COMPASSION

Chapter 33

Billy

Catherine rises out of her coffin and goes downstairs to the library to look for Tom. He is not there so she goes into the kitchen and he is not there either. She comes to a  room with six doors she had never noticed before. The closer she gets to the doors she sees a nameplate on each door. The first door is labeled Thomas.
 
The second door is labeled Catherine, then William, Helen, Kathleen, Elizabeth, and Robert. The door labeled William opens and Catherine sees Tom’s younger brother William Havard.
 
“William it’s me, Catherine! I am your sister-in-law!”
 
“William Tom’s younger brother is surprised but greets his sister -in-law,” Hi Catherine! It is great to see you again. You have changed since I last saw you. You look like an Old Woman now!”
 
Catherine stunned by the remark fires back, “What do you expect I just died. I am a sixty-six-year-old woman how do you expect me to look?”
 
“William replies, “ When you get a compliment on how old you look here it really is a compliment. Tom died when he was only thirty-six. I died when I was twenty-eight. We have no idea how we would look at your age. We wanted to live to be old like you. So when I say you look old I wish I lived to be your age. I wanted to be old too. You have to remember when someone tells you to look old here they are paying you a compliment because they probably died young and never got to be old.”
 
“Well, thanks for the compliment I guess. Do you know where Tom is?”
 
“No, I have not seen him. He probably went over to Maxie’s Bar to see his old ship mates. He goes over there a lot.”
 
Catherine remarks, “It is so good to see you again. Thank you also for attending my viewing.”
 
“Catherine tell me why did you bury Tom in that brown suit. He has been bitching about that suit since he got here.”
 
“Yes, I know he told me.”
 
William wonders, “ How are my nephews doing?”
 
“Well Tommy and Joe are living at my home and Michael is married now with a wife and two children. He is an Engineer for a spring company. He makes big money in his job.”
 
“Wonderful to hear he is doing well.”
 
“Tommy my oldest and Joe are not doing well. All they do is fight with each other. I wish they were married and had wives to fight with. At least they could have sex at the end of the fight and makeup. Brothers cannot do that. They just keep fighting.”
 
William laughs, “Tell me about it.”
 
“Tommy thinks his girlfriend choked me to death so I would be out of the way and now he can marry her with Mom not around. His second theory is I drank poisoned holy water and killed myself.”
 
Billy asks, “How is young Joe doing?”
 
“He has become obsessed with his Dental Hygienist. He asked her if she wants to get together to write a screenplay.”
 
Billy comments, “Wow very original of Joe. I would never think of that.”
 
“She told him no now he can’t shake his obsession with her and wants to Kill himself.”
 
“Catherine you know the Irish are no good at handling the loss of a loved one. They are terrible at processing death. We all want to write a great Novels. We all get depressed over a girl. We all want to Kill ourselves. The Irish celebrate mourning and tragedy and go through periods where there is no hope.  I am sure both my nephews will be able to drink enough alcohol to get them through this dark time.”  
 
“Billy I never allowed any alcohol in the house. I hate alcohol. It is the reason your Brother died so young and made me a widow. It drove his blood pressure and it killed him. My Brother Joe was on his way to drinking himself to Death before he burned to death himself to Death when he let the cigarette fall on him when he was drunk. Drinking is the last thing you should do if you depressed.”
 
Billy replies, “I know terrible things happen to people when they get drunk but at some point, Joe is going to have to get involved with alcohol.”
 
Catherine asks, “Why!”
 
“Tom told me there was some discussion of Joe becoming a writer. You can’t trust a word written by a perfect person. You want to hear from people that have went to hell and Back. Joe is going to have to suffer a lot more than just an obsession over a girl. He is going to have to be driven to the edge of sanity and before he is through he will have to get on his knees and beg God to end his life now because he can’t take it anymore. He has to tell God he curses the day he was born and wishes he never came to this world. The obsession over the Girl is a good start but Joe has a lot more suffering ahead before he should even consider picking up a pencil and putting words on paper. You can't be a good writer unless you suffer.”
 
