March 28, 2019 • 29 mins
New York City. The 1970s. Artists flock to the East Village hoping to make a name for themselves. Enter Rebecca, an aspiring model, who meets Billy Balls, a rock and roll musician like no other. They fall madly in love and are inseparable, until one night, when Billy is mysteriously shot.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
When you pair your skills with our spices, you get
a very potent combination. No matter what's on the menu,
McCormick Culinary has the power to make your flavors stand out.
A lot of people are afraid of crawl. I'm in
New York City, afraid that there's no such thing as
a safe neighborhood anymore. It's the mid seventies in New
(00:24):
York City. Graffiti covered subway cars rattle through wormholes beneath
the streets. New Yorkers saw one result of the city's
tight new by Jackman, garbage began to pile up in
the streets. The city is bankrupt, and drugs and violence
are destroying people's lives. To find them, I'm afraid to
(00:44):
be able on the street. And then there's the music scene.
Downtown bars with sticky floors like CBGBs and Max's. Kansas
City explode with sweat and filth and energy, the birthplace
of many a rock legend. And also this guy, everybody
think Billy Balls, dead set on making a name for himself.
(01:16):
Billy had a girlfriend named Rebecca. She was bleached blonde
in a bombshell. You think I'm pretty huh? You think
I'm pretty sugar. I'm one of the few nuts you'll meet. Man.
She took no ship from anyone. Rebecca and Billy were
(01:38):
crazy about each other, living in a converted storefront in
the East Village. Then one night in the summer of
Rebecca came home to find their front window blown out
and cops everywhere. Baby boy Billy had been shot right
(02:06):
could neighbors said the guy who did it? They'd never
seen him before, A mystery man in a cowboy hat.
Billy died. His body was sent to a city cemetery,
buried in a mass grave. Rebecca never had a chance
(02:29):
to say goodbye, and she never got any answers about
why Billy was murdered. I'd like to read you. As
the years went by, the injustice and unanswered questions turned
(02:50):
to an addiction and explosions of rage that would nearly
tear her life apart. Now, almost forty years after Billy
was killed, it's time to get Rebecca some answers from
crime town. I'm io till it right, and this is
(03:14):
the ballad of Billy Balls. I'm nowhere. You know, one
of our best friends was all of a sudden murdered
and was dead and it seemed really suspicious. It seemed
(03:35):
more like an execution to me. It was fishy from
the start. They were coming in to raid for I
think drugs. You know, he was accused of litting somebody off.
I don't know. It was some political thing, and I
don't know if if it was terrorists. Some bigger pieces
(03:57):
missing here, and I think it lies in what the
fuck was Billy up to? Chapter one, Billy Balls and
his baby girl. Alrighty, I think we are good to go.
(04:24):
All right, all right, I'm gonna follow you on a
mild day in December. It feels like it warmed up
a little bit. Yeah, My producer Austin and I head
off to meet Billy's girlfriend Rebecca at her apartment. She
still lives in the East Village. All right, we're on
Third Street between second Half in the Bowery. This was
a gas station. It's now the Bowery Hotel. Things have
(04:47):
changed here. Rebecca has not How about a whole light?
Yeah yeah, you can't see is that? She just turned
on a lamp and pointed at a disco ball that's
installed in the ceiling. Rebecca is tall, rail thin, with
(05:09):
sinewy muscles wrapped around her bones. She's dressed all in
black with tattered cargo sweatpants and a ripped tank top.
A high ponytail dangles down her back. She crosses her
small apartment to a pot simmering on the stove last
night in the middle of the night. Take a look.
(05:30):
Come on, it's it's the direct Blood Transfusion and it
has Spanish smoked popers. Well, let's let's do you want
to sit down? And Rebecca doesn't own a couch, so
we sit on a futon and she pulls out an
oversized brown leather folder. What is this? This is Billy's portfolio? Yes,
(05:53):
oh shit? Should I open it? You want open up?
You can open it? Oh my god, this is Billie's
resume is William Heightsman and then there's his phone number.
