It is said, in many places, that April showers bring May flowers, and in William’s world, such would be the case, even though William, or Billy, as his friends, coworkers and, out of his own insistence, any new introductory acquaintance would greet him. Though to his dearest friends, and his wife of thirteen years, William Gustavson, or Billy, was commonly referred to as ‘Bayou’ Billy. Though nobody for sure knew why Billy, had, in fact, given himself the nickname of ‘Bayou’ Billly, as being a big city dwelling inlander and certainly never having traveled to any major body of water, let alone an actual swamp for that matter, it so puzzled his wife and friends, though they just went along with it, as Billy was such a swell person. Heck, ‘Bayou’ Billy was even too young to know what the original Nintendo Entertainment System was, and that there was an extremely mediocre video game on such a console, that, unbeknownst to ‘Bayou’ Billy had front run his own given moniker by around three and a half decades. But my goodness, was Billy ever insistent on being a ‘Bayou’ man, especially in the bedroom with his wife Cathryn. And by golly, with the six children, from the ages of eleven months to fourteen years, literally emanating from under his belt, most certainly ‘Bayou’ Billy’s serpent could a swampily slither. Yes, Cathryn sure seemed to know ‘Bayou’ Billy far greater and intimate than any under the sun, moon and stars, and occasionally water combined, and for that she was eternally grateful.
A family man Billy was, devout in volunteerism, and a good Christian too. Church every Sunday. Really, everybody loved Billy, he was just that kind of guy; a joy to be around, and always coming up with the right thing to say at the right moment, and even the wrong ones too. Yes, it seemed ‘Bayou’ Billy had it all – a loving family, good friends, a successful career as the head service technician and sole contract holder for the state-wide upkeep and maintenance of all the food equipment falling under the banner of the Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation. It was quite the mouthful, so much so, that such was indeed the slogan of the Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation: “Quite The Mouthful.” Nobody knew how ‘Bayou’ Billy had managed to pull that one off, but of the contract bidding process, Billy had come out on top. ‘Bayou’ Billy had a dedicated service crew under him that took care of near all out of county service calls, leaving himself the opportunity to pretty much never have to travel for work and giving him the blessing of being able to be the ever-present loving family man, and community pillar so dead-set on his existential campaign for goodness. Though he would never dare say it out loud, Billy, more often than not liked to humour himself as being a sort of pimp as such, with his corporate serving lair of prostitutes a’ wrench turnin,’ a’ hose decloggin,’ a’ lever remedyin,’ a’ computer programmin,’ and a’ cog adjustin’ to his, ‘Bayou’ Billy’s bottom line of a’ bank account stuffin,’ after tax a’ sufferin’ that is. Oh, and what a’ sufferin’ indeed, as it took Billy damn near three and half years before becoming an in-the-clear millionaire – where lord knows if ‘Bayou’ Billy had had just his Lord & Saviour’s tithe – eighteen months, tops. Holy Moses! That was some contract.
So when ‘Bayou’ Billy woke up long before dawn, as he had done so many times for years on end, to get an early start on the day and front-run his ascending mini-minions of Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation tailcoat-ridin’ magic carpet coffer stuffin’ service contract greatness trip, he would have no way of knowing that such a Wednesday, of which some obscure annual historical pagan time-marker was destined to again essentially and virtually unknowingly to any and all play out in Walpurgis night of Teutonic berg-cackling banal reverence, would be any different than any Wednesday, or for that matter, any weekday of his thoroughly tuned up, artfully framed, picture perfect panoramic blessed all encompassing familial surrounds. Yes, this Walpurgis morning, ‘Bayou’ Billy came to rouse Cathryn from her restful and encompassing slumber as he had done on countless occasions by slipping it in after whispering a few minutes of pleasantries in Mrs. Gustavson’s ear for a one sided act of foreplay, before sawing off a nice piece of tail before making his front-running travels to the office in order to set the example to all his staff of the “Early bird indeed getting the worm.” Like so many times before, in her caught with a pickle state, Cathryn begged her ‘Bayou’ captor to please, for once, let onanism rule the moment. Nope, ‘Bayou’ Billy was having none of that, nor would he ever wear a condom, get a vasectomy, nor allow Cathryn to take birth control. Billy could afford eighteen plus children after all, so what is seven and counting, really. Cathryn loved Billy dearly, and such was quite evident to anyone who knew them. Before ol’ ‘Bayou’ Billy peeled off to the shower in anticipation of starting his new day, he reminded his loving wife, “Dear, tonight I am volunteering again over in “Poor Town,” as Billy liked to call it, “mentoring some at risk youth, so I will probably not be home til later in the evening.” Mrs. Gustavson was used to Billy’s commitment to community participation and the volunteering such entailed, and it was one of the reasons Cathryn loved Billy so, so like she had done on countless occasions, Cathryn retorted, “Your Swamp Queen will be awaiting the return of her ‘Bayou’ Billy and a bout of nightly alligator wresting if you have it in you to have it at me.”
