Pet Dick

On the early morning of April 7, celebrated animal philanthropist and cultural icon Dick Bill happened upon a cold, wounded, diseased, god-awful ugly yet strangely promising stray bat behind his home, took it in and began nursing it back to health inside his downtown apartment throughout part of this year’s unseasonably cold spring season. Lovingly dubbed Ramone Bill, named after somebody named Ramone, the terrifying young insectivore was put on a strict nutritional intake of crickets and Percocet and was making bold strides in regaining his vigor when the young mammal was tragically found dead in Dick’s home during the late afternoon of April 18. Ramone Bill was only 11 days old. Dick Bill had puked only four times that afternoon. Ramone is remembered among those who knew him as being very “hangy” but possessing a quick-witted yet pronouncedly dark sense of humor. Despite his ill health and being blind since birth, Ramone Bill managed to carry a .308 lifetime batting average and, despite being a notoriously straight-faced bluffer who routinely won hands by drastically overbetting the pot, was reported to have held two pair – aces and eights, commonly referred to as the “dead bat’s hand” – at the time of his death. Ramone Bill is survived by approximately 8,000,000 bat brethren in Michigan alone. Private autopsy reports suggested that Ramone had been infected with the rabies virus despite being strictly heterosexual. In keeping with what Dick Bill believed could very well have been the animal’s dying wishes, Ramone was buried in dirt near that park next to the old Reptile House at the corner of Division and Cherry where city officials last year ordered the construction of an elaborate park in which the area’s homeless could congregate.

April 2011