Billy

by Olivia Linnea Rogers

When I first started dating my Billy, who I had known as “just friends” for a year up till that point, my friend Molly pointed out that I now had a boyfriend whose name was ‘Bill’, “like an old man.” She, who knows Bill very well, said this in the kindest way possible, but it still made me laugh as she said it almost like a disclaimer, as if she was worried that I was not aware. I was very aware, and I loved it. I loved his name. The way it invoked both a young playfulness and tenure. I loved the erudite quality of it. It felt correct. It sounded correct. There was a timeless quality to its retro feel in a modern landscape of badly rapped ‘J’ names. And I am a lover of horror films, and willing to bet that there is no name more commonly used in horror than Billy.

 And I loved that it was Billy, not William, or even Bill. It was Billy. Straight up. People often stutter over this, as Billy is a diminutive of the name ‘William’. But there was no distant, professional ‘William’ in him. It was like he was made with levity and intimacy built in. Because to say his name, a nickname in and of itself, was to be close. Was to know.

 Maybe subconsciously I hoped that with an old-school name would come an old-school love. A charm and manner that was said to be lost, and the story I will tell now is certainly indicative of this, though it comes set in a distinctly modern packaging.

 I was heading back from a neon-lit Simmons club, close to St. Pauls, after celebrating a friend’s birthday. It was January, but strangely warm, I remember. It would’ve been around 1 am. Billy and I had been dating for four months at this point and we knew what we had. There was no question for us. I, smartly, left the club with a friend, but we were getting different busses. My friend sent me off on my bus home, and I sat happily picturing my bed and rest. After about 15 minutes, though, the bus stopped somewhere I had no knowledge of. The driver told us all to get off, as the bus was terminating here. I was confused. I was still a little drunk. And suddenly I was alone. The bus had disappeared and all its inhabitants, before I could ask for help. I began to walk, looking at a map on my phone, figuring that if I walked solidly in one direction I would eventually bump into the East End and be able to find a bus stop that channelled the 8. But I found myself lost, and sinking deeper and deeper into vast, grey, empty, corporate London. Eventually I was by another indiscernible building with nobody else in sight, and when I checked the map I was actually walking further away from my destination. Then, I heard a cacophony of male voices and, immediately, froze. On reflection, I’m pretty sure these voices were just a group of men innocently sitting at a pub around the corner, but at the time it was terrifying. I couldn’t see anyone, or anything, but more empty, grey, windowed buildings. And I couldn’t hear anything but those voices. I couldn’t move. I started to panic. And cry. And so, I did the only thing that I could think to do, I called Billy, hoping desperately he would be awake. Well, dearest reader, he was.

 I sent him my location and Billy proceeded to, literally, run from his Bethnal Green flat to wherever I had ended up. I know this because he would call me periodically to assure me he was on his way, through the sound of the Saturday streets and his heavy breathing. He also, may I add, was not a runner. I waited for an hour, not moving. He ran for an hour, obviously, moving quite a bit. Finally, he appeared, once again, literally running and I could breathe again. And I continued to breathe and breathe and breathe, and we are now approaching three years. Where occasionally he will again commit these ridiculous, heroic acts, that I wouldn’t think happened in real life if it wasn’t my life. Maybe not exactly because he was named Billy, but certainly because he’s my Billy.