KTP | K I LL T O P AR T Y

The Girlfriends Walk Among Us

Posted on January 20 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Possession of the mind is a terrible thing; it’s a transformation with an urge to kill.”

Her name was Jessica and she went to my high school. She was my first real girlfriend, gained at a time when I had lost hope in ever getting a real girlfriend. One I really liked. One I was genuinely attracted to. One who made my heart flutter with anticipation– like every day dream you’ve ever had during that long static age when you’re aware of girls, their big eyes and emerging bustlines, ones confident in testing the elasticity of all formerly loose fitting tank-tops; all around you but a world a way and you’re still stuck on the very first screen; the master sword collecting dust; Gannon raping Hyrule with impunity. Read More

Doreen

Posted on November 20 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

There wasn’t a final conversation of any significance. She always supposed there should have been– something she could point to and decode and understand. Even if this made sense to her, she was ultimately glad there wasn’t anything semi-cryptic or implicitly symbolic; any words she could pick over on sleepless nights, alone or with a different man next to her. She was glad their last day was like any other: he came home from work and was happy to see her; he greeted her with a smile and a hug; they made dinner together, occasionally laughing at different parts of their tiny arsenal of inside jokes built over six years. Pleasant conversation as they ate, recapping their respective work days. Couch and TV time after, chipping away at an old season of Survivor; progress forever frozen midway through the queue.

There wasn’t anything worth picking over, but she thought about their last day a lot– even if it were just like all the other days.

Anthony

Posted on July 23 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“These things, they go away; replaced by every day”

I ran into a coworker at the supermarket. A red hot needle poked discretely into the recess of my underarm– torture that is unseen; leaves no marks, so I can still function in a capacity productive to my employer. I intentionally go to a supermarket on the other side of town as to avoid this. I don’t want to be in work mode when I don’t have to be. I’m not very good at work mode in the social sense, and I disregard this character flaw with the half-excuse that bland social niceties are a feminine construct and there’s no good reason to excel at anything feminine. Leave me alone and let me do my job– which is something that usually works, in the context of the busybody work place, but falls apart when you run into a co-worker at the supermarket.

Touching the Face of God

Posted on June 17 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Sometimes the only thing we counted on when no one else was there”

Crying at the end of Fraggle Rock (1983) is one of my three earliest memories. I would watch in my parents bedroom. It was on at night. I loved feeling ensconced in the Fraggles’ world; I wanted to get lost in their winding caves. For an only child going to a school outside of the neighborhood, weekday afternoon friends were non-existent; The Fraggles are what felt real to me. At the end of every episode, I wouldn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to leave the Fraggles. I knew I would fall asleep contemplating the death of my parents. It was a long time from now, they would tell me. They were right. While the latter was always subsequent to the former, these events seemed unrelated. Maybe I didn’t understand the pacing and structure of proper story telling; that a television show had a beginning, middle, and end; that the escapism of fantasy isn’t meant to last.

As a child these events seemed unrelated but now they feel inseparable. Telling one story must involve telling the other.

This is the Static Age

Posted on May 18 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Hey, hey, it’s the static age. Well, this is how the west was won…”

I didn’t know who she was, but she told me her name was Michelle and she went to my high school. She was a friend of Teddy’s. He had given her my phone number because she was nervous about making friends at a new school. She said she liked Teddy and that maybe she’d like me. Starting ninth grade felt like the first season of a spin-off sitcom that I didn’t want to be on; contractual obligations met with poor managerial choices, is how I’d have envisioned myself explaining it in some career spanning interview years later– ninth grade felt like a real low point. I didn’t know anyone outside of friends from elementary school, cast members the invisible producers decided to keep around, and everyone else was Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993).

I knew there would be girls, and while this idea was tantalizing, it was like seeing a painfully inaccessible item on the first screen of a Legend of Zelda (1986) game. Even if it appeared to be obtainable, the methodology behind its retrieval was buried in an issue of Nintendo Power (1988) that I didn’t have; dull, aching frustration. Michelle’s phone call was that tantalizing item. I found her at her locker the next morning. We never spoke again.

