Billy Boy

By William May

"Billy Boy" is a humorous story about an altar boy growing up in a small New England town and the many conflicts he encounters along the way. When the mysteries of faith, sex, and the world around him were rationalized with a young mind and an imagination that ran wild within his head. When trying to stay one step ahead of his parents, teachers, and the law, he often found himself two steps behind. Although this mostly true tale takes place during the rock and roll era, it could have happened during any time period. This is a must read if you like to laugh, especially at adolescence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456729035

William May

William May was thrust into the world of the Catholic Church as an alter boy, and then was placed in an all boys Catholic school at the age thirteen. He is a skilled writer presently working on his second book. He lives with his wife Jeanne in southern New Hampshire.

Book preview

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

BILLY BOY

THE VERY BEGINNING

CHAPTER 2

HOME SWEET CATHOLIC HOME

CHAPTER 3

THE F--- WORD

CHAPTER 4

JUST A LITTLE HISTORY

CHAPTER 5

ONE MORE TIME

CHAPTER 6

THE MIRACLE

CHAPTER 7

CONFESSION

CHAPTER 8

THE S - A - B WORD

CHAPTER 9

THE FORMATIVE YEARS

CHAPTER 10

HOLLYWOOD

CHAPTER 11

THE TRIBE

CHAPTER 12

THE RING THING

CHAPTER 13

MAKING A QUICK BUCK

CHAPTER 14

HENRY FRANCIS MORRISON

CHAPTER 15

THE B--- WORD

CHAPTER 16

THE CHICKEN DANCE

CHAPTER 17

INOA IANETTI

CHAPTER 18

SEX ED 101

CHAPTER 19

THE SWITCH

CHAPTER 20

THE BRILLIANT BRAINSTORM

CHAPTER 21

SEX ED 102

CHAPTER 22

THE RESCUE

CHAPTER 23

COP CAPERS

CHAPTER 24

THE SKUNK

CHAPTER 25

TOMATO TURMOIL

CHAPTER 26

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

CHAPTER 27

GRADUATION

CHAPTER 28

ARRESTED AND DETESTED

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

The story you are about to read is mostly truth and partly fiction, and not meant to be a contradiction of those who helped a boy become a man. You are about to read a somewhat amusing account of a young man being raised in a strict Catholic home in a small New England town back in the 1950’s, when rock and roll made the scene. When the boy’s very existence evolved around his perception of his Catholic faith; guilt, fear, miracle, mystery, and an occasional exception to the rule. When the answers to questions about vulgarity, religion, sex, and the world around him were often rationalized within his wild but humorous imagination. His clever schemes to stay one step ahead of his parents during his teenage years often fail, leaving him to suffer the amusing consequences.

In an attempt to make this book more enjoyable, I took excessive amounts of humor and exaggeration from my literary pallet and mixed them in with the facts to create scenes of embellished truths. In other words, I used my creative license to expand upon, change, and often exaggerate happenings or events that actually occurred. Recreating them as the boy with the wild imagination remembers them so long ago. I was that boy.

I have changed the names of most people to protect their privacy. For the sake of historical significance, the names of landmarks, businesses, and events remain the same as they were back then, at least to the best of my memory. Any other close resemblance of names, places, circumstances, or dates contained within are purely coincidental. The exaggeration and humor came with the territory. - Amen