He was William Heightsman on paper, but around town he
was just Billy Ball. She played in CDGS Lots and
(06:16):
Max's that's Billy. He played rock and roll piano, saying
like a motherfucker, and he dressed the part. Guy wasn't
a big fan of wearing shirts. Huh no, because that's
his stage, of which she wears just skin. Okay, look
how hot he is. He's so fucking sexy. So this
(06:37):
is a picture of Billy, uh was his hand and
his parents. I don't know what he's doing, scratching his balls,
no doubt. And he's got a cigarette hanging out of
his mouth. Oh god, I can't even points his photograph.
It's sacrilegious. Okay, look at him. Oh he's so hot.
(06:58):
Another photo, this time Billy's joined by a bleached blonde
who carries herself like Grace Jones, statuesque and glamorous. That's
me scratching the bottom of my nose and that that's
my that's my ass. You know. The scird photo shoot
(07:25):
of you guys together, you know, Billy together. You know
it's great. Yeah, I'm not kidding, right, you look delirious
happy in this picture. Yeah, m hmm. From I Gotta
tell the Storm now, Yeah, I came here when her sixteen,
(07:53):
Rebecca's story begins with her driving clear across the country
towards the big city lights of Broadway as a teenager.
It's just like a little very tuned antenna, a little
wild animal with just an instinct that I gotta go.
(08:21):
Coming around Fort Street, tenth Avenue, where you take the
curve from the Greyhound bus station with and you see
the curtains. Everybody has the windows open, you know, coming
in and the thickest, stickiest, sweatiest part of the summer,
there's a height of healths kitchen. You can hear all
(08:48):
the music coming out in The music is plumped and
hiluptuous by the wet humidity in the air, and the
sound is in the air. What's hanging in the full
up suousness of the sticky humidity and the stickiness and
the sweat. Those hot skinny man with the A shirts
(09:13):
leaning up the window with the anemia and their black beard.
You know, I'm like, oh my god, shouting some ship
to bring up the fucking bread or whatever, shouting down
at your wife, you stupid idiot, or throwing the flower
pot out the window to clunk. Some jerk on ahead.
(09:34):
People swag walking down the street. They'll kill you. And
they're on fire. They're angry about some ship. And then
there's a little preteen prostitutes and gay prostitutes. And on
the sidewalk the black DRDs have like tent maybe three
(09:59):
ft high for turning tricks. And that inside the town
is mattresses where they're going in and charging people money
to go and fuck, we'll get a blowjob. It's undeniable.
It's all part of each other, the sounds, the whistling up,
(10:20):
shouting down, the anger, the sacks, the emotions, the sweat,
like all this ship, the cycle at the stew of life,
and that's just so refreshing. Were you ever scared? Scared?
(10:40):
Are you kidding? There's a hair raising place. Some dude
came behind me on seventy second students said, I'm gonna
kill you, you know, and I don't know how to
watch your back and your shoulder and all that ship
and people would chase you into doors with the intention
of raping and stabbing your robbing you. The whole place
(11:02):
was hair raising. So I just I think I might
be one of those people that comes alive in definitely
danger and romance. I rented a room for a month
(11:25):
and it was in a drummer's empty cement loft. It
had a box springs on sculpted olive green, really disgusting,
tacky carpet, and that was a no blankets now nothing.
In the next little abandoned office was a pair, a
(11:49):
little teenage pair, a little white girl and a little
black boy that were porn workers, and he would wear
his bathrobe, you know. And that's where one weekend a
man showed up named Billy Balls. That's after the break.
(12:15):
I met him one Saturday afternoon. It's and twenty one
year old Rebecca is living in New York City. She's
about to meet the love of her life, the wild musician,
the disruptor, Billy Balls. I'm wearing, by the way, black
(12:37):
velveteen step up the side torito or pants, kind of
capri length, and a red swede kind of fifties jacket
with some paint splattering on it and short bleached blonde hair.
