Trial By Fire With Billy Boat-School

In homage to an old friend who got married a few weeks ago, I am getting off my ass, dusting off my brain that once recreated so freely (and the ol' Billy Blog it tended), and cranking out one last nostalgic entry for the mostly-abandoned 2015, in hopes that 2016 will be a more entertaining, less end-of-graduate-school-and-start-of-new-grownup-job-dominated year.

This one's for you, Billy Boat-School.

***

When we first met, Billy Boat-School was a scrabbling liveaboard who'd just set his sights on the then-distant goal of a captain's license. He had a tiny little sloop whose mast was lashed in a firmly horizontal position on its deck, and he lived on it, anchored out in a bay overlooked by the lovely Saint Thomas dump.

Billy Boat-School was one of about a dozen ragtag pupils enrolled in a three-day US Coast Guard training course required of all crew wishing to work in the boating world of actual paying commercial passengers, and I ended up seated next to him on the first day. I, for my part, was still fresh on Delirium, with one stormy 72-hour trans-Caribbean passage with Billy Basso and Ginger and a lot of sunny day-sailing and snorkeling with Billy Billionaire under my belt, a great deal of excitement about my still-new life afloat, and little else. As far as boat trash go, we were both fairly wide-eyed and young. And, in this transient environment largely devoid of attractive here-and-now social options, he was a good-looking Billy in my same demographic who clearly understood the wanderer's urge. Of course I sat next to him.

Let me back up a sec: this is not a "class" in the organized, sensibly-administered sense you might infer, just based on the fact it's ostensibly overseen by a uniformed force under the US Department of Defense. No, no, no. This a class I'm taking in the islands. What this means, for anyone who has never lived the uniquely amusing-to-hellish spectrum of the experience of doing business in the lesser Antilles is that - and this is both a singular fact, and also applicable as a metaphor useful in the broader contextual sense - it was not searchable on the internet.

This is because the islands are a different world when it comes to getting things done. Just for example, in order to get here I've hopped two separately exciting rides on the island-wide "dollar bus" system, which is comprised of a fleet of trucks driven by Rastas with seats bolted into their beds and is classifiable as a "system" by only the most relaxed island standards. Also for example, I've been chased down the street at my stop by a pack of islander schoolchildren laughingly screaming "CRACKER!" at me. Also for example, I've been initially misdirected to a dilapidated building on the wrong end of the property, where the only occupants are little green lizards swarming the stone walls. I've put in a decent amount of effort just to arrive at this training (all the while building up blog fodder for days), and none of this is particularly special, is what I'm saying. In the islands, you are just as likely to go through a similar obstacle course of acrobatics in patience and problem-solving trying to buy a pair of shoelaces or something else you'd consider mundane and ubiquitous in the non-islands universe. Just for example.

The first day of the course was dedicated to Marine Medical First Responder training, and featured a local "medic" who offered a downright alarming number of firsthand stories of people in her social circle and professional purview becoming seriously injured or suffering progressively worsening conditions under her misguided care. In summary, I would not have picked her for my survival team.

(Yesterday's takeaway.)

Enter today's instructor.

The guy's name is Len. He is wiry and dirty and wears the almost-obligatory Harley Davidson do-rag and greasy grey ponytail, stone-washed jeans completely ripped out in the ass, and features a constant cigarette. You've met this Billy a million times at gas stations and carnivals all across the country. This is that Billy whose "ol' lady," when he has one, sports an identical ol' lady-version of his same voice and ponytail.

Len is the island's Fire Expert, and he begins the second of our three days of instruction for the internationally-mandated STCW, or "Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping" session on maritime fire safety and suppression by shuffling up to the front of the room, flashing a yellow smile, and welcoming us to the "Stupid Things the Coast Guard Wants" class.

Much as our trainer yesterday largely exemplified, in her true-story illustrations, exactly how bad a medical situation can turn if everything is done wrong, Len has a grab-bag of personal backwoods pyromania disasters which he divulges throughout the day. Billy Boat-School and I have an increasingly hard time keeping straight faces: both The Angel of Death (who had to be gently corrected on the difference between venous and arterial bleeding by a classmate who just couldn't take it any more) and The Firestarter are oblivious to the irony of their own causative involvement in all these firsthand accounts of Things Gone Horrifically Wrong. Tragic isn't exactly the word I'm looking for, but it'll do. 

(*To his credit and in contrast with Day One's happenings, Len at least didn't come back from lunch drunk and supremely high on his day to teach. This is the sort of gold star for exemplary performance one can expect to receive in the islands.)

Anyway, we spend the first half of the day dozing to firefighter training videos created by Texas A&M and aimed at crewmembers on oil tankers, and then for the second half of the day, Len calls for a van to take us to the Saint Thomas dump for hands-on suppression practice.

