home, pretend to pass out, and then secretly try to rendezvous with her? That pair of untrustworthy, backstabbing bitches!

She instantly snatches up her own phone and, infuriated, calls Billy Boulangerie, to ask him some unexpected questions:

(Billy. You are in such. Deep. Shit.)

"Why are you calling Susie? I thought you were done for the night?? Were you just trying to see if she made it home OK? Did you want to HELP HER TO BED??"

Billy Boulangerie isn't owning up to anything, but Judy sees through his pitiful "I'm confused and drunk and I... who did I call...?" act. Those scheming assholes are not going to play her for a fool. She gives him the third degree, and when he comes out to talk to her in person, she ditches him in the middle of Fort Billy to go to a friend's party, promising that he'll find his shit outside her house in the morning.

She proceeds to drink her own self under the table (no small feat!) in fury at this betrayal... but really, she thinks to herself (in a louder and less internal monologue as the shots go down), she should have seen this coming from the moment Billy Boulangerie and Susie met.

PART THREE: BILLY BOULANGERIE
 

Billy Boulangerie is ragingly inebriated, after drinking free-of-charge with Susie for a few hours. Things are fuzzy and funny and he's having a great time with this chick (did he mention how wildly charming and hilariously witty Punchin' Judy's girlfriend is? He meant to). It's such a kick, in fact, that he forgets why he was supposed to leave the current bar after receiving that last call - don't remember who that was. Oh, well. Bartender!

Eventually, he and Susie go to The Homebar to meet Judy (Aha! He knew there was someone missing from this scene!) and Susie subsequently pulls a Houdini, disappearing for the remainder of the night as the rest of the show goes on. He continues pounding Crown and forgets she ever existed. Bartender!!

Suddenly, he finds himself in Judy's house, waking up alone. She has apparently taken his advice and continued partying without him. Vaguely troubled, he picks up his phone and calls Susie, who he remembers being out with earlier.

No answer.

Quite logically, he calls at least four or five more times, just to be sure, but still no answer. So, he goes ahead and leaves a message, assuming she's not answering because she's mad at something he did. Was he trying to hit on her? Hook up with her? Get her to make out with Judy? He's not sure, so he goes ahead and spreads a blanket apology for all things drink-related.

Shortly thereafter, he picks up his ringing phone to field a call from a ready-to-start-punching-things Judy. How on Earth does she know he called Susie just now? How does she know what did or didn't happen, when even he can't remember, and he was there?? He's dumbstruck and confused, and somewhere in the highly potent stew of cerebral fluid and Canadian whiskey in which his brain is currently swimming, he realizes the ugly truth:

It's been a setup all along!!
 
Judy must have known he's not good with temptation, commitment, and alcohol all mixed together! She must have prepped Susie and then set her loose to tempt him into betrayal! She must have received a rat-out call from Susie as soon as he'd called - the entire night while he thought he was getting along famously with Susie, making inroads with Judy's friends, those two horrible fucking girls must have been ensnaring him into a web of his own deceit, just to teach him a lesson!

Oh, cruel fate!

Oh, wicked karma!

It is at this time, when Judy informs him in the midst of her own betrayed ire, that he is pretty much dead to her and might as well walk the plank, so to speak, that he knows the awful truth... and he begins to weep.

I am not talking about a tear in his beer, here.

("To send this Ugly Cryface voicemail now, press one.")

I am talking about all-out sobbing, wandering through the streets of Fort Billy scorned, lashing out at fences and the sidewalk with his hopeless fists, plastered in tears of 70% Crown/30% agony at having been tricked by this horrifyingly clever duo... and, of course, dialing Susie and Judy again, for good measure. He is destroyed by anguish and lacrimal loss of control, ego ruined by having to admit that - as he concludes with sorrow - he has been duped by ladies he thought he could trust. Some classic bits from the resulting voicemail transcripts include a sentence about how "I should have known you'd rat me out (to Judy) as soon as I called" and "oh God, now I guess I deserve to know how this feels."

EPILOGUE

The following late morning, as if it were all just a bad dream, the three of us end up at  brunch together, where, in the sober light of day, we triangulate our separate-but-equally-ridiculous conspiracy theories.

There is much speakerphone replaying of Billy Boulangerie's voicemails, and coffee-spilling, choking-on-eggs laughter at the idea that we're all three just paranoid enough, potentially untrustworthy enough, and just plain goddamn drunk enough to have assumed the worst of each other.

The moral?

One should be so lucky to have friends like these.

Seriously. Friends like these.