Harrowed, harried, and haunted, Billy glances at you with uncertainty leaking out the corner of his eyes. He wants you to like him, but he doesn’t think you do. He wants to do the right thing.

Billy’s schizophrenic. That’s what his sister told me. She doesn’t ever seem to want to talk about it, but she warned me about him before I came home with her for her brother’s wedding. My brother Billy is schizophrenic, she said. What does that mean exactly? I asked. It’s a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, noticeable deterioration in the level of every day functionality, alienation, disorientation, and by disintegration of personality expressed as dysfunction of feeling, thought, and conduct, sometimes in the presence of contradictory or antagonistic qualities. Oh, I see, I said, not really quite seeing at all. Well, is it nurture or nature? I asked. I don’t know, she said, but did I tell you Jordana is moving in with Teddy? Can you believe it? They’ve only known each other a month, I mean isn’t that crazy? Can you imagine how…

End of discussion.

And now here I am, face-to-face with Billy the Schizophrenic. I want to help him. I have no idea how to do that. I try to engage him. So, how’s it going? Whatchew been up to? What’s been happening? But all I get out of him is a few shrugs, a couple of I don’t knows, and a bunch of nothin’s. He has a worried haircut and he hasn’t shaved in a while. His parents have bought a espresso machine. He loves that espresso machine. Has a system. Grind the beans. Put them in the filter. Pat them down. Screw on the filter. Pour in the milk. Fire up the steamer, which hisses and froths as he observes obsessively. Billy looks so happy when that tiny cup fills up with piping hot java. When it’s done he beams with proud satisfaction. I don’t drink coffee, but when he offers me one of his schizophrenic espressos, I say yes. Because it makes him so happy.

Billy is supposed to be the best man at his big brother’s wedding. But he’s read somewhere that the best man is responsible for the wife if anything ever happens to the husband. Has to marry her if the groom dies. He’s irate, insulted, furious with his brother for saddling him with this enormous responsibility, for which he feels completely ill-equipped. He retreats into a thick black funk that lays over him like a shroud of cloud around a chain smoker with lung cancer.

I try to talk to Billy. Explain how wrong he is about the whole best man thing. It’s not an insult. It’s a great honor to be the best man, and he really isn’t responsible for the wife, that’s just old-fashioned jargon from a by-gone era.

Billy’s eyes go wild as he explodes. What do you mean I’m wrong? he says. How the hell do you know? I read it in a book. Are you telling me I’m an idiot? That I don’t know how to read? That I don’t understand what’s going on here? What makes you think you know what’s going on better than me? You think you’re some damn genius or something? I know what the hell I’m talking about, so don’t tell me I don’t, you asshole, you bastard, you son of a bitch.

Then Billy bursts off, taking his storm with him. Doesn’t come to his brother’s wedding. Just disappears like he has a hundred times before.