On his way out of the classroom, Len tucks an oil-stained cardboard box piled high with professional teaching materials (by "teaching materials," I of course mean emergency flares, full lighter fluid jugs, leaking paint thinner bottles, and the like) under his arm, accidentally knocking his lit cigarette out of his mouth in the process. Billy Boat-School and I both see this and reactively glance at each other with eyebrows raised in alarm. One single exasperated "fuck" escapes Len's lips as he fishes, seemingly endlessly, through the bottom of the box for his glowing Camel before finally retrieving it, shrugging, and taking another drag as he ducks out the door as if nothing noteworthy had just happened.

(Well this class just heated up.)

It's time to start some fires.

At the dump, it's tropical-summer hot out and there is no shade. This, Len says with a laugh that disintegrates into a 30-year smoker's hack, is because the charred framework of a former shade structure, which he points out a small distance behind our current training site, had just recently become a casualty of an overzealous day of practice-fires. Billy Boat-School shoulders me and I nod, because this is the sort of self-written joke you don't even have to verbalize to a person of standard intelligence: of course the Fire Expert burned down the training site. By this time, we're both wearing paper safety-masks so at least we can smile openly without appearing rude or frightened.

Len is now in his element. He dramatically sloshes diesel fuel from shoulder-height into an upturned car hood, wipes his now-covered hands on his jeans, and holds an acetylene torch flame to the surface of the pool until it hits its flashpoint and ignites. Then he turns, bounds toward us with a manic grin, and tosses the still-lit torch on the ground. Its hose, ending in an invisible flame hissing from its nozzle, is very close to the plastic can of remaining diesel fuel, and pointed straight at it. Billy Boat-School again nudges me, and we just look at each other. Behind his mask, I'm pretty sure Billy Boat-School's mouth is wide open. Mine is.

(It's just that I never pictured myself actually physically exploding.)

So now we are all to take turns advancing on Len's fires with different types and calibers of extinguishers supplied for the course, half of which turn out to be already discharged (because remember, Islands), with Len doggedly reigniting our target blaze. It's amazing to watch the new hazards he creates with every flippant toss of the torch: sometimes it lands with the flame pointing back squarely on its own canister, sometimes burning directly on a discarded cabinet or pallet or tire or other readily flammable object. More than once a fellow student has to cartoonishly dodge it as it rolls to a halt among us.

Len, obviously a connoisseur, quickly grows dissatisfied with the flame's quality and begins adding to the burning stew like a chef seasoning to taste. At one point, he asks us if anyone has a knife, which he uses to pry open paint cans and other household hazardous waste collection items, then to slash open lighter fluid containers directly over the flames, as if he's savagely gutting small animals that otherwise wouldn't bleed fast enough. The man's immersion in his work is so devotedly focused as to be almost meditative, in an insane caveman-at-a-big-tent-revival-type way, and I'll be honest: it's goddamn riveting.

(It also ends here, if the wind shifts.)

Then he becomes dissatisfied with the quantity of our blazing foe, crippled as it is by the confines of the car hood whose edges are now glowing dull red. He pours a trail of diesel directly onto the ground around the hood. This seems to help, but it's clearly Not Enough. He begins to throw other random objects - a computer printer, an old extinguisher hose - onto the blaze. Still not sated, he cracks open a few marine flares and waves them around very near us, his little increasingly-uneasy non-safety-goggled captive audience, before throwing them onto a cement block where they boil away blindingly behind him like minions.

(Well, I guess not everyone can pass the class.)

It is at this fevered point, with Len pacing and laughing and gesticulating wildly, unintelligible behind a WWII style gas mask, spilling highly-flammable substances on himself and now no longer able to restrain the compulsion to pull all the firing pins in the extinguishers himself, before relinquishing each one to a student, that Billy Boat-School and I lock eyes and silently, momentarily, share a wordless revelation: Len has completely fucking lost it. He's in an alternate state of being. He is overstimulated to the point of Nirvana, his fists clutching firing pins as if they were snakes, chanting at us to "get low!" as if this were his own personal shrieking mantra. He is, like footage of a Pentecostal possession by The Spirit, at once hilarious and terrifying.

(Not sure if speaking in tongues or just Marlboro-breath.)

We continue at this frenzy-pitch for around two hours - a stamina I quite frankly would not have expected from someone so clearly courting emphysema - after which time the sun has almost set, appearing very red and sick through the black shroud of probably one hundred carcinogens and teratogenic gases intermingling in a hazy soup over us. The official ending time of the scheduled STCW training day has long since come and gone. Under Len's spiritual guidance, we have each personally probably cheated a fiery death approximately a dozen times (though it's really anyone's guess what will now happen in our offspring's DNA). It has given a whole new meaning to the phrase "trial by fire."

And then, the most fantastic moment of all happens: we are completely out of charged extinguishers. With his beloved diesel-and-more Molotov cocktail flaming 15 feet into the sky, now restrained by neither the metal confines of the car hood nor the constraining cautions of common goddamn sense, Len discovers there are no more pins to be pulled: we are out of ammunition.

This seems to neither surprise nor worry Len in the least.

(I am become Len, Destroyer of Worlds.)