ONE THE VERY BEGINNING

CHAPTER 1

BILLY BOY

THE VERY BEGINNING

On Sunday, December 7th, 1941 the Japanese Empire dropped bombs on United States military facilities at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which for America, marked the beginning of World War II. Although not recorded anywhere else in history, except under 1941 Births in the Town of Townsend Annual Report, one bomb did hit the United States mainland just the day before. Striking precisely at 8:03 Saturday morning, twenty-four hours earlier, exactly to the minute. The device landed right in the center of a small town in north central Massachusetts, named Townsend, population 2,226. The bomb wasn’t dropped from a high flying Japanese aircraft using the latest in air to ground weapon technology of the time though. Instead it was delivered the old fashion way via a true-blooded American woman using the push, breathe, and push method. An ordinary delivery really, been going on the same way since the beginning of man. Unlike what had occurred in Hawaii, the arrival wasn’t a surprise either. Just a natural childbirth, nine months to the day, right there in the center of town. The deliverer, my mother, Virginia Mary May. The delivered; me. A boy weighing just over seven pounds. I was different however. The doctor first told my mother she had delivered a beautiful baby girl, then said, wait a minute, wait just one minute here, this girl’s ah boy! Either I was very chubby, or yet to get stubby, I’m not sure. I was so young at the time, I can’t remember. I can only hope that the ensuing confusion had something to do with my paunch, and not the other thing. During the excitement of establishing my gender, the doctor failed to recognize something of greater significance. He never noticed that I also came equipped with a time-delayed fuse, which would sputter and fizzle for thirteen years, give or take a few months, before setting off the bomb. Something he never told my mother about. Wasn’t his fault. Never saw it. Had he picked up on it, he could have warned her; Virginia, be prepared for the worst!

Virginia Mary, named after the Virgin Mary of Catholic fame, named her little destructive device William, after her husband, my father, who had been blessed with the name for no particular reason. We had different middle names, his Edwin and mine Edward, so by law I wasn’t even considered a junior. Couldn’t even be classified a second for that matter, although William the Second would have been a name I liked. Amazing how some names self elevate, while others don’t. The highest plateau I ever reached was Billy. That was the name people called me during my grammar school years. As I grew older my father changed my middle name from Edward to Boy and started calling me Billy Boy. He could have used William Edward, my legal name, but never did. Too distinguished. Too acclaimed. He wanted a name that never reached the mountaintop. Even Billy Edward, which reached a lower plateau, wouldn’t work. Too elevating. Too adoring. Too uplifting. He needed a name that bottomed me out. One that would take the steam out of my adolescent engine. Not to slow it down, but, stop it. Something that would bring my juvenile wheels of wisdom to a screeching halt, leaving me in the dust of a bad decision to ponder the consequences of the wrong I had done. One that would match his feelings of dismay brought on by my lack of common sense. A verbal ass kicker. In his wisdom he created a name that left me stranded on the valley floor. A nickname with a knockout punch; Billy Boy. Wasn’t a pretty name. Wasn’t meant to be. Billy Boy always got my attention.

Although Virginia’s delivery was immediately felt, especially by her, the full impact of her personal attack on Townsend would not be realized until my slow burning fuse finally reached puberty’s powder keg. When I finally blew. When Virginia should have been prepared for the worst, but wasn’t. Wasn’t her fault. She was never warned. Never had a clue. Didn’t see it coming. How could she? The doctor had failed to warn her, and immaturity didn’t exist in her Catholic world of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. One minute she had this little flower of faith growing in God’s garden of grace, and the next, a blooming idiot on her hands.

This second impact came late in 1954 and unlike the initial one in December 1941, wouldn’t be instantaneous. The intensity of this secondary blast would take time to develop. Very much like a thunderstorm rolling across the Kansas plain. Just a faint noise at first, bounding along the edge of audibility, flashes of lightening illuminating the dark horizon every now and then, out there, somewhere, off in the distance, posing no threat to anyone near. Interesting to watch from afar, slowly moving east, growing louder and louder as miles of earth got slowly swallowed up by Mother Nature, getting closer and closer, until being spit out in a wad of anger when the storm struck. This final finish of fury often referred to by people living in the Midwest as, when all hell broke loose. That best describes my young life, the latter expression summing up my teenage years for sure. Those early years of growing, going mostly unnoticed, off in the distance, a few faint sounds now and then, with a flash here and there. Never a brilliant flash, just an occasional semi-bright one. Slowly growing in strength as the early years passed by, building with intensity until adolescence hit with full force. When Virginia’s little bomb exploded sending shrapnel of Billy Boy hormones flying off in every unwanted direction. I guess it could have been worse, had those years been compared to a tornado leaving a massive path of destruction along the way. I wasn’t that bad. My trail of devastation wasn’t wide, or my actions that extreme, just annoying. So much so, many adults often referred to me as, a royal pain in the ass. I fully understood why they felt that way, but I could never figure out why they honored me with royal. I wasn’t even British!

