Bill And The Color Blue

I

In Bill's metropolitan streets, dogs don't bark, babes don't cry, and garbage trucks don't pass, irresponsibly wafting residual stenches on the run. He's carved his balsa-wood streets between intricately gridded buildings. Skyscraping boxes from Mom's fitness-at-home obsession. Nordic Track Tower. Gazelle Plaza. Ab Cruncher Cafe. The Steps of Step University. The celebrities of cereal are pasted everywhere, annoyingly, though pragmatically, near street level. Count Chocula is most prominent (because both Bill and his younger brother Danny like Count Chocula the most). Although Bill hates when his Count Chocula has been immersed in milk too long and evolves from crunchy to soggy to gooey. And then the bits fall apart.

Most of this architectural magnificence of cardboard, tape, glue, aluminum foil (for the beacons!), and Saran wrap came from Mom and Mom's kitchen, though Dad had taken up shopping exclusively on eBay since he first heard of it, and gave Bill his miscellaneously sized, colored, and textured bags, boxes, bubble wraps, styrofoam peanuts, and envelopes. And through the infinitely interchangeable characteristics of Lego faces, torsos, and legs, not to mention the Styrofoam peanuts elaborately dressed in boondoggle skirts or slacks with pipecleaner hairdos and Sharpie smiles and ah's, the buildings, streets, and parks are all always well populated with a diverse array of giddy Marys and slow Joes and tricky Ikishas and pious Mahmouds.

Silhouetted within the streamlined sunlight of Bill's starboard window is the sparkly-ceiling-toe-tip-tall Bill Industries, a monolith from Mom's oldest workout system (assembly required, weights sold separately). It is the most ostensibly ominous of the city's constructions, but hosts--as far as Bill is concerned--nothing less than a delightfully sweet cupcake factory (he taped socks stuffed with Fruit Loops inside to make sure it would smell happy all the time) and pillow-fight-Friday's amongst its employees. Some can be seen in cellophane windows throwing their U-hands in the air over elations Bill can't hear and is not privy to. One audacious fellow stands on top of Bill Industries, on the roof, but only looks down. He's not going to jump. He's just looking down.

Bill likes his streets and buildings and parks and people. Bill likes it this way. He likes it this way because if the barking, crying, and passing did occur, Bill might become irritated. Irritation doesn't suit Bill well, and things and people hurt when he is irritated. Good walk-their-dogs-in-the-morning people and go-getter-go-get-her people and offer-change-to-bearded-poor people . There are bearded-poor-people in Bill's streets, but they have smiles during the day and homes at night.

II

Mom and Dad thought little of Bill's eccentricities when he was younger: cutting slices off of a cheese block away from himself instead of towards, pinching birthday candles out, needing to pee every time he saw any semblance of affection on t.v. or in movies and, most notably, hating anything with the color blue associated with it (which was odd because he once loved a blue hippo). This hatred was an abrupt pivot in Bill's life and neither he nor his parents could recall its origin. Action figures, model kits, blankets, clothes...nothing could be blue or Bill would create an alien sound so raucous, turbulent, and torturous it couldn't possibly have emanated from his own humble human lungs.

As the years passed, his body grew up but his mind did not. Something was wrong. His parents didn't mind denial and did mind stature, so they introduced him at corporate barbeques and at-home soirees as "different." They later had Danny, who loved Bill dearly and--though he would never admit to it--took care of him. He was always in their company, they decided, for his own good.

Sometimes, however, Bill liked to wander off elsewhere. Close, but not always within eyesight or earhear. Sometimes he'd wander carrying closely in his corduroy pockets the oblivion of his remarkable wonder and impeccable intrigue with everything. Dandelions. Count Chocula. Bad singers on distant speakers. But when he'd double-take and rubberneck out of these sweet child eyes, Bill would find himself lost and confused and Momless and Dadless and without breadcrumbs. Then anxiety and volatility would bubble bubble bubble up and he did not know how to pop them.

