x Tx: Billie the Bull

Before the twins came, before the second and third growing, Billie Marcus knew the feel of a house. She used spoons and drank from cups. Her bed kept her feet tucked inside. The bath could hold all of her; legs unbent. Doorways ignored and simply walked through, carelessly. Floors and stairs, completely strong and reliable, walked on, run on, skipped on, stomped on, fearless. Chairs and couches jumped on, laid on, slept on, sat on. Her toys, manageable.

At dinnertime her mother would fill her small plate and whatever was placed there would fill her up. At five years of age, her feet should’ve dangled off the end of her chair like her seven year old brother’s did, but Billie’s rested on the floor. The urge to swing them, still strong in her child’s limbs, earned her a scolding every time they’d hit a leg of the table.

“Billie Marcus!” her father would scold, and Billie would stop.

Even then, her brother Paul smirked. Even then, her father’s voice was too strong.

She had seven dolls and every one of them had a first and last name. Her mother, a seamstress, made all of their clothes, letting Billie pick the fabrics and sew the hems of the skirts, letting her finish the sleeves with lace. “My angels, my angels,” she called them. She sang her dolls to sleep every night, rocking them one at a time before laying them in their communal crib and kissing all of their foreheads.

Back then, they filled her arms. After the second growing, they would barely fill her hands.

6.73 standard-sized garbage cans

2 hospital beds

26.87 No. 2 pencils

38.4 soda cans

a smallish telephone pole

2.12 single passenger jet skis

4 full-grown Ball Pythons

2.73 standard-sized refrigerators

2.28 average-sized stop signs

6 medium-sized dogs

17 empty wine bottles

5.81 pump-action shotguns

(The bull is kept in a dark box for days before the fight, so as to disorient him upon release into the ring. The light he desperately runs to when the box is opened is the bullring with a cheering mob and the brave matador who waits to kill him.)

Billie always took her biggest steps as she crossed from the sidewalk into the park, keeping her head tucked in, eyes down and hands clenched to her chest; this was as small as she could get while walking. In public places it became second nature. Get small , she’d tell herself and then gather inward. Get small, Billie Marcus .

You’ll never be small .

Her father’s voice.

Every day Billie had to cross the park and every day the children shot at her with finger guns while the mothers just let them.

They trailed behind her like baby ducks.

Jumping out of the sand, from around the benches, from the bends of the slides, spun out from the bushes, from behind trees with finger guns drawn. “Pew! Pew!” An army. Shots fired. She’d hurry past the moms who would never call them back, never tell them to behave. Shoot the giant lady Ashley! Go get her Jimmy! Get that mean ol’ giant! Sitting three across a bench, hands holding paperback books, hands holding cellphones, feet in pretty sandals, sunglasses secure on tiny noses, bracelets, rings; the children laughing, bold, encouraged.

Billie knows it is only seven steps across the park before she will be safe, but she takes them quickly to be safe. The children swarm, attacking from behind. “Pew! Pew!” She would like to turn and lunge, but the fight has drained from her, though in her guts there is a stirring. The fear of the bull raises its head, recognizing.

At the alley, at the edge of the park, she slips inside; sanctuary. The children stop as if it is a barrier they cannot cross. Billie Marcus unclenches and clenches her fists, heads for the church, for home.

(The bulls that are used for the ring are normally four years old and weigh upward of 1,100 lbs., a behemoth on four legs.)

The first growing was subtle, the pain small: Billie was five. Nobody noticed as the totality of the first growing was spread across the time she was given into the Marcus home: new, a gift.

“Big for her age, ain’t she?” her dad said.

“A doll!” her mother said, smiling. Her hands held Billie’s face.

“If she’s only five, why is she taller than me?” Paul, now an older brother, asked.

“More to love,” Billie’s mom answered.

Billie’s size stayed even until the age of nine, when the second growing came on hard, so much harder than the first. The writhing and moans, sudden and scary; her mother could only hold her and attempt to rock, trying to soothe, but the new size was such that this was not easy. Billie gave black eyes, bloody noses, cracked ribs; but still her mother held strong; as strong as she was able.

Her father would stare from the doorway, Billie huge now and threaded through half-rag remnants of careful handmade dresses, delicate with embroidery and lace, her hair grimy with sweat; eyes sunken, unable to focus, arms, legs jerked and bent in sharp angles.

Her father asked, “You scared?”

Her mother replied, “Of what?”

“Of if she ain’t stoppin’ this growin’. That child is bigger’n me now. In one week! Where she gonna be in one more? She don’t even fit in her bed no more!”

Her mother just shook her head, tears now. “What can I do, Ethan? She’s my daughter.”’

“Your daughter,” was all he said before walking away, turning over ownership. His feet left heavy down the hallway.

By the middle of the next week the second growing had stopped. Billie’s room was moved to the sun porch and her mother busied herself making clothes to fit Billie’s new size. She was kept home from school. Her brother Paul called her freakshow . Her father no longer spoke to her. She became another part of the house; a door, a window, a wall, the floor.

Billie’s smaller son sits on the floor while the larger one sits on her lap, lounging firm against her chest; his place. Her arms go round. The platters of food, now empty and congealing their grease; mother and son lethargic with their full. Billie’s stomach gurgles. The larger one laughs. The smaller one looks up.

“Look at him,” she says, her gaze upon the smaller. “Holding only one tiny fork.”

“One tiny cup, mama!”

Giggles.

“Yes.”

“Your hands can hold a dozen cups, mama!”

“My hands can hold all of you!”

She tickles his ribs. The larger one jerks, wrestles, laughs. The smaller one looks away.

“His feet are like a baby’s. Look at my big feet!”

“Yes, son. You have the feet of a man.”

The smaller son lays down. Puts his face into the carpet.

“Look at his tiny plate. He eats so little. He is a mouse.”

“A baby bird, so fragile, so weak. Your third growing is coming on. It will be a strong one.”

“I am scared, mama.”

“I will help you, son.”

“Mama, how big were you after your third growing?”