The Duology

By Xlibris US

The Duology combines and revises two previous books Visions, Voices & Violence (VVV) and Not Blood Uncle (NBU) all by Zahn Pesh, to tell one story: How Vaney got in trouble with the San Francisco police (Chapters1-11) and how Zahn got him out of it (Chapters 12-17). Based on a true story, Pesh created these fictional memoirs to memorialize the epileptically disabled youth.

To make Billys non-verbal communications intelligible to readers, Pesh created an argot based on the youths Midwestern dialect. Also, especially for strong verbs, the youth forms past tenses by adding ds or ts to infinitives (e.g., instead of go, went, gone, Billy says go, god, god or where ts sound more natural think, thinkt, thinkt). Pesh also created a way (e.g., a new punctuation mark hyphen hyphen before direct thoughts) to indicate internalized thoughts. Further, all print-to-order royalties go directly to a nonprofit organization for gifts to the needy or matching awards to train police to distinguish between disabled persons and criminals.

These books The Duology, VVV and NBU are available individually as e-books or in soft covers through Xlibris, Barnes and Nobel, and Amazon and the nonprofit organization James Floyd McKinney Foundation, where tax deductible donations are gratefully acknowledged and accepted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499043297

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Zahn Pesh.

ISBN:                  Softcover                  978-1-4990-4330-3

                             eBook                       978-1-4990-4329-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/10/2014

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

542460

CONTENTS

Book One: Vaney

First Words  Sham Of Justice

Chapter 1     Smoke Break

Chapter 2     Boss Dawg

Chapter 3     Bandit Family

Chapter 4     Florabelle

Chapter 5     Mayor Leslie

Chapter 6     Peshkom

Chapter 7     Guns And Roses

Chapter 8     Stalkers

Chapter 9     Marybeth Mom’s Day

Chapter 10   Matrix

Chapter 11   Conspiracy Theories

Book Two: Zahn

Chapter 12   Dead Souls

Chapter 13   Masks

Chapter 14   Eyes On Eagle

Chapter 15   Tunnel Vision

Chapter 16   Gang Aft Agley

Chapter 17   The 2:54 Am Dream

Epilogue   Last Words

About The Author

BOOK ONE: VANEY

Visions,

Voices &

Violence

The Biography of a Disabled Child

To say of what is that it is not,

or of what is not that it is,

is false,

while to say of what is that it is,

or of what is not that it is not,

is true.

Metaphysics

Aristotle

ZAHN PESH

Madness in great ones must not unwatchèd go!

from Hamlet

byWilliamShakespeare

To James Floyd McKinney,

who allowed me into his world.

FIRST WORDS

Sham of Justice

It’s insanity to deny therapy till he’s truly psychotic. That policy’s crazier than he is, the fatherly Zahn said to the gimpy social worker intern.

Zahn was typically hush-mouthed about medical problems in front of Billy, who physically was a young adult, but mentally a youngster. Always avoiding those conversations was all right with the intern, whose agency for the disabled preferred to do nothing. What more could the intern do? He had his own problems. Who was helping him? Probably this pretense of a job was the agency’s assistance for him.

Smoldering with rage, Zahn listened as the intern played the Pretend-I’m-a-Cop game. The disbelieving Billy stood loosy-goosy, slack jawed, dumb. The patient did not fathom it. Gimpy was not a cop. No way. Besides, the cops’ game had no rules; they badgered without fair play. During the game, Billy remained catatonic, unresponsive, uncooperative: the same tactics he often employed with real cops. Zahn appreciated Billy’s quandary, understood the dilemma: - Who’s crazy here, Billy wondered about the intern, you or me?

Stymied, gimpy suggested to his client that they ride public transit.

Billy showed no enthusiasm.

Exasperated, Zahn became more agitated. Billy needed psychiatric care, not pretense. Zahn had tried, but according to a treatment facility William James Mulvaney, whomZahn had nicknamed Vaney, was not dumb enough nor crazy enough to receive its care. Instead, the facility had suggested the disability center. Then, when dismissing a minor offense, a municipal judge — Billy called her the lady in the orange hair like Garfield’s and the black dress — had insisted that the center provide services.

