"I CRIED, YOU DIDN'T LISTEN"

Look at dis fuckin report, Maro! Jus look at it! Look at K Jan! I’s garbled all to hell, but he’s finally addressin... He’s comin to terms wid what he really did. D’whole reason why he’s in here. Maro. It’s progress. I know it is. I can feel it.


There were three hours before Billy’s parents would come home. He spent it putting together a shareholder presentation. He got out some flip-charts and some brightly coloured markers. He carefully wrote:

Rebranding Strategy
Rebranding property in question? Babyface.
Critical path to be followed? Fire. Initiate police investigation. Buckle down on grades. Seek new sponsors.
___________________________________________________________

He surveyed this strategy carefully. He knew that he needed to flesh out each point, listing pros and cons, using a separate sheet for each, tacking them to the cork-rail that ringed the family room. One can recycle cork. It’s true. He succeeded in writing out an agenda, just as his Aunt Barbara walked in the door. Billy’s father was obviously his VP of Operations. But it was Billy’s soul that supervised and approved any changes in policy or procedure that the family needed to manage. He could still feel Billy supervising as he filled out the Notice of Intent to Terminate. Billy’s soul and Barbara went through his things.

Billy and Principal Andromeda Holt went all the way back to kindergarten, his kindergarten, that is. Andromeda Holt knew and appreciated his style: refined, controlled, and above all, personal. Always one-on-one, they both possessed a certain degree of charm and subtlety. Or was it snobbery? Slobbery? I forget. The details are fuzzy, now. I do know that Billy thought it was this shared expression of personal style that kept him so close to the principal, granted him immunity. And perhaps it was. Up until I decided to interfere, that is.

Yeah, I clocked her one. I clocked her good when I found out what was going on between them. That’s what I felt she deserved. But Billy wouldn’t tell anyone. He kept saying that he LOVED her. And it’s not like I could ever rat anybody out. I know enough not to do that. Gawd, I would end up like that fuckin pussy, Dwight E. Abbott. He wrote that fuckin book, I CRIED BUT YOU DIDN’T LISTEN. Fuckin blamin everyone else for my woes. Fuckin pussy. He’s always been such a fuckin pussy. So, that’s how I ended-up getting put away the first time. And that’s when I first started to choose the path to hell. Or rather, I felt that this path had already been chosen for me and I was simply along for the ride.