This book is mostly about Billy Boy, an all wise, all-knowing, annoying teenager of the fifties. Some tales of Billy, the good Catholic boy, are included in the beginning in an attempt to show how, when, and where the transformation from one to the other occurred. The why of that change, are left for the reader to judge. To tell the story of Billy Boy without a smattering of Billy would be difficult, if not impossible. This is about an age of great discovery, when my young and fertile imagination knew no boundaries. When a voice kept shouting deep inside my head, telling me over and over, someday you will become famous Billy. How, the voice didn’t say. Just that I would. When making money was central to my existence, because I didn’t have any. When I went from those innocent single digits of youth to those double digits of trouble. When I possessed immense knowledge. When I knew it all. Why I hadn’t been named Albert, after the intellectual mathematician Albert Einstein was perhaps the only thing I didn’t know back then. Instead I was named William, after my father, who often told me, Billy Boy (emotionally upset), there are two ways of learning in this world, the hard way and the easy way, and you ‘Billy Boy’ (getting even more agitated as he spoke) will go through life learning the hard way.

This is my story, as bad as it was, as good as it was, it was what it was, as best I recall. It actually happened! So come along with me. Indulge yourself. Climb right in. I’ll drive. License? you ask. I don’t have one yet, but I know how to drive. Plus there’s only one cop in town. We’ll just check to see where he’s parked and go the other way. Impressed? Hey, I’m on the stick. Sit right up here next to me in the front passenger seat. Come on. Let’s go. You won’t even have to buckle up, because we’ll be cruising down the back roads of the fifties. I can even get some rock and roll music on the radio if you’d like. Cool huh? You might even hear Click Clack by Dickie Do and The Don’ts. Don’t let the name scare you. Maybe Dickie did, but the Don’ts didn’t, and I won’t either. Trust me. I’m Catholic. Take a break. Loosen up a little. Let yourself unwind. Relax. Enjoy the ride. You’re in for a kick. I promise. Come on. Get in. What are you waiting for? Let’s split!

TWO HOME SWEET CATHOLIC HOME

CHAPTER 2

HOME SWEET CATHOLIC HOME

I grew up in Townsend Center, 232 Main Street to be exact. In what third generation residents called the Old Higgins Place. For some reason, old timers referred to new people’s homes according to the previous owner’s last name. Probably an easier way for them to tell the newcomers without actually calling them such. So although my last name was May by birth, I was third generation Higgins by tradition. I liked living at the Old Higgins Place. George Washington had lived at Mount Vernon, and here I was, Billy May, living at the Old Higgins Place. Made me feel important. Distinguished to a certain degree. Fit right in with that voice that kept running around inside my head, telling me over and over that I’d be famous someday. To me, living at the Old Higgins Place was a sign of great things to come. I could imagine after I was dead and gone, people would come to tour the home on Main Street where I grew up. Just like they did Washington’s. The Old Higgins Place where Billy May once lived. The Mount Vernon of Massachusetts.

