At thirty-six, blind in his left eye, stocky and built like a fighter, Johnny was more like a father to her, she thought.

“You shouldn’t smoke so much,” she said.

He stubbed a cigarette out in the ashtray and jammed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t feel like doing the show tonight.”

“You’ve missed too many this month, Johnny.”

His sharp glance cut her words. He opened his mouth to say something, and she braced herself for a wisecrack just as the doctor came into the reception room. “Mr. and Mrs. Morrison, I think your baby’s going to be all right. He has a growth blocking his esophagus. We can get it under control. His condition is stable. You two can go home now, and we’ll call you if there’s any change.”

Billy survived. For the first year, he was in and out of hospitals in Miami. When Dorothy and Johnny had out-of-town bookings together, Billy and Jimbo were left with Mimi or in a childrens care center.

Dorothy became pregnant, for the third time, a year after Billy was born. Johnny suggested an abortion in Cuba. She refused, she told her children years later, because it was a mortal sin. Kathy Jo was born on New Years Eve, December 31, 1956. Meeting the medical expenses overwhelmed Johnny. He borrowed more, gambled more, drank more, and Dorothy learned he was into the loan sharks for six thousand dollars. She argued with him. He beat her.

Johnny was hospitalized for acute alcoholism and depression in the fall of 1956, but was allowed home from the hospital on October 19 for Jimbo s fifth birthday party, which was to be the next day. When Dorothy returned late that night from work, she found him slumped over the table, half a bottle of Scotch and an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the floor.

(2)

The Teacher remembered that Billy s first inner friend had no name. One day four months before his fourth birthday when Jimbo wouldn’t play with him, Kathy was still too little and Daddy was too busy reading a book, Billy sat alone in his room with his toys, feeling lonely and bored. Then he saw a little boy with black hair and dark eyes who sat across from him and just stared. Billy pushed a toy soldier toward him. The boy picked it up, put it into the truck and moved it back and forth, back and forth. They didn’t speak, but even without talking, it was better than being all alone.

That night Billy and the little boy with no name saw his father go to the medicine cabinet and take out a bottle of pills. The mirror reflected Daddy’s face as he emptied the bottle of yellow capsules into his hand and swallowed them. Then Daddy sat down at the table, Billy lay down in his crib and the little boy with no name disappeared. In the middle of the night his mother’s scream woke Billy. He watched her rush to the telephone to call the police. With Jimbo standing beside him at the window, Billy looked on while they wheeled the stretcher and the cars with the flashing lights took Daddy away.