A boy named Billy...

This story is still under construction.......

I'll never forget how I met him.

My friend Melissa and I were riding our bikes around my neighborhood. (Yes, I know that bikes are pretty much obsolete in the cool transportation of teens classification but this was the early 90's. ) Melissa's chain fell off her bike. Unfortunately, we didn't have a little team car like the Tour de France boys with a mechanic who comes out of nowhere and leans over and fixes your chain while you still maintained an appropriate speed. So we were stuck on the side of the road being girls. Not having any idea how to fix the chain.

That's when we met Billy. Melissa and I would both admitted at the time that we thought Billy was just so cute. We quickly became friends with Billy; but we also quickly found out that Billy was always in trouble.

Still. Billy was my friend. I invited him to church almost every week. And every Saturday night, he'd tell me that he'd come with me the next day. But he never did.

Once he was out of high school, Billy was in and out of jail a few times. I don't' think I ever knew exactly why. But, he always called me and my family. I say my family because my parents were great to him also. He stole something from our garage once. My dad made him come back and sit in our living room and hear about forgiveness and God's love.

If Billy was in jail, over the holidays, we'd always get a collect call from him. Sad thing. He was a pathological liar. It was sad. He'd tell me that he'd found Jesus. Sometimes I believed him. Sometimes, I didn't. But I wanted to believe him.

It was odd though. Why did he always call? It wasn't a normal pairing of friends. He'd always call and act as if he was worried about me. Me. I'm fine. I'm not in prison. But, I think he believed that he was looking out for me.. in some weird way he was. He was teaching me how to love someone that wasn't so lovable.

A couple years ago, after I moved down South I opened my mail box to see a newspaper clipping from my home town. Front page: It was Billy. He'd testified against someone that he'd met in jail. The guy had killed someone. He had been braggin about it to Billy. Billy ratted him out. So he thought.

So, when Billy was let out of prison on parole, he became a free man with a death threat. So he broke parole and ran. I don't know where he went.

But he called one time. It was a few years ago.

I don't know where he was. I didn't want to know.
A girl called me collect. Said she was his girlfriend. That Billy had mentioned that I was like a sister to him and could i send them some money. I told her, that I didn't have any to send. That I would prefer to speak with Billy.

I think he'd finally broken down. For a long time, I think he wanted to get out of that lifestyle. But, that was the last time I heard from him.

I thought about him this week because the phone number my parents have had for 27 years is going to change.

I hope Billy can find them if he needs to make a collect call...because this time he really might show up for church.