And uh, the elevator opens as it's becoming early dusk,
(13:00):
m and off the elevator comes Billy Balls, wearing knee
pads and black leather roller skates and a black leather jacket.
And he has a Sicilian aninia his black hair and
(13:25):
pale skin and a little razors stubble on the chest
and a pinch to the devil right here on the chin.
You know. We take one look at each other and
my god, that was fucking it. That's it. It's called love.
It first sight, like a landslide. Just overwhelming magnet attraction,
(13:53):
like a magnet cling and he says to me, to
a cigarette, And we made our way a couple of
floors up to an abandoned garment floor with couches and
(14:13):
garment degree and we got it on within twenty minutes
of setting eyes upon each other. And that was it.
You know. He was there for a rehearsal with Roy
the drummer, and he's put a chair in front of
(14:38):
his electric piano which was on a ironing board, you know,
and proceeded to play and sing. For me, this is
Billy just too much. He was so fucking real and
(15:08):
so talented and a sad get up. And I was
like my cheeks were like flushing across. It was like
I'm naked under the spot, like like embarrassment, the nakedness,
(15:30):
the revealing this, you know. And I remember thinking, oh
my god, you know, because I knew with just my instincts,
this is deciding fate for eternity, moments of am I
going to be with this person or not? And I
(15:53):
I joined him, No, I'm with this person for eternity.
You're saying, I have a question about this. It's a
piece of paper, This looks like Billy's handwriting. This is
a song we wrote together in the bag that winter.
Can you read it? Yeah, man, it's his handwriting, alright.
(16:19):
This is the words to the song we wrote. He
goes hot flashes, hot flashes. It feels more like waves
of heat. The words hot, hot flashes, hot flashes feels
more like waves of heat up my spine, into my head,
(16:47):
hot flashes. It's a sexually explicit song totally about or
gas mouse and the hallucinations during or gas. Most because
we've got it on five times a day, every single
day modus operandi. I gave forty pounds in one month
(17:18):
from that period of holding up in the bed and
only eating olive oil and the black Jewish Ukrainian bread
from the bakery on the corner right there, and basically
never leaving the bed m Eventually, Rebecca and Billy got
(17:47):
their own place, a converted storefront under a flophouse called
the Valencia Hotel. Thirteen third Avenue was pretty modernistic at
thirteen third Avenue. You know, he had no heat, he
had no water, I had no kitchen, but he fixed
(18:09):
it up. He put sheet rock on the walls and
five layers of soundproofing on the floor, and and the
soundproofing was for the because the rehearsal studio is underneath
and the cella, so it was loud anyway. And the
captain's bed near the back with a little bar refrigerator
(18:30):
and a hot plate made of nice baths hub for
me and made me a nice makeup mirror with big
light bulbs. He drilled the holes to put the sockets,
and he made me a beautiful makeup mirror sliding glass doors.
But you can tell she gets lost in memories of
this place, a popper's palace that Billy built just for her. Yeah,
(19:00):
there's pictures right there in the house. Yeah, there's a
picture that let's just see it. It's a polaroid in color.
Come on. In this photo of Rebecca and Billy in
their storefront, sheet rock covers the walls. A single abstract
painting hangs above their bed, and Rebecca has a very
particular look, no eyebrows at all, eyebrows painted on. Really
(19:24):
was showing me how to do my eyebrows to flatter
my features. It sounds like Billy showed you a lot
of stuff in their new home. Billy pushed Rebecca to
chase her dreams of a life in show business. He
is a master showman, and I was going to be
a fashion model and better actress. I knew that when
(19:47):
I was a kid. And all the things that you're
talking about have to do with some form of show business,
like for photography, the eyebrows or you know, singing. This
is gonna pick that bab He told me his the
(20:10):
technique to learn to sing, you know, correctly. He's kind
of tall. He's really fine. Someday I hope to make him.