I hear Len's breath come out like an exaltation. Then he shoves his gas mask up onto his forehead, takes a sort of divine healing stagger-step backwards, and stands facing the fire in what appears to be moment of sacred reverie, possibly unaware of us, his small gaggle of onlookers still present, our smoke-watering eyes averted in all different awkward directions.

Billy Boat-School and I don't even have to look at each other to know we're on the same page at this point, but over the roar of the conflagration I can hear him losing it beside me.

"Guess we're done today," mutters Len, and just like that, we retreat to the waiting van with Len bringing up the rear, occasionally turning back for just one more look at his battlefield. You can just tell that the man's entire life force is wrapped up in this endlessly-repeated struggle: Len is born, dies, and is born again at the Saint Thomas dump, ad infinitum.

(Did not even know the human body could do that with a flare.)

As for Billy Boat-School and I? I guess you could say that was the day that forged our now decade-long friendship.

Billy Belize Might Take the Cake, But Susie Takes the Towel

I am going to preface this entry with a spoiler: I'm calling this guy Billy Belize because any other, more appropriately-descriptive name like Billy BWAAAAM-bwwwaaammmmp (think of that comical disappointed-trombone sound-effect) or Billy Belongs-Behind-Bars is just too annoying to type repeatedly, and I cannot let Billy Belize cause me any more annoyance in this one life. For, although it's been years (and I've found the humor in his story has blossomed with time), my brush with this fucker was truly the worst.

(Worse than a movie spoiler. WORSE THAN DWIGHT SHRUTE.)

Some background: immediately after I axed Billy Basement, I also took a hatchet rather clumsily (...which skill level shouldn't be too surprising - imagine this girl wielding... well, any sort of tool. It's not pretty.) to the rest of my life at the time, because what's a long-term breakup good for, if you're not going to firmly pull the ejection-seat lever? So, I not only cut all my boring ties with Billy Basement, but I also pulled the plug on my less-than-fulfilling employment at the time, meaning I had to relocate from the house which, admitted, I'd taken to describing as "shared with Billie Beautiful" rather than as "Billy Basement's," both of which were *technically* true. I accordingly shuttered my Billydelphia social life and, essentially plan-less, I moved to a tiny little mountain town several winding and treacherous highway passes away. Look, when I break up, I BREAK. UP.

And so I found myself residing in Billy Lake, Year-Round Population 447. No, that number is not missing any zeroes.

What does one plan to do in such isolation, an astute reader might ask? Well if you've ever even read the Billy Blog you can already probably guess several correct answers, including "drink" and "write a book."

But then, rather rapidly, I found myself residing there in the winter. And in that winter, I found myself quickly wishing for a non-ethanol-based companion on the long cold evenings that settled in. I realized that one of the abovementioned correct answers I must have naively assumed about what one does in such a place, without having considered the actual logistics of the place, would involve some sort of Billy.

(Hello, neighbor.)

See, before I left Billydelphia, I must have abstractly imagined a social scene something like this: bearded witty outdoorsmen of the most independent and chiseled strain, chopping down trees and discussing philosophy over rye whiskeys across the one rough-hewn bartop in town, while occasionally constructing attractive remote cabins with their appropriately-calloused hands and wrestling moose to the ground in the dead of winter to sustain themselves and the fashionable-yet-low-maintenance, mountain-goddess wives they all dreamed of devotedly romancing with handpicked bouquets of forest flowers.

 (HELL-OOHH, NEIGHBOR!)

But then, due to aforementioned companion-wish, I got online. And here is more like what I encountered:

 (WTF do you mean, "92% match"?!)

Also. Aside from the demographic-skew, here's something about being a young single not-mutant-looking human female and moving to a very, very small town which I also hadn't considered: my reputation preceded me.

I shit you not.

At first, in hopeful ascetic style, I committed to solo endeavors for several weeks as I was finding my footing - trail running for hours, walking my dog down the dirt road to the local creaking-wood-floored grocery shop, frequenting the formerly-one-room-schoolhouse library for quiet sunny reading, and perching on a stool at my kitchen table overlooking frozen Billy Lake itself for hours of dedicated writing time. I literally conversed with no one.

But, of course, the social side of me eventually started throwing small internal tantrums of loneliness, and so one evening I put on boots and ventured down the snowy, unplowed main road to the one-block wooden boardwalk that was "town." No more than 30 seconds after my first beer was placed in front of me on the bar (aha! I was correct about the one rough-hewn bartop in town!), but I was surrounded - as if by some coordinated pack maneuvering - by no less than a half-dozen local swingin' dicks who all knew something about me I'd not yet shared with anyone.

You're the gal just moved from Billydelphia huh?

Saw you out stretchin' after your run the other day.

You're living in that little cabin up the hill, right?

You sure do like Patsy Cline in the evenings!

You got new curtains in there.

(My bar tab's probably still open to this day.)

And that is exactly the evening that, from over 3,000 miles away, Billy Belize's fishing line drifted across my online surface and, starving, I bit.

