The Billy Bob Tapes by Billy Bob Thornton

Author:Billy Bob Thornton
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“The Walking Extinct”

We are the walking extinct

Stumblin’ over the bones of memories

We’re the invisible link

Waiting and hoping that someone will see

We are the walking extinct

Watching the fossils fall and break apart

We’re an ark about to sink

Drowning all the magic in our hearts

And it happened so slow

You’ll never know what didn’t hit you

—“The Walking Extinct” (Thornton/Andrew)

WHEN I WAS IN GLENDALE RECUPERATING FROM THIS SHIT, I TRIED to get social services to help me. I tried to get food stamps and whatever, but they needed so much shit from me, so much information, and I didn’t know how to give it to them. I didn’t have the proper paperwork or tax shit, and I couldn’t remember my social security number, so I never got any of the stuff I needed. I was like, “Goddammit, I’m a fucking American, why can’t you help me?”

But things started getting a little better when I got a job for a time. I also had a girlfriend then who kind of felt sorry for me, so she helped me pay for stuff. So I thought, I better start doing some physical activity and eating right, and I joined the YMCA in Glendale. The Glendale YMCA is a nice YMCA, not some shithole, and they had a world-class basketball gym, and since the job I had was kind of spotty—off and on—I could get to the YMCA to shoot hoops most days at seven A.M., when all the regular people were getting ready for work.

There were just a bunch of old men in the locker room when I was changing into my short britches at seven in the morning. I don’t know how old they were then, but it was 1984 and they were World War II veterans, so you figure if the war ended in 1945, that would probably put them in their late sixties then. At the time I thought they were ancient. I would talk to these guys, and a couple of them would come out and shoot free throws with me. Turns out three or four of them were B-17 crew guys during World War II. One guy was a pilot, couple of guys were ball turret gunners, one guy was a tail gunner. Then there was a navigator, an engineer, a sergeant, who was a top turret gunner. I got to love these guys because I’ve had this thing for the B-17 bomber ever since I was a little kid.

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