“Yeah well, I guess it's got potential. But dude…”
Broom still held Billy's eyes to his as he closed the book and placed it back into his lap.
“…don't quit your day-job.”
II.
The limo had passed the street that Billy and Pop lived on miles ago, and had long since crossed the tracks. Now, it was winding up through the road that cut the woods in half. They were heading up into a place that Billy didn't know much about at all — where the mansions that looked down at the ocean were.
Billy had done some walking around up here once, after he'd spent a day in the woods building a skateboard ramp to jump over a forgotten log truck. He'd decided he needed refreshment befitting a badass, but there hadn't been a gas station or an orange soda anywhere up there. He'd seen the gates that blocked off the mansion though, and the iron scrollwork above them that displayed to anyone unlucky enough to live on the other side of the tracks the name of the family who didn't want you anywhere near their house.
“Hey Russian, why are we going up where the rich people live?”
Broom was sipping some of that watered down whiskey; focused on his ice cubes, he didn't bother to answer Billy.
“We're not going to that snotty girl's house are we?” Billy was speaking of Mandy Brickstaff, of the prominent Brickstaff family — Billy didn't know then what “prominent” meant exactly, other than they sucked.
“I have told you already, Billy Purgatory, I'm taking you to your parents.”
Billy looked out the window — did his mom live up here somewhere? Had she always been this close, but Pop had never told him?
“Mister, my mom…”
Billy stared at the gate he'd seen that day last summer, in search of orange soda. Everything about it was the same, it was still just as high and just as menacing — but the name in expensive black-iron scroll atop it had changed.
“Purgatory Manor…?” Billy said the words as the car turned into the drive and approached. “Russian…”
Broom sighed, “Yes, Billy Purgatory?”
“What's a manor?”
The gate opened as the car slid up the drive. Billy looked at the trees lining the drive, all perfect and trimmed — they looked like upside down ice cream cones. The grass was short and didn't even look real, like that time he'd ended up on the golf course and stolen all those balls people left lying everywhere. Billy didn't see any balls in the yard, and even though it was hard for him to process, this place looked cleaner than the golf course. They passed tiny perfect houses in a Spanish style, stables, fountains, and statues of naked ladies.
“This is one person's house? Who needs all this stuff?”
The big car climbed the hill as the driveway began its incline. Billy saw a massive house sitting atop it. It looked like one of those places that the geography teacher-lady showed them slides of when she'd been in Greece. It had white columns and scroll-worked stone and tons and tons more statues.
“This is your house, Billy Purgatory.”
“No way, dude. We passed my house like ten miles ago. This place is way too nose-in-the-air-it's-up-God's-rear for me and Pop.”
The car made the turn into a massive circular driveway and Billy couldn't believe how high this place was — he could see everything from here. The whole town, the coastline, the tops of the rusted ships that were in the old harbor, even the cement factory — there was no part of his world that Billy didn't find himself looking down upon.
The car stopped. Broom wasted no time opening the door and sliding his lanky frame out. “You've taken more than one blow to the head, Billy Purgatory — after the adventures you've had across the world, it's no wonder your memory is not servicing you well.”
Billy jumped out onto the stone driveway. All this room to skate, that was the only good thing about any of this in his broken memory. There was no way he had forgotten about anything like this though — was there? It was all way too weird, and Billy stared down the drive. He could skate down that easy, and be over that wall and back to him and Pop's house in no time. He thought that maybe that was the plan: get out of here before any of this got anymore off the crank-case.
“Come, Billy Purgatory, your mother wishes to see that you are well.”
Billy had been seconds away from dropping the wheels of his board to the stone and pushing off, yet he suddenly lost the desire to fly off this hill. His mother? She was alive and she wanted to see him. This guy was lying, there was no way that his mother had been living up here all this time — Pop had lots of secrets, especially about Billy's mother, but there's no way that he'd have kept that a secret.
Besides, Broom had said he had come for Billy to return him to his parents — that meant Mom and Pop. Mom must have moved back while Billy was over in Antarctica, and bought this Brickstaff place and changed the sign over the gate. If that's what had happened, and both his parents were here, that could only mean that Mom and Pop had gotten back together and all they needed now was for Billy to come home so they could all be a family.
Billy looked down at the orange wheels of his skateboard. He thought about how happy Pop must be that Mom had come back, and this made Billy happy too. “It's just like I always wanted. It's perfect.”
“What are you mumbling there, boy? There will be plenty of time for you to roll about on that contraption.”
When Billy turned back to Broom, he had already opened the vast front door to the biggest house that Billy had ever seen —his house. Broom was checking the time on his pocket watch.
“I didn't say anything, Russian. Which way to my Mom?”
Billy made the executive decision to never question, and for once, just let life be perfect.
III.
The house went on forever, and there were windows that seemed to stretch up higher than the water tower. Light streamed in wide shafts and cast down on expensive rugs and furniture — the kind of stuff that Billy was too afraid to touch because he knew he'd break it. Mom sure had a lot of stuff, and Billy didn't want to break any of her pretty lamps or vases on his first day back. Billy wondered how Mom had moved all these things into this place; she must have had a pretty big moving van. Whoever had decorated this place for her liked old antique things — and statues of naked ladies. Billy had always figured that his Mom was a classy broad; he'd just had no idea how much stuff a classy broad needed to be classy.