King of the Night Time World

Posted on May 15, 2022 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Come live your secret dream…”

My eighth grade teacher explained to us, separated from our female peers, that it’s okay to masturbate. That we shouldn’t feel shame- that it’s normal human behavior. Later, on the playground, we collectively processed this information; we were uncomfortable. We accused one another of being masturbators. Each boy denied this accusation with vehemence; each boy except Teddy. Teddy stood with defiance; he refused to engage; he thought talking about it was “gay.” He would neither confirm nor deny his status as masturbator. Later that night- in a remote part of town, behind the neighborhood water tower, where a teenager could explore the night time world without invasive eyes- in the shadow of an older brother’s car headlights, a struggle session took place. Dave was never happy with the unresolved. Things got tense. Knowledge of truth’s existence will demand its reveal by way of invisible forces and self-perpetuating inertia. Even still, Teddy refused to budge. Later that night we listened to Metallica while looking at his collection of Playboy magazines.

Welcome to Hell

Posted on June 11, 2021 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Hey Mama, look at me, I’m on my way to the promised land…”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I assure you, the story I’m about to tell you is true- all of it. Every small victory. Every little triumph. Every lesson learned. Every mistake made. Every misdeed cast. Every bit of bullshit. Every lie. Every defeat. Every disappointment. Every heart broken. Every tear shed. Everything I’m about to share with you, it all happened. It’s all true- all of it.

Impossible for you to know the emotional toll telling you this story has taken. The long days and endless nights, restlessly searching for the right words, in the right order; hoping it makes sense; hoping to be seen. Restlessly searching for meaning; enduring moments of despair; intense bouts of frustration; fists against the wall. Desperate to be understood.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, submitted for your scrutiny and judgement, this is my story- this is my life- and I am proud to share it with you; proud to announce the release of my very first book.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, welcome to hell…

After Hours

Posted on February 25, 2021 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“If you close the door the night could last forever”

It’s okay to do nice things, Blair explained. She had made a reservation for the afternoon at a winery operating on a working beef farm. Anything pretentious would be tempered by a kind of rustic authenticity. They’ll have cows, she told me.

Although it can be managed, it’s impossible to entirely diminish feelings of hesitancy in a struggle that I can only assume is similar to the misnomer of the recovering drug addict– the same wishful thinking involved- that one can ever, successfully, erase the footprint- bust the ghost… thoughts wander; compulsions linger restlessly. There is no recovery for true addiction.

Jennifer Lost the War

Posted on January 30, 2021 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“…but will the morning headlines even say that it’s a shame?”

They’re all liars, she told me, all of them. While we had spoken a few times, only through text, in the years since things had come apart violently, I finally chipped away at Jennifer enough for a phone call. Years had passed, and maybe the resulting body image issues- collateral damage from getting off on calling her fat- had faded enough for the sound of my voice to be somewhat less nauseating. Or maybe it was the mid-August blues; five months into quarantine and just about any option seems great- a fact that I greatly benefitted from over the summer- but even if I had been excited to catch up with Jennifer formally, this wasn’t what I was expecting.

Only Death is Real

Posted on January 16, 2021 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“…beneath the sound of hope.”

It’s the same thing every time, she told me. It’s an act, the whole thing; it isn’t real. The eye contact, the pursed lips, hands in the hair, the inflection in tone- “baby, baby…” She’ll pick up on this and mimic it back to me- same eye contact, same pursed lips: “baby, baby…”

When you’ve lived what feels like a thousand lifetimes compared to the high school sweethearts; you’ve figured out every bit of the female algorithm- missile launch codes carved into your skull like the password to skip to Mike Tyson; right to the bedroom; right to true love, scientific discovery at the price of normalcy; at the price of family.

At the price of outliving your parents- at least numerically. Without anything else- anything to provide perspective- the single man will either self-destruct in addiction or grind himself into the ground; defiance, on the road to decay; defiance in the face of genetic limitations- trying to get muscle car performance out of an economy class. Your parents were shopping on a budget- who knew how bad things would get?