Rebecca found her person. There was no one else on
(20:35):
earth for either of them, and they knew it. He
was Billy Balls and she was his baby girl. But
like when you and Billy were alone, like we were
alone a lot. He made a point of it, who
(20:55):
lock the door and we will be alone? What would
you do that one we were in love? What do
you think we did? The bed was the heart of
the home. You know. He had a TV and we
were watched nineteen forties Hollywood movies from the bed all
night sometimes in between being in love and uh, we
(21:24):
just talk. When I've been around birds, you said, why
because all my life, when I was growing up, my
brother had birds always and you have a tape one
of those intimate conversations, mostly harmless, little birds, all of them.
Where did you keep all of those birds? Isn't that
(21:53):
pronounced a vary? Yeah? I don't know. Maybe I've been
playing it wrong all my life. Where was that avery? Yeah?
In our backyard? Wherever was you mean he had covered
(22:14):
with glass or so there? Yeah? Wiing like sounds like
Rebecca and Billy were together for years five years common
law changed from seven to five. We legally fell into
(22:35):
the common law married category, even though he proposed to me, wait,
can you tell me that story when you when did
that happen? Is this baby? Girls, you want to get married,
if you want to have a baby, whatever you want
to do. And it says when you make a first
million dollars? Yeah, after the break the day that changed everything.
(23:17):
First of all, it was two right, uh huh. And
it was a summertime. Any idea of the month? Yeah,
like me, June, you don't know the day. I've blocked
it out to fully that My mind just blocked at
(23:38):
the funk out And uh I was visiting Jade that evening.
Rebecca remembers that in the early summer she was visiting
a friend on set, and that she walked back almost
four miles to the home she shared with Billy. And
(24:00):
I come up to the storefront on Avenue where we lived,
and there's orange, the orange tape all over and somehow
it's open, as if a window is broken or something
like that, because it was all open, and there's like
twelve or thirteen overcoated dicks rummaging around in my house.
(24:28):
By overcoated dicks, she means, the police. You could see
them mealing around in our house and tossing ship and
turning shipped upside down, our furniture, all our things, all
our things is really every little thing is a very
special thing, you know. And uh. I went to red
(24:56):
on the corner of the news stand, the gay dude
with the glasses and the red hair, with the cut
off sleeve jeans jacket, and I says, what the fund
is going on? And he says something happened and there
someone was shot. And I went in there and I
crossed the tape and they says, you can't come in here,
(25:19):
and I says, this is my house. I need to
change my shoes, and he says, you can't come in here.
I felt like, I was so fucked up. I didn't
know what was going on. And I went around the
corner in our car, hit his car to Mercury and
(25:44):
there's men crawling around in there. They were undercover dicks,
and I said, I ran down the street. I said,
get the funk out of our car. And says William Heinzman.
Shot is shot five times and he's in such and
(26:08):
such hospital. And I ran from one hospital to the next.
I was on warrior mode, you know, in high warrior mode.
I was really on a war path to get to
(26:31):
Billy and to find out what the funk was going on,
you know. In the next chapter of The Ballad of
(26:53):
Billy Balls, Rebecca says goodbye to the love of her
life and goes looking for answers. Crime town is Zack
(27:22):
Stewart Pontier and Mark smirlin The Ballad of Billy Balls
is hosted by me Io Tillet Right and made in
partnership with Cadence thirteen. The show is produced by me
Kevin Sheppard and Ryan Swigert. Our senior producer is Austin Mitchell,
editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling, fact checking
(27:45):
by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed by Sam Bear.
Sound designed by Ryan Swigert and Sam Bear. Music by
Kenny qc Yak. Our title track is Dark Allies by
Light Asylum. Archival research by Brennan Reese. If you want
to know more about my story, you can pick up
(28:05):
my memoir Darling Days, or find me on the internet.
Um Io loves You Everywhere Thanks to Drew Nellis, Jesse Rudoy,
Ula Culpa, Jamie Raisin Wade Slipkin, Daniella Aria, rachel Leie Wright,
Emily Wiederman, Green Card Pictures, Alex Weinberg, Alessandro Santuro, Bill Clegg,
(28:26):
Shannon Funcius and Bruno Coviello, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum and
the team at Cadence thirteen, and of course, Rebecca, without
whom none of this would be possible while and spout
(29:08):
the thoughts out
When you pair your skills with our spices, you get
a very potent combination. No matter what's on the menu,
McCormick Culinary has the power to make your flavors stand out.
