Black Bill

A series of data points, an array of successes

Bill was certain that there were two points he always fell between in his analysis. There was, as he told anyone who revealed even a little curiosity about him, a bothersome tendency to place big ideas in the categories of too radical or too conservative. And then there was a third extreme, the troublesome area of perfect compromise—the satisfaction of no one, not even those who claim to aspire to perfect compromise. He saw himself, his way of thinking, which were the same things, hewing any which way in between any two of those points at any time. He never compromised and yet he never became passionate. He was not restrictive, loose, or mild-mannered. He was flagrantly confident and quietly moneyed, yet generous, open, even talkative. People gushed about him without knowing exactly why and naturally he was the object of several tortured crushes at once.

The way he thought was everything about him. It was the way he talked, wore a shirt, straightened his sunglasses, sat assertively in poor posture in a big chair. He knew, almost from the point of consciousness, that he would have a great time in school. Look forward to going, always. He was, for a moment, depressed when college ended, but then became busy again with his future. Could easily feign “presence”, made a great boyfriend. Had no feeling of absence, of lost identity, thought he looked smart, good bone structure. Got along well enough with his mother. Good at listening to his sisters talk over each other on the phone and holding secure enough their confessions to strike them as a gem. Knew enough about each of his postures to feel to be sure they were sustainable, he could always keep them up, none of them wearing at any part of his spirit, because he never placed any of his expectations exactly anywhere.

Everything he looked at turned on bright. Bill was not merely reflective. That’s why he would be rich. A series of debts he collected in his mid-twenties would easily turn to dust once he decided what to next, turned away from twinges of nostalgia and irrational pangs of connection to inanimate objects with a shrug. His way was the stuff of self help, if self help were respectable in pedigreed company. Bill only ever got angry in writing. He would write short sentences, rendered with a blunt musicality. Sharp notes, all chords. Everyone desired his most tightly riled messages as a kind of platonic domination.

His mother looked at him with muted wonder. She’d start to think deeply about little things he had done since childhood but then get overwhelmed, trail off, start boiling water for tea. She was the writer of the family.

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Black Bill is a new series of stories. The regular Mildly Yours will continue irregularly as usual.