Bastards of Young

Back at the squat a guy, Jeff, told Tracy that her sister had stopped by earlier. “I’m going to go give her call. See ya later, chick,” she said heading towards the door again.

“Later,” I smiled and waved.

“Oh, hey and Jean?” I turned to see Tracy paused in the doorway. “Remember: You need one,” she winked and gave me a thumbs-up as I laughed and flicked her off. I continued crossing the living room and down to the basement. Judging by the locked door, Billie wasn’t home yet so I went into the bathroom where we had decided to hide the key so no one got locked out.

Pushing open the door to the room I was thankful for a few silent moments in the cold darkness. Allowing myself to fall back onto the bed, I let out a contented sigh and enjoyed the relaxed feeling you get when you finally get to lay on something soft after a long day on your feet. I loved the record shop, but with Valentines only two weeks away people wanted their Marvin Gaye records.

Tomorrow was my first real payday putting aside the few bucks I got for doing odd jobs at Rodney’s. I started trying to guess how much I could expect to be getting in my head.

I get $4.75 an hour… 40 hours this week…

Before I could work everything out the door flung open to reveal the silhouette of who I assumed to be Billie.

“Billie! Hey, how was the show” the talk with Tracy had me feeling a little nervous around him all of a sudden. To my surprise, Billie merely slammed the door shut and stumbled into my bed.

As he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face into the crook of my neck I felt something warm but wet being smeared onto my skin there. “Id’s been a bab nighb,” he said miserably in a nasally tone. I smelled alcohol heavy on his breath.

“Bill? Hey, listen…are you okay? Let me just…,” I reached over the side of the bed and turned on the lamp. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but when they did a gasp of horror escaped my lips. Billie looked like he had been on the losing end of a fight as his nose and lower lip leaked out a steady flow of blood. “Holy crap – what the fuck happened to you,” I exclaimed gently placing my hands on either side of his face to examine the cuts closer.

“Id wub noding,” Billie waved my hands away unsteadily and looked away in embarrassment. “I jud had a few dribks and fooleb arounb wif dis girl…whob had a boyfrieb.” He looked so pathetic there on the edge of my bed with blood everywhere and his hair tousled in every direction and his eyes bloodshot and teary that I could help, but give him a hug. He hugged back tightly and we just sat in silence for a few minutes before I pulled away.

“Wait here, I’m going to go get some ice.”

Billie didn’t really look like he wanted me to go, but he nodded his head all the same.

The living room only held a few people playing cards. One of them, a guy I think was named Mario, looked up as I entered. “What’s up with, Bill?”

“’Got into a fight. Do we have any ice in the ‘fridge, man?” I continued crossing into the kitchen as Mario called out that he had just jacked some from a grocery store earlier in the day.

Grabbing a bandana that looked fairly clean from the linen cabinet I dipped it into the bag. A lot of the ice had melted, so I soaked up the water and wrapped some of the remaining cubes up. “Thanks,” I said to Mario as I crossed back over to the basement door.

Jeff from earlier piped up, “Hey, Jean, tell Billie I said to feel better.”

“Will do, Jeff,” I started down the steps.

“Oh, and tell him he still owes me five bucks!” I rolled my eyes and shut the door without a word.

I found Billie still on my bed with his head resting against the wall, his eyes closed and soft, strained snores coming from his mouth. Smiling to myself I approached and kneeled down in front of him, gently rubbing the side of his head as I did. “Hey? Hey, buddy – you wanna wake up real quick?”

Billie stirred slightly and grumbled a no. I kept rubbing his head and coaxing him to sit up. Finally, he popped one eye open. “I like how you wake people up,” his voice was mostly back to normal (slurred words aside) since his nose had stopped bleeding.

I couldn’t help, but grin and blush a bit at his words. “Sit up so I can take care of your crazy ass.” Reluctantly, Billie got off the wall and sat in wait for me to nurse his nose and lip back to health. I lightly pressed the icy bandanna to his lip.

“OW! Fuck!” Billie jumped back in pain.

“Oh, man up,” I giggled as I pulled him back by his shirt and placed the cold rag back onto his lip. Again he jumped.

“Fuck, woman!” He looked dazedly amused despite his pain. I kissed my finger and placed it under his lip carefully. He flinched, but didn’t spaz out. He just sat smiling down at me.

“There. All better. Now, stop whining.” I handed him the bandanna and stood as he placed it to his lip, seemingly more comfortable with it now that he was in control.

“What would I do without you, Jean?”

“Have to get your own bandannas?” We both laughed as I plopped down further up on my bed and buried my face into my pillow. I felt Billie shift on the bed after a moment and lay himself out next to me. I opened one brown eye to find two green ones staring back at me.

“Hey,” was all I could think to say.

“Hi,” it looked as if he was able to wipe most of the blood away from his nose and mouth, but a bruise was definitely forming around that area.

“Are you alright?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I have work tomorrow, so I kind of need to sleep. Wake me up if you need anything,” I affectionately took to rubbing the side of his head again.

“Okay,” he said grinning and shutting his eyes in pleasure. Rolling over I turned off the lamp and snuggled into my bed. Just as I was about to fall asleep I felt a hand on my shoulder and suddenly I was on my back with a weight on my chest and around my waist.

“Um... okay then….”

The weight lifted and Billie’s voice cut through the darkness with an edge of panic. “I’m sorry! I’m really, really sorry! I’m just drunk. I’m sorry – I didn’t think it’d be a big deal. I’m just feeling kind of down and…”

I reached up to where his voice was coming from and hooked my hand around the back of his head, bringing it back down to where it had been. I started playing with his hair in an attempt to calm him down. “It’s fine! I just was kind of taken aback is all.”

“Oh. Well, I just don’t want to be inappropriate. I just think its okay for friends to be you know physically affectionate without it meaning anything…”

“Billie?” My stomach had fallen to my feet because of what he was saying implied.

“Yeah?”

“Go to sleep.”

“Good idea.”

Within minutes Billie’s breathing had become steady, but I continued to play with his hair and think miserably about how dumb I was to think for a second that he could possibly feel the same about me. My last thought as I drifted to sleep was that at least my new little world would be staying fairly uncomplicated.