Billy was not a retard nor a nut, but the unstable young man, who suffered from epilepsy, had had horrible fits since he was in diapers. His afflictions did make him, at times, seem both stupid and goofy. These kooky peculiarities, in turn, caused various other disturbances, both emotional and mental. And the disturbances caused run-ins with the cops.

Those were just facts of life, Billy’s life.

Vaney needs psychiatric care, said Zahn, interrupting the intern’s session. "But you play games and offer to teach him how to ride the underground! Again! And again! Not once, but several times. Is that all you know how to do?

"Go back and tell your agency that the judge gave it one directive: Teach Vaney how to deal sensibly with cops. All you do is play those phony games, ‘Pretend I’m a San Francisco cop…’ If that worked, I’d have done it myself.

"True, his father was mean to him, but that does not explain it all. Hell, my father was mean to me! I don’t assault cops; neither should he. Even though, those ignorant sonsabitches call themselves policemen. To Billy, they’re actually predatory stalkers. If Billy can’t get along with them, teach them to leave him alone.

"But I tell you this: you better get Vaney to curb his fury, and me mine.

Now, get out of here and don’t come back till you’ve gotten Vaney an appointment at Langley-Porter or someplace like that where they can truly help him! Or I’ll go back to the judge and get an injunction forcing you to do it.

Escaping Zahn’s outrage, the intern jerked sideways out the door and peg-legged down the concrete stairs to the sidewalk. In a spring mist, he unfurled a black umbrella and limped away beneath the budding acacia trees and the grey skies. A boy himself, barely Billy’s age in every way — physically and mentally, gimpy just never came back.

Eventually, when Zahn phoned to notify the agency Billy had, metaphorically, mowed them all down, like pigeons in the park, gimpy conceded, Perhaps we underestimated his needs.

Downright character assassination! They are calling him ‘criminally insane,’ protested Zahn. Blatant lies! Lies! --Indeed, thought Zahn, Vaney is very sane. In William James Mulvaney’s mind, he had jist git-tèd even.

Before it was over, the agency became just another pawn in a joust of witches.

CHAPTER 1

Smoke Break

It’s the economy, stupid! had been a Bill Clinton sound byte that year in his first term campaign for President. On his coattails, in Northern California, as had occurred for Democrats in so many other regions of the country, the vote had been overwhelming for Leslie Kannes in her initial run for state senator. Following that election, as her community relations and political consultant in San Francisco, a part of her district, Zahn Pesh had opened a downtown office, just south of Market, across from the Palace Hotel, and Zahn and William James Mulvaney, whom all except Zahn called Billy, had moved to an apartment beneath the tower in Sutro Heights.

Their rented, lower five-room flat, including a back yard and garage, was in a two-unit building in a homeowner’s neighborhood. A family with two young children rented the upper unit. At the housewarming three years ago, Zahn’s Aunt Sophia, visiting from Tulsa, had said Zahn should buy the house because it felt unquestionably like real people lived there. The streets had little nonresident traffic, were very quiet except for children walking to and from elementary school mornings and afternoons, and were lined with curbside trees. Zahn parked his late brother’s car, a vintage Mustang Billy called Ol’ Blue, in the garage. For Zahn’s dead brother, Billy had build-dèd a keepin-rock memorial over a tablespoon of Louie’s ashes in the back yard, which Billy mostly cared for. Around the yard, for his pure-blood hound, called Boss when it was good and Dawg when bad, Billy had made the fences beagle tight. Inside, Zahn’s computer and home office occupied most of the large paneled living room; coal burning fireplace, made of stone and Mexican tiles, dominated the dining room; a center island and breakfast bar for cooking and eating filled the spacious kitchen; a small dressing area served as Billy’s crowded rumpus room and glass doors led to the back yard from Zahn’s larger back bedroom. The front of the apartment, which had only one window and that one draped, and Billy’s room, which had none, were dark and gloomy; the kitchen and the back of the apartment, ablaze with windows, were always bright and sunny. In this refuge, Boss Dawg was definitely not homeless: the feisty mutt had gnawed a willow basket to its own architecture, so it could hop in and out easily and elsewhere, it had scent-branded every closet and cranny, except where were the couches and beds. Beneath what Billy called his three-pointed tower, this flat was indeed Boss’s dog run, Billy’s sanctuary, aptly so described as if Billy were a monk, a fugitive and an endangered beast, and Zahn’s crash pad.