Billy would see the occasional maid or butler lookin’ guy, and Billy would wave to them and say, “Hello.” Billy wasn't really trying to be polite, although he'd been taught not to be an asshat for asshat's sake. The thrill in greeting the passerby came more from the echo that the massive rooms produced with his voice. They would all nod to Billy in their fancy uniforms and return with a respectful and quiet, “Master Purgatory.”
Billy kept wondering who this Master Purgatory guy was — maybe he had a hobo uncle he didn't know about. Billy just let them all call him that, because as long as the echoes kept rolling, it really didn't matter what was said.
Broom opened two really big doors, not that there was a small door in the place, and the light from the high circular window shown down into Billy's eyes and blinded him. It was hard to make out what this place was, especially with him holding the deck of his board up to shield his peepers. It looked maybe like the principal's office, only with a lot more space and a lot more fancy decorations. It was unlike the principal's office too, in that it didn't smell like stale cigarette smoke and cheap after shave. There was a big desk made out of cherry wood that had a deep red tint to it. Desks were always bad omens in Billy's mind, and he hoped that he wasn't in trouble already. He'd have to explain to his Mom and Dad that it wasn't his fault that he'd ended up in Australia, and it all had to do with that monster kidnapping, that zombie that traveled through time and…
Time Zombie. That's what he was gonna call that thing.
Billy started to make out the silhouette of a woman standing behind the desk. She was tall and possessed an athletic
, beautiful feminine form. The light streamed by her blonde hair and cast a halo-like glow about it. As the wisps of blonde played in the light, they took on the appearance of being aflame. When she began to move, as Billy's eyes adjusted to the start contrast of light and shadow in the room, she did so with grace and purpose. She reminded the boy of the mother-lions he had seen roaming the plains he had just left on the other side of the world. They were the queens of everything they encountered.
This woman possessed the same royal birthright.
Billy lowered his skateboard from his eyes as her body eclipsed the bright circle high up on the wall which had kept him from seeing. Her face held warmth, that was undeniable, but there was so much more to her than that. Her eyes cut into the little man before her — she looked him over as he stared, dumbfounded. Billy could see her take in the cuts and bruises he'd accumulated over the last few days, and she gave him a look that spoke heavier than the weight of all those words that Russian was filling his book with.
That unmistakable cut of the eyes, the face trying its best not to turn into a mischievous grin — all said first words to Billy Purgatory he could not ignore.
Don't try and bullshit me.
“Mom?” There, he'd said it. The word didn't seem real, and he still stared up into the face of his long lost mother as if she were an illusion projected from another place. A hidden place which Billy still did not understand, and probably should not question.
But the boy had so many questions.
“Broom said that you somehow got lost in Africa.” Her voice was soothing, warm, like a gently rolling river under cotton candy clouds.
Billy had to think about it for a minute — yeah, that is what that place was called — Africa.
“Mom…”
His mother didn't reach out to embrace him — Billy only considered later that this is what he would have wanted her to do. He couldn't wrap his mind around what it even meant to have a mother, much less be wrapped in her loving embrace.
Billy's Mom raised an eyebrow. “Son?”
“I'm just…” He was stumbling over his words —something he wasn't used to experiencing. Words flowed freely out of the mouth of Billy Purgatory, more often than not. Freely and without the use of any filter. He was the master of the comeback, except where his mother was concerned. She made him the master of staring and not believing any of this was real.
“…just… I'm just happy to see you, Mom.” Billy wasn't exactly sure what was happening to him, or why he felt so weird inside. He felt all hot, he could hear his heart beating, and his eyes twitched. He tucked his skateboard neatly under his arm and looked away from her, because he thought perhaps he might be feeling tears trying to leak out. He didn't get why he felt like he was gonna cry like a sissy — he wasn't sad, he was happy.
Billy looked back up into her face. His mother was sitting against the edge of her desk in her white dress. She brushed a strand of hair out of her eye. Was she about to cry too?
She didn't cry though, and she crossed her arms as she began to speak. “You went into one of the rooms I told you not to go into, didn't you?”
Billy didn't know what she was talking about, but it did suddenly sound like he was in trouble — which immediately reaffirmed his feelings about rooms with desks in them. “I don't know anything about any rooms, Mom.”
Mom. So weird.
“Have you been bothering the doctor down at the stables?”
Billy shook his head.
“Billy Purgatory,” she said his whole name, “how many times do we have to have this discussion?”
He wasn't digging being in trouble with his Mom, when all he could think about was getting a hug. What would that feel like — if she hugged him?
“I…” Billy was looking down at his sneakers. “I'm sorry, Mom. It was an accident. I didn't go to Amsterdam on purpose.”
“Africa, child.” He looked up at her and she pointed her finger. “You were in Africa. Someone needs a geography tutor.”
“It was an accident, really.” Billy tried to make his sweet face — which kinda didn't exist — but he still tried. “I went in that room you told me not to go in.”
