The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

by Michael Ondaatje

  Livingstone had been mad apparently. Had been for a couple of years, and, while he couldnt fight in the war—he had a limp from a carriage accident—he hung around the soldiers like me. There was a rumour though that the reason he was not accepted was because no one that knew him would trust him with a gun. He had almost killed his mother with a twelve bore, fortunately only shooting an ugly vase to pieces and also her foot. (Her surgeon’s bills were over $40 for he took nearly three hours getting all the buckshot out of her thighs because she wouldnt let anyone go any further than her knees, not even a professional doctor.) After that, Livingstone stayed away from guns, was embarrassed by it all I suppose, and besides the episode was a joke all over town.

  Some time later he bought a spaniel, one of the American kind. A month later he bought another. He said he was going to start breeding dogs, and his mother, pleased at even a quirk of an ambition, encouraged him. But she didnt realise what he had been really doing until after his death and even then the vet had to explain it to her once more. Livingstone, and this was at the same time as he sang with me in the evenings, had decided to breed a race of mad dogs. He did this by inbreeding. His mother gave him money to start the business and he bought this wooden walled farm, put a vast fence around an area of 50 square feet, and keeping only the two original dogs he had bought, literally copulated them into madness. At least not them but their pups, who were bred and re-bred with their brothers and sisters and mothers and uncles and nephews. Every combination until their bones grew arched and tangled, ears longer than their feet, their tempers became either slothful or venomous and their jaws were black rather than red. You realise no one knew about this. It went on for two or three years before the accident. When people asked him how the dogs were coming along, he said fine; it was all a secret system and he didnt want anyone looking in. He said he liked to get a piece of work finished before he showed it to people. Then it was a surprise and they would get the total effect. It was like breeding roses.

  You are supposed to be able to tell how inbred a dog is by the width of their pupils and Livingstone knew this, for again he picked the two most far gone dogs and bred them one step further into madness. In three years he had over 40 dogs. The earlier ones he just let loose, they were too sane. The rest, when the vet found them, were grotesque things—who hardly moved except to eat or fornicate. They lay, the dogs, when they found his body, listless as sandbags propped against the 14 foot fence Livingstone had built. Their eyes bulged like marbles; some were blind, their eyes had split. Livingstone had found that the less he fed them the more they fornicated, if only to keep their mind off the hunger. These originally beautiful dogs were gawky and terrifying to that New Orleans vet when he found them. He couldnt even recognise that they had been spaniels or were intended to be. They didnt snarl, just hissed through the teeth—gaps left in them for they were falling out. Livingstone had often given them just alcohol to drink.

  His mother continued to give him money for his business, which still of course hadnt turned a penny. He had never sold a dog and lived alone. He came into town on Thursdays for food and on Thursday evenings when I was stationed in New Orleans he sang with me. We usually drank a lot after the bouts of singing. And again, even when drunk he never showed any sign of madness or quirkiness. As if he left all his madness, all his perverse logic, behind that fence on his farm and was washed pure by the time he came to town every Thursday. Many he had known when younger said how much more stable he had become, and that now they probably would accept him in the army. He told me he had a small farm he ran, never mentioning dogs. Then usually about three in the morning or around then he went back home to the house next to those 40 mad dogs, clinically and scientifically breeding the worst with the worst, those heaps of bone and hair and sexual organs and bulging eyes and minds which were chaotic half out of hunger out of liquor out of their minds being pressed out of shape by new freakish bones that grew into their skulls. These spaniels, if you could call them that now, were mostly brown.

  When they found Livingstone there was almost nothing left of him. Even his watch had been eaten by one of the dogs who coughed it up in the presence of the vet. There were the bones of course, and his left wrist—the hand that held the whip when he was in the pen—was left untouched in the middle of the area. But there was not much else. The dust all over the yard was reddish and his clothes, not much left of those, scattered round.

  The dogs too were blood hungry. Though this scene was discovered, they reckoned, two days after the event occurred, some of the dogs had been similarly eaten. The vet went into the house, got Livingstone’s shot gun, the same one that had spread bullets into his mother’s leg, couldnt find any bullets, went into town, bought bullets, didnt say a word in town except got the sheriff with him and rode back. And they shot all the dogs left, refusing to go into the pen, but poking the gun through the planks in the fence and blowing off the thirty heads that remained alive whenever they came into range or into the arc that the gun could turn to reach them. Then they went in, dug a pit with a couple of Livingstone’s shovels, and buried everything. Forty dogs and their disintegrated owner.

  The clock inside whirred for a half second and then clunked 1 o clock. Sallie got up and walked down the steps of the porch. Henry could deal with the steps now, went down with her and they walked into the edge of the dark empty desert. John rocked on in his chair. I was watching Sallie. She bent down, put her hands under Henry’s ears and scratched his neck where she knew he liked it. She bent down further to his ear, the left one, the one away from us, and said, very quietly, I dont think John heard it it was so quiet, Aint that a nasty story Henry, aint it? Aint it nasty.