Other than the writer Matilda Street, whom Zahn had known for ages, and Billy’s brother, Oscar, who crusaded for gays and people with AIDs, they had few visitors, although they had occasional gatherings of invited friends. Zahn and Billy seldom argued, perhaps because Billy, who was really incapable of working, lived in more than Zahn, who was usually out working days, tending to the senator’s business evenings and, Billy guessed, pursuing his own pleasures at other times. Billy, on the other hand, alone with Boss Dawg in the sanctuary, was often at a loss for things to do.

Twenty-five years old when Mayor Leslie had been elected a state senator and when Zahn and Billy had moved there, Billy was now in his late 20’s. Zahn had quasi-adopted the disabled young man as his son. Years ago, now almost ten years ago to be more precise, Zahn had found the teenager in a grand mal seizure on Octavia Street in San Rambow, a village north of San Francisco, where Senator Leslie had at that time been mayor. Zahn, then a fiftyish has-been and hack poet, known for his activism, had served then as Mayor Leslie’s homeless coordinator. That’s when Zahn found Billy. The official social service agencies said they could not assist a youth, who could not read to fill out forms, nor write to sign his name, did not know the facts to put in blanks, nor even understand why he needed to. Simply put: a person who most needed public care could not navigate the system to get it. So Zahn said, Fuck you! If you won’t do it, just because he’s not smart enough to kiss your butt, I will. In that way, God had given him Billy.

Why Zahn nicknamed him Vaney, as in Vaney Mulvaney, is a story too long to tell. Basically, early on William James Mulvaney did not want to be called Bill or Billy, James or Jimmy, because he had hated his father, Victor James Mulvaney. Billy even claimed to have killed Victor James, Ah shoot-tèd him dead with a shot gun. Ah had a right to do it, cuz Victor James was rapin Raw-wee, though Zahn later learned if Billy shot him, he did not kill him. Billy’s father died of lung cancer long after that alleged incident. But it’s enough to say Billy thought he had, hoped he had, and, indeed, with tortuous mixed feelings, he was even proud he had; he was damn’d proud of it. But to wipe away those torturous memories, Zahn created an entirely new character, Vaney, who had only the snippets from an absurd childhood as its past. Even those snippets were a tangle of sights and sounds and scenes, often without names and locations, that fell together as a jumble, not matched in sharp pictures and patterns like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Zahn himself had to arrange the patterns and paint the pictures. To compensate for this debilitating tangle, Billy had other talents and skills, like intuition, that justifiably often took the form of paranoia, and like seeing the past and the future as if they were holograms that existed together in meticulous detail in the here and now. While others considered Billy simple, Zahn thought his Vaney was a very complex, complicated and gifted individual. Worth saving and caring for.

To accomplish this Zahn and Billy, like so many people who love each other dearly, had developed a special way of communicating, a private language. Most important in this communication was that Zahn listened to Billy closely and then supplied words that Billy forgittèd or added syntax that Billy had never learned. For example, if Billy said, Ah go’d to the whatchamacallit, Zahn substituted bank if they were talking about money, grocery store, if about food, smoke shop, if about cigarettes, or tavern, if about drinking or meeting somebody. God only knows what misconceptions Zahn conceived for his Vaney when he supplied the wrong word! Or when asking Billy something, Zahn typically asked questions that were answered with yes or no. For more complicated questions, Zahn supplied suggestions. For example, Vaney, do you want breakfast? When he answered, Yehyes, Zahn asked, An omelet or pancakes? If the answer was neither yes nor no, or neither omelet nor pancakes, there was typically a long pause or no reply at all, as if Billy were responding from half way across the universe via satellite. At those times, Zahn often assumed his own assumptions. Again, God only knows what false history or endearing qualities Zahn attributed to his Vaney in error. So, after a seizure, when a paramedic would ask, What year?, or month?, or day is this? Zahn would necessarily intercede and interpret, as if translating from a language from outer space, even just to determine whether Billy was cognizant or not.