“Where the mirrors are? The machine?”
Billy nodded and didn't feel right lying to his Mom, but he figured maybe if she heard what she wanted to hear, and had it all worked out in her head, this would be a quicker resolution to her being mad. Quicker than trying to explain how the Time Zombie had snatched him from a bunch of vampires and zapped him off to Austria.
“Yes…” Billy looked up for affirmation and reassurance. “…ma'am?”
“You have almost free rein of countless acres of manicured lawn, everything from woods to gardens, a swimming pool, a trampoline…”
“Hot damn, we have a trampoline?” Billy's excitement was short lived, as Mom was pointing her finger again.
“…a tennis court, a game room, a tree house, and a mile and a half of paved driveway to skate up and down.”
Billy was digging the idea of a tree house, but he kept it zipped this time.
“All I've ever asked is that you keep away from our guests, who are doing very important work and do not want to be bothered by a ten-year-old child, and that you stay out of any room that is locked. Is that too much?” Mom's fingers stopped pointing, and she had her arms tightly folded at her chest once more.
“Mom, I promise if you'll just stop being mad at me, I'll never go in another locked room ever again.”
Billy tried to make his sincere face — which didn't exist either — yet, he actually was sincere.
He wasn't ready for her to push herself from the desk and to make quick strides with her long legs towards him. Billy just stared at her — how could she be real?
Billy stopped asking questions when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled his body to hers. She was warm and comforting, and she didn't give hugs like Pop did — Pop kinda stumbled up to you and grabbed you and pulled you up into his arms and then put you in a Grizzly-vice until it got hard to breathe. Then he'd drop you on the couch and tell you not to set stuff in the garage on fire anymore.
Mom's hugs weren't better, but they were certainly the most welcome part of the strange adventures Billy had found himself on since the baseball field.
She pulled back from him slightly, and her fingers brushed the hair out of Billy's face. She drew a circle around one of the knots he'd gotten on his forehead that had surely begun to bruise and turn black.
“My handsome little brave man.” Her words were almost like a song. “You have to be more careful, or there's going to be nothing left of you by the time you grow up.”
Billy was so in love with being close to her that he didn't even flinch when she placed her fingertip at the end of his scar and traced it in its diagonal line all the way down his face. “You've already got one beauty mark. You don't need anymore.”
Beauty mark? Billy thought that his mother must really love him, because nobody had ever said anything nice about the scar across his face.
“I'll be more careful and stuff, Mom. I promise.”
Then his mother kissed Billy on the forehead. Billy had to hold his eyes closed really tight so the tears couldn't get out.
When he opened them, his mother had pulled away and was walking around her desk once more. “No more traveling. No more adventures. No more Africa.”
“I promise.”
Billy's mother settled gracefully into her oversized desk chair and lifted a pen as she opened a book like the one the Russian carried.
“Go and get cleaned up. I'll expect you at dinner.”
Billy couldn't stop looking at her, and when his mother realized she was being stared at, she cut her eyes up to meet his.
“Uh, Mom…where's Pop?”
She held his gaze for a moment longer, then went back to her book. “Your father is off on an important errand. He'll be back soon.”
Billy smiled at his mother, even though she wasn't paying any at
tention to him anymore. He turned to go about the task of pulling open the big office door and trying to find his room in this place. Hopefully there was a map like in the mall.
“Billy.”
“Yes, Mom?”
“If there is a locked door, it's locked because the secret contained within isn't something you should concern yourself with. Do you understand this time?”
Billy pulled open the door and looked back out at the massive room he'd traveled through to finally meet the most wonderful mother in the galaxy.
“Mom, I promise.”
IV.
Billy went almost an hour without breaking any promises to his mother. After leaving her office he went wandering on his own, running into a maid or butler and getting updated directions which way he should be headed to find his room. By the time he'd made it across the house, Billy had seen the last suit of armor he would ever want to see — which was a disappointment, because the first couple he'd seen were pretty damn cool. They just kind of stood around though, and didn't do anything. Everything in this place just seemed to be standing around, doing nothing and serving little to no purpose. By the time Billy reached his bedroom, he felt exhausted.
His new room was yet another letdown. It had a big fancy bed that was so high off the ground, there was a little set of steps to climb to get onto it. Billy laid his head down on the feather pillows and let his eyes scan the joint. He didn't see any of his stuff from his old room there, and the place felt like a doctor's office. There was all this science stuff, like a globe and a telescope pointed out a window, and what looked like a functioning toilet through a door across the room.
“No wonder I get in so much trouble with my mom around,” Billy commented to his board, which was resting on the pillow to his left. “Perfect worlds are kinda boring.”
Billy knew he wasn't gonna get any sleep, and neither was his skateboard for that matter, so they got up. He started tossing drawers and peering into closets. “Are all these shoes mine?”
He didn't find a slingshot or a plastic army tank or anything to create explosives with in the whole place. Disgusted, Billy found himself looking through the telescope out the big picture window of his room. “Okay, stars… stars… boring stars… Moon, or Jupiter, or whatever the hell that is.”
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 5
