Billy Boy: A Novel by Bud Shrake

Author:Bud Shrake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2001-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

ITSEEMED TO BILLY that there were more people, mostly teenage kids, in or out of their cars, in the parking lot of the Triple X Root Beer at 9:30 at night than there had been people in all of downtown Albuquerque at noon.

Sandra drove slowly down a lane between cars. She waved and called out to several kids who had yelled to her. She and Billy knew they all were wondering who was that guy in the car with Sandra Sandpaster?

“Is this where your high school bunch hangs out?” Billy said.

“No, everybody in town comes here for the root beer. Look, you can see the downtown buildings right there to the east. At Arlington Heights we have a couple of hangout drive-ins in our own part of town. The other schools do the same, I guess. I never go on the east side unless I’m driving through to Dallas, and I only pass through the north side on my way out to the Lake Worth Casino or the Boat Club at Eagle Mountain Lake, so I really wouldn’t know.”

She found a place to park. A carhop attached a tray to Sandra’s window. Sandra ordered a frosted root beer. Billy ordered a root beer with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. He was very happy to be with Sandra in her convertible and felt flush with the change from a twenty in his jeans. Sandra was growing steadily more attracted to this cute cowboy caddie who seemed to speak his mind, and very well, too. She could understand why her grandfather had been drawn to this boy and also had been repulsed by him. Billy had an independent sort of attitude that her grandfather tolerated in very few adults and in no youngsters other than Sandra herself and, for the time being, Sonny Stonekiller.

“Where are you going to high school? Heights or Paschal?” Sandra asked.

“I want to go where you are.”

“Is there room for you and Sonny at the same school?”

“We’ll find out,” Billy said.

“I was kidding.” Sandra smiled and licked the lip of her root beer mug. “Isn’t that what they say in western movies? ‘There ain’t room in this town for both of us?’”

“There’s room for us at Colonial.”

“I doubt it. Even if you obey the rules and stay among your own class, Sonny will find a way to provoke them into getting rid of you. Sonny has a very mean streak.”

“What do you mean, my ‘own class’?”

“Well, you’re a caddie, and Sonny is a rich member and the club champion. That’s what I mean. Do they invite you inside for a sandwich? That’s what I mean. What does your father do for a living?”

“He’s a captain in the Army in Korea,” Billy said. He had his doubts, but that sounded better than, “He’s a cowboy and a gambler, and he’s probably drunk someplace.”

“I’m impressed. You’re the son of an Army officer. My grandfather will like that.”

Billy spooned out the last of his ice cream.

“My grandfather thinks you are the son of a bum who had to be thrown out of the club by the police.

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