III

The first instance when the burden gained gravity was a time when his parents did not find him before something happened. So something happened; they were all grocery shopping together one humdrum day in Bill's mid-twenties, and Dad asked Bill to wait in line in order to order slices of pizza for lunch from the in-store Italian cafe, "Mama Rigatoni's." "We'll be there in literally one minute...Ju-just wait in line for us for now. Please." (Bill never respected disrespectful requests without punctuating pleases.) While waiting in line, Bill saw a mild though nonetheless disruptive tiff between two customers ahead of him. The beefy fellow, who may have looked more attractive had he grown a beard to mask his four chins jiggling, just paid, two people down, when he accidentally dripped tomato sauce from the top-bite and bottom-burst of his calzone on to the Crayola blue pant thigh of a man, one person down, with jowls and lips that made him look like a fish. He scratched the back of his head turned down to study the drip.
"Oh, I-I'm--"
"What the fuck, man?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The beefy beardless man apologized with a barely traceable zeal in his first mention, like those hairs grown on the forehead that can only be seen in streamlined sunlight. So he apologized again with a conviction, earnest or otherwise, that Bill and hopefully the fish-faced man could recognize.
"Jesus Christ, man, my lover just got these for me for my birthday...." Bill wondered who would like an angry fish-faced man enough to love him.
"Well, I mean," the beefy fellow coughed, "like, a li'l club soda'd help, right?" He asked if they had club soda behind the counter. Nope. "Maybe I could--"
"Maybe you could go Fuck Yourself!"
In this moment, the Something happened. When a collision occurs between the amplitude of the fish-faced man's voice rising up, one of Bill's least favorite words (and all homophones, like "Funk," "Fork," or even a usually oohy "Fudge")being mentioned, and the color blue is being worn, Bill hurts things and people. He punched the fish-faced man in the face, knocking him unconscious. Bill was tremendously strong, inheriting his father's natural brawn, but was also tremendously irritable at this time, having waited in line too far away and for too long from Mom and Dad.

Although Mom and Dad tried to figure out the somewhys and somehows, they mostly just attempted to avoid situations in which Bill might quietly lash out again. Each instance reminded Bill's Dad of a thought he had watching Barney the purple dinosaur with Danny as a young boy: what if Barney stopped abruptly in the middle of a song, realized he was a dinosaur, and began eating the surrounding, once-jolly, children? Bill's moments were less gory, of course, but equally unexpected as he is an equally gentle giant. Most of the time. Circumstances must corroborate in order for all to turn haywire and awry. Bill still managed to work himself into off and about shenanigans and fits when Mom and Dad were preoccupied carousing and carouseling and those circumstances had been in touch.

Verbally abusive parents wearing blue jeans waiting on the train platform that goes into the city.

(Almost) the kid wearing a Cookie Monster face t-shirt who started crying about his unconscious parents (but Bill's parents picked Bill up, hurriedly no doubt, shortly after the thud of the kid's parents called them over, apologizing profusely while walking away. Hurriedly no doubt).

A girl in baby-blue leggings on the street rudely popping her gum and telling people giving her stinky eyes to "Fork off!"

The man at the local hardware store behind the key-making counter with a vibrant new Mets baseball cap.
"Waddaya mean ya don' know what tha key's for--?!" Unconscious.

Consequences rarely came because gasping embarrassed Mom and Dad sputtered "I'm so sorry! I'm so so sorry! Our son is..um, our son is 'different,' ya know? Please: I've got fifty bucks; take it for reparations or what...whatever."

IV

One. Two. Three. Four. Five...ish. Five. There are five distinct rings that are born and grow up immediately in front of Bill's dipped index-finger in the pool at his grandparent's house. This is where the family is celebrating his cousin Jeanie's birthday. She's turning twenty-eight, and although the parties aren't nearly as whistley and balloonish as they were in the kids' youth, they appreciate the family's courteous and unconventional perception of acknowledging age with calm and graceful inevitability, not embarrassment and shame like most families. Bill is by the pool while small gift cards to Bed, Bath, and Beyond have been opened, cake has been scarfed, and the Beatles' birthday song has been sung. When Bill is in large and loud crowds, his senses start to hurt and he tells his parents "I feel like a computer 'not responding'." To this, his parents have learned to instruct him to breathe, depart the crowd, cover his ears and close his eyes until he feels safe and can "restart," and--most importantly--stay close. Here, however, the backyard is not off limits.