A lot of people are afraid of crawl. I'm in
New York City, afraid that there's no such thing as
a safe neighborhood anymore. It's the mid seventies in New
(00:24):
York City. Graffiti covered subway cars rattle through wormholes beneath
the streets. New Yorkers saw one result of the city's
tight new by Jackman, garbage began to pile up in
the streets. The city is bankrupt, and drugs and violence
are destroying people's lives. To find them, I'm afraid to
(00:44):
be able on the street. And then there's the music scene.
Downtown bars with sticky floors like CBGBs and Max's. Kansas
City explode with sweat and filth and energy, the birthplace
of many a rock legend. And also this guy, everybody
think Billy Balls, dead set on making a name for himself.
(01:16):
Billy had a girlfriend named Rebecca. She was bleached blonde
in a bombshell. You think I'm pretty huh? You think
I'm pretty sugar. I'm one of the few nuts you'll meet. Man.
She took no ship from anyone. Rebecca and Billy were
(01:38):
crazy about each other, living in a converted storefront in
the East Village. Then one night in the summer of
Rebecca came home to find their front window blown out
and cops everywhere. Baby boy Billy had been shot right
(02:06):
could neighbors said the guy who did it? They'd never
seen him before, A mystery man in a cowboy hat.
Billy died. His body was sent to a city cemetery,
buried in a mass grave. Rebecca never had a chance
(02:29):
to say goodbye, and she never got any answers about
why Billy was murdered. I'd like to read you. As
the years went by, the injustice and unanswered questions turned
(02:50):
to an addiction and explosions of rage that would nearly
tear her life apart. Now, almost forty years after Billy
was killed, it's time to get Rebecca some answers from
crime town. I'm io till it right, and this is
(03:14):
the ballad of Billy Balls. I'm nowhere. You know, one
of our best friends was all of a sudden murdered
and was dead and it seemed really suspicious. It seemed
(03:35):
more like an execution to me. It was fishy from
the start. They were coming in to raid for I
think drugs. You know, he was accused of litting somebody off.
I don't know. It was some political thing, and I
don't know if if it was terrorists. Some bigger pieces
(03:57):
missing here, and I think it lies in what the
fuck was Billy up to? Chapter one, Billy Balls and
his baby girl. Alrighty, I think we are good to go.
(04:24):
All right, all right, I'm gonna follow you on a
mild day in December. It feels like it warmed up
a little bit. Yeah, My producer Austin and I head
off to meet Billy's girlfriend Rebecca at her apartment. She
still lives in the East Village. All right, we're on
Third Street between second Half in the Bowery. This was
a gas station. It's now the Bowery Hotel. Things have
(04:47):
changed here. Rebecca has not How about a whole light?
Yeah yeah, you can't see is that? She just turned
on a lamp and pointed at a disco ball that's
installed in the ceiling. Rebecca is tall, rail thin, with
(05:09):
sinewy muscles wrapped around her bones. She's dressed all in
black with tattered cargo sweatpants and a ripped tank top.
A high ponytail dangles down her back. She crosses her
small apartment to a pot simmering on the stove last
night in the middle of the night. Take a look.
(05:30):
Come on, it's it's the direct Blood Transfusion and it
has Spanish smoked popers. Well, let's let's do you want
to sit down? And Rebecca doesn't own a couch, so
we sit on a futon and she pulls out an
oversized brown leather folder. What is this? This is Billy's portfolio? Yes,
(05:53):
oh shit? Should I open it? You want open up?
You can open it? Oh my god, this is Billie's
resume is William Heightsman and then there's his phone number.
