I'm Not Crazy

~23~ Red Ants and other things that suck.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

If ~ Rudyard Kipling

😈😈😈

Friday - June 6th 

Our official three-day-vacay suspension off from school was over yesterday. So today marks our first unofficial "sick day" post-suspension sabbatical. I wake up at my regular time, then do my usual online time. Then down to eat breakfast with the rest of the animals at the zoo. As soon as everyone leaves to start their respective days at school and work, Billy and I start studying on the same schedule as our classes until lunch. Which we now spend outside on the back "shit-talking" porch in the shade.

One of the things that I am especially growing to like about being in Billy's company is his discernible lack of needing to talk much. I am finding his unprofound silences are oddly not uncomfortable to me now, almost becoming even familiar. Like I can tell that he is thinking about something? But not anything I really need to know about. So as long as I know he is not thinking bad things about me? I find myself being cool with him more and more.

So far it seems to me that Billy thinks about his dogs probably more than anything else. I find myself becoming slowly drawn into his strange savage world. I have recently learned several things about Billy that I had not really understood before. For starters, I've come to realize that there are actually three Billy's in one.

There's the Monster McCrazy one at school. That silent hulking monster with the dark power of Zero-Fucks-To-Give. Who sits in the back of the class and scares the living shit out of everyone else, including the teachers. Then there's Billy Boy, the not giving two shits, grunting guy at home in the Madhouse. And then there is "B", the kindhearted smiling patient boy, who trains wild dogs out in the wilderness. So far I like B the Dog Boy version of him the best. Which is also oddly enough the one that I spend the least amount of time around, so go figure?

Something else that I have also learned about is the pack of dogs that haunt the jungle behind Madhouse. Turns out that they are not your average normal strays, but in fact all are failures from the seeing eye dog program for blind people. So Billy is in the process of retraining the Rejects for something else to do. So thus the mystery of the insane assistance dogs is now solved.

I have learned that rescuing the Rejects was his mother's pet project. But after she died, taking care of the dogs became Billy's thing. My educated guess is that he has taken on the mantle of this mission in memory of his mother. So I respect him slightly more than before for his memorial mission.

According to Stevie, he even slept out in the wilderness with the dogs for almost a year after his mother died. Not in the converted kennel, but rather in a tent some where up in the wilds. At least until it got too cold and Sheriff Buddy made him come back in the Madhouse and live like people again. 

Billy has explained in fewer than ten words, that this part of the Reject retraining process requires controlled socialization before the Rejects can go onto their next phase of retraining. So he keeps the animals isolated from all other people besides himself.

And yeah, the obvious parallels of what's going on with the Rejects and my own so-called life right now is not lost on me either. Because apparently since my mental meltdown and first Slapfight suspension, I too now require controlled socialization as well.

So it's just the two of us at home alone today again. As usual, Billy has been working with his Rejects behind the massive blackberry bramble. Based on all the strange sounds, he is doing something that involves different sets of whistle tones. Probably training the dogs to attack, maim, kill, and then eat the people on command.