Brandywine and Billy the Kid: She was Half Crazy, and He was Half Insane

By Denes McIntosh

She was Half Crazy, and He was Half Insane
Brandywine and Billy the Kid. She was half crazy, and he was half insane. That pretty much sums up their psychological profile. Together their lives were a banquet of adventure and regret. More adventure than regret, to be sure. Brandywine was quick to laugh, and Billy was quick to react. Billy thought he wore the pants in the relationship, but Brandywine just laughed about that. And, of course, that made Billy anxious. Billy wore his pants down around his ass long before it became such a popular prison fashion (eventually leaking out into the general population of misfits and gangsta wannabe’s), and Brandy had hers cinched up high, skin-tight, clinging to her own ass, and ready for business. Tough guy Billy was pretty soft when it came to Brandy. She was the boss, but pretended he was; and he pretended he was, but knew that she was.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Dec 31, 2025
• ISBN: 9781977289216

Denes McIntosh

Denes McIntosh lives in Grass Valley in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. An interpreter of life and our response to it, Denes is an accomplished novelist, poet and songwriter. Having published an ever increasing catalogue of books, and having recorded a lifetimes worth of songs, he writes not for pleasure or acclaim, but simply because he has something to say. Those who’ve had the pleasure of reading his work, or listening to his music, agree that his is a voice well worth hearing.

Book preview

1. BRANDYWINE AND BILLY THE KID

She was half crazy, and he was half insane. That pretty much sums up their psychological profile. Together their lives were a bouquet of adventure and regret. More adventure than regret, to be sure. Brandywine was quick to laugh, and Billy was quick to react. Billy thought he wore the pants in the relationship, but Brandywine just laughed about that. And, of course, that made Billy anxious.

Billy wore his pants down around his ass, absentmindedly so, long before the prison fashion emerged to capture the youth interest (oh, and that of developmentally challenged gangsta wannabe adults); but Brandy had her pants cinched up high, skin-tight, clinging to her own ass, and ready for business.

"Billy, pull up your pants."

Those were the first words he heard from Brandy as he took his first steps to freedom through the release gate at San Quentin prison.

He did not comply with her demand.

But she had her ways to ensure that he did.

He’d discover that soon enough, somewhere down the road.

2. BILLY THE KID

Billy was born in San Rafael, CA., just north of San Francisco, and a stones throw from San Quentin prison. He lived in sight of the prison until he eventually decided that he might like to live there. He reasoned that he could be better off with such an arrangement. ‘After all’, he thought, ‘No rent, free food, no work, plenty of basketball, weights, and friends to die for (no pun intended)’. Maybe even a tranny cellmate, which would be fine by him. He wasn’t having much luck with the ladies at the time anyway.

Billy the Kid did not get his nickname by being tough or notorious, or (for that matter) even particularly skillful in handling his own weapon … . .although he thought he was. No, it was primarily because of his short temper and unreasonable nature. Even his High School classmates (icons of maturity) regarded his tantrums and bursts of anger as very immature (childish, if you will); thus the moniker, ‘The Kid’. His 5’4" stature had something to do with it as well. It really had nothing to do with the gunslinger cowboy outlaw. In fact, those classmates had probably never even heard of the legendary gunfighter. In any event, Billy wore it as a badge of honor. None of his friends had their own personal moniker. Later on, in San Quentin, he heard the story of the original Billy the Kid. I have it on good authority that from that very moment he became single-mindedly determined to rise to a similar level of notoriety.

For better, or for worse.

Unbeknownst to most, however, Billy was also a closet philosopher. And a poet. Oh yes, a poet. Although he spoke with the simplicity of country or mountain folk, and often even tripped over his own tongue, he wrote with a level of pompous veracity that even the most narcissistic intellectuals have failed to rise to.

A sampling of how his mind works.

Men

gathering for class

to learn how to shoot a gun

safely.

Like we had to learn

to fuck

with a condom.

More on that later.

3. BRANDYWINE

This little lady (all 5’2" of her) with flaming red hair and liquid eyes (a dangerous combination, to say the least) was born in Pacific Heights in San Francisco, California with a silver spoon in her mouth, a pocketful of cash in her pants, and a to-die-for view of the Golden Gate Bridge out her window.

She entertained the idea of doing a swan dive off the bridge when she lost her bid to become High School Homecoming Queen. But, rather than deprive the world of her wonderfulness, Brandy did a sudden 180 degree spin and began to embrace a life of hedonistic pleasure, with her primary focus being to gather as much attention as one young woman could possibly ever hope to have. It suited her perfectly at the time.

For better, or for worse.