Here's the thing: while he wasn't actually from Belize, which would've been cool, Billy Belize was a pretty strong candidate on paper: he was gainfully employed at an environmental non-profit (with videos online to showcase both his job and general vocabulary), he had been an investigative journalist previously and so was really really good at wordsmithery (be still my beating heart!), he had an elite climbing and mountaineering background replete with published adventure-story accomplishments, and he seemed very interested in the same sort of connection that I (still lugging around that ever-lit Husband-Watch torch) ultimately sought. So yeah, he was a few time zones away in the Far North, but he was a fun sort of prison-pen-pal distraction from the grim reality of my local Billy selection.

Right about the same time we began exchanging emails, my old friend Billy Basso and his wife, who I'll call The Botticelli (in part because she's sort of the quintessential Venus from the sea, and also in part because she's a bit of an actual painted lady (terminology stolen from Billy Billionaire), in that she sports an impressive collection of absolutely beautiful tattoos), got in touch with me to offer a visit to the boat where they were living and working at the time, in the islands off of Honduras.

(YES PLEASE)

And right about the time that happened, Billy Belize mentioned in a phone conversation, which stage we had evolved to, that he'd had plans to be in Belize for a friend's wedding that was now falling apart, but for which he had already purchased plane tickets, for dates that closely overlapped my already-purchased tickets to mainland Honduras. You know. Neighboring countries. Like a quick city-to-city bus ride rather than a full continent apart.

I'm an opportunist, a romantic, an adventurer, aaaand a total Jew with my money. This was a two-birds-for-the-price-of-one deal! You can do the math.

(i.e., "good ideas that run over budget.")

Now granted, I know I just said I'm a romantic, and that's true - but I've also developed a healthy dose of cynicism in the near two-ish decades I've been a Susie on the dating scene, because OMFG life. So I planned this trip accordingly: I would spend a little alone-time getting my bearings and firing up my dormant Spanish around mainland for a couple days, and then Billy Belize and I would meet up the day before we would take a ferry to Billy Basso and The Botticelli's boat. If I decided against it, I could always bail and head for the safety-net of friends solo, which people and location he didn't know any details about.

*****

I tried to give Billy Belize a chance, I really did. But as with oh-so-many online dates, the very first ten seconds of our meeting spelled his doom because zero actual chemistry. He was mostly-polite and all, aside from annoyingly trying to insert his shitty two-week Rosetta Stone Spanish into my taxi and hostel negotiations (my mother's maiden name is Chavez and you are already very sunburned, so stop, gringo. Stop.). He was in good shape and physically capable, aside from smelling horrible (for which I gave him the 36-hour-traveler's pass because we can all agree, standard airline travel is a bitch). And he was decently well-spoken, aside from having a voice that, in person, seemed... idunno, higher (and was just more annoying with its topics-of-choice than expected).

But it just wasn't there.

And sometimes, that's all there is: you know it's never going to be there.

(Me, exhibiting classic Avoid-the-Move-in-for-Kiss counter-move.)

But, he was friendly and non-threatening and capable of some pretty interesting conversation and so, after a local beer, I pulled the trigger and mentally gave him the final boarding pass for the whole islands visit. I mean shit, why not?

OK, just for a sec, we need to get back to the whole smelling horrible thing.

Having checked into a hostel, Billy Belize and I parted ways to clean up before dinner. And when he returned from showering, he had a request: he wanted to borrow my camera while I read a letter he had written. Like an honest-to-god handwritten old-fashioned many-paged letter to me, penned while he flew from the north end of the globe to the equator, musing about boats on the open ocean below, and my former-sailor's life, and how awesome and crazy it was for us to be in touch. It was laying it on a little thick, and the whole "photographing the moment" thing was a little goofy, but it was a cool letter and I'm nice, so I went with it.

The only problem was, I could barely read it because, with Billy Belize hovering next to me snapping photos, I started to have a hard time concentrating on anything but the terrible, awful smell of something nearby. It wasn't quite burning, but close. It wasn't quite rotting, but close. If you could concentrate the way mildew grown entirely on human hair surfaces might off-gas in a sauna, that would be closest of all. Was it actually Billy Belize? How in the fuck was this happening post-shower?

(So back to that "I mean shit, why not?" - I didn't really mean shit, as in the verb, Billy.)

Well I will tell you: Billy Belize was traveling with his own towel, and that towel was the single most offensive piece of textile on the face of the earth. Seriously, if this towel was any angrier it would have punched me right in the nose when I walked by it, hung over a closet door.

Actually, that is pretty much exactly what it did.

So, um, your towel? I broached casually, It's, ahh, kinda ripe, huh?

Billy Belize laughed. Yeah maybe, I've had a few nasal surgeries and I actually can't really smell anything any more. Lucky me, hahaha!

And that was that. Billy Belize did not take the hint and launder (let alone, more appropriately, exterminate with a flame-thrower, final-scene-of-The-Thing-style) his rot-rag of a towel.

*****

So I thought, if it's OK, I can just take photos with your camera for the both of us? says Billy Belize.