Off to the office Billy went in his brand new Electron Jolt electric vehicle, with, you guessed it, a personal license plate reading nothing other than ‘Bayou’ emblazoned upon that marked distinction, and back into dreamland Cathryn synaptically crept. It was one of her perks being able to sleep in on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as her mother, at Billy’s insistence moved into the basement suite after the untimely death of her father, from a falling piece of glass off a high-rise building that cut him clean in two on the vertical axis the day after retiring from thirty five years of exemplary merit and conduct as a glazing system engineer renowned for inventing a failsafe method of high-rise glass installation that evidently, the contractor, a subsidiary of the Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation was not using on their project due to corporate nepotism and clearly transparent cost-cutting in hiring another “royal” affiliated engineering and glazing firm. Cathryn’s mother, Judy was overjoyed with helping out with the six children every day, not to mention the three days when she was allowed to be full on mother to her six adorable grand children. And it sure took a big load off of Cathryn’s having to care for the six kids, and in giving her some much needed rest. And how Cathryn slept that Walpurgis morning – she was so tired, and seemingly not feeling too well when getting up to pee around 8:15am. Say, did Yours Freelancer Truly say how Cathryn slept?
It was 5:00pm when Cathryn finally awoke to her, now soaked to the sheets realization slumber, knowing that something was not right indeed. She looked at the alarm clock and immediately panicked, “The kids, what about the kids!?” Then it dawned on her, it was Wednesday and Judy had taken them out for an early dinner and then off to the theatre to see the movie: Toy Story Twelve – Made In China For Maximum Corporate Profits. Cathryn headed to the bathroom to shower the sweaty mess from her surprisingly hot body, even after having bore six children. Now there is some dedication! ‘Bayou’ Billy’s swamp girl!
‘Bayou’ Billy and his unbeknownst Walpurgis evening leading to an unbeknownst Walpurgis night. Volunteering was not always an easy job, especially when dealing with some of the rough around the edges at youth risk of ‘Poor Town.’ Being down in those trenches was a dirty job after all; and there was one thing that the rough and tumble ‘Bayou’ Billy was sure of – that he had been here before, on many occasions, and this batch of youth were certainly a troubled load to handle, so ‘Bayou’ Billy would do what he always would do in these circumstances: Affix Bayonet! Metaphorical foreshadowing – time to play some war games; ‘Bayou’ Billy would make these teens affix bayonets too, as it was literally time to ‘Go Over The Top.’
Something wasn’t right with Cathryn indeed. Out of panic she called Billy on his cell phone, but no answer and straight to voicemail, so she left a frantic message letting him know that he had to call her back ASAP, but should return home immediately as she had fallen ill and needed a ride to the hospital for treatment. Cathryn also called all of Billy’s closest friends to see if anybody was cognizant of his whereabouts – though none of them had seen nor heard hide or hair of him for a couple days now. Billy did not call Cathryn back, nor did his phone do anything other than go straight to voicemail for the next panicked hour of Mrs. Gustavson’s evening. Cathryn could not bare it any longer, she would have to drive herself to the hospital, and left her ‘Bayou’ Billy one last voicemail letting him know that is where she was headed and that he should meet her there upon getting the message. Off to the hospital Mrs. Gustavson went, in her non-electrified and regular license plated SUV, a Quasar Galactic XLBH – out of this world fuel consumption! But hey, ‘Bayou’ Billy could afford it, and their youngest child was conceived in the back seat, on the initial test drive none the less. Yup, the rear bench seat reclined too! Anyways, off to the new hospital on the edge of ‘Poor Town’ Cathryn went. All of the latest medical equipment at that fancy new healing joint – the kitchen stocked to the rafters with brand new food equipment donated by, you guessed it, the Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation. Billy played a major role in supplying the city with ‘Quite The Mouthful’ of food prep equipment on their stays at the new technological marvel hospital.