He was William Heightsman on paper, but around town he
was just Billy Ball. She played in CDGS Lots and
(06:16):
Max's that's Billy. He played rock and roll piano, saying
like a motherfucker, and he dressed the part. Guy wasn't
a big fan of wearing shirts. Huh no, because that's
his stage, of which she wears just skin. Okay, look
how hot he is. He's so fucking sexy. So this
(06:37):
is a picture of Billy, uh was his hand and
his parents. I don't know what he's doing, scratching his balls,
no doubt. And he's got a cigarette hanging out of
his mouth. Oh god, I can't even points his photograph.
It's sacrilegious. Okay, look at him. Oh he's so hot.
(06:58):
Another photo, this time Billy's joined by a bleached blonde
who carries herself like Grace Jones, statuesque and glamorous. That's
me scratching the bottom of my nose and that that's
my that's my ass. You know. The scird photo shoot
(07:25):
of you guys together, you know, Billy together. You know
it's great. Yeah, I'm not kidding, right, you look delirious
happy in this picture. Yeah, m hmm. From I Gotta
tell the Storm now, Yeah, I came here when her sixteen,
(07:53):
Rebecca's story begins with her driving clear across the country
towards the big city lights of Broadway as a teenager.
It's just like a little very tuned antenna, a little
wild animal with just an instinct that I gotta go.
(08:21):
Coming around Fort Street, tenth Avenue, where you take the
curve from the Greyhound bus station with and you see
the curtains. Everybody has the windows open, you know, coming
in and the thickest, stickiest, sweatiest part of the summer,
there's a height of healths kitchen. You can hear all
(08:48):
the music coming out in The music is plumped and
hiluptuous by the wet humidity in the air, and the
sound is in the air. What's hanging in the full
up suousness of the sticky humidity and the stickiness and
the sweat. Those hot skinny man with the A shirts
(09:13):
leaning up the window with the anemia and their black beard.
You know, I'm like, oh my god, shouting some ship
to bring up the fucking bread or whatever, shouting down
at your wife, you stupid idiot, or throwing the flower
pot out the window to clunk. Some jerk on ahead.
(09:34):
People swag walking down the street. They'll kill you. And
they're on fire. They're angry about some ship. And then
there's a little preteen prostitutes and gay prostitutes. And on
the sidewalk the black DRDs have like tent maybe three
(09:59):
ft high for turning tricks. And that inside the town
is mattresses where they're going in and charging people money
to go and fuck, we'll get a blowjob. It's undeniable.
It's all part of each other, the sounds, the whistling up,
(10:20):
shouting down, the anger, the sacks, the emotions, the sweat,
like all this ship, the cycle at the stew of life,
and that's just so refreshing. Were you ever scared? Scared?
(10:40):
Are you kidding? There's a hair raising place. Some dude
came behind me on seventy second students said, I'm gonna
kill you, you know, and I don't know how to
watch your back and your shoulder and all that ship
and people would chase you into doors with the intention
of raping and stabbing your robbing you. The whole place
(11:02):
was hair raising. So I just I think I might
be one of those people that comes alive in definitely
danger and romance. I rented a room for a month
(11:25):
and it was in a drummer's empty cement loft. It
had a box springs on sculpted olive green, really disgusting,
tacky carpet, and that was a no blankets now nothing.
In the next little abandoned office was a pair, a
(11:49):
little teenage pair, a little white girl and a little
black boy that were porn workers, and he would wear
his bathrobe, you know. And that's where one weekend a
man showed up named Billy Balls. That's after the break.
(12:15):
I met him one Saturday afternoon. It's and twenty one
year old Rebecca is living in New York City. She's
about to meet the love of her life, the wild musician,
the disruptor, Billy Balls. I'm wearing, by the way, black
(12:37):
velveteen step up the side torito or pants, kind of
capri length, and a red swede kind of fifties jacket
with some paint splattering on it and short bleached blonde hair.
And uh, the elevator opens as it's becoming early dusk,
(13:00):
m and off the elevator comes Billy Balls, wearing knee
pads and black leather roller skates and a black leather jacket.
