The Heir

My friend Ken lived in the student ghetto in Gainesville. We would lift weights on his porch. Our workout was a fifteen minute workout dragged out to about two hours. We smoked pot, nursed beers, listened to records, talked about books, movies, women etc.. I was a recent arrival in town. I had noticed this guy walking around. He looked to be in his 40's, disheveled, wearing a dusty denim shirt. It looked like he might be living on the streets, except he was built like a body builder. Maybe he had just become homeless, I thought. I saw him near Ken's apartment, then I realized he was Ken's neighbor. Behind Ken's place was a two story tenement. I saw the mystery man coming in and out of there. Homemade weights were on the cement slab near the outside staircase, metal poles with industrial sized cement filled tomato cans attached to both ends. There were plastic gallon milk jugs filled with cement too.

One day while having our relaxed workout, the guy yells from the top of the stairs to us. "Hey. I'll be right over. I'm going to work out with you guys." This was the first time we had heard him speak. His voice raspy, sounded like years of booze and cigarettes. A few minutes later he came down. Our workout went from smoking pot and listening to the Clash, to "Come on motherfucker, you can fuckin' lift that, don't be a fuckin' pussy."

He introduced himself to us. He said his name was Billy Soul. I kept thinking of Billy Jack, an awful part reactionary, part hippie movie. I have to admit, I liked the movie when I was a kid.

We continued to workout with Billy. Our workouts became intense. He was part Vince Lombardi, part Charles Manson. We were terrified of him. He was humorless. He would stare into your eyes and yell, "Come on you fuck, lift that." One time I was doing a military press. I had lifted the weights from the ground up to my chest. Billy closed in on me. His face was about two feet from mine. His eyes aimed at mine. He turned towards Ken and said. "Look into this motherfucker's eyes. He's immortal." I started to laugh. I lost control of the weights and dropped them. "How the fuck did you drop that? Fuck!" We were afraid to laugh around him. Life was not a joke to Billy Soul.

Billy Soul was one of those infamous university town types. He was banned from the Plaza Of The America's on the University of Florida campus. He used to bring his weights there and workout. He hassled the Christian street preacher's. He hassled the Hari Krishna's, all political organizations, fraternities, sororities and everyone else. He used to eat the Hari Krishna free lunch and then yell to them, "You're a bunch of dumb motherfucker's for feeding me."

We heard stories that Billy's family was wealthy. I didn't believe it at first, but it was confirmed soon. Billy asked Ken to pick up a check from his father in Winter Park. Ken told me about the mansion that his professorial father lived in. According to legend, Billy's dad had been a physics professor at the University of Florida. While conducting some experiments, he developed something that would change the world, the weenie heater. You know the thing that rotates hot dogs at the 7-11 and keeps them warm. He had become very wealthy from the weenie heater.

A couple years back I read that Dr. Sewell, Billy's father had passed away. I thought about how terrifying it was to workout with Billy. I thought about the time when my then girlfriend Leah came by Ken's. As soon as she left, Billy asked is she Spanish or Italian?" I said her grandmother is Italian." "I bet she would fuck all of us." "She's my girlfriend." "I know. I like her."

We used to jog through the student ghetto. Billy would jump fences and chase dogs with the beware of dog sign on the fence.

I wonder what he would do with a fortune? I kind of miss those days in Gainesville. I was going to be a bunch of things some day. I remember listening to the Clash, I'm So Bored With The USA. I felt like something was happening in the world.