“Billy that is a horrible outlook on life. Life is not all about suffering. There are plenty of good things that can happen in life. I just wish Joe could find a wife to help him with his journey. I wish you could have found a wife. Maybe you would have lived a lot longer. None of us knows what happened to you in that bar outside of Denver. Can you tell me now. The police told Tom you got into a fight with some men.”
 
“Well now I need a drink before I can tell you that story. Let’s go into Tom’s Library and I will tell you everything the night I was killed.”
 
Billy and Catherine enter the Library and Billy pours himself some whiskey. Catherine motions to Billy to pour her one to.
 
“I thought you hated alcohol.”
 
Catherine replies, “I do but it doesn’t matter now I am dead. I can’t get drunk unless I possess a living person. I didn’t want the boys drinking because if they got into a fight how was I going to break it up. I didn’t want to use my stick on my sons. That was only for Tom.”
 
Billy smiles and take a seat. “Well as you know I was in the Army in WWII and I came back to Plains. I didn’t want to stay there and wanted to see the western part of the country. So I told Elizabeth and Tom I am going to tour the country the decide what I will do with my life. I wound up in a little town outside of Denver in February on what they said was the coldest night of the year. The wind chill was minus fifty degrees. I stopped in a bar for some drinks and music and was having a great time. A couple of guys asked me to play some pool and I said sure. They kept asking me  where I was from and what was I doing in their town. They seemed to be friendly but when I started winning at pool the one guy became angry with me and left the bar.”
 
Catherine interrupts, “I know you Billy you have a short fuse. Why did you challenge three guys to a fight. If Tom your Brother was there to help you that would have been different.”
 
Billy reflects, “Catherine I know that now. I think today I should have never given all my details to strangers. I don’t think the fight was over losing pool it was over the fact I was Irish. I didn’t even know these cowboys but the mood started to change.

I kept playing pool with the other guy and something came over me. I was strangely attracted to him. He had beautiful blue eyes and a fit body. I have always liked girls but I had strong feelings for this man I was playing pool with a man who was a total stranger. I asked him if he wanted to take a walk and get out of this bar.  To my suprise he said yes!"
 
Billy paused, "He  said there was a school yard a couple of blocks over with a basketball court and we could play one on one and who ever get to 10 points wins and that’s how we will determine who the better man is. I thought this was odd and it was freezing out but I thought this was a way to settle a beef. So we drove over to the court and we started playing one on one and I beat the guy ten to eight. We went to shake hands and I kissed him."

"Your a Faggot!" He shouted.

He then punched me in the mouth and knocked me down. I see a car pull up and two men get out and approach me on the ground. It seems all three of these guys are friends and the guy that hit me told his friends I was Queer so all three start kicking me.

Tom will tell you I can’t stop laughing when I get hit. I can take a punch and I know it pisses the other guy off when you laugh. That’s when all three of them wanted to teach me a lesson I would never forget. The one guy went to his car and got a hammer out and told me if I didn’t stop laughing he was going to knock my head off. I though he was joking but he wasn’t. I just kept laughing and he kept his promise. They put me in their car and drove outside of town to a side road. They pulled me out of the car and took off my shirt and tied me to a wooden fence. It started to snow. All three of them got back in their car and left me tied to the fence where I froze to death.”

Catherine makes the sign of the cross and starts crying. Billy goes over to embrace his sister-in-law.
 
She tearfully tells Billy, “I am so sorry Billy. We never knew. I know your Death drove Tom to an  early grave. He went to Denver and the police would not give him any details. They had no idea who these men were. The people in the bar never seen these men in town before. It was like the men vanished after they killed you.”
 
“When I died the men came back in the morning. I could hear them talking that if they remove my head the police won’t be able to identify the body. They took my wallet. Once they had address they mailed a package to Elizabeth with my head in the package. I still to this day do not know why these guys hated me so much. It was like they were working for the Devil.”
 
A chill goes through Catherine when the Devil name is mentioned.
 
Tom Havard enters the Library, “Billy you finally met Catherine. I think I will join both of you pour me a drink and we can go over old times.”