Cathryn passed endless dentists offices, thoroughly homogenized mini-malls with the same old bullshit corporate behemoth eyesore drug stores, banks, clothing retailers, and endless calorie ridden and sodium stuffed fast food abominations brimming to the ceiling tiles with Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation food equipment whose service contract was quietly stuffing ‘Bayou’ Billy’s coffers to the highly diversified proverbial gills. Though it was not long before Cathryn had reached the non-gentrified part of town between the new hospital and the highly corporately homogenized puke ridden mini-mall, low rise high density urban warfare landscape known as progress, and that is when she seen it. Billy’s pearlescent white Electron Jolt with personalized license plate glimmering under the flickering metal halide light-post of a run down motel just a few blocks from the hospital. Cathryn had to do a double think, and then immediate reaction of a U-Turn. “What is Billy’s car doing in a cockroach joint like this?” immediately came to Cathryn’s mind as she pulled into the parking lot behind Billy’s Electron Jolt and put her car in park and then shut off the ignition. It was half passed eight at night and the lights were on in the room directly in front of where Billy’s Electron Jolt was parked, and now approaching the door she could plain as day hear voices coming from inside the room. Clearly, there was nothing left to do but knock on the door.
The door swung open slowly and a half-naked, from the waist down, teenage boy stared intently, through pinprick pupils, at the intently beautiful woman standing outside the door with puzzled wonderment and deep, deep fright rapidly unfurling across her face. Cathryn looked around the double queen-sized motel room with kitchenette and sofa haphazardly out of place from what should have been its resting place against the hazy, dirt stained silhouette that told her where that is where the sofa had surely spent, at minimum, a decade against the wall – and she did not like what she saw – three other feeble, fully naked teenage boys in various states of irritable restlessness, sprawled out on the bed and gawking at a non flatscreen television playing an old rerun of a Red Dwarf tv episode. Cathryn also caught a glimpse of what appeared to be glass pipes for smoking some type of narcotics, and thinking quietly, “My Lord, the devil at play,” and then Mrs. Gustavson spoke to the scrawny, mystified youth pitifully standing there with his junk on display, “My lord boys, I am so sorry, it seems that I have knocked on the wrong door, please forgive me for intruding,” and then turned to walk away, but that is when Cathryn saw them, the one of a kind, dyed white crocodile boots that she had given her Billy for his last birthday, and not only so, but also the five-hundred dollar limited edition, extra-virgin cotton, azure blue jeans with ‘Bayou’ custom embroidered across both back pockets.
“They must have kidnapped and murdered my poor, poor Billy,” Cathryn’s mind was a’ racing with such a horrible concept, and then she looked around at the patheticness of the, to the moon, feeble foursome in wigged out state before her, as a stark, cathartic, and sickening possible reality churned from the pit of her stomach that quickly manifested into a hidden rage of whose beaming stare crumpled the half naked teen on the spot in the doorway, leaving him to be not much other than a slightly exaggerated threshold, of which Cathryn leapt over in a Cincinnati second, making an A-line for what surely had to be the slightly ajar bathroom door. Cathryn flung the door open, paced to the drawn shut, opaque shower curtain and ripped it clean of the rusty hook hangers to reveal her husband Billy staring off into the one dimensional space-tile continuum of the wall containing the hot/cold water diffuser. Yup, there Billy was, on this Walrpurgis night, the last day of April, in an April shower of all April Showers. To forget that is. Oh, if only Billy could forget. Or be vaporized into a lingering protoplasmic pile and slither down the drain in order to escape this dawning nightmare, and be mercifully put out of the horrific pain that his life would certainly bring him from this instant forwards. To which the only thing to pop into Billy’s crumpling persona was, “Geez, I wonder if thirty one days of May flowers will even begin to make up to Cathryn for what has just been let out of the empty methamphetamine bags strewn across the motel room?”