Because, I like to travel light so I didn't bring one. 

(Oh good because I travel light too and you won't mind carrying all my telephoto lens cases too, right?)

By now we are halfway through our ferry ride. I give it to him because what the hell. It's windy on the upper deck, which helps with the stank problem, but makes every photo Billy Belize takes of me a goddamn trainwreck of out-of-control hurricane-hair and I mentally note how hard I'll be deleting every single one of them as soon as I have my hands on my Canon again. He snugs up to me for a tandem selfie, which with one brief exception is the closest I get to my own camera for the rest of the trip because he keeps it on his person, paparazzi-ing me approximately every four minutes for the next several days. In much later image review once I was home again, I can tell by the way my lips are pressed in just a little that I might be holding my breath.

*****

While the days spent on Billy Basso and The Botticelli's boat are awesome and amazing and fun and hilarious and full of cocktails and karaoke and stories and silliness and scuba and good-friends-and-tropical-water-time, and are an OMFG! much-needed break from the bleak mountain winter gulag I've checked myself into at Lake Billy, they're really not all that key to the Billy Belize story so, sadly, I'm going to mostly skip over them.

The two details I will include are these:

One: I am not proud of this, but the evening we arrived on Billy Basso and The Botticelli's boat, I got Susie-Solo drunk. No, no, be serious now, it's not the drunkenness that brings me shame - I'm used to that. It's the fact that Drunk-Susie, ever the direct problem solver, hatched and executed the devious plan to momentarily steal away from the lively cocktail scene at some point in the night, procure Billy Belize's Towel of Utter Evil (upon which, I was dismayed to find, my camera was nestled!) while he was socializing up on deck, and throw it off the back of the boat. 

Was that a nice, considerate, Golden Rule thing to do? No.

Did this illicit burial at sea solve a gag-worthy problem with only minimal shoulder-shrugging denials of knowledge as to the Terrible Towel's whereabouts required of me the next day? Yes. And also, didn't he boast repeatedly about traveling light? I was helping. The end.

And two: on the final day before we are to taxi back across the island and part ways, Billy Belize sort of sneaks up on The Botticelli while she's online and asks her then-and-there to friend him on Facebook so I can see all the pictures of us. Because I didn't bring my own camera, you know. I travel light.

(Just... y'know... not right while you're watching.)

The Botticelli gracefully makes the requisite mouse-clicks, under close scrutiny and guidance by Billy Belize and while I side-eye her apologetically, and then we are off.

*****

If any part of this story is wholly, entirely my fault, it's that I just didn't have the heart to tell Billy Belize in person, over the four days on the island, that he simply wasn't going to ever, ever make the varsity squad. I mean, we were among my friends so any time spent with us all post- "Just no, Billy" conversation would've been super-awkward for him, he seemed as oblivious to my lukewarm signals toward him as he was to the aggressive odor of his existence, and it seemed kindest to just part ways with the dignities of our own perceptions of the trip intact, and let him down easy once he was home, where he could deal with his disappointment in the dark privacy of the Arctic Circle wilderness.

And so, upon dropping my duffel containing still-salty freediving fins on the cold floor of my freezing cabin 24 hours later, I wrote him an "It's Not You" email. Hey, I had a great time meeting - but I just think it's probably best if we keep looking individually for whatever it is we're each looking for, I typed. It was short and, though not exactly sweet, it was at least gentle and to-the-point and, I thought, unambiguous.

(I can't change science, dude.)

I can't say Billy Belize took it well, but that's mostly because I'm not sure it took with him at all. He continued to send novel-length emails, text-bombs, and long laughing voicemails, despite the fact that now, none of them were returned.

Finally, after shunning a handful of each type of communication over the course of a week, I realized that I needed to be more firm. He gets one more response from me, I thought. And so I clarified, as much as one can further distill the essence of the first two-letter word every single English-speaking baby in the world ever learns:

(I know. I know. No, I NO.)

And here is where Billy Belize started to unravel.

His emails and voicemails started to swing on a manic-to-threatening pendulum. In his brighter moments he referred excitedly to the amazing future I see for us!, attaching copies of his latest resumes and cover letters he'd fired off to employers in my own state so we'll be together soon!!. But in his darker spells - which sometimes arrived a mere matter of hours after a unicorns-and-rainbows communique - he would snap that I had no right to turn on him like this, and that I would learn not to treat people this way. 

Never ever treat someone this way without expecting consequences. 

I mean it Susie, think hard on that one. 

There are consequences to treating someone like me like shit. 

I refuse to go out like this. 

I think you are hiding something from me and I can't allow that. 

I will move closer to the truth every day. 

It's a fascinating exercise for me. 

I hope you stay up at night wondering how your lies will come home to roost.

You should know that keeping things from me will bite you in the ass, Susie. 

If you don't know, you will soon.*

*(Actual hand-to-god quotes, though distilled from at least ten separate emails.)

