It’s 4th of July and Billy is in the hospital. He is not doing well at all. He had a ruptured stomach and serious pain, they gave him some drugs for that and did all sorts of things, but there seem to be some problems and he is still in the hospital and everyone, doctors and his friends are worried. Although the nurses were concerned about exhausting him too much they didn’t kick us out in the end because of 4th of July, and gave us just all kinds of instructions with deep frowns on their foreheads, how to be and what not to do, but then they left us alone, and most people from the hotel came to see him today, this also because he is missing the party, but looking at him now so weak and sick perhaps most of us aren’t in the biggest party mood any longer anyways.

Luckily in the evening it started to rain, which sorted any questions about sitting outside and watching fireworks, any party activities with this weather would be indoors and considerably less of them.

I stayed pretty long, and actually even turned out to be the last to leave, because Billy asked me to stay a bit with him after the others had left, maybe maybe because running around taking pictures of everyone puts me in the role of a more neutral observer and he wanted to be with someone who has not seen him in his role as the shy foreigner-bulimic, who never gets it right. As far as he had the energy we had some good talk. I finally had a chance asking him if he was OK with it showing the pictures of his room or not, and he said yes, he wanted that I would publish them, because he wanted to show something about bulimia people did not know or did not want to know. (I am not sure if it works that way, in my experience people are mainly voyeuristic about stuff like that, and not exactly sensitive, but who knows, perhaps one person or a half person will give a shit and not be an ass.)

Billy also told me a bit about his dad back in Austria, and how he had all his life long desperately tried to win his acknowledgment, but felt always totally see-through for him. He said also it wasn’t just that, he also had been raised with the sentence “Don’t disappoint your father!” from all sides, particularly because apparently the family was somewhat in the lime light of wherever Billy is from, (or maybe it’s one of that cases where they just thought so of themselves, that’s what I was thinking anyways when I heard that, most people here would first have to think a little to find Austria on a map, so it can hardly be that sensational, but what do I know, really.)
Billy also told me, at the same time it was a thing of impossibility to get a compliment from his dad if he had done anything special, unless it was something his dad could show off with in front of others, which anyways was pretty rare, and dad was happy to fake for the audience, a shiny facade was his biggest concern, the prize to pay for it lesser so. Or maybe some people simply can pull it off without feeling terrible, who knows.
Apparently Billy anyways felt deeply shaped by this experience and had spent ages trying to please his father and trying to earn his not-unconditional love, but sadly without any success. “When love is like this, it’s like heroin, you will never have what you’re after, but it makes you run after it more and more all the time. You either die or you leave.”

I thought about that and I thought that Billy was able to an emotional closeness that I personally wasn’t up for, probably exactly for the reasons he experienced, but he was talking about his dad after all, so I guess that is where one is a bit trapped, if no love ever comes back. No wonder he had made a runner.

On top of things Billy felt horrified at the idea that his father would learn about his budding coming-out, although at this point Billy had not even managed to really actively do anything about it, being as terribly shy as he is. He felt back home the space that was given to him was too small and the expectations not fitting at all with who he wanted to be, but there were no optional alternatives, so he had come here, but only to some extent he had gained freedom to be who he really was or wanted to become; in a way the hotel was perhaps a form of purgatory where one could sweat shit off and start fresh because nobody cared about expectations you hadn’t fulfilled wherever you came from, in that sense it really wasn’t a judgmental place, but anyways outside of the hotel life was still full of house-high challenges for Billy, besides that he was no longer welcome back home, having allegedly “betrayed his home country” by leaving it, so he had been told in the letter he had received two days ago, ironically on the same day he was also told at the Cafe where he is working to “go back to his country”… Funny, somehow. I told him not to be bothered about either, but that’s always an advice lost in space telling someone who is hurt he shouldn’t be bothering.

So I listened to all that and filling water glasses for Billy of which he would at best drink only a few tiny sips, in between there were long breaks in which he said nothing and only looked terribly sad and lost. He also told me, his grandfather had worked during National-socialism in underground resistance, which was definitely one more reason why he could not cope at all with the recently (?) developed fascist mood some of his younger family members and just wished to be as far away from them as possible, but the current vote back home had brought all that back to the surface.

Unfortunately I didn’t have many comforting things to tell him, I thought he had already done the best thing I could have suggested, which was move far, far away; and yet the shadow of the love-less family home seemed to reach further than that and were still able to catch up with him even out here. And apparently he was still torn back and forth.

Once again I wished Billy wouldn’t be just so bloody over-sensitive and take things more lighthearted, or even better, not give a damn in the first place, but Billy is Billy, and part of who he is is giving a damn.

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 2” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy’s hospital night stand” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy’s hospital closet” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 3” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 4” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 5 – looking at me” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 7 – looking away” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 8 – Billy’s hands” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 11” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 13” (2016)

At some point I started taking more and more pictures, the more I listed to Billy and the more I felt sorry and helpless I also felt him reaching out in a way, but me not being able to grasp it and us missing each other, in fact: it seemed everyone was missing out on Billy and he seemed to slowly slip away, so I clicked away frantically, although without really being able to hold onto whatever I tried holding and without getting rid of that feeling.

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 19” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 21” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 26” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 29” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 30” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 31” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 32” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 33 – Billy looking at me 4” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 34 – Billy looking at me 5” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 36 – get well card” (2016)

Billy also told me that had a massive crush on Larry, but didn’t want to say anything to him, as he was sure Larry would reject him. I couldn’t picture the two together myself, at least not for longer than a night, no, actually not even for a night, and to me Larry seemed a bit of a dick anyways, who put a lot of effort into always being the coolest of them all, but the heart knows what the heart wants I guess, and anyways it sounded like it was just a fantasy.

I mentioned to Billy that Larry had helped cleaning up his room, but already whilst I said so I realized it might have been better not to bring the mess up in the room yesterday and the fact that the admired Larry had seen this particular mess. Billy crinched and laughed a little, then he asked, “Is it possible to grow up and not sell out?”, which took me totally off guard, but whilst I thought about the question Billy laughed again and said, “it’s not mine, that’s from ‘Catcher in the Rye'”, so I laughed too, thinking, I wouldn’t put it beyond Billy coming up with something like that by himself.

A couple of times I got up to leave, but only sat back down because Billy started again talking about something, but finally he was too exhausted and his eyes fell closed. I took my final pictures, forcing myself at some point to stop, and then stood up quietly, went to the door and slipped through it, making sure I would not wake him.

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 37” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Billy in the hospital bed 38” (2016)

On my way home the idea came to me that somehow this maybe, maybe hadn’t been really an accident.