To add to Billy’s difficulties, Billy did not cotton to strangers easily, and to authorities, not at all. This particular morning, Zahn had stayed home from the office to take Billy to the dentist to repair the scraggly incisors and bicuspids that remained after the upper two front canines had been knocked out. Cops knocked them out one time when Billy was nonresponsive when they hassled him. He had been in a daze: they thought from drugs or booze, since the San Francisco cops paid no mind to Billy’s med-alert jewelry. To get Billy’s attention, they smashed his face into the trunk deck of their black and white. Over that incident, Billy, of course, had a full-blown grand mal seizure and the bewildered cops sent him to the emergency room. But the broken teeth had to be pulled. Now, through the University of California’s dental clinic, the city was offering to repair the teeth that remained.

You want eggs and bacon? asked Zahn, trying to encourage Billy to hurry. But Billy did not answer. What Billy really wanted was a cigarette. Billy’s slow response was excruciating. They were already running late. When Zahn deduced Billy’s predicament, Zahn was furious. He hated Billy’s smoking. At times, quite irrationally, Zahn even blamed Billy’s habit for Zahn’s throat cancer, that, though for now arrested, would one day probably kill him as the cigarettes would undoubtedly kill Vaney. When rational about the cancer, Zahn blamed his own former bad habits, in a word alcoholism, in several words, his years of carousing, bar hopping and night clubbing. The latter made more sense, because the cancer had been diagnosed, removed and radiated shortly after he first met Billy, not after years of inhaling the Kid’s second-hand smoke.

Take this and go buy some, said Zahn. He gave Billy money. But hurry right back. I’ll finish breakfast while you’re away. You can eat and then we’ll leave. Zahn finished cooking, set the breakfast on the kitchen counter, and went to get himself ready. But Billy did not come back.

Billy had dressed in his week-old, soiled t-shirt, levis, leather coat and boots, his usual getup, not in the clean togs Zahn had set out for the dental appointment. Billy had to be encouraged to bathe, change his underwear and socks, brush his teeth, comb his hair and wash his face, but without this encouragement, in his usual disarray, that marked him as a victim of unseemly neglect, he left for the neighborhood market. He looked like the mussed and cluttered thicket hideout he might have just crawled out of. He carried a swagger stick, similar to a policeman’s night stick but wrapped with black electrical tape like the handle of a tennis racket. He swing’d it at the low hanging branches of the elm, catalpa and acacia trees that grew along their street. He mumbled and fretted in an unearthly language, one with a lot of hissing and spitting.

A police cruiser came driving by slowly. Seeing the youth clubbing the branches, the police officer pulled his car to the curb. Hey, kid, stop swinging that stick. You’re ruining those trees. Destroying private property!

Billy went right on swingin. He hear’d the rustle and outcry of the limbs, as the club swished through the hanging leaves. He even hear’d the cracking and the outbursts of the limbs falling to the curb. He see’d the bruised and crushed leaves, shredded into green strips where the club had ripped through them. He was satisfied that he had a right, because of the dentist and cuz ah need a cigarette, goddammit.

What do you think you’re doing? asked the officer.

Goin for a smoke, answered Billy.

Billy was now pulling at his clothing. He glared hateful at the policeman.

What’s your name? Where do you live?

William James Mulvaney, said the young man. He know’d he was in trouble.

Always was when they wanted his name. He tried to show the officer his med-alert bracelet and the pendant around his neck. --What says ah don’t have to know all that stuff, think’t Billy. He reached for the Harley Davi’son wallet and the card Zahn say’d give ’em. --What has all the numbers and medicines and shit. He pulled at the wallet, stuck in his pocket.

What’re you doing? asked the policeman. Just stand there quiet and tell me where you live. You homeless?

