Outside Reading #4- pgs. 147-186

As part one of this book comes to a close, the author begins to examine whats wrong with Billy and some of the mental problems he may have had. One of the eight people who evaluated Billy found his intelligence to be pretty average, but "the fact that Billy was very verbally reticent may have spuriously lowered his verbal IQ score" (148). Billy was found to have "extreme learning problems in reading and spelling" because of "a behavioral disorder, and previously poor classroom survival skills" (148). Billy did attempt to make a cry for help to a different social director, telling her of "his father's drinking, of the whippings, the verbal abuse, and the violent altercations of his parents" (149). However the only result in this statement, was the social director going immidiately to the parents about the suggested problems. When Linda and Bill Sr. asked Billy about what he said, he automatically denied saying anything out of fear of being beat. Jody explains in her 1999 affidavit, "from my brother's stories, I learned that reporting parental abuse would only lead to more of the same" (150). These kids were so used to physical and mental abuse, they were scared out of their minds to do anything about it. They would try and tell someone, but all that resulted in was more of the same activities at home. Billy had been said to be living solely on impulse. And the author goes to explain that "impulsiveness, the tendency to act without thinking, is associated with a host of chronic and debilitating behaviors: alcoholism, drug abuse, smoking, eating disorders, attention deficit disorders, aggression, personality disorders, as well as suicide" (153). Oh and Billy was later quoted saying, "If I could be alone, up a tree, stoned, that was really nice. Peaceful" (152). In other words, Billy both sold and was a user of marijuana. However, it is possible that this impulsiveness was somewhat hereditary. So if we assume that this way of acting on impulse was partly because of having a alcoholic, violent dad along with the use of marijuana, "Billy's biological makeup would have made him particularly vulnerable to that same volatile father, who traumatized him routinely and provided ulimited emotionally disorienting early experiences" (154).

The pages grow thin, but a whole other side to Billy is still being shown. His intentions really were good, but because of everthing that happened, his actions to what he thought were definitely not the best way to fix things. Jody goes to to tell Kathryn, the author, that Linda was abused as well as her and Billy. And that Billy was actually trying to stand up to his father and stop the beating of his mom. But then, Bill Sr. would turn to Billy. Billy tells us, "Part of the problem was that my dad felt like I took sides with her, against him, because I stepped in sometimes when he was gonna hit her. It wasn't that I took her side or that I thought she was right. Just that I wanted to stop him from hitting her" (155). When the author heard this response in a interview with him in jail, she couldn't help but ask why he would try to stop. His voice quieted, and said "you're not supposed to...you don't hit women" (155). This quote really impacted me. I mean, after everything he has gone through, chivalry still exsists somewhere in his being. He knows that its wrong to hit women, and he stands by that.

I guess a theme to this half of the book, is that because one could inhabit a sinister emotional way of thinking after every traumatic thing, one after the other, one is expected to think of the most damaging outcome to a given situation.

Harrison, Kathryn. "While They Slept". New York: Random House, 2008.