The Ballad of Billy Bean by Ian Lewis

Author:Ian Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

A HUNDRED DOLLARS A WEEK

Billy

It’s good when you feel part of a crowd, though. Safe. Like—just for a bit—you don’t have to pretend. But them on the beach ain’t my crowd. Most of them ain’t even working on my films. They’re Clara’s crowd. I feel I’m alone and an awful long way from London.

I walk away from them and keep going till I get right away from the smart parts of town; till I’m on streets where nobody paints the houses, and the bricks are crumbling to bits, and the roof leaks. Now I know where I am, I’m thinking.

I keep walking, ’cos I know you don’t want to hang about in places like this, ’cos people think you’re working for the cops or trying to muscle in on something. But it’s like fresh air to me. Like a holiday at home.

A group of kids are playing some kind of ball game in the street. One of them’s not very good and the ball comes whistling in my direction, so I catches it.

“Chuck it back,” they says. But I don’t. Not straight away. I pick up a couple of little rocks from the ground and I walks towards them, juggling the rocks and their ball. Which is something they seem to appreciate. So I performs a few little juggling tricks for them, which they also seem to appreciate, and I gives ’em back their ball.

A gang of kids is like pigeons or starlings. They’re all bunched together doing one thing, and then they all take it into their heads to fly off and do something else. This lot ran off and I couldn’t tell why. You got to be careful in places where nobody knows you, so I walk on, not really knowing where I am, and I come upon them again. Now they’re all running round another kid, shouting things at him, and he’s just standing there looking miserable. Now, I’m a kind-hearted kind of person, but I got to be careful, and you don’t want to interfere when you don’t know what it’s all about. Could be that the little one in the middle has been kicking and punching the others his whole life. But they start chucking sticks and stones at him and laughing something horrible, and I think that ain’t right. I don’t like to see people getting properly hurt—blood and stuff.

“Oi, guys. Lay off!” I shout at them.

They look at me for a second and they laugh and chuck some more stones and I don’t really know what to do. I’m bigger than most of them, but I can’t take them all at once. But I get closer and grab one of the biggest and pull him away. He stares at me real threatening, and I pushes up my sleeves, ’cos I can see this might come to something, but I ain’t afraid of a fight—I done this before.

Some of the others turn around and look to see what’s going to happen. It’s all very still for ages.

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