What ah’m sposed, said Billy. How quiet? Right here! In that one. No-ooh! The no was two long syllables.

All Billy’s answers were now blunt and staccato.

What’s your address? Phone number? How old are you?

Billy reached for the wallet and his identification cards, again.

I said just stand there, quietly, damn it! The policeman, who had been writing down on a pad, jerked Billy’s hand away from his pocket.

What you got in there? A gun or something?

You bastard! hissed Billy, pulling his hand away. He stared a killer stare at the cop. The lady in the black dress, like a preacher, with orange hair like Garfield’s, say’d you had to leave me alone! Yes she did. And this, he slapped the chained wallet, Smack!, across his thigh, it’s just my Harley Davi’son.

Shut up, kid. I’m about to run you in… You been drinking? Any drugs — speed or crack, or anything?

Opi does. Ah don’t do that shit! Jist let me git my cigarette and go back home. Zahn’uhl git real mad! Yes he will. Goin to the teeth shop. They jist want to jerk ’em out, like these two here. Billy bared his front teeth, like a Halloween mask, to show the gaps. "Two cops did it.

The Bastards. This cop thought it some kind of threat.

Billy was now in a dither, out of control. A lot of nasty, hateful stuff flooded his thoughts. The policeman had pulled him apart, shredded him like the bruised, green strips of tree leaves lying there. Billy bent over to git his cudgel and that’s when it happened. The policeman jumped him, hit him across the shoulders with that big stick and forced Billy to the ground. Billy started screaming. He raised his hand, cocked his thumb, and, pointing a finger at the cop, say’d, Bang! Bang! The policeman put Billy’s hands in cuffs behind his back. Then, as if the cop had hit Billy again in the back of his head, Billy collapsed into a swoon. His body started writhing and twisting. His arms and legs stiffened. His eyes bulged, he groaned and wretched, and his mouth bubbled frothy. Then Billy just lay there, jerking with small spasms. Grand mal seizures can be real scary. The policeman was alarmed and called for backup.

In a moment, another cop car pulled up.

We know this guy. He’s a nut case. What’d he do?

The first policeman went over the facts, then asked, What should I do? Take him back to his house? He said he lives right here. He was looking through Billy’s wallet for identification, et cetera. He found Billy’s California i.d. and a medical card with all the needed info. He finished filling out the citation for destroying property. The policeman stuffed the ticket in Billy’s shirt pocket and the wallet back in his levis.

No, answered the second cop. He’s fifty-one-fifty. Just put him on a 72-hour hold and have the medics take him to the psych ward.

So in a coma, Billy — less than a block away from his home — was taken by ambulance to the hospital’s psych unit.

Zahn waited — twenty minutes, a half hour, forty-five minutes, finally an hour. Pissed, he then called the dental clinic and canceled the appointment. After that, he walked to the neighborhood store to inquire about Billy. Billy had not been there, did not buy cigarettes. Then Zahn looked around the neighborhood to see if Billy was chumming with the bums in dawg-walk park. No sign of him.

Zahn went back home to call his missing persons roster of numbers.

General Hospital and the University of California Medical Center emergency rooms said Billy was not and had not been there. The Park Police Station said there was no record of an arrest and that Billy was not being held there. That was all technically true at the times Zahn called. So, Zahn went to Park Station to file a missing persons report.

The station was so deserted, Zahn could have shot off a cannon without harming a soul. Finally, a lady police clerk showed up to take his report. He’s not considered missing for the first 24 hours, so we can’t look for him today. You know he has a record, said the clerk, who had a printout of Billy’s detentions and scuffles with the law.

"I know he does not have a criminal record, said Zahn. What he has is an arrest record, a record of you hassling him, because your beat policemen do not know the difference between drugs and booze and Billy’s medications and trances that make him appear spacey and woozy. When he is taken to the downtown jail and tested medically, the tests come back negative and the drug or drunk charges against him are dropped. Billy is then released, and that spacey kid is left to find his way home from down there. You guys just don’t take time to determine: he’s a patient, not a criminal."

