My Friend Billy
by Martin Green

 

 

I wonder if everyone has a guy like my friend Billy in his life, someone who means well but somehow always ends up annoying?  At first, Billy was just the husband of Shirley, a Singers friend of my wife Sally (Singers was one of the many clubs in our retirement community) and I met him when the wives decided to have a couples lunch.  He was a big, beefy guy who played golf, not too well, and was kind of clumsy.

Then his wife Shirley passed away and we had him over for dinner a few times and somehow he became one of my billiards group.  His billiards game, like his golf, wasn’t very good and I knew when he was my partner we’d lose.

Then my wife Sally passed away and a lot of people, including Billy, came to her service and told me how much they’d miss her and to just ask if I needed anything..  A few months went by and I never saw most of these people again but Billy would stop by every so often and sometimes we’d go to lunch and sometimes he’d just visit.

The only problem was that when we’d go to lunch he’d take a long time ordering, having an extended conversation with the waitress while I got hungrier by the minute.  And when he’d come by it was usually when I was in the middle of doing something and I had to stop while he chatted away and I wondered how long he’d stay.  Finally, I told him to call before coming and the only problem there was that his calls always came at some inopportune time.

On this day he was to come by at three in the afternoon.  I have bad knees and kind of hobble about so I opened the door at a little before three so he could come in and I went to my chair only instead of sitting down I somehow managed to fall flat on my face.  My only explanation for falling was that maybe I hadn’t turned my feet the right way when going to the chair.

In any case, here I was on the floor and Billy was coming in a few minutes and I didn’t want to be laying there, feeling like a fool, and had to have Billy lift me up.    I managed to get on my knees and get over to the chair and then, with a great effort, heave myself up and into the chair.   I took a deep breath and sat there for a few minutes and then stood up and I was okay.  I sat down again and waited for Billy.

Billy never came.  The next morning, too early, he called me and apologized profusely, saying he’d simply forgotten he was to come over.  He offered to take me to lunch the next week and, with some foreboding, I accepted.  I put down the phone and thought, if I hadn’t been able to get up from my fall I might still be on the floor waiting for Billy and this would be the one time he wouldn’t have come.  Just like Billy.

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