(HahahahAHAHAHA.PANIC.LAUGH)

I didn't know what to do, other than keep up with trail running and writing at my kitchen table and to assure myself, through phone calls where I told the ridiculous tale to my girlfriends back in Billydelphia, that homeboy was surely several thousand miles distant and not exactly capable of an impulsive stop-in slashing or something. I mean, he worked for a non-profit and air travel ain't cheap, even if you travel light. 

But it dawned on me, just before the very same sentiment began to surface in his emails, that I was a new girl in a tiny town where everyone already knew whatever generals there were to know about me. Anyone could waltz into town, stop at any of the four open establishments on the boardwalk, and be readily given directions to where that new Billydelphia gal lived. And I had no neighbors actually wintering in the cabins on my dirt road - if my car didn't drive in or out after a snow, there were no tracks. I had no local support. I had nobody I could call to check in on me, in the event something weird started to happen. I had nobody on whose door I could knock if something didn't feel right. Shit, the closest police station was 20 minutes down the highway assuming the highway was plowed.

I adopted radio silence and forwarded all his emails to a friend for record. I talked to my sister about filing a police report. And then, I heard from Billy Basement out of the blue: "Who the heck* is [Billy Belize's real name] and why is he writing me?"

*(Oh please, you didn't think Billy Basement was OK with anything as exciting as cursing, did you?)

(Of all my Facebook friends, you picked Billy Basement? You are the most boring stalker EVER!)

Suddenly, I realized that he was shopping through my online social networks for ins, and must have remembered Billy Basement's unique first name from some conversation. While it made me laugh a little bit (HAhaha, hope you're titillated by those Instagram pics of his latest vegan oatmeal!), it also kind of infuriated me, and pushed me back into action. I filed a report, and  I dropped The Botticelli a quick line to let her know, essentially, that I'm not in ANY contact with this dude anymore and you can do what you want, but he's gone a little stalkeriffic with me so please don't take the bait.

She immediately wrote back to tell me he had been emailing her repeatedly, pleading with her to please check in with me and then let him know what's going on, and claiming there had been a mysterious accident and he just wasn't sure who in my family was in the hospital, and feared the worst since I hadn't responded, and NEEDED INFORMATION FROM HER.

(Delusional 101: Of course your target's friends/family will take your crazy-talk seriously. Why not?)

A couple things I'm pretty into: not being involved with crazy people and, oh, laws. So I sent him not only The Botticelli's forwarded emails, so that it would be clear to him that he was not tricking anyone, but also an unequivocal "Do not contact me or anyone else to solicit information about me again, under threat of prosecution" statement, accompanied by the full text of my state's Stalking and Harassment statute, and a reference to the police report number as a cherry on top.

And there was silence, for about 30 minutes. 

Then, I received two more emails.

The Botticelli's message rolled in first, with a succinct notation by her: 

"He just sent me this. Holy fuck." 

It was a forwarded rant from him, warning her of my almost superhero-nemesis-level evil antics, claiming he and Billy Basement were "practically best friends now" (uhhh... I guess implying some sort of Starsky and Hutch-style detective work by Snoresky and Nuts?) and paternalistically suggesting she cut off all dealings with me based on what, quite frankly, I would call an enviably dark background of mine that he had "uncovered." It included a wide range of awesome horseshit - a history of bankruptcy, racketeering, abandoning children, killing endangered species, committing treason, practicing witchcraft, drinking milk straight from the carton - you name it, and Billy Belize was probably heroically warning my old friends about it. On the one hand it was amusing yet disappointing, to realize that I had apparently not even gotten to enjoy committing all these unbridled acts of the Id. On the other hand, it was OMFG crazy.

And then, email number two arrived, from Billy Belize himself:

Susie. We've both vented what we needed to about our relationship. We have a chance to still end this on a good and loving note, if you send me the photos I took on our vacation. I have a right to remember the wonderful time that we had together, and I need closure to move on from this intense time in our lives, so please do the right thing and send me those pictures. They are all on your camera, because as you know, I travel light. Thanks.

(This dialog is so bad it's even making Keanu sad, Billy. Also, I couldn't even make this up.)

While my immediate reaction was utter scoffing disdain, for some reason, something in this one started to pull my heartstrings the more I considered his request. I'm not a sentimental person, but I did realize, after thinking it over, that Billy Belize indeed needed closure and that I was the only person who could provide it. 

I knew what I had to do.

I caved, and sent him one special picture to remember me by.

It was a night-flash photo, and so he would have to look carefully to distinguish what is going on in it. But on inspection, one can find context in the bit of the boat's rail caught in the corner of the frame. And with closer examination, one can definitely make out the outline of a distinctively-patterned towel, sinking gently into the dark water of the marina.

(You're welcome, kthxbye!)

Billy Babel Rings in the New Year

'Twas the week before Christmas when I agreed to bring my much-adored current Billy to a neighborhood gathering of holiday-themed rounds singing. In terms of gifts from the universe, it was maybe the best White Elephant we've yet shared. 