And he has a Sicilian aninia his black hair and
(13:25):
pale skin and a little razors stubble on the chest
and a pinch to the devil right here on the chin.
You know. We take one look at each other and
my god, that was fucking it. That's it. It's called love.
It first sight, like a landslide. Just overwhelming magnet attraction,
(13:53):
like a magnet cling and he says to me, to
a cigarette, And we made our way a couple of
floors up to an abandoned garment floor with couches and
(14:13):
garment degree and we got it on within twenty minutes
of setting eyes upon each other. And that was it.
You know. He was there for a rehearsal with Roy
the drummer, and he's put a chair in front of
(14:38):
his electric piano which was on a ironing board, you know,
and proceeded to play and sing. For me, this is
Billy just too much. He was so fucking real and
(15:08):
so talented and a sad get up. And I was
like my cheeks were like flushing across. It was like
I'm naked under the spot, like like embarrassment, the nakedness,
(15:30):
the revealing this, you know. And I remember thinking, oh
my god, you know, because I knew with just my instincts,
this is deciding fate for eternity, moments of am I
going to be with this person or not? And I
(15:53):
I joined him, No, I'm with this person for eternity.
You're saying, I have a question about this. It's a
piece of paper, This looks like Billy's handwriting. This is
a song we wrote together in the bag that winter.
Can you read it? Yeah, man, it's his handwriting, alright.
(16:19):
This is the words to the song we wrote. He
goes hot flashes, hot flashes. It feels more like waves
of heat. The words hot, hot flashes, hot flashes feels
more like waves of heat up my spine, into my head,
(16:47):
hot flashes. It's a sexually explicit song totally about or
gas mouse and the hallucinations during or gas. Most because
we've got it on five times a day, every single
day modus operandi. I gave forty pounds in one month
(17:18):
from that period of holding up in the bed and
only eating olive oil and the black Jewish Ukrainian bread
from the bakery on the corner right there, and basically
never leaving the bed m Eventually, Rebecca and Billy got
(17:47):
their own place, a converted storefront under a flophouse called
the Valencia Hotel. Thirteen third Avenue was pretty modernistic at
thirteen third Avenue. You know, he had no heat, he
had no water, I had no kitchen, but he fixed
(18:09):
it up. He put sheet rock on the walls and
five layers of soundproofing on the floor, and and the
soundproofing was for the because the rehearsal studio is underneath
and the cella, so it was loud anyway. And the
captain's bed near the back with a little bar refrigerator
(18:30):
and a hot plate made of nice baths hub for
me and made me a nice makeup mirror with big
light bulbs. He drilled the holes to put the sockets,
and he made me a beautiful makeup mirror sliding glass doors.
But you can tell she gets lost in memories of
this place, a popper's palace that Billy built just for her. Yeah,
(19:00):
there's pictures right there in the house. Yeah, there's a
picture that let's just see it. It's a polaroid in color.
Come on. In this photo of Rebecca and Billy in
their storefront, sheet rock covers the walls. A single abstract
painting hangs above their bed, and Rebecca has a very
particular look, no eyebrows at all, eyebrows painted on. Really
(19:24):
was showing me how to do my eyebrows to flatter
my features. It sounds like Billy showed you a lot
of stuff in their new home. Billy pushed Rebecca to
chase her dreams of a life in show business. He
is a master showman, and I was going to be
a fashion model and better actress. I knew that when
(19:47):
I was a kid. And all the things that you're
talking about have to do with some form of show business,
like for photography, the eyebrows or you know, singing. This
is gonna pick that bab He told me his the
(20:10):
technique to learn to sing, you know, correctly. He's kind
of tall. He's really fine. Someday I hope to make him.
Rebecca found her person. There was no one else on
(20:35):
earth for either of them, and they knew it. He
was Billy Balls and she was his baby girl. But
like when you and Billy were alone, like we were
alone a lot. He made a point of it, who
(20:55):
lock the door and we will be alone? What would
you do that one we were in love? What do
you think we did? The bed was the heart of
the home. You know. He had a TV and we
were watched nineteen forties Hollywood movies from the bed all
night sometimes in between being in love and uh, we
(21:24):
just talk. When I've been around birds, you said, why
because all my life, when I was growing up, my
brother had birds always and you have a tape one
of those intimate conversations, mostly harmless, little birds, all of them.