The song was becoming too much, so he decided to go to the backyard where Grandma and Papa have an in-ground pool, lined with green tiles after Bill started throwing fits around the color blue. Playing with the water, feeling its cool smoothness and smelling its sterility (Papa insisted on saturating the volume of the pool with chlorine "in case William ever gets any crazy ideas"), Bill's brain became safe, composed, and worked again. After a few minutes by himself, Bill heard the sliding glass door to the backyard shvoosh open, then shvoosh closed. He turned his curious eyes to find Danny coming out. His brow was arched, his eyes were half-wincing, and his hands were on the back of his head, scratching and stretching his curly brown mess. Bill watched as he pulled out his cellphone, typed with a thumb violently, then put the cellphone to his ear, under the mess. Danny glanced, then nodded in brotherly love, at Bill. Danny wanted to be perceived as a man, and so sometime in his latter years of adolescence he broke all of his emotions, actions, and thoughts down to the bare minimum. Now he talks little, feels little, and motions little. This, he believes, makes him a man, not a boy. Love for other men is conveyed in a glance and a nod.
Bill didn't feel comfortable listening in on Danny's monologue to his boyfriend, who he'd been having troubles with recently. But Bill also wasn't ready to return inside to the rest of the family and the party. He needed more time to breathe, so he stayed by the pool, kneeling by the water, petting its surface like he pet Jeanie's 4-month-old kitten, "Marx." Danny didn't seem to mind that Bill stayed at the opposite end of the pool, he knew that Bill didn't have much of a mouth for rumors or gossip, and the family already had suspicions of Danny's relationship with Turner. But then Danny started to get angry, and Bill couldn't help himself.
"Turner, What?" Danny said quietly.
Then again, with more air, "What?!"
"You've...why would you...you're fucking kidding me, right?!"
Bill didn't know what Danny was feeling by how he looked or how he sounded, only that he was grossly uncomfortable with witnessing whatever this was. He squeezed his eyes inside his head and paddled at the water now.
"Dimoy? Seriously?! You never even speak to him when I'm not there! You've barely--"
Bill knew all of these names. Turner was Danny's boyfriend and Dimoy was Danny's best friend. Bill wondered why there's a space with the phrase 'best friend' but not with 'boyfriend.' Bill was becoming anxious and irritable again. He hasn't been this way in at least two weeks.
"Fuck you, asshole. I want you out of the apartment by the end of the weekend." Danny sneered it into the phone. His eyes were closed and then he started shouting.
"I said, 'Fuck You, Ass Hole. I Want You The Fuck Out of What Was Once," Danny paused to breath, "Our Fucking Apartment! You Fucking Prick!" His eyes were rose-red and porcelain-shining.
With so many F-words and such loud noises coming from Danny's throat, let alone his newish blue cellphone case that he usually kept out of Bill's sight, Bill walked briskly over to Danny and punched him in the face.
Danny fell into the pool, unconscious, clothes, phone, and all.
Bill stood at the edge of the pool, furious with Danny, himself, and the color blue. He bit his lip and pushed out of his throat a low scratchy yawp, an alien sound he made as a boy.

He feels, but only looks down. He's not going to jump. He's just looking down.

He didn't know how to swim and didn't consider Danny right now, so he turned and walked around the Willow-shaded part of his grandparents' house, breathing shallowly and rocking his torso with his arms at his side.

The family was still inside, carousing and carouseling.

He walked to Mom and Dad's Nissan Altima, silver, and opened the driver door that has the numbered buttons underneath the handle. Bill isn't supposed to know this combination, or how to drive, but he has watched, with quiet and absolute curiosity, his parents as they maneuver opens and closes, start ups and shutdowns, fasters and slowers with keen and peripheral vision. No one inside can hear the car's engine ignite, the car's reverse kick in, then the car's drive kick out of the drive way. The metric system makes sense to Bill, but this car's speedometer is not written in kilometers, so Bill chooses to "K.I.S.S. confusion goodbye" ("Keep It Short and Simple" Danny taught him when Bill was twenty nine) by maintaining a speed of 64.3 Kilometers Per Hour, which is 40 Miles Per hour, which is equivalent to every 1.609344 Kilometer for every 1 mile.

They are all inside, singing with Aunt Millie's karaoke machine. Twenty minutes later, Jeanie is heard screaming from the backyard, wearing a purple one-piece bathing suit.

V

Bill only listens to musicians he can sing along with and not feel ashamed that he has a scratchy, jumpy voice. David Byrne of the Talking Heads. Joe Strummer of The Clash. Daniel Johnston of The Daniel Johnston. It comforts him to know that these persons are on Mom and Dad's car radio, and in his CD's which he keeps in the backseat, with similarly repulsive voices.
"Repulsive" is how a cruel woman once described Bill's voice after trying online dating once (at the tenacious go-getter-go-get-her goading and perpetual guidance of Danny) and meeting her in person after establishing an epistolary chemistry. (She wrote how sweet she thought he was since his profile listed his interests and hobbies as building things, eating cereal, and anything without the color Blue, and their emails to each other were, she said, the kindest she had ever received from men online.) When she approached him in front of the grocery store, where he recommended they meet (while Danny watched from the car in the parking lot, following inside as they went inside, with a walkie-talkie turned off in his pocket that Bill insisted on using "for emergencies"), she was hoping for a well-spoken and gentle soul who would cook for her later that night.
Instead, he didn't know where else to go and upon introducing himself, her eyebrows raised. He didn't mind this voice, but his modesty hindered his expressiveness enough to keep it caged in cars, bathroom stalls, and under covers. So his repulsive voice scratched, jumped, and wilded along with these gentlemen more than immodest: unafraid.

You may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"

Y-you may ask your shelf, "HEY! How did I get here?" He did not know all of the words to all of these songs he adored.

Runnin' Monday! Tuesday! Wednesday! Thursday! Friday! Saturday! Sunday! What have I done?

