July, 2010

Issue #10

Billy's Tailor
by Larry Lefkowitz

Yes, I Immanuel Copland, was Billy the Kid's tailor. Perhaps this is my only claim to fame. You laugh, but would be surprised how many people are impressed by the fact. Particularly since Billy was gunned down. Since he is not alive and therefore could not be possibly offended by it, I can go into more detail when the curious — especially the young ones — ask me all sorts of questions about Billy. If Billy was touchy with other people, he was always polite to me. Why? I think it was because I was fond of quoting wisdom from the Bible. Billy was partial to impressive speech. Or maybe it was because I came from Europe and treated my customers, regardless of station in life, with Old World courtesy. There was a touch of class about Billy which surprised those meeting him, given his being a 'kid' and also his reputation, and Billy appreciated class in others.

Speaking of the Bible, I once mentioned to Billy its commandment to the children of Israel to set up cities of refuge for fleeing murderers.

"Should have them in America — might come in handy sometime," he said, followed by his hip-slapping laugh.

I explained that cities of refuge were not for escaped murderers — only for those who killed someone by accident.

"Accident?" He seemed disappointed. "Ain't many killings hereabouts by accident."

Billy always called me "Mr. Copland" and said on his very first visit that I should call him "Billy." I could hardly call him "Mr. the Kid" (my little joke). When he told me to call him "Billy", I told him to call me "Manny", but he insisted on "Mr. Copland."

One time, another customer in the shop called me "Copland" in his presence.

"Mr. Copland," Billy corrected him.

The man blanched, said "Mr. Copland" most respectfully, and thereafter continued to do so, even when alone with me in the shop.

Billy usually came to me to purchase a pair of pants.

"No pair of pants in the saddle lasts like yours, Mr. Copland."

Take that, Levi Strauss. Occasionally he purchased a jacket — he liked to dress up for special occasions.

"Hangings and such", he joked.

Billy was fond of humorous, if somewhat macabre, comments.

I would make the side of the jacket on his gun side wider and with a bulge to cover the pistol (let's see your Eastern tailors match that!) so that when he entered a place where it was required to check your gun, the "cover" allowed the proprietor a pretext (out of sight, out of mind) to make him an exception to the rule.

When I measured Billy for a pair of pants or a jacket ("Careful, I'm ticklish under the arms" invariably accompanied the latter task), he nonchalantly took off his gun and gunbelt and handed them to me "for safekeeping" before he went behind the screen to try on the "possible purchase" (his words).

"You're one of the few hombres I would trust with my gun, Mr. Copland," then adding lightly, "Now don't go target practicing on any of the good citizens passing your emporium." Sometimes he would say, "There's a price on my head, but don't go getting any ideas."

I usually rejoined, "I'd lose in the long run — you're a good customer."

Billy was a neat dresser (I like to think I had a hand in that!), fastidious in his choice of color and design, even to requesting clothes to match the color of the Mexican sombrero he often wore. I think the sombrero was to give him height (he was five feet eight inches tall) in keeping with his confiding to me on one occasion that he liked his attire to make him appear taller to "justify my reputation." I wasn't sure if he meant the notorious outlaw reputation — falsely applied — or the beloved folk hero he was already becoming in his, alas, too short lifetime.

Singing came naturally to Billy, in keeping with his generally cheerful disposition. He had a fine tenor voice. Once, after he sang a bit from 'Red River Valley', as I was measuring him, I told him that he would make a first class cantor.

"Canter?" he asked, referring to the horse's gait that is faster than a trot but slower than a gallop. When I explained that the word — with an "o" in place of the "e" — meant "a kind of singing rabbi", he replied, "I'm available, if not otherwise employed."

Billy was articulate, which never failed to surprise people who didn't expect it from someone who "spoke with his gun", a favorite localism.

Sometimes I think I am one of the few people who miss Billy. As a person, not a legend. But then he was something of a legend while still 'in the fullness of life' as the Bible puts it. Which is why having been "Billy the Kid's tailor" impresses people more than if I had been "Napoleon's tailor." A young writer named Samuel Clemens who was passing through the territory at the time seemed fascinated by the fact.

"Will your will specify that 'Billy the Kid's tailor' be inscribed on your tombstone?" he asked me.

"It is not Jewish custom to put such epitaphs on our graves," I said.

"A pity," he said. "I rather take to it."

"So do I, but I prefer the title while I'm still around to enjoy it."

He roared with approval. He ordered a pair of pants "in the style that Billy favored." He declined my offer of a Billy the Kid style jacket with a bulge to cover a pistol.

"I'm roughing it, but not to that extent."

Billy was buried in a suit I made for him — ordered post mortem by the "burial detail" composed of the men responsible for his death or who went along with it. I was indeed sorry he had been shot, though there were others who said, "good riddance", and similar. Those given the task of burying Billy chose a suit from material I considered not sufficiently worthy of him. I stood on my choice — what I thought Billy would have wanted. I owed him that.

"Oh, have it your way," they gave in in the end, in a hurry to finish "the business", as they put it, not before I had to listen to irreverent comments of the "You should have made him a suit with a lead lining" type. Western humor tends to the rough and there were people Billy rubbed the wrong way. Some were envious of the affection and awe many felt toward him, especially the downtrodden. When people said such things, I said that it is forbidden to speak evil of the dead.

Once, Billy, amusedly, gave me "something to remember him by" — a bullet taken from his leg after "a fracas." I put it on his grave instead of a small stone which, according to Jewish custom, is placed on the grave as a mark of respect by a mourner.

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