The Old Higgins Place was vintage New England, built around the turn of the century with materials readily at hand, wood, plaster, and bricks. On the left side of the house there was an attached barn, which my father had converted to provide cover for an automobile, the horse and buggy days a thing of the past. The addition of the garage gave the house a touch of affluence. Except for the people in town, no one knew what was behind the garage door. Strangers driving past might think there was a new Cadillac parked inside. Might think we were rich, but we weren’t. We didn’t own a Cadillac. My father parked our family’s four door 1938 Oldsmobile in there. What he called the Black Beauty. The thing was actually two toned, having a black top with the lower portions an orange brown color. The latter created by excessive rust. The older guys in town called it a shit box, probably because of the similarity of the bottom color. My father often talked to the Black Beauty. Mostly when he was in the garage trying to start her up. He’d say things like, come on you little stinker, start! Or you don’t want to start, you don’t want to start? Fleck’s junkyard is right up the street!! Is that what you want? Is it? Is it? Whenever my father drove me anywhere I would lay on the floor in the back so my friends wouldn’t see me, especially the girls. I knew when I became famous someday I’d own a brand new red Cadillac convertible. I’d sit up nice and tall in it too, for everyone to see. Especially the girls. Until then, I settled for hiding in the back. Having a shit box parked in the garage was a true indicator that not much money was spent on the transportation needs of the May family. We weren’t poor, just strapped for cash, as my old man put it.

My house looked very much like all the others along Main Street. Sitting on a granite foundation with white clapboards, black roof and a small patch of grass out front. The place seemed to fit right in. Throw in a few flakes of snow and a horse drawn sleigh and you’d have a scene right out of Currier and Ives. This seemingly tranquil outer appearance only masked what was going on inside. My house was different. My house was haunted. Not just by any ghost, but by the big daddy of them all, the Holy Ghost! Most Catholics lived in regular houses, just like the Baptist, Protestant, and Methodist did. No big deal. They went to church ONCE a week and came home to a normal house. Four walls and a roof. Everybody was happy. No problem. Not me. I went to church EVERYDAY and came home to a Catholic house! The only thing missing on the outside to correctly identify its extreme Catholic orientation was a steeple, topped with a gold cross.

My mother took her religious beliefs to the extreme. She was a strict, stern, devote, dedicated, resolute Catholic mother, straight to the core. The rosary, crucifix, and the sign of the cross were an everyday part of her life. Sunday Mass, First Fridays, Stations of the Cross, Novenas, dried palms hung behind crucifixes, and fasting during Lent were central to her existence. If you changed her religious practices, took away the pork and added kosher food, she could have easily passed for a Jewish mother. She called the shots. She was in charge. The boss. Commander in Chief, second only to Christ himself. She not only plotted my course, she was at the helm steering my ship. She knew where I as headed even when I didn’t.

Although we lived in Townsend, I’m sure if my mother had her way we would have lived at the Vatican in Rome, or as close to it as possible. We didn’t have much money, and we didn’t speak Italian, so tragically (for her) living near the Pope was out of the question. The closest my mother ever got to the Vatican was a set of eight small dinner plates our parish priest brought back from Rome and gave to her. Little did she know that her weekly twenty-five cent donation to the poor box, and the dollar she dropped in the basket at Mass every Sunday funded his trip. Paid for her plates too, which were white with fourteen carat gold edges, decorated with various scenes of the Vatican appearing upon them. The plates weren’t really hand painted as she had thought. The designs were created by a simple decal transfer process. Probably crafted by some poor Italian kid in a sweat shop a few kilometers outside of Rome, whose boss kept yelling at him, hey pizon, whasa matta yu, getta ya self biz, no mor fool ah round! Regardless, these plates were special. Extra special. These were the holiest of holy. They were never used for eating. They weren’t big enough to hold a full meal. Instead of serving any culinary purpose, the eight little wonders from Rome were displayed on individual holders in our dining room, four on each side of a large imitation painting of the last supper. A Christian contradiction of sorts, the last supper and no supper sharing the same wall. Their fragile dormant existence evoking one of the five cornerstones of the Catholic Church; FEAR! Breaking one of them would have been as stressful as the crucifixion itself. If one had suffered such fate, the spot where it broke would have to be scrubbed clean, prayed over, and the pieces blessed with holy water before proper burial in the backyard, complete with smoking incense. This duel display was my mother’s very own, and one of many, visible Catholic shrines throughout our house. Over each bed in our house hung a crucifix, with dried palm bows left over from the previous Palm Sunday hung behind them. Our Philco console radio even had a crucifix hung above it, which I’m certain watched over all my cowboy heroes as they rode across the airways. Must of. They always got the bad guys. At least one wall in every room, if not two, displayed a picture of Christ. In our front room we even had a picture of Christ when he was a baby.