"Running Monday! Tuesday! Wednesday! Thursday! Friday! Saturday! Sunday! What have I done!" Though some lyrics had taught him the days of the week when he was relatively young--courtesy of Danny.

Please hear my cry for help and save me from myseeeeelf.

"Please hear my cry for help. Save me from my selllllllff." And some were closer to what he wanted than what he was aware of.

Two and a half hours after Bill had left his grandparent's house, he was found sitting at the foot of a long corridor of children's books in the basement of the local library and community center. Here he felt safe and serene. He was alone and far away from Mom and Dad, yes, but he was also surrounded by old friends in the pages of his youth and adolescence and knew that they would be here soon, soon enough. His parents arrived with three local police officers, and--with the gentlest of touch and voice--they escorted Bill out of Children's fiction in handcuffs and tears. Mom and Dad maintained the calm they knew Bill needed to work with, but discussed severe ramifications for having killed his brother. The other son. The other beloved son. This was unacceptable, and Bill knew it now.

It was decided that the most appropriate consequences for Bill's actions would be to wear an ankle bracelet that enforced house arrest until further notice with the exception of Thursday afternoon counseling sessions at the Pine View Medical Facility, in which he would be escorted by both his parents and a court-appointed official much less scary and antagonistic than Bill had originally predicted. In these moments, Bill would receive the psychological treatment he rightfully deserved and desperately needed for a minimum of eight months. Bill acquiesced to these decisions he did not yet understand with paramount grace and absent-minded nods.

VI

Four months into counseling, a leather jacket was thrown over a barbed wire fence and Dr. Rosenbaum was in. Five months into counseling, stubborn bricks exploded as a barrier was broken that once hid the reason behind Bill and the color blue. When Bill was still quite young, perhaps two or three--to his and his parents' opaque recollection--he possessed and ostensibly loved a stuffed Hippo with beady eyes, a white stomach, and a rich lagoon blue body named on the attached tag as "Bluebsy Doodles" that his parents had bought as one of his first birthday gifts. Bill could not yet articulate "Bluebsy Doodles," and so referred to his closest friend beside Mom and Dad as "Booze," which often made his parents look at each other or laugh nervously. Months later, "Boobs" was baby Bill's better attempt, much to his parents' chagrin. He would say it, caressing smilingly Boobs's blue fur.

Because Bill loved Boobs so much, the hippo never left him. Not at the park, not in bed when he wet it, not on rainy days, not in the kitchen when he would attempt to help Mom or Dad make breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Because Boobs never left Bill, Boobs once soft touch became greasy and clumped, once bright hues became dusty and off, once lustrous eyes became scratched and cataracted. Because it decayed like this, the blue hippo was no longer as strong as it used to be. Consequently, it once slipped from Bill's butter grip into a puddle on a humdrum day and began to deteriorate. Baby Bill made his alien sound and closed his eyes, rocking back and forth. He picked it up shortly after these moments of catatonic grief, and Boobs began to fall apart. His parents looked on, catatonic themselves because they never wanted this to happen, of course, but knew that it was inevitable; they had been ill-informed as first time parents to buy cheap toys because children this young will either destroy them, lose them, or forget them. Although Bill did not take the best of care of Boobs, he neither destroyed nor lost Boobs. And certainly would never forget. Repress, put high up on the shelf of childhood pain to collect dust and cobwebs, but never forget.

Dr. Rosenbaum proposed the possibility that this experience also contributed to Bill's inaction in action when months ago his younger brother Danny floated unconscious on the pool's surface. "Perhaps," she pontificated, "the childhood experience internalized a notion in Bill's psyche that he is only capable of eventually harming all that he loves, and so is reluctant to intervene when what he loves is harmed, and when he is aware of the harm, instead chooses the safety of passivity."
Bill needed time to understand what Dr. Rosenbaum meant, and felt the pangs and pleasures of remembering Bluebsy Doodles when he and his parents left that Thursday afternoon. His parents didn't necessarily agree with Dr. Rosenbaum's inferences, but were profoundly committed to helping Bill cope with the color blue and other triggers, and so appeased her sanguine disposition on Bill's progress.

When they arrived home, Mom and Dad said their thankyous and goodbyes to the court-appointed escort while Bill trudged upstairs to his room, where he felt safe, comfortable, calm.

In Bill's metropolitan streets, dogs don't bark, babes don't cry, and garbage trucks don't pass, irresponsibly wafting residual stenches on the run. Bill likes it this way. His peanut eyes are their sun and moon. His long breath is their wind. His fading smile is their god. These people smile back. Permanent stubble and sunglasses on some, removable red ponytails on others. Forgivenesses and epiphanies evidenced by their U-hands up and down in the tower's cellophane windows. And that one audacious fellow from Bill Industries who is only looking down. He's not going to jump. He's just looking down. Bill's next birthday will be their next quiet celebration.