Billy, part 2

A second, smaller part of the previous post I made entitled "Billy, part 1"

—

Billy did not own a home. Instead, he lived out of his truck. 

He worked for two weeks and then got a week off. On those weeks, he’d park his truck in a hotel parking lot wherever he was and rent a room. 

He had no thought to move back to Pocock Shores. But the incident in Tennessee had changed something inside of him. The open road no longer felt so free — it now felt treacherous, dangerous. 

Billy tried to tell himself he was being irrational. He knew that event was a one-off in the life of a trucker.  The open road was calling to him, but it no longer felt as strong.

The next time he had a week off, instead of shacking up in the local motel, he pointed his truck eastward. It took him most of the week, but he made it back to Maine. Now all he had to do was make his way through the winding forests and wide rivers up Maine’s coast to find the familiar—Pocock Shores.

What he found was mostly stagnation. There were hints of evolution, but it was mostly the same as when he left 8 years prior. His family home remained mostly unchanged. So, too, did his parents, except for the occasional gray hair found on their head. 

The Pocock Shores general store, where Billy had worked when he was in highschool, had received major renovations following new ownership. Billy got the chance to meet the new owners.

Billy returned to high school, where he found some of his old friends—and even an old fire.

Parker, someone Billy seemed to think was the exact opposite to him—quiet, mild-mannered, studious, and a good student—had returned to become a teacher. He was teaching history. He seemed like he liked it, or, that’s what Billy thought, at least.

When he visited the general store, he bumped into Juli Reardan. Juli and Billy were a thing back in high school. In fact, they were voted to be the “class couple” in their senior year. But separate interests pulled them apart. Juli went to college in Portland, while Billy stayed behind on the lumber yard.

— 

Billy recalled his meeting with Angus, back in Kansas. Angus had been a truck driver for 54 years, according to him. He had lived in Idaho and worked at a factory before meeting his wife. They met, fell in love, and had kids.

“We had three kids,” he said. “Little rugrats. Two boys, one girl; made for a very loud household.”

“I was an only child,” Billy replied. “And glad I was.”

“As you should be. Anyway. I was at work one day, kids were at school, and my wife—her name was Eleanor, you know—anyway, she was at home, and a robber busted into our house. She tried smacking him with an old fryin’ pan—cast iron, too—but he got ahold of her first. Strangled her to death—right there in the livin’ room. He run off after that. Didn’t even take nothin’.”

Angus carried on for a while, telling the story of how he found his wife’s body. Billy wondered why he was telling a stranger all this.

Angus looked right into Billy’s eyes. It sent a shiver down Billy’s spine. Angus looked down at his coffee, then back up again, and said: “Son, you’re young. You got your whole life ahead of you. What the hell you doin’, sittin’ here at this rinky dinky diner nearly a thousand miles away from home? You should be marryin’ a pretty girl, settlin’ down somewheres, havin’ yourself a mess of your own rugrats to deal with.”