Many people, mostly non-Catholics, believe the baby picture phenomenon started with the invention of the Kodak box camera back in the late eighteen hundreds. Not so. Baby pictures go all the way back to the time of Christ. I know. We had one. Taken in the year 0002. He was dressed all in white, with fair skin, pink cheeks, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a golden halo around his little head. The halo was real too, not air brushed on, as was the common non-Catholic belief back in the nineteen fifties. Christ’s baby picture hung on the wall right in the middle of our Catholic front room. Just below his baby picture hung mine. My picture had been taken for the town baby contest that was held in the summer of 1943. I was dressed in white, with fair skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes. I was missing the halo. Another thing the doctor failed to notice during my delivery. Not a birth defect, simply an oblivious omen. One more invisible sign of bad things to come. I didn’t hang beside baby Jesus, but below. He was better looking than I was. Better hung too. Next to my picture, inside a separate frame, was the newspaper article that told all about the kid that won the contest, the kid that came in second, the kid that came in third, and how I, along with twenty six other uglier kids, had been awarded Honorable Mention. Honorable Mention! HONORABLE God Damn MENTION! Can you believe it? You don’t hang Honorable Mention on the wall for everyone to see. First prize, sure, you hang first prize on the wall. Possibly second. Third place, you put the newspaper article behind the picture for safe keeping. Honorable Mention? You burn Honorable Mention! You don’t advertise to the whole world that your kid is ugly. You don’t even tell anybody, let alone allow someone to read about it. No one ever said, you know the kid I mean, the one that won first prize in the baby contest, you know, Billy, the good looking kid that lives down at the Old Higgins Place. No one ever had any reason to say that. Why? My mother openly advertised I came in last, that’s why! With HONORABLE MENTION hanging on the wall all you would have heard was, you know the kid I mean, the one that lives down at 232 Main Street, the one that came in tied for last place along with twenty six other ugly little porkers, and only got HONORABLE MENTION in the baby contest. You know the kid I mean, the May kid, the homely one. I didn’t need to be reminded of my shortcoming every time I walked into the front room, with my very first failure posted on the wall for all to see. Hanging there halo-less, just below the almost two thousand year old first-place finisher from Bethlehem.

Living at my house was, well, different. God was everywhere. In every room. Even going to the bathroom was a Catholic experience. My mother hung a crucifix directly across from our toilet, complete with dried out palm bows behind it. The only place in the world, to the best of my knowledge, where someone could pray and spray at the same time. A somewhat quasi-religious experience of warmth and intimacy elevated not only by one’s heightened need to go, but their desire to receive as well. Something incapable of being accomplished without a crucifix looking down on you while doing pee-pee, and beyond all comprehension until actually experienced. Right next to the hopper was a stack of Catholic Digests. Some of my friends had mothers who put Field and Stream in their bathrooms. One even had comic books, including a copy of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon with his trusted sled dog, Yukon King. Talk about adding some warmth to the frozen Northwest Territory! Almost as good as a campfire. My buddies had the luxury of taking a nonsectarian dump right along the side of the trail, while off hunting bears, or back at the barracks of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, after arresting the bad guys in the Name of the Crown. They were lucky. I wasn’t allowed such pleasure. I even had to kaka Catholic.

Along with her pray and spray facility, my mother firmly believed in only one God; the Father, the Son, and the guy who floated around our house, the Holy Ghost. One God! Simple as that. To best understand how three divine beings make up one God, one simply has to take a close look at Doublemint chewing gum. That’s how I figured it out. Doublemint’s success was a result of combining two flavors of mint into one stick of gum with a slick little advertising jingle; two, two, two mints in one, sung to the tune of two, two, two mints in one. Sure there’s two flavors of mint, but only one stick of gum. In Catholic math that would be two times one equals one. Same way with God. Three times one equals one. I found it easier to understand God by singing the Doublemint jingle and kicking it up a notch; three, three, three beings in one. Then I’d throw in a hallelujah on the end to make it more believable. More heavenly. More Catholic. I’d stretch out the hallelujah too, eliminating any thought of commercialism. Sung to the tune of the Doublemint jingle, it sounded like this; three, three, three, beings in one, hal ---le --- lu --- ooh --- ya, holding the ooh two extra beats, making it a long ooh. This vocal exercise allowed me to fully grasp the complexity of how three beings made up one God. Made me a believer right from the get go.