What, one might wonder, could be some pertinent reasons I would be strongly advised to decline an invite to such an occasion? Well, aside from the most obvious facts that a) I am not at all religious, while most Christmas-based songs tend to Keep The Christ In Christmas™, and b) I also mostly dodge my neighbors, c) I am borderline musically-illiterate.  

(Fuck it, I'll just get the clef's notes for this thing.)

Here's the thing: a good hearty wassailing is no doubt a fine activity for a somewhat-marriageable, Dickensian-type lass of yesteryear.* But it is, to put it nicely, an unlikely setting in which to find yours truly and/or any Billy who would willingly spend time with me. 

*(Speaking of lasses of yesteryear, a Young Susie Solo did in fact sit through semesters upon semesters of gradeschool music class (in a private Prep-school that could actually afford instruments and a teacher who was not also responsible for gym class, no less!). But during this era, I was generally relieved to be relegated to the back row finger-cymbals or the plastic recorder. Additionally, Braces-Wearing Tweener Susie took several years' worth of violin lessons, at the bribery of a grandmother who promised a pony in exchange for the achievement of some measure of musical prowess. Unfortunately, these lessons were Suzuki method, meaning that though I learned, through endless complaint-filled diligence, how to play barely-recognizable renditions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I managed it by ear rather than via any sort of sheet music reading, which apparently never amounted to enough skill to merit that horse.)

(At least I got those buckteeth fixed.)

A note about the neighbor-dodging: 

I live in a community that wholeheartedly embraces such things as regular potlucks, unscreened talent shows, and carpooling. While these activities are all indicative of good, wholesome neighborhood camaraderie, they also happen to be the sort of fairly socially-awkward events that I generally will go to heroic lengths to avoid getting roped into any more. 

Lest you presume I'm a complete misanthrope, please take into consideration that I did show up to one such potluck early on in my residency. I also coerced The Mover, my then-housemate, into attendance, where we both almost lost our shit halfway through a completely unexpected, horrifically protracted "silent hand-holding circle" sort of hippie cult welcome ritual. The fact that it involved lights-dimming and low candlelight - which might be what sent us over the edge - may have also been our only face-saving grace. Anyway, keep this circle habit in mind.

Look: my neighbors are all very nice folks, with whom - unless you truly enjoy sharing hummus recipes and engaging in group-breathing-exercises to align your chakra at HOA meetings - extended eye-contact is not recommended. 

(Oh and also, in a largely-uncomfortable, semi-recent, and intervention-like parking lot encounter, it was furtively suggested to me by a united contingent of the Garden Meditation Club - yes, that's a thing in our neighborhood - that a certain sort of a cappella song coming from my home, the bedroom window of which happens to overlook the community gardens, apparently brings less joy to nosy frost-season kale-tenders than is experienced by those performing the duet. Fine. We'll have kitchen-sex.)

(Oh hey Susie, can I talk to you about that unsorted trash you threw out last night? Condoms are recyclable, you know.)

But, I have in recent times acquired a new puppy, whose incessant need for outdoor neighborhood walking time has already led to all manner of unintended interactions with other adult humans. To wit: the very sweet lady who coordinates the abovementioned yearly rounds singing soirees approached while I was immobilized by my puppy's choice decision to take a protracted shit upon the pristine white snow of this woman's winter-wonderland flowerbeds, under which duress I agreed to attend. Why? Because I am absolutely terrible at telling people no.

Luckily for me, my current Billy - who for the purpose of this post I'll refer to as Billy Babel - is absolutely terrible at telling me no, so on the spot, I presumed I'd at least have a backup singer. 

Um. I don't sing, stated Billy Babel flatly when I arrived back at our doorstep, bringing the good tidings as well as a bag of dog feces clutched in my hand like an especially pungent offering of frankincense.

But... you *could* sing, right? If you *had* to?, I countered. Billy Babel's expression was a roadmap of the exact strain of dismay visible on the face of a child upon whom it has just dawned for the very first time that it is possible for the ones you love to betray you very, very deeply:

(Oh come on, nobody even said you had to wear a tie, Billy.)

How bad could it possibly be?, I plied, after casually repeating our now-mandatory plans for the evening to reinforce the itinerary. Billy Babel cracked open an IPA and frowned in a sort of festively desperate way. 

But you grew up Catholic!, I persisted. You sang in church, right? You can at least understand a music staff, right?? I NEED YOU. Billy Babel sighed, barely containing his excitement at having been cornered. He downed his beer and reached immediately for the fridge handle in jolly silence.

That's the spirit!, I said merrily, pouring a hefty share of Bota-Box red into a glass. And so together, we began our preparation for the coming eve's caroling adventure.

Now, one might assume, given the audition-and-prerequisite-free, friendly-neighborhood-recreation nature of this gathering, that the songs chosen would be well-known classics accessible to singers of all ages and ability levels. One might also assume, having literally been recruited off the sidewalk whilst holding a warm bag of animal poop such as I had been, that the expected vocal skill of participants would span a wide range, including such well-intentioned but heavily novice merry-makers as Billy Babel and I.

