Scotland Will Rule Again

Where to begin? Billy was a short and slim Scot with slanted eyes, salt and pepper hair tied in a pony tail and breath that reeked of tobacco, beer, and puke. He always wore a green tee shirt that read ‘Scotland will rule again’ with faded jeans and leather boots that had walked a thousand miles, unless he had to dress up for his girlfriend Rose, then he wore cross-country ski boots.

Billy would always greet you with his missing-tooth grin by calling you an “old toad”. Then he would yell to Ken the bartender “give us a round of drinks” acting as he was going to pay for them, but he never did. Billy was loud and obnoxious and you had to walk on eggshells many nights because he also threatened quite a few that he was going to make them “gobble glass”. You might question me “Why would you want to be around anyone like this?” I would respond, “You never seen him play guitar”.

Billy claims he was in a sixties band named Shadows of the Knight, they are the band who wrote “Gloria” I never checked on it, I don’t really want to know. As I mentioned about the Gallery, anyone, anytime could get up on stage and perform anything. One night with a lot of coaxing, Billy in his drunkenness jumped up on stage and started playing the guitar, he wasn’t very good but I chalked it up to his drunkenness, no big deal. A few nights later same thing, and next time the same and so on and so on.

Billy only knew three songs and not very well, when he sang you could hardly make out anything he was singing due to his heavy accent and too much beer. Every time my friends and I were at the Gallery we always wanted Billy to play. It was entertaining to us, not in the typical way but more like watching a shitty comic bomb. One night, after seeing Billy play fifty times or so, we got him up on stage and he started singing his three songs but something seemed out of sorts. Billy had finished singing “Old Man” by Neil Young, and as everyone was cheering Billy uttered a very soft and humble thank you, I think I was the only one who heard him and as I watched walk off stage my heart began to sink. All these times that I had listened to him play thinking this some sort of drunken game, I suddenly realized that those three songs meant everything to him. When he played he was transported to a better time. It made him made him forget all his troubles and the hard and sad times in his life, I think that’s the only time he felt real and good inside. Instead of seeing Billy as partner to drink the night away, I saw a sad old man who had basically given up on life. I didn’t really know anything of his past or anything he was really doing in the present, I never even knew his last name and I guess I didn’t really know him at all. One thing I did know is that I felt his emptiness that night and that is a horrible feeling. I’m not a healer, I can’t turn back time, I knew the only thing I could do to help him have a better life, if only for a few minutes a week, was to get him to play me his guitar and wail out a song knowing he was off to that better place.

This piece was written for me by my friend Steve Miller. I wanted to share it with the world. That is, if anyone even reads this blog.