That’s right, “Buy-You” Billy was gay as fuck, literally, and he had hidden it from his wife and friends since he had rolled into town fifteen years prior. Well, maybe gay as fuck is a subliminal understatement, as would be filthy, dirty, insatiable raging homosexual. Yes, ‘Buy-You’ Billy’s life was nearly a complete lie. Sure, everything written above is true about ‘Buy-You’ Billy, though for climactic experience and necessary plot twist, in the end like ‘Buy-You’ Billy in his fateful April shower, the filth had to be exposed in order to fully come clean.
Not only did ‘Buy-You’ billy seek out vulnerable youth and then ply them with drugs and alcohol, then engage in orgiastic buggery to his erection’s content and then pay off said male victims to stay quiet and come back for more paid debauchery at their empty wallets content, but ‘Buy-You’ Billy was also, now, a decades long subscriber to the gay hook-up App Porker. Yes, Porker. Not only such, but in the Porker App rating system, ‘Buy-You’ Billy was rated Porker #1 across the entire continent. Yes, ‘Buy-You’ Billy the attentive and devout Christian just loved to ‘Swipe Right‘ on Porker; really it was an addiction like any other addiction one must suppose, and a game to Billy too, for you see, ‘Buy-You’ Billy was not only well known in his city for his status, but was revered in the Porker community for being a gay-legend. That’s right, Swipe Right, a gay-legend, for ‘Buy-You’ Billy was so gay, that he offered up a fifty-thousand dollar prize to anyone who, after being Porked once by them, and was then able to Pork him a second time in a prearranged scheduled meeting that saw ‘Buy-You’ Billy blindfolded, and Billy was not able to recognize their erect penises within eight seconds could lay claim to the fifty-thousand dollar prize! Yes, you read that right. Well, and nobody had claimed the prize in 8 years. Needless to say, the word quickly spread across the Porker community, and the majority of ‘Buy-You’ Billy’s attempted prize claiming clientele were actually the Unpolished Brass from across the continent, and the Big-Wigs with Little Twigs too. Sure, most did not actually need the money, they just wanted to make Porker App Lore and be bought by Billy.
Oh, how those Unpolished Brass tried and tried again. Though the hardest part of the continental excursions for the Unpolished Brass and Big-Wigs with Little Twigs was again convincing their wives to again go to the same geographical location, ‘Buy-You’ Billy’s nestled geographical location and then coming up with some lame excuse to ditch their wives for a few hours to try and claim the prize money, while ‘Buy-You’ Billy after having unlocked his office building so early in the morning, only to disappear after an hour, then ascend into his 7:00am meth hit and morning of debauchery and afternoons of prolonged wretched debauchery of decade long disgrace. Yup, while Cathryn was at home thinking her Billy was cracking the metaphorical whip at the office, he was, in actuality, for years, attaining his #1 Porker App status in any and all a location.
But how could ‘Buy-You’ Billy never have given his wife Cathryn the monkeypox, or any other venereal disease that was now coursing through her newly infected body as she metaphorically murdered Billy with her gaze in that seedy motel room filled with wigged-out, meth-rattled teenagers, vodka soda drinks, and an out of place sofa, surely deemed to be a biohazard after a decade or so of Swiffer deodorizer treatment? Quite simple really, ‘Buy-You’ Billy was a stickler for absolute prophylactic obedience; in fact, ‘Buy-You’ Billy was actually an eight percent stakeholder in the Bayonet Condom Corporation. That’s right, affix Bayonets! Of course the Bayonet Condom Corporation was a literal offshoot of the Crowned Apex Food Conglomeration Corporation of Royal Attenuate Dispensation – Duh. That was the other thing, the fifty-thousand dollar Porker prize money and all of ‘Buy-You’ Billy’s sexcapades had to have strict usage of only Bayonet Condom Corporation brand condoms, of which, sure, Billy did supply to the at risk youth, but all of the actual Porker App penetrators had to go out and buy Bayonet brand condoms. Yes, Billy was getting rich by getting fucked. A regular pork-barrel production. And what an advertisement for Bayonet brand condoms: only one broken example in all ‘Buy-You’ Billy’s years of filth. And for some: ‘Quite The Mouthful.’
‘Buy-You’ Billy. A good Christian, and a pillar of his community – his penis was short, but his list of obscenities was long!
Poor Cathryn – a monkeypox survivor.