One would be wrong.

(Well this verse seems easy enough...)

When Billy Babel and I semi-inebriatedly showed up in decidedly relaxed attire (read: elastic waistbands), following the smells of cookies and cinnamon-spiced cider at the promised hour, what we heard while pausing to shake off the Jack Frost-y cold and steady our collective drink-buzz in the entryway to the Community Hall was not, as expected, a boisterous cacophony of voices into which ours would easily blend. What we heard was not a babel at all. What we heard was orderly and coordinated and intimidatingly angelic. What we heard emanating from the Community Hall sounded like the goddamn Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

(Shit. And we forgot our neighborhood-issue robes!)

There were printed packets - each up to 20 double-sided pages - of this year's songs, most of which had clearly seen numerous rehearsal usages in the month leading up to this event. There were four-part harmonies. There were multiple-arrangement verses in other languages. There were accent solos flying about. There were our neighborhood's denizens all trimmed in their well-pressed (male) and most-sequined (female) holiday finery, harmonizing their blessedly earnest hearts out in pitch-perfect precision like all the Whos in Whoville. And all the chairs in the Community Hall had been pre-positioned into a large circle (I should have already known my neighbors' love for circles!), meaning there was nowhere for Billy Babel and I to discreetly hide.

Billy Babel tenderly crushed my winter-mittened hand in his as all eyes in the room turned our way, and he shot me the sort of one-millisecond between-lovers glancing look that's capable of canceling Christmas for at least the next three years.

(Noooobody notices our red noses, we're fine.)

And then we took the last two seats available, and our song-maestro announced the next selection would be an easy one for our newcomers to warm up with, whereupon everyone launched with eager precision into a sprightly and complex jingle that caused us to both silently panic and elbow one another frantically with holiday delight. This was not "Frosty the Snowman." This was not "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" or "Jingle Fucking Bells." This was not the humble, homey manger-gathering we'd been expecting.

Oh, just jump in on whichever voice part you normally sing, our song-maestro/captor stage-whispered in our direction with glee.

Yes yes, of course, whichever voice part we would normally sing! She clearly had no idea how meaningless this particular string of words was to both of us. There was no escape, outside of a Christmas miracle, which for Christ's sake did not come. So Billy Babel and I blinked back in yuletide horror at the ring of expectant celebrants, and without any remaining options, we both took deep breaths, and then took the plunge.

(Just... move... lips...)

It became immediately clear, to all in attendance who were not deaf, that this was not going to go well. 

While I alternated skillfully between complete lip-syncing and a timid and off-meter voice that could best be likened to the sweet sounds our puppy makes when she is desperate to get out the door with explosive diarrhea at 3 a.m., Billy Babel masterfully began booming out-of-tune notes in the style and cadence of a singing GoBot with several fuses blown. 

We killed it. 

Eyebrows began to politely arch around the circle, no doubt in amazement at our vocal stylings. The neighbor seated immediately to my left casually placed her finger into her right ear, causing our uplifted voices to slowly snowball into the staccato sounds of a losing battle to fight off hysterical laughter. Billy Babel and I struggled to keep it together, both of us trying and failing to tune each other out for at least a fighting chance of latching onto a neighbor's voice as a guide. But nobody was capable of guiding that sleigh tonight.

(Community Hall closed-circuit camera footage, closed-captioning added.)

After perhaps seven distinctly different verses broken out into at least five groups of rounds-singers, our simple warm-up song of peace and goodwill (or this is what I would guess it addressed, based on my limited familiarity with Latin verbiage) drew to a close. While one would think that the not singing part of any song would have naturally been our one moment to shine like the star of Bethlehem, this proved unexpectedly challenging: all the neighbors were apparently aware of some secret signal indicating when the final round had been sung, of which we had not been informed. Suddenly the entire ring of rosy-cheeked revelers silenced as though an unseen director had done the finger pinch, leaving our two atonal and now-unaccompanied voices to continue heedlessly mangling the opening notes of another round of our part, before falling into a rapid yet still uncoordinated fadeout. Billy Babel's eyes thereafter closed in what I can only presume was a private reverie of sugarplum fairies, while his entire body soundlessly began to shake like a bowlful of jelly for some reason.

(Sit up straight and use your diaphragm to really hit those last notes.)

One hour, or possibly several millenia later, we managed to beg out of the remaining ten or so songs in the packet under the pretense of puppy-kennel-training duty, exclaiming our warmest apologies, ere we skulked out of sight.

Returning to our house, we were enthusiastically greeted by said puppy belting out unbridled songs of great comfort and joy, which we accompanied with our own pent-up laughter until we were both in tears. Even the dog might have laughed a little. 

But you know what? That warmup song really did make our spirits bright - not to mention getting our vocal chords ready to unabashedly sing our own praises (to the top of the roof - to the top of the wall!) later on, just before settling in for a long winter's nap. 

And in the frosty gardens below, untouched snow glistened in the otherwise-silent night.

(...and to all, a good night!)