Losing My Samity: Leon Emerges

Leon Emerges

Falls From Grace

2000

The Pink Menace was on sabbatical. The persona, if not Billy himself, was on life support.

Sam who had always been a helper, a friend, a caregiver had become a barrel-chested gentle giant of a nursemaid to the proud, fiery Billy.

Not because he wanted to be, but because the man he loved needed him to be.

Pride and fire don’t go quietly, and Billy had always been both.But Billy was slowly but surely becoming someone else.

And Sam… Sam was the kind of man who never had Enough.

Always enough time.

Always enough strength.

Just not enough reassurance that the people he loved would be safe.

Not enough belief that he deserved any blessings.

Not enough ways to keep Billy upright in a world that kept knocking him down.But he tried anyway.He tried when Billy’s hands trembled too hard to button his shirt.

“Enough” was the name he carried in what had seemed a past life, but it was also the wound he never stopped bleeding from.

So of course he stayed.

Of course he carried Billy’s weight — physical, emotional, spiritual — even as Billy slipped further from the world he once dominated.

Sam’s fall wasn’t dramatic.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t even recognized as a fall.

It was the slow collapse of a man who kept holding someone else up. He carried Billy’s weight the way some men carry a flag: reverently, stubbornly, refusing to let it touch the ground even when his arms shook.

He tried when the sabbatical paperwork arrived like a death certificate for the man Billy used to be.

Billy hated it.

Hated the help.

Hated the softness.

Hated the way Sam looked at him like he was both breakable and sacred.Sam didn’t mean to look that way.

It was just what happened when the person you loved was falling and you were the only one left to catch them.

The year Wilhelm Dawson finally died, Sam had watched the film Batman Begins. Billy would have hated the entire movie.

But Billy wasn’t alive any more to heckle the film. But in a pivotal scene where young Bruce Wayne discovered the eventual Batcave, Thomas Wayne said to his son; “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

Billy No Longer

Billy wasn’t the same anymore. He stopped responding to the name “Billy” because he was no longer undercover any more.

Instead for a period of time he was just plain Wilhelm. His Menace outfit was safely hung up in the closet, likely never to be worn again.

Being menacing took more willpower and control then Willem had left inside of himself. He no longer dominated the scene. He didn’t chew the scenery

He had In fact become a wallflower, a shadow of a person that was once so dynamic and filled with life. His spark had been put out.

The former “Louie” who had become a Captain and CO of the detectives at Sam’s precinct could no longer ignore Billy’s illness.

Half the squad had memorized how to administer Billy’s DKA treatment to him, the other half was about to learn.

Billy was a great man, a flawed person like anyone else but this concrete example of mortality was starting to get IAB nipping Duckleberry’s heels.

Tuff Used to call the Captain Aquatic Fowl because the man knew how to keep his head above water even though he refused to let said water wash off his back.

Fowl was not unflappable. yet always knew the right moment to fly away or just when to swim away for safety.

His final act as Captain was to quietly file the paperwork that destroyed Billy’s career.

Initially it had taken all of Sam’s persuasiveness to prevent Billy from harming Fowl when he found out but Fowl himself was in Lake Tahoe when Billy heard.

This was the year 2000. At first Billy created a dojo in his living room to teach martial arts to escape but never ending boredom that was his civilian life.

That didn’t last very long as Billy was not a teacher. Sam had the patience and Billy had the knowledge. But Billy wasn’t the kind of person could have been a teacher.

Sam could easily count Billy students he’d ever taught on one hand. The fifth and the final student was Brett.

Brett had no discipline; he believed he owed no one any respect or consideration. He wanted to learn how to fight on the streets as a fighter for hire. Brett tried to gain the gold but screwed himself out of prestige before he even started. When Billy found out his aspirations he beat Brett severely.

Disgraced, Billy had to swallow his pride. He didn’t want fame and infamy wasn’t an option either.

Even though he closed up shop, Billy stubbornly kept the dojo intact and pristine. The house in Yonkers was big enough to have enough and many abandoned rooms.

The day that the paperwork and social worker arrived to give Billy the bad news is best not recorded in this ledger. Such was his fury.

At first Billy was outpatient treated and could live in his home still as long as a licensed caregiver were to visit him occasionally.

Sam proved to be very capable of taking care of Billy just not officially on paper.

Miss Nicole would visit and basically put her feet up drinking tea while Sam did heavy work. Billy had only one rule though. He refused to allow Sam to pick him up or carry him anymore even when his legs grow unsteady.

Billy was careful not to fall down or stumble or trip around Miss Nicole. Billy uncharacteristically would speak very little in her presence because he did not trust his own tongue.

Miss Nicole herself often was accompanied with her favorite client, Gretchen Moses.

Wilhelm may have tolerated Miss Nicole since it was her job to do the signature collecting and the note taking but Gretchen rubbed him the wrong way.

Ultimate Dependency Begins

It was a Tuesday afternoon when the disaster happened. Sam had driven the ladies home in their accessible van (it had been years since Nicole had driven) and he had given BIll Burton the night off.

Wilhelm was alone in the house peacefully resting in his Lay-Z-Boy chair while watching a war movie. Sam had tried to ask him if he would need help with anything but Wilhelm coldly refused to acknowledge him.

So Sam drove the ladies. Silvio followed him in Sam’s car. After parking the van in the correct spot Sam had to lower Gretchen’s chair from the van.

Just as the ramp set her down, BIll Burton frantically called and said “Wil seems in trouble! He won’t let me in but I can hear him screaming in the house!”

Sam left Silvio to finish getting the ladies situated. Shaken, he couldn’t trust himself to drive so he took a cab back to his home in Yonkers.

When he arrived it seemed darker, more menacing out than it was. Sam didn’t check his watch. BIll Burton ran up to him, still in a state of panic.

Sam walked grimly to the front door. Wilhelm didn’t seem to hear the doorbell. BIll Burton discovered the secret door unlock mechanism by twisting a flamingo in the little garden out front.

They raced into the house to check the rooms. There lay Wilhelm. He was lying on his side, his rollator on top of him and a quantity of human refuse all over his legs and on the rug spilling from a bedpan.

Sam knelt on the ground, taking Wilhelm’s pulse. The man was alive but with a weak pulse and unconscious. BIll Burton called 911. He told the dispatcher “man down, bio misfortune” plus the address. She insisted on getting more details but he could not think of anything to say.

Sam took the phone. “It’s Billy Judiker! He took a horrible fall!”

“Holy shit, Sam! It’s Jane! Dont worry I will send EMTs and some cops over right now!”

When the EMTs arrived, WIlhelm regained consciousness. “I don’t know what’s the worst death: laying in my filth or the shame of wasting away under your care!”