Our family attended Saint John’s Catholic Church, which was just across the town common on School Street. I’m sure we would have lived there if my mother had her way. That not being an option, she transformed our house into a church away from church, which I called Saint Higgins, with all due respect to old man Higgins, who had been a Baptist before he died. If he’d been a Catholic, he most likely would have been looking down on us instead of up. Saint Higgins had many visible signs of my mother’s commitment to her faith. The only devote object missing inside our home was an altar. Instead we had the front room floor, where my mother would often lead me with her right hand attached to my left ear, like a vise grip grasping a bolt. The only difference being the bolt never felt pain, whereas my ear always did. To her this was a sure fire method for me to seek God’s forgiveness for wrongful acts I had committed; sins, stupidity, or both. This primeval act of seeking God’s grace was achieved by making me kneel and pray before that good-looking kid that won first prize back in triple oh two. Once in position over the exact spot, she would pull down hard on my ear so my soft Catholic knees would come in quick contact with our hard floor of forgiveness. No rug. No prayer pad. No sympathy. Just wood. Pine. A soft wood that became instantly hard when mixed with a catalyst of soft Catholic knees. All of this was done with the choreography of a professional wrestling match, hard and fast. The only difference, my pain was real. Believing that a good Catholic existence required some degree of suffering, my mother often demonstrated combat skills only acquired in a convent. She could have easily passed for a nun if she wore a habit and she wasn’t married to my father. I was made to seek God’s forgiveness so many times on the front room floor I wore the boards down. When natural light came through the window late in the afternoon, you could clearly see the exact spot where my knees had made contact. Two tiny shadowy indentations that slowly disappeared as the sun went down and the room grew darker, erasing all evidence that two little Catholic knees had been sacrificed not long before.

I grew up with my father as well at 232 Main Street. He was only the custodian of Saint Higgins, whereas my mother was Pastor in Chief. I also had an older sister who was three years ahead of me in school. She shared the same name as my mother, Virginia Mary. Everyone called her Gini, except me. I gave her something original; Sis. She always got good grades and to the best of my knowledge never got into any trouble. At least I never heard my father call her Gini Girl! A true indicator that the only time she got into hot water was when she took a bath. There were just the four of us at first. In time my family grew to twelve, as I acquired eight surrogate mothers of various faiths that lived up and down the street. They reported my daily activities to my mother, which on many occasions brought me to my knees. Bad enough God was omnipresent, he also had a bunch of women working part time who were everywhere as well. My father came home everyday whistling. During the warm weather I would hear him through the screen door. He would walk up the front walk whistling away, not so much a recognizable tune, just a bunch of notes pushed out between his tongue an upper lip. He was a happy man. He stopped whistling about the same time my mother’s bomb detonated after almost thirteen years of lying mostly dormant. When I grew to realize I knew it all. The same time he stopped calling me Billy and started calling me Billy Boy. When he got upset with me. If I forgot to shovel the snow off the front walk for instance, he would ask, well Billy Boy, what happened to the walk? To the best of my knowledge the walk hadn’t gone anywhere, nor had the snow for that matter, still right where Mother Nature had delivered it. He got really agitated whenever I asked, what walk? Or whenever I forgot to mow the grass, he would inquire, well Billy Boy, what happened to the grass? As best I knew it was still growing right out in front of the house, but I always asked, what grass? At first I just seemed to be forgetful, but as I grew older, I became lazy. A medical condition often found in young people, especially during their teenage years, called domestically dysfunctional. Tragically, I was afflicted with a severe case of this terrible disease. Hardened by his hopeless hammering on my anvil of adolescence, my father’s response became more tempered, as I became more Billy Boy. When I remembered to shovel or mow, which wasn’t often, he would compliment me with nice job on the walk Billy, or the grass looks great Billy. When it came to shoveling snow or mowing grass I was more known around the house as Billy Boy rather than Billy. The same held true for filling the oil jug on the kitchen stove, or emptying the trash. Hearing him say Billy always resonated with love and affection. Billy Boy was just the opposite, totally absent of any adoration. Any affection conveyed by Billy was immediately trumped with the addition of Boy. Once I heard Boy I knew I was in trouble. I knew my old man was really upset with me.

