Billy

Billy reached out his truck window and pushed the gate button.

“William?” came a metallic voice.

“Hi Mom.”

“My good sir, this is Frederick the Butler of the mansion.”

“Thank God! Buzz me in and get me a highball.”

The ornate gates majestically and soundlessly swung open, and Billy drove up the winding driveway past the trees, past the lake and the gazebo and the guest cottage, and only then did his childhood home, in all its splendor, come into view.

All three floors and two wings of the stately mansion were aglow in soft blues and pink. As Billy pulled around the circular drive he found ten or twelve cars parked there ahead of him. His stomach churned.

The gang was all here, per his request.


Game Time! He was out of the truck and walking quickly.

As his footsteps crunched across the gravel driveway the front door opened, and there was Fredrick the eighty-year-old man that had raised Billy from birth. He was dressed in his usual tails and bowtie and standing rigid in the doorway.

“Master William,” Frederick intoned. “How very splendid it is to see you again after all these long months!”

“Cut the crap, Freddy. I’m edgy as hell and truly not in the mood.”

“Jolly good, Sir,” said Fredrick. “May I take your hat and coat?”

“I don’t have a hat or a coat, do I Freddy?”

“Quite right,” Said Fredrick. He lowered his voice, “Is there, by chance, a. . . How do you young people refer to it? A doobie you might want me to hold on to?”

“No doobies tonight, Fred. I need to be sharp.”

Frederick, With a look of shock on his face began to stammer, “I beg your pardon, your lordship. . . did you say, no—"

“I got big news to tell my family tonight Freddy.”

Frederick looked at him with a steady gaze and waited.

“Big, big news,” Billy added.

“Well, I hope it’s good news, Sport. You have officially disappointed the hell out of me tonight.”

“Freddy, I might as well tell you first.” He looked at the man who had raised him since birth. “Now, I don’t want to hurt you, I love you, and this is going to be somewhat of a shock, but I’m not going to hide it any longer, Fred, and the truth is, see, the truth is—”

“You’re as gay as a tree full of parrots?”

“What?”

“We know.”

“You know?”

“I do, Bill, and so do they, and I think it will be a relief to all when you tell them. They do love you, you know?”

“I don’t know what to—Wow!”

“Alright, now Billy-Boy, you go on in. They’re all in the living
room. ”

Billy went past him and Frederick watched his slow march back into his family’s heart.

546 Words