Chapter Text
It’s an accident, the first time it happens.
Ever since Billy’s mom left, there hasn’t been much to eat at home. Neil doesn’t really pay attention to things like that. Groceries. Cooking. Feeding a kid. It’s not something he even thinks about. To a man like Neil, that stuff is what the woman, the wife, the mother is supposed to take care of. Along with the laundry, which has also fallen by the wayside. What she’s not supposed to do is run off on her family, that’s not for women to do. But it’s what Billy’s mom did.
“It’s a woman’s place to take care of her family, son.” That’s what Neil said, when he wasn’t saying worse things. Billy always tried to block out the other things, the things Neil said about his mom that Billy didn’t want to believe were true.
She left. She left him here. The rest doesn’t matter.
The point is, Neil isn’t keeping on top of buying groceries, or doing laundry, or even making sure Billy’s clothes are in good condition and fit. And he’s certainly not cooking dinner.
Billy doesn’t really know how to do much of that stuff himself, either. He’s been to the store, of course, and he knows how to buy groceries in theory. He went with his mom, sometimes. But it requires money, which he doesn’t have. He tried to get on as a paperboy but they told him to come back when he’s 12. So buying his own groceries was a non-starter. He’s also not sure he’d even know what foods to buy or how to use them, even if he had the money.
Sure, he’s helped his mom cook before, even. But she never let him do much more than stirring or adding spices. And they would always cook while listening to the radio and she would dance around the kitchen and Billy never really paid attention to the cooking.
He doesn’t know how to cook meat or how to roast vegetables or anything. He can slap together a sandwich– and he does, if there’s bread and meat or cheese or peanut butter or anything, but any food that comes into the house seems to disappear faster than it can be replaced– but he doesn’t know much more than that.
Nobody is filling the kitchen with groceries with any kind of regularity, and nobody is cooking dinner, and nobody is packing lunches or making snacks for Billy. The fridge holds mostly beer, the pantry is usually all dry ingredients. Flour, sugar, baking powder. Everything that can be eaten with minimal preparation is quick to go.
Sometimes, Neil will bring home a pizza or fast food or something. But not often enough. Neil is out of the house most evenings. He has dates, Billy knows. There is no woman to buy the groceries, cook, run the laundry, clean the house. Rather than do it himself, Neil is out looking for a replacement.
“A man needs a wife, son. Somebody to keep the house in order. I work hard all day. I shouldn’t have to suffer just because that bitch left.”
Billy always nods when his dad says things like that. He’s learned that agreeing with Neil is usually his best bet. Billy has also learned to keep his mouth shut about the food situation. It sets Neil off on his tirades about Billy’s mom and a woman’s place and how ungrateful Billy is for everything Neil has done for him, for Neil not leaving him like “that bitch”.
But more importantly, with his mom gone, Billy’s dad is quicker to turn his anger to Billy. Quicker to lash out at him, shove him into the wall, knock him to the ground, give a sharp slap across his face. And the more Billy brings up things that make Neil think about his mom, the worse it gets. So Billy stops talking about the lack of food, stops saying he’s hungry, starts pressing his arm firm to his abdomen to try to silence the growling when Neil’s around.
Instead, Billy starts squirreling food away. When he gets snacks at baseball practices or at a friend's house. When he gets lunch at school. Billy takes a little bit extra and hides it in his pockets or his backpack. At home, he stashes the food in his room. He doesn’t know why he hides it, he doesn’t think Neil would take his half crushed bag of chips or waxy school apple or smushed granola bar. But he hides them, nevertheless.
None of it is enough. Billy has always been a small kid. But he’s hit a growth spurt recently, and he feels gangly and awkward, like his skin and muscles are being pulled thin over his growing bones.
The first time it happens, it’s at a birthday party.
Some kid from school invited him. Terrence. They aren’t friends or anything, in fact Billy kind of hates the guy. Somehow, kids at school know Billy’s mom ran out on them. Billy thinks Neil must go on his rants at baseball, to the other boys’ dads. All Billy knows is, this kid knows Billy’s mom left, and he’s rubbing it in his face all the time. Making jokes about how he doesn’t have a mom or how even his mom doesn’t love him.
Billy doesn’t understand why he’s been invited and he definitely doesn’t want to go. But it’s a birthday party and that’s a place to be that isn’t home, it’s somewhere safe and normal and good, all things Billy could use more of.
And most importantly, Billy thinks, a birthday party means food.
And boy does it mean food! This party has everything. Boxes of pizza and bowls of chips. Fruit and vegetable trays. A table with juices and sodas. Cake and ice cream. There’s just. So much food.
But, critically, none of this food is easy to stuff in his pockets.
And nobody seems to want to talk to Billy or let him join in their games. There’s nothing to distract him, to draw him away from the food table. Here he is, at this birthday party, completely out of place, with nothing but the biggest temptation spread out on a table, calling to him.