Later that same day the police called to say Billy had been located in the psychiatric ward at General Hospital. Zahn learned that from that same police station where Zahn had filed the missing persons report, the police had actually already sent Billy to General. Zahn went to the hospital to have Billy released and to take him back home. The doctors said Billy had had two other severe seizures after arriving, but that he was recovering and, unless the police had a hold on him, he would be allowed to go home in a couple of hours. Zahn checked. There were no holds, only the citation.

Billy was as wan as the chintz sheets on the hospital cot. Zahn could see the torture of the seizures etched in puffy creases on Billy’s face and in the dry slobbers around his mouth. When they gave Billy his clothes to dress and wear home, his wallet and jewelry were not among his personal things. When Zahn asked the clerks about the wallet, they said they had used the wallet cards to fill out paperwork and had forgotten to return the stuff to his personal belongings. Now, when asked, they gave it back. Still, Billy’s watch, bracelet, necklace and rings were missing. The first place ah wuz the yellow bitch take’t ’em, Billy told Zahn, who went to the psych ward where a blond desk clerk returned those things. In similar ways, Billy had repeatedly lost wallets, identification and valuables to police and medical theft. In this instance, Zahn was there to uncloak the thievery and to have the items returned. Of course, officially, none of Billy’s items had ever been stolen; they had only been misplaced.

That bastard cop hit-tèd me right here, Billy stroked the cerebellum or medulla oblongata at the base of his brain, with his swingin stick. Yes he did! said Billy. It was the only explanation Billy gave about what had happened.

On their way home in Ol Blue, Billy insisted they stop at a corner store for smokes. Before Zahn drove away, outside the car, Billy puff’t away at his first morning cigarette.

CHAPTER 2

Boss Dawg

On a day after seizures, or even after one, nearly asleep even when awake, drifting from a grey, sleepy vapor to a haunting, nightmarish miasma of colors, sounds, aromas and specters, Billy was spacey, shaky and groggy. In this confusion, Billy often conversed with Louie, Flo or Rex, who were dead when Billy was vital and awake. Only his now almost constant companion, Boss Dawg, moved freely from the harsh arfs of real dogmeat to the vapor and on to the miasma, back and forth, in and out of reality and mirage, where an echo-chamber change’d the arf of its bark to a woof.

During real moments, the arfs were piercing; only during echoes were they muted. With a garden hose, Billy was showerin Boss with sprays of water. In protest, the dog shake’t the droplets onto the flowers, plants and grass. Then, in full attack voice, it arf’d aloud and flail’d again into the sprays. Using this technique, Billy cared for the flowers, while at the same time, Boss take’t its only regular baths.

From the glints of mica, the glow of pyrite and the glare of crystals, from the sparkles off Louie’s keepin rock memorial and from the rainbows risin from the spray and splashin off Boss’s gymnastic leaps, Louie appear’d in his Hawaiian shirt, his red socks and his colorful halos.

They is followin me, say’d Billy to the radiant Louie. In the shadows. Behind my back. Over my shoulder. From the bushes, when ah walk Boss Dawg. ‘What’s your name, kid?’ they aks. They know it’s William James. But to test me, the shadows call me ‘Retard!’ and ‘Crazy Ass!’ Then they hit me right here, he rub’d the back of his neck. ‘Kabow! Kabam!’ hard enough to knock me cold.

Woof! yapped Boss. The woofs droned in muted echoes and rainbows.

Louie disappear’d when the echoes and colors faded.

—I’ll run away, he think’t.

Billy would have, except he know’d Zahn needed him.

Instead, Billy rearrang’d the memorial stones that cover’d the tablespoon of Louie’s ashes. --Where is the red mountain rocks, he wonder’d, the ones what look’t like boiled glass, with the bubbles and streaks runnin through ’em? He leave’d Boss arfin in the backyard.

In his room, among his collection of things, he’d look for red rocks.

But first, he put-tèd on his leather vest and go’d to buy cigarettes.