The only part of our house that wasn’t Catholic was our cellar. There were no shrines in the cellar. No pictures of Jesus. No holy plates. No dried out palm leaves. No crucifixes. There were only two things in our cellar beside dampness, a coal bin and a furnace. The furnace was designed to distribute heat through one central cast iron grate about three feet in diameter, that sat just above the furnace in the living room floor. Right there in the center of the house along with the Roman Catholic plates, the Last Supper, and our Philco radio. My father named the furnace Big Bertha, but never named the coal bin, even though it was equally as important in the process of producing heat. Probably because it never gave him any grief. He had names for his grief givers; Billy Boy, Black Beauty, and Big Bertha, just to name a few. I understood why he named her Big, but never figured out Bertha. The thing was so large it was impossible to tell if it was a girl or boy. Could have named her Huge Harold. Who would have known?

The few times Big Bertha belched out some heat she did so with loud agonizing sounds. A battle cry of sorts, every now and then letting out a cry of agony as she lingered on the threshold of death, usually a result of system malfunction or fuel starvation. An agony of grunts and groans, along with an occasional ping every now and then. There wasn’t any pattern to the pings. They just happened. The grunts and groans had a rhythm to them. Not the pings. They just pinged out when least expected. Not pretty pings either, not by any stretch of the imagination. Unless of course you use pretty in conjunction with ugly, as in, pretty ugly, like my HONORABLE MENTION baby picture!

My father often talked to Big Bertha, saying things like, come on Bertha, you no good son of a biscuit, don’t screw with me this time Bertha, or you want me get the hammer and beat the living you know what out of ya Bertha! Like the last time! Is that what you want? Is it? Is it? During the winter months it seemed like my father talked more to Bertha than he did my mother. The battle between Bertha and my father raged on from late November through early April, whereupon peace would be declared for another half year. Old Man Winter left town for colder pastures to the north, Big Bertha stayed behind licking her wounds, and my father’s blood pressure returned back to normal. Unless of course there was another Billy Boy incident. Unlike Big Bertha, I wasn’t seasonal. I blossomed year round!

So there you have it, the house I grew up in. A three-story monstrosity built around 1910. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer. Just an ordinary looking place from the outside, chuck full of God inside. My mother’s Catholic church away from church. The place where my father argued with the Black Beauty and fought with Big Bertha, as if they could comprehend his frustration. The same place where, unlike my sister, my left ear grew longer than my right, and my knees suffered from continuous bruising. Where, while in the process of growing up, I underwent the traumatic transformation from Billy to Billy Boy. A place like no other; Saint Higgins, 232 Main Street, Townsend, Massachusetts. Home sweet Catholic home.

THREE THE F--- WORD

CHAPTER 3

THE F--- WORD

World War II was over, and people in Townsend had gathered to celebrate our victory over the Japanese and German war machines, and most important, to remember those who served our country in military service. Those who came home, those who came back wounded in body, in spirit, or both, and tragically those who didn’t come home at all. This was a day of commemoration for a war in which everyone worked to achieve victory, both on the battlefront, as well as the home front. There was a mixed sense of joy and sadness in the air, along with a feeling of great relief. The difficult war days were over. Memorial Day 1946 was not so much a celebration of the accomplishment of