All Billy can do is eat the food in front of him because none of this is making its way home. So he starts eating, loading up a plate with a little bit (or a lot) of everything. But once he starts eating, Billy doesn’t know how to stop himself. He loads up a second plate, and then another. He knows it’s not the polite thing to do, but he’s starving and he doesn’t know when he’s going to have another chance like this.
To just eat.
He knows he’s eating too much. He keeps trying to slow down. But he can’t, he feels out of control, he’s shoving food into his mouth faster than his brain can catch up to try and stop him. Nothing feels like enough.
He vomits all over the ugly green carpet. And the mom, the birthday kid’s mom, she’s rubbing his back and telling him it’s going to be okay. And Billy’s sobbing because he was so hungry and now he’s made himself sick. And because she’s rubbing his back like a mom does, like his mom should be here doing.
Billy can hear the kids from the party talking in the background, laughing at him. He hears bits and pieces through his sobbing. “What’s his problem?” somebody is saying. “I only invited him because my mom feels sorry for him” he hears somebody, the birthday boy, saying. Kids are laughing and Billy keeps crying and this kid’s mom keeps trying to calm him.
And it’s all too much.
Suddenly, Billy is jumping up to his feet, away from this kid’s mom and the feeling of her hand rubbing circles on his back. Away from the reminder of what a mom is supposed to be like, away from the reminder of the kind of love and care he no longer has any access to. He’s on his feet and he’s getting out of here, away from this stupid birthday party. He shoves his way through the throng of laughing kids– not laughing now, but shocked quiet.
“What a freak,” Terrence is saying, as Billy’s making his way out of the house.
And Terrence is right there, standing in front of Billy. Billy doesn’t care in that moment, that there’s a mix of vomit, snot, and tears on his face. That he’s humiliated himself in front of everybody. All Billy knows is that he hates Terrence and Terrence is standing right there, right in front of him, blocking his exit.
Billy knows how to throw a punch. Neil has these buddies who come around sometimes. Tough guys, all of them. Tougher than Neil, Billy thinks, but he’d never say that. They said a boy needs to know how to fight, how to stand up for himself. Billy’s just never wanted to put what they taught him into practice. Until now.
The punch lands square in Terrence’s gut. Later, Billy will wish he had gone for the face. But he thinks that would have been more trouble than its worth. Terrence’s mom had been kind to him, but if he broke her son’s jaw… Billy doesn’t think her pity would extend that far.
Terrence folds as soon as the blow lands, giving Billy the opportunity to escape.
He runs away from the birthday party, away from all these kids who think he’s a freak, a loser with no mom. He wishes he could run forever, away from everything. Away from his stupid empty house with no food and no music and dancing in the kitchen and no love. Away from his stupid dad who yells and pushes and hates Billy probably even more than the kids at school do. Billy wants to run until he can’t run anymore.
Somehow, Billy makes it home. He feels numb as he’s stripping out of his snotty, puked on, clothes. He puts them in the wash, along with a pile of others, and tries to remember the way his mom did it, tries to picture her running the laundry, and imitates what he thinks that looks like. It must work, because the machine starts running.
So, the first time it happens is also the day Billy learns how to do laundry.
Nobody talks to Billy at school after that. What few friends he had now want nothing to do with him. He’s a combination laughing stock and monster because of the scene he made at Terrence’s birthday party. Nobody wants to be associated with the freak who puked his guts up in front of everyone, who cried like a pussy in Terrence’s mom’s arms, and then freaked out and attacked him. Billy can’t blame them.
But it’s lonely. Billy’s already lonely at home, now he’s lonely at school, too. And at baseball practice. Billy’s lonely everywhere he goes, these days. There’s no escaping it now.
Billy’s lonely, and he’s hungry, and dad seems to be getting angrier and angrier at him.
And Billy isn’t very good at baseball anymore, he never really was, but now he’s terrible. It’s just that it’s hard to really push himself when he’s so hungry, when he feels weak and tired. And it’s hard to play as a team with a bunch of kids who are equal parts scared of him and mocking him.
Billy wants to quit baseball, but he doesn’t want to face the consequences with Neil. Neil loves baseball. He wants Billy to play, but he gets mad because Billy isn’t very good at it. But Billy still knows, being bad at baseball is better than telling his dad that he wants to quit.
It doesn’t matter in the end, anyway. He’s kicked from the team.
Maybe it’s because the other kids don’t like him and they tell their dads they don’t want him on the team. Or maybe the other parents heard about what happened at Terrence’s birthday party. Or maybe it’s because he doesn’t play well and is only getting worse. Or maybe they can tell his heart isn’t in it. It doesn’t matter.
Neil loses his temper. It’s ugly.
It’s so ugly, teachers at school notice. People start asking questions. When Neil gets wind, they move, just far enough away for Billy to start at a new school. Where nobody knows to ask questions.
And nobody knows that Billy’s the freak that puked at Terrence’s birthday party or that his mom skipped town and left him. Nobody knows.
And at the next birthday party, Billy will know to stop before he pukes.