On his return from the smoke shop, he go’d by dawg-walk park. There, he see’d the policemans roustin his friends, Swan-the-drunk and Frog-Face-the-dope-fiend. If he go’d there, they’d hassle him too — stupid William-James-the-crazy-ass’t-kid. Or William-James-thefruitcake-with-the-dog. The police had names for all of ’em. Instead, he git-tèd on the Muni train that kum’d out of the tunnel, the way the black cripple with the limp show’d him. He git-tèd a kum-back ticket. He’d go to the beach to look for sand dollars and big snail shells that sounded like waves. If they’d go’d away then, he’d visit with Swan and Frog Face. Then he’d do it. He’d git off the train jist before it go’d into the tunnel, the way pegleg show’d him. Then he’d visit with his friends.

Billy did just that. His days were often like that.

To the police, Billy was conspicuously up to no good.

This day too he do’d that. Yes he do’d. When he kum’d back from the beach, he git-tèd off the train jist before it go’d into the tunnel. He visited with Swan and Frog Face and he give’d ’em the pritty shells he had find-dèd. Then he go’d back home to look for his red keepin rocks for Louie’s memorial.

He know’d he had red keepin rocks somewhere. He’d find-dèd ’em in the red mountains when he go’d to visit Marybeth mom in Wyomin. When is Marybeth mom’s day? Maybe he’d visit her agin, before he’d run away. He’d aks Zahn when is Marybeth mom’s day? What day do ah fly agin? he’d say. Then he’d git away from the policemans. But even at his mom’s in Broken Arrow he always hide-dèd from that mean Sheriff Hennessey what nearly beat-tèd him to a pulp when he had a fit in Wyomin. Nearly kill’t me. Yes, he did! Marybeth mom sure git-tèd mad that time. Say’d she was goin to git her gun and shoot him!

Billy let Boss in from the backyard. The dog jump’t, all ess-eye-ted, all over Billy, happy to see him home again. It wag’d its butt and tail and spin’d in jerky dervishes. But Billy need-ded to find those red keepin rocks for Louie’s memorial. Billy grin’d. Though Boss could be a bother, Billy always like’t kumin home to Boss Dawg’s house.

Then, Kabow! Kabam! Billy jist pass’t out, fall’d like a sack o’ taters to the floor.

Boss howled over the writhing body. Boss’s front quarters bouncing in spasms, it barked in loud yaps. Straight up into the air, it leaped in pirouettes. Then, stopping to arf at frequent intervals, it circled the body. When Boss decided its arfing and excitement were not attracting a soul, it stopped its commotion. Boss began licking Billy’s contorted face. It nuzzled its friend’s head and neck. Then, again, it licked his face. Over and over.

In this coma, Billy hear’d only the woofs, feel’d only the kisses.

Finally, Zahn returned home. Sizing up the scene, he rushed to Billy.

It’s okay, Vaney, just relax. You’re at home and nothing can harm you. Relax, relax, relax, Zahn repeated the mantra over and over to soothe the convulsions.

Billy hear’d only the echoes.

When Billy began to regain consciousness, Zahn asked, Did you take your afternoon meds?

Yehyes, Billy slobber’d.

Zahn went to get the pill box, that looked like a small ice cube tray.

I don’t think so, said Zahn. They’re still here. Here take these, giving Billy a fistful of pills and a glass of water.

Ah already take’t ’em, goddammit! but he down’d the pills anyway.

Zahn thought the irritation was a good sign.

Vaney, do you know where you are?

Yehyes. At mama’s trailer, gittin red rocks, say’d Billy.

Boss Dawg was still kissin him warm.

CHAPTER 3

Bandit Family

Following the seizure, Billy was cranky, irritable and short tempered for several days. Out of cigarettes, Billy, strangely, puff’t on one end of a stick match and light-tèd the other with his cigarette lighter. The match flared up to singe his eyebrows, before Billy noticed something was amiss. Even then he was too disoriented to realize what he was doing. Strange acts like this lingered into week’s end.

—Surely, this kid needs a stay-at-home mom, thought Zahn often when he observed such random, strange and dangerous acts. Why could not the epilepsy center stop Billy’s seizures? Its doctors suggested extreme measures, such as a week in a hospital ward with electrodes wired to his head. Deprived of antispastic medications and sleep, they would record brain waves during cruelly induced seizures. This recording, presumably, would indicate a possible source of the spasms.

