rest in peace, Billy

These are the moments the world remembers.

The face that launched a thousand ships. The shot heard 'round the world. Where were you when JFK was killed? Where were you when the towers fell? Where were you when you heard the news of the death of Billy Hughes?

I was with friends. We were in the lobby our favorite Italian restaurant. It’s a little place that most locals don’t even know about. I was sipping on a merlot when the wife texted me: BILLY’S DEAD.

I didn’t rush home. I didn’t make any phone calls. I went about my life as if I had never met him – as if I hadn’t had hundreds of thousands of recorded conversations with him. We talked about him over dinner, of course. But only in the way one talks about any other celebrity who’s death gives their life or their product one last gasp of air before disappearing into obscurity.

It’s no secret that Billy and I had a falling out. The exact details of the falling out have been confused, misconstrued, sensationalized, and usually completely fictionalized. I’ve never spoken of it – not publically at any rate. Perhaps now it’s time to come clean. Perhaps to lay Billy to rest, I need to make my peace with him.

He went from obscurity to national icon to world-famous superstar. He gave us hope when we had none – something a lot of people seem to want to forget. While one can still find a handful of fan sites, Billy Hughes is a cautionary tale – though he was once considered a role model. He was young, full of life, and full of ideas – and we loved him.

And he loved us.

He loved us until we turned on him. We betrayed him. I betrayed him.

But I knew him before all that. I knew him before anyone else did. I was the one he came to. He chose me. And I have thousands of hours of recorded conversations and interviews that I edited down into articles and front page stories.

I’m going to transcribe them now and post them here.

Unedited. Uncensored.

So that maybe you might come to know him as I did: Billy Hughes, the Boy Who Could Fly.

-Tim Craine