Billy was the daredevil one of the three brothers as I recall.
Hard for me to keep my rare cousin’s names straight at first.
He always had a tilted head, burr haircut and a sheepish grin,
a more “Summered” older kid than I.
We younger ones watched fellows like him with awe,
hoping someday to wander with the same easy swagger.
When we visited, my dad would mock and tease all of us boys
with grins and proclamations followed by a wink.
He would caw at us his false remorse,
“You better hope I never die, or you'll be the ugliest men in the world”,
Billy would always smirk and lob a drawled retort
back to the uglier sender and the source.
Amid dusty Jacksboro Texas cricket-filled nights, hot days, a yard full of small
army soldiers waged ceaseless wars. Behind their house lived the Gazette,
full of ink and oil smells and clackity-press percussions.
We got to feed yesterday’s old cast letters, and our secreted curse words,
back to the molten maw of the Linotype pot, never to be seen again.
The shop was carpeted in discarded pages, their wording not yet right.
We patrolled on BB-gun hunts down alleyways with Daisy rifles tight in hand.
The wire-perched birds flapped away to the safety of the sky
as we strode through town. Bottles and cans were not so lucky.
Then back behind the post office, the heavy-oily-onion air swirled out of Mary’s Burgers,
whispering of hot and salty French fry heaven.
Ketchup was always free.
As a Tiger on the town football team, Billy roamed Jack County’s miles
till life's call urged him to another campus. Perhaps a million days ago,
we lunched with him there a time or so until he faded away.
While cleaning his gun, one warm and sad May afternoon, Billy’s story ended.
A puff of smoke, we blinked our eyes, and he was gone.
Surely Billy Boy was never meant to be
the ugliest man in the world.