Brandy was conceived with the help of a rather ugly bass player from an East Coast touring jazz band after a night of Brandy and Pomegranate wine. Ugh! (The two just don’t really mix). And, actually, if truth be told, neither did her mother and that random musician. Brandy was pretty fortunate, however, to have inherited her mothers good looks. She was never informed of her true heritage, but she always wondered why she’d often fall in love with the bass players of so many bands whose tours took them through the San Francisco Bay Area. And she’d have wet and wild dreams over the ugly ones. Something about ugly bass players; jazz bands, rock n’ roll, blues, punk, whatever. She couldn’t explain it, nor did she ever feel the necessity to do so. Brandy’s mother never intended to have this particular bass players baby, but she reasoned that she, herself, had never been aborted, so why not give the same consideration to the little girl growing daily inside her own body. Mr. bass player was never into real women (they made him nervous), like seems to be the case with many men. But he had no problem poking the 17 year old girl who subsequently became the mother of our dear Brandywine.

Brandy frequently remembers to thank God (and her mother) that she wasn’t called Pomegranate-wine. Doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as Brandywine does.

4. NINE MILES OF FREEDOM

Brandywine and Billy each had springboard moments in their lives. He, being ordained Billy the Kid; and she, the failure of her Homecoming Queen campaign with the subsequent and unexpected embracing of her new hedonistic life. In any event, it was an unforeseen emergence for each of them, and even the clueless could imagine that somehow, somewhere, their lives were destined to intersect.

As fate would have it, they met through the visitor window at San Quentin. They began as pen pals and have ended up as mutually impulsive (and compulsive) co-dependents. Brandy had read about Billy’s brush with the law in the SF Chronicle. She was in search of a heavily tatted bad boy she could make her new step-daddy mad about, and having a resident of such a prestigious prison rise to #2 on her bucket list seemed all the more delicious. And what (you may be asking) was Brandy’s #1 on the list? Well, if truth be told, it was to sleep with Paul McCartney, the most famous bass player on the planet, even though his image was not that of a bad boy. And he certainly wasn’t ugly.

H o w e v e r (and it’s a big however), later on she came to her senses and realized she’d much prefer an ugly bad boy to a handsome good boy; so (even though he wasn’t a bass player) Mick Jagger usurped Paul’s #1 position, and McCartney was unceremoniously repositioned at #3 behind Billy the Kid, who remained at #2 on her proverbial bucket list.

Billy had been serving an indeterminate sentence for an ill-conceived bank robbery. He’d agreed to a reduced charge in exchange for his confession and co-operation. In other words, he threw his partners under the bus. Billy drove the getaway car. At first he said he didn’t know his friends were gonna rob the bank. He said they said they were just going in to make a withdrawal. Then he said he was coerced. Then he said he was threatened. And then he said he was just bored and it sounded like a pretty cool thing to do at the time. That final pronouncement was actually his most truthful statement of the conversation. And it is the statement that ultimately convinced the authorities that he was a prime candidate to roll over and testify against the others.

Brilliant strategist that he was, Billy parked the getaway car right out front of the entrance to the bank. He waited in the car while his friends stumbled through the process of trying to intimidate the tellers and customers. They had no real weapons, only a lot of loud F bombs, puffed out chests, and a note that read, Cash. We mean business. The people were nervous, but not exactly intimidated. The boys got away with just about $450. And, as it so happens, Billy the Kid’s ‘2-doors-down’ neighbor worked at that particular bank and recognized Billy’s classic yellow 57’ Chevy, with the flames painted over the hood and down around the front-side panels of the car. (Y’know, like the car was on fire and going really fast down the highway). And who the hell would not have recognized that car? Well, the three of them peeled out of there, tires screeching, ego’s screaming, and yes, of course (wait for it), they went really fast down the highway just as the flames indicated. Zero to ninety in a flash.

They enjoyed nineteen miles of freedom. C’mon Billy, you couldn’t have stolen a grey Ford sedan, or a white Toyota? Or some other less noticeable ride for your bumbling adventure? What the hell were you thinking?

5. RHETORICAL COURTING

Brandywine wrote to Billy all throughout the third (and last) year of his incarceration, and visited him twice a month over the course of that year. He was paroled even earlier than his expected release date. They said for good behavior, and overcrowding, but I suspect that it was because they got tired of him running his mouth off at other inmates and ending up in the prison infirmary, where the doctors and nurses grew equally tired of his raucous and discordant ways as well. Billy the Kid was a special kind of inmate … … . in a very peculiar kind of way.

Brandy loved that about him.

Just sayin’.

Billy was the guy who had his glasses on top of his head while he ran around looking for his glasses, yelling at them to come out of hiding and jump back up onto his face. He was also the guy who got up in the middle of the night in the dark and wandered around the house, shining a flashlight on every counter and tabletop, and in every drawer, looking for the flashlight that he was actually holding in his hand to find that same damn flashlight with. Yeah, that guy. It was just his own mystifying way of being himself. He couldn’t help it. It was the Kids best imitation of Billy just being Billy.

He took up line-dancing when line-dancing in the SF Bay Area was