Searchlight Billy

The assignment was to write a poem about how he spent his time after school, and Billy didn't do too well. There was a big red "D" at the top of the paper and under the poem his teacher had scrawled, "This doesn't make sense… do it again… remember… meter and rhyme!"

His poem was short.

Things have changed

The song plays but mamma doesn't sing

Billy sits and rocks and then his movie starts

When the music stops mamma walks

Then the moon comes over the mountain

Billy jabbed the piece of theme paper into the pocket of his jeans while his teacher droned on about how he needed to get to work, how he was obviously a bright boy, and how he could do real well if he'd just stop dreaming all the time. After a few seconds there wasn't any noise coming out, just her mouth moving. His gaze drifted away from her face to the window and to the dust specs floating in the stream of harsh light, and out to the long black afternoon shadows. Then the movie started up in his head again.

When his eyes moved back inside he could see her mouth had stopped moving. Turning, Billy walked out unblinking into the desert sun and unfeeling into the dusty heat. When the movie started he kind of moved automatically, shut off from the world. Unaware.

It took two hours to walk home, not because he lived a long way from school, but because he threw rocks at lizards, looked for arrowheads and stopped to get a Nehi at Ida Gomez's grocery. She's the one who turned him in, and they had come and told his mamma he had to be in school. He didn't care because there was nothing to do in Searchlight anyway. The movie didn't start up so much when he was in class, so maybe that was good.

Sometimes, on his way home, Billy would find himself standing in the middle of the road when the movie stopped, or he'd be headed in the wrong direction. There was plenty of time though, so it didn't matter much.

The rocky road wound up a rise to where they lived about two miles outside the shabby desert town. And just after sunset he always found himself standing on the little hill next to the chair. He never planned it that way, it just kind of happened.

Billy could look all around and see for miles. North was the town where a few dim lights lit the windows of the scattered houses. The searchlight was always on and it swept around and around from the tower. They said it guided airplanes that people traveled in. He'd never seen one, but they said they flew from one ocean to the other. West were the train tracks that passed by their trailer, and on beyond the tracks he could hear the motors of the trucks climbing and descending the long hill. One growl for going up and a different, lower one for going down. Behind him to the east were the mountains. South was nothing, just desert.

Things have changed

Billy and his mamma hadn't moved to Searchlight on purpose; they just kind of ended up there. Three hundred dollars was left after all the bills were paid and she had come home one day in a pickup truck with a rusty little house trailer hooked on the back.

They had hardly said a word while packing their things. Besides some clothes, Billy only took one thing he cared about, the big easy chair. It was too big to go in the trailer, so he struggled to get it in the back of the pickup. When they stopped in Searchlight he had dragged it up on a pile of sand and rock next to a tall cactus. Soon the desert sun had bleached the maroon corduroy to a pink color and almost to white on the seat, and on the tops of the arms and the back. Then, dust had turned the white parts mostly brown.

It was his daddy's favorite chair and every night they used to sit together while his mamma fixed supper. They'd talk about first one thing and then another and laugh, tell stories, and sometimes his daddy tickled him until he cried.

The song plays and mamma doesn't sing.

His mamma had a favorite record, this long and slow cowboy song, and always sang along. She sounded really good, like a part of the record. Sometimes they'd join in on the yodels and break out laughing when Billy started to howl like a coyote. She'd shush them and start her record over. His mamma cooked every night singing that song over and over until she finally called them to the table.

Now, she slept all day and got up just after the sun had set, put the needle on and the familiar voice, so scratchy now that Billy could hardly hear the words, would drift out into the desert. But now she never sang along.

Billy sits and rocks and then the movie starts again.

At first, he wouldn't sit in the chair, just knelt beside it tracing the shape of his daddy with his hands. But soon he couldn't feel him anymore, so Billy started sitting in their chair. He rocked back and forth, watching the movie over and over trying to hear the fading words, trying to keep the pictures clear.

When the music stops my mamma walks

When the music stopped she would come out of the trailer and walk slowly off down the road. Billy would go in and get his supper and bring it outside to the chair. The food was always the same, but it didn't matter. His mamma walked all night and never came back until dawn.

The he'd wait for the train to come

— it never even slowed down for Searchlight — and he smelled the smoke and watched the faces pressed against the lighted windows, looking out into the desert. Sometimes, they waved to the boy in the big chair by the cactus. But when his movie was going he never saw them wave and never smelled the smoke, and never heard the train. He was listening so hard to hear the fading sounds of the last words his daddy ever said to him.

The moon comes over the mountain

And Billy finally falls asleep.

©2002 Alex Farnsley, San Diego, California, all rights reserved