So you look up front at the silver, rectangular radio buttons. They are the old-fashioned mechanical kind that you have to stab with your finger to make the dial physically turn to the preset station. The green radium-like glow of the dashboard instrument panel bathes the car’s interior, like being in a submarine. Sixty miles an hour. The car is moving at sixty miles an hour. Your daddy’s face does not look sinister in that green glow, but instead it looks warm and safe. You didn’t know it then, but he was your real daddy. Your true daddy. Not the son-of-a-bitch replacement. And your mama reaches back over the seat and scratches your knee with her long red fingernails and says your name real soft. “Billy? You awake, sweetie?” But you don’t answer her. Just let her think you’re asleep. And you watch her take her hand away and rest it high on Daddy’s leg, nestled in the crotch.
And it feels good seeing that. You feel good. Because you have no way of knowing that she will be dead in nine years.
And it has been long enough to test your theory. To see if it is real. You turn your head and look back out the side window, holding your breath in anticipation. And it’s true. The moon is still there. In the exact same place. This car is rolling down the road at sixty miles per hour, so the moon should be far, far behind you, but it has not slowed down one little bit. It’s following you. You.
For the rest of the trip, you continue to test the moon. When the car stops, the moon stops too. It waits right there in the sky. It waits for you to get moving again. And when the car turns, the moon turns with it. Sometimes it ends up following you from the other side of the car, but it never stops following.
It is following you.
Your name is Billy Smith and that is not a special name. It is common.
But the moon follows you.
And that makes you special.
You are special.
You haven’t seen the moon—or the sun—in more than three months. But still, all these years later, you know it is out there, waiting for you. You can feel it. Throbbing with gravity, pulling at you. Waiting for you.
There are no windows in this place, only fluorescent lights that stay on all day, all night. This place is not a prison, but really it is. The Grierson Holding and Processing Facility for Violent Offenders. Not a prison.
You ask yourself: How did it happen? Can you really be responsible for this? And you look around yourself and realize that every decision you have ever made in your life has brought you to this time, to this place. You are where you are supposed to be.
You are eighteen years old.
Was there a choice? Was there ever really a choice? Or was this all preordained? From the moment your head crowned from between your mother’s splayed legs, had all of this already been decided for you? Written down? Or was it chaos?
No. It was choice. Of course it was. Of course. A never-ending series of decisions. More choices than there are numbers. Every step was decided upon. Chosen. How could you have not realized that?
It was all a choice.
Swallowing. You keep swallowing. Why? Is it nerves? Anticipation? The light that surrounds you is too warm and intense to be the moon. The blunt white light that bleeds through your closed lids is implacable. Waiting patiently for you to open your eyes. And you do. You swallow one last time and open your eyes.
You are staring into the dead flat eye of a video camera. Static. It is waiting for you to speak. There are three softbox lights on tripods angled around you, lighting you for the camera.
The woman’s motorcycle helmet rests on the scratched and dirty table here in the not-a-prison interview room. The helmet is black, an impenetrable orb. And on the back, in red spray paint, the anarchy symbol. The letter A bursting through a ragged circle that can’t contain it.
The woman is staring at you. Her camera is staring at you. You can hear it humming, waiting. The fuzzy black boom mic is pointing at you, accusatory. You like the woman, and you have agreed to speak to her. To be in her movie. Her documentary. About you.
You want to tell her about how when you were just a little kid you used to think the moon followed you. In fact, you open your mouth and you are about to say that very thing, but you don’t. Because it would be a lie. The truth is that you still think that the moon follows you. And you always will.
You wonder why someone would name their baby girl Jaymes and then be upset when, years later, she announces that she’s a lesbian. It’s like they prearranged it. Jaymes. What kind of name is that to saddle a child with? It is the name you give your daughter when what you really wanted was a son.
You are eighteen years old, and when you left your parents’ house this morning, it was for the last time. You are never going back. You have your motorcycle—hello, Dad, your daughter is named Jaymes and she rides a bad motorscooter. Wake up—you have jeans, T-shirts, underwear, socks, comb, and a toothbrush crammed in your backpack. No makeup, obvious clue number three. The clichés just keep piling up. And you have your digital video camera. The camera is the only reason you stayed there as long as you did. That camera cost you every cent you ever made asking people if they wanted to supersize that order.
You look at the boy sitting across from you, and you realize that is all that he is. A boy. He is eighteen years old, same as you, but he looks like he is about twelve. Thin to the point of emaciation. Skin like dirty chalk. He is pitiful. You have never felt a maternal impulse in your life, but you are overwhelmed with a need to grab this boy up and hug him and cover him in kisses. If you gave in to such a ludicrous temptation, you would need to be careful of your razor blade earrings. The kid has the complexion of a hemophiliac.
The kid. His name is Billy, and you have been following his story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, on CNN, the Faux News Network, and the various blogs that have erupted around Billy Smith and what he has done.
You do not know why your interest in the case rose to the level of obsession, but it did. It seemed to somehow mirror the arc of your own life. The snowball effect of bad choices, choices that often weren’t choices at all. The mocking echo of a life out of control.
You are eighteen. An adult. You have been making films your whole life. Films about yourself. You have chronicled your life. And posted your images and rants online. But now you are ready to turn the camera around. Now you are ready to do something real.
“Another two hours of shrugging isn’t going to help me.”
You shrug again. The camera intimidates you. The girl doesn’t, but the camera does. You think the girl is kind of cool. You like the pink stubble like a neon nimbus around her head, the piercings. The tattoos. Her tattoos are not like Frank’s. You can tell hers were professionally done.
You lift your hands to your mouth and chew a hangnail on your thumb. You have to lift both hands at the same time because they are cuffed together. They allowed you to do these interviews, but only with certain conditions. Like the guards standing in the corners. And the handcuffs.
Not-a-prison.
“I’m sure it’s nice to get out of population and chew on your hands for two hours, but, you know what? You’re wasting my time.”
There is nothing to say. What can you say?
“A lot of people care about this.”
She is not looking at you directly, but watching your image in the monitor.
You speak.
“I’ve always been with Frank.”
It is science class and you are looking at a Canadian travel pamphlet while the teacher speaks. You do not remember when you first became fascinated with Canada, but you are. Everything in Canada is green. Or cold and white and pure. You really do not even remember where you got the stack of Canadian tourist brochures that you carry around with you in your backpack. You have had them for so long that they are wrinkled and corner-bumped and the glossy photographs are missing thumbprint-size hunks of color.