Excerpt: Billie Jean

Billie Jean had always hated her name. A child of the 80’s everyone knew where it was from and she was mercilessly teased because of it. She tried telling her classmate, people at the grocery, doctor’s office or just strangers on the street that she was named after a beloved Aunt who had passed, or her mother’s childhood sweetheart she had never quite forgot but her parents would just laugh and say she was named after the Michael Jackson song which was playing when Billie was conceived. In the back of her father’s VW Bus. In the boonies of Indiana somewhere.

When she was in elementary school it didn’t bother her as much because her class mates didn’t get it. They weren’t allowed to listen to Michael or were to stupid to put it together. She tried going by B.J. to further distance herself from the famous song that was the bane of her very existence but once she reached 5th grade and found out what a B.J. really was that practice stopped immediately. Better to be know for being a Jackson song before he went crazy than as a sexual game teenagers play before their parents come in looking for them.

She endured the treatment through high school. Everyone got teased in high school. She was in the band, which didn’t help. The teasing got worse and the coverage of Jackson’s seeming breakdown got worse. She ignored the taunts as much as she could but found herself spending most of her class time in the back hiding from everyone. This isn’t to say that she didn’t have a close knit group of fellow band geeks that was great friends with. They didn’t care what her name was, as long as she could keep time, read music and didn’t make an ass out of the band during performances. She wasn’t the best player, never got above 3rd chair but she didn’t care. She had friends who understood music, lyrics and loved that she was named after Billie Jean. She was at home, in heaven and had found her nirvana.

Little did Billie Jean (she always went by both names because going by Billie made her sound like a man and she learned early on in her life that was not a good thing) know that she was on a crash course with her destiny as soon as she hit the truly most awkward part of her life.

Her mid-twenties.