Where did you keep all of those birds? Isn't that
(21:53):
pronounced a vary? Yeah? I don't know. Maybe I've been
playing it wrong all my life. Where was that avery? Yeah?
In our backyard? Wherever was you mean he had covered
(22:14):
with glass or so there? Yeah? Wiing like sounds like
Rebecca and Billy were together for years five years common
law changed from seven to five. We legally fell into
(22:35):
the common law married category, even though he proposed to me, wait,
can you tell me that story when you when did
that happen? Is this baby? Girls, you want to get married,
if you want to have a baby, whatever you want
to do. And it says when you make a first
million dollars? Yeah, after the break the day that changed everything.
(23:17):
First of all, it was two right, uh huh. And
it was a summertime. Any idea of the month? Yeah,
like me, June, you don't know the day. I've blocked
it out to fully that My mind just blocked at
(23:38):
the funk out And uh I was visiting Jade that evening.
Rebecca remembers that in the early summer she was visiting
a friend on set, and that she walked back almost
four miles to the home she shared with Billy. And
(24:00):
I come up to the storefront on Avenue where we lived,
and there's orange, the orange tape all over and somehow
it's open, as if a window is broken or something
like that, because it was all open, and there's like
twelve or thirteen overcoated dicks rummaging around in my house.
(24:28):
By overcoated dicks, she means, the police. You could see
them mealing around in our house and tossing ship and
turning shipped upside down, our furniture, all our things, all
our things is really every little thing is a very
special thing, you know. And uh. I went to red
(24:56):
on the corner of the news stand, the gay dude
with the glasses and the red hair, with the cut
off sleeve jeans jacket, and I says, what the fund
is going on? And he says something happened and there
someone was shot. And I went in there and I
crossed the tape and they says, you can't come in here,
(25:19):
and I says, this is my house. I need to
change my shoes, and he says, you can't come in here.
I felt like, I was so fucked up. I didn't
know what was going on. And I went around the
corner in our car, hit his car to Mercury and
(25:44):
there's men crawling around in there. They were undercover dicks,
and I said, I ran down the street. I said,
get the funk out of our car. And says William Heinzman.
Shot is shot five times and he's in such and
(26:08):
such hospital. And I ran from one hospital to the next.
I was on warrior mode, you know, in high warrior mode.
I was really on a war path to get to
(26:31):
Billy and to find out what the funk was going on,
you know. In the next chapter of The Ballad of
(26:53):
Billy Balls, Rebecca says goodbye to the love of her
life and goes looking for answers. Crime town is Zack
(27:22):
Stewart Pontier and Mark smirlin The Ballad of Billy Balls
is hosted by me Io Tillet Right and made in
partnership with Cadence thirteen. The show is produced by me
Kevin Sheppard and Ryan Swigert. Our senior producer is Austin Mitchell,
editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling, fact checking
(27:45):
by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed by Sam Bear.
Sound designed by Ryan Swigert and Sam Bear. Music by
Kenny qc Yak. Our title track is Dark Allies by
Light Asylum. Archival research by Brennan Reese. If you want
to know more about my story, you can pick up
(28:05):
my memoir Darling Days, or find me on the internet.
Um Io loves You Everywhere Thanks to Drew Nellis, Jesse Rudoy,
Ula Culpa, Jamie Raisin Wade Slipkin, Daniella Aria, rachel Leie Wright,
Emily Wiederman, Green Card Pictures, Alex Weinberg, Alessandro Santuro, Bill Clegg,
(28:26):
Shannon Funcius and Bruno Coviello, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum and
the team at Cadence thirteen, and of course, Rebecca, without
whom none of this would be possible while and spout
(29:08):
the thoughts out
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