Imagine! Billy flailing away in extreme misery while the doctors gleefully charted the kicks, groans and spasms in jittery spikes and dips on rolls of fax paper. Then, the doctors proposed going into the brain with a woodburning kit to deaden the nerve ends at the indicated sources.

It could work, they said.

"Could work? Golly, gee! How outrageous! Preposterous!, replied Zahn. What if it does not? What else might be fried during the burning?"

Zahn said no! They accused him of living in denial. He accused them of practicing medieval cruelties they called modern medical miracles. "Witchcraft out of the Dark Ages," he had called the techniques.

Zahn’s solution was more practicable, more humane. He took Billy to a backwoods cabin, near remote beaches, for rest and recovery. For his work during her last campaign, Mayor Leslie had more or less given Zahn this Bolinas cabin following her election to the state senate. Because he and Billy did not live there year-round and the place needed a caretaker, Zahn rented it for a token to Billy’s former girlfriend Angelina and her beautiful son Ty. --Maybe what Billy needed was a welfare mom like Angel, thought Zahn. Why not? Even the useless, rustic redwood cabin deserves a care provider. Besides, Billy and the eight- or nine-year-old Ty were now good friends.

Before Ty was born, the blond and fair Angelina had told Billy he was the father of her baby. Although the baby’s birth had belied the fallacy of her accusation, Billy luv’d Ty like blood, which Ty could never be. True, Ty had dark hair and sharp, angular features like Billy’s, but Ty had a creamy, mixed-breed complexion like rich milk and mocha. They played together more like brothers of similar ages, much as Oscar and Billy had when they were young. Admittedly, Ty knew Billy was older, because of Billy’s size. But it was Ty who was tolerant of Billy’s differences, as Billy’s brother, Oscar — Billy called him Opi — undoubtedly had been. On the other hand, it was Billy, like Opi with me, who was caring and watchful with the younger boy. Whatever, Billy and Ty enjoyed many of the same things. They even discussed their racial mixups openly with each other.

Mom says I’m half black, half white, said the eight-year-old to Billy. I guess that makes me Eye-TAL-lian.

Marybeth mom says I’m black Irish, Billy replied, but I’m mostly white as Opi.

Theirs was a real kinship.

Back at the cabin, Zahn was preparing to leave Vaney with Angelina and Ty for the day. He’ll be fine with us a spell, said Angelina. He and Ty, they have such fun together. It’s a real break from the city.

If we came up oftener, he’d drive you nuts. But when Vaney becomes too much for me, you’re first on my list of victims, said Zahn. If you’re sure it’s all right… today he’s yours.

Fine, said Angel.

Zahn left to do the senator’s business.

Ty had taken Billy to the beach, where yesterday surfers and marine biologists had been struggling to get a beached baby whale back into the water It was bigger as me, said Ty to Billy. Like a big catfish, with a soft white nose and white streaks all over, ’cept its fins were black. Maybe ‘Free Willy’ is still there.

The biologists from the conservatory had run medical tests and ruled out all reasons except dumb inexperience for the beaching. Then they had shoved the baby whale back toward the ocean. Ty said they swished it there until the water pumped up its lungs and it started swimming.

But ‘Free Willy’ wouldn’t go away, Ty added.

Today Ty and Billy stood in the weeds and rough brush of a remote hillock at the edge of the beach. On the vast strand, people were still milling around a sandy knoll, where yesterday the conservatory had set up its makeshift first-aid camp. Ah see ‘im. Out there rollin ’round like a big log. Where the water’s skinny. There’s ‘Free Willy!’ See ‘im? Billy pointed toward the breaking waves. Hey, them guys’s throwin rocks at ‘im!

To observe the whale, apparently the biologists had remained camped out on the beach overnight. Swimmers in wet suits with their surfboards beneath them now gathered in the part of the sea Billy had pointed at. In addition, on the beach, sure enough, was a group of guys,