  *

  Up with the curtain

  down with your pants

  William Bonney

  is going to dance

  *

  H’lo folks—’d liketa sing my song about the lady Miss AD you all know her—her mind the only one in town high on the pox

  Miss Angela D has a mouth like a bee

  she eats and off all your honey

  her teeth leave a sting on your very best thing

  and its best when she gets the best money

  Miss Angela Dickinson

  blurred in the dark

  her teeth are a tunnel

  her eyes need a boat

  Her mouth is an outlaw

  she swallow your breath

  a thigh it can drown you

  or break off your neck

  Her throat is a kitchen

  red food and old heat

  her ears are a harp

  you tongue till it hurt

  Her toes take your ribs

  her fingers your mind

  her turns a gorilla

  to swallow you blind

  (thankin yew

  *

  Angela—hand shot open

  water blood on my shoulder

  crying quiet

  O Bonney you bastard Bonney

  kill him Bonney kill him

  this from Angela

  she saying this when their bullet for me

  split her wrist so flesh burst out

  Watching me do it.

  Took a knife and opened the skin

  more, tugged it back

  on the other side of her arm

  to pick the bullets out

  3 of them

  like those rolled pellet tongues of pigeons

  look at it, I’m looking into your arm

  nothing confused in there

  look how clear

  Yes Billy, clear

  *

  So we are sitting slowly going drunk here on the porch. Usually it was three of us. Now five, our bodies on the chairs out here blocking out sections of the dark night. And the burn from the kerosene lamp throwing ochre across our clothes and faces. John in the silent rocking chair bending forward and back, one leg tucked under him, with each tilt his shirt smothering the light and spiralling shadows along the floor. The rest of
us are quieter. Garrett sits on the sofa with Sallie the quietest of us all. He doesnt talk much I’ve noticed and mostly listens. Sallie her legs out resting on the chair at the ankles, the long skirt falling like a curtain off her legs and touching the floor. The cat shifts in her lap. And just to my left, her leg dangling off the rail she sits on, Angela D, the long leg about a foot to my left swaying, the heel tapping the wooden rail.

  The thing here is to explain the difference of this evening. That in fact the Chisum verandah is crowded. It could of course hold a hundred more, but that John and Sallie and I have been used to other distances, that we have talked slowly through nights expecting the long silences and we have taken our time thinking the replies. That one was used to the space of black that hung like cotton just off the porch lights’ spill. At one or two then Sallie would get up and bring me the cat and leave to make coffee and get ready for bed. And come back with the three cups and changed into her nightgown, always yellow or white with fabulous bows at her shoulders and the front of her neck. And then hunch up the gown over her folded legs so we joked at her looking like a pelican or some fat bird with vast stomach and short legs. But she didnt move from that, said her legs against herself kept herself warm for the wind had begun now, a slight flapping against the house. And it is now one and Sallie gets up and the cat stays on the sofa in the warm pool of material where she was. And Angela stretches and says bed I guess and I say no we are having coffee now and she leans back and later Sallie brings mugs in on a tray this time. And we all laugh a little cos Garrett has fallen asleep. Nobody noticed it in the semi dark. He hasnt moved an inch. Just the eyes closed. But the coffee tonight doesnt do much for the drink. That is, we are all pretty loaded here and in fact we go back to the whisky. And my throat now feels nothing as the drinks go down. I wonder how Angie can balance on the rail; as I do, she slips down near me and tho I cant see Sallie’s eyes I think she must be watching us.

  We sit here drinking on, after the coffee. Garrett here but asleep, Sallie, John, and the two of us. My eyes are burning from the pain of change and the whisky and I cant see very well, John’s rocker is going slow but his checkered shirt leaves just a red arc daze like some blurred picture. I remember, when they took the picture of me there was a white block down the fountain road where somebody had come out of a building and got off the porch onto his horse and ridden away while I was waiting standing still for the acid in the camera to dry firm.

  So, bed, says John and we say yes and sit for a bit longer, then Sallie wakes Garrett and we all get up and go to our rooms. And Angie I find is high as hell and stumbling hanging onto my shoulder. In the room we have been given the same bed I was given when alone. Angie says she’ll have to sleep on top of me or me on top of her. And I say I’m too drunk for a balancing act Angie. O fooo she says and buttons open my shirt and her hands are like warm gloves on my back, soft till she uses her nails to scratch me towards her and I come and start giggling, wait the bathroom hold it. Yes, she says laughing. Quiet Sallie’s in the next room, got ears like anything.

  On the can I have to sit cos I know I cant pee straight. Before I finish she comes in and straddles me and drops her long hair into my open shirt as we slip our tongues into each others mouths. Her skirt over both of us and the can. Billy come on. Mmm I say yes, get up first. No. Dammit Angie. No. And slowly and carefully she lifts her legs higher and hangs them on tight to my shoulders like clothespins. Come on Angie I’m drunk ’m not a trapeze artist. Yes you are. No. And slowly I lift her up pressing her to me. The smell of her sex strong now daubing my chest and shirt where she rubs it. Youre too heavy for this I think, and we move careful to the floor, she leaning back like timber, lifts her legs to take clothes off and I grab the skirt and pull it over her head. Let me out Billy. Out Billy. Quiet she’s next door. No! I know you Billy you! Youre fucking her. No Angie, no, I say, honest Angie you got too much, and enter her like a whale with a hat on, my drowning woman my lady who drowns, and take my hat off.

  *

  Waking in the white rooms of Texas after a bad night must be like heaven I think now. About 9 o clock and the room looks huge like the sun came in and pushed out the walls, the sun—as if reflected off the bushes outside—swirling on the white walls and the white sheets on the bed as I can see when I put my head up.

  I’m sure everyone in the house threw up last night. All except Garrett anyway. The whisky and coffee and whisky again did in our communal stomach and the bathroom last night was like a confession box. At one point Angela was in the can and Sallie and I stood in the hall, leaning against the wall, eyes half closed, she in her nightgown of white with a bow of grey trailing down to her stomach. The hall also grey as nobody wants the light on for our eyes are shifting like old half dried blood under their lids and Sallie’s even put her hair over her face for more shade. And in my blur she looks lovely there, her body against the cold stone wall, leaning there, her arms folded, the wrists snuggled into her elbows and her gown down to her white feet scratching at each other. Me in a towel, having now to sit cos I keep slipping down the wall.

  Hurry up Angela, Sallie hits the door. More noises in there like an engine starting up. I cant wait, I said, I’ll go outside. No reply. And I move through the dark house hitting stools with my feet and hanging onto chairs on my way, cant see a goddam. Realise walls are there just before I hit them and the dog comes out of a corner and along with me licking my bare feet.

  Outside with only a towel on and the wind is lifting the sand and lashing me around. I select a spot and start throwing up, the wind carrying it like a yellow ribbon a good foot to my right. The acid burning my gums and tongue on the way out. Stop. Put my fingers into the mushrooms of my throat and up it comes again and flies out like a pack of miniature canaries. A flock. A covey of them, like I’m some magician or something. This is doing nothing for my image is it. Here I am ¾s naked in a towel vomiting 10 yards from the house, to my left a fucking big desert where nothing is except wind picking up sand and dust and the smell off dead animals a hundred miles away and aiming it at me and my body.

  And this bloody dog goes over and sniffs it and then methodically begins to eat, preparing no doubt his appetite for tomorrow morning, while now, it puts the machinery in me that organises my throwing up to sleep, as if I hadnt drunk a thing in a year. I kick the dog away but it comes back to the meal. I cant yell cos my mouth is dry. I try and then the muscles heave deep down and up it comes like a daisy chain whipping out as it gets free into the slipstream of the wind and collapses on the ground right in front of the dog who is having the time of his life. The end. I leave the dog and move back into the now warm house, sand on my feet and collapse into my bed. And Angela’s there and Sallie wasnt in the hall so I guess she’s in there or back in bed. And just as I drop off I hear John getting up and staggering in the dark.

  So it was a bad night. But this morning the room is white and silvery shadows roll across the ceiling. All is clean except our mouths and I move to the basin and rinse out last night’s throat and pee down the drain and struggle back to bed, and Angela D is golden and cool beside me the sheet over her stomach like a skirt and her arm out straight over the edge of the bed like a peninsula rich with veins and cooler than the rest of her for it has been in the path of the window’s wind all night.

  She is so brown and lovely, the sun rim blending into lighter colours at her neck and wrists. The edge of the pillow in her mouth, her hip a mountain further down the bed. Beautiful ladies in white rooms in the morning. How do I wake her? All the awkwardness of last night with the Chisums gone. My body open to every new wind direction, every nerve new move and smell. I look up. On the nail above the bed the black holster and gun is coiled like a snake, glinting also in the early morning white.

  *

  The street of the slow moving animals

  while the sun drops in perfect verticals

  no wider than boots

  The dogs sleep their dreams

  off they are everyw
here

  so that horses on the crowded weekend

  will step back and snap a leg

  / while I’ve been going on

  the blood from my wrist

  has travelled to my heart

  and my fingers touch

  this soft blue paper notebook

  control a pencil that shifts up and sideways

  mapping my thinking going its own way

  like light wet glasses drifting on polished wood.

  The acute nerves spark

  on the periphery of our bodies

  while the block trunk of us

  blunders as if we were

  those sun drugged horses

  I am here with the range for everything

  corpuscle muscle hair

  hands that need the rub of metal

  those senses that

  that want to crash things with an axe

  that listen to deep buried veins in our palms

  those who move in dreams over your women night

  near you, every paw, the invisible hooves

  the mind’s invisible blackout the intricate never

  the body’s waiting rut.

  *