Billy Goat Jones

written by jaron summers (c) 2025

My best friend in school was Billy Jones. You might not have known him back then, but eventually, you saw him on TV or in Sports Illustrated. By that time, he was already a legend — they called him Billy Goat Jones.

He made millions with his antics. By eighteen, Billy was one of the world’s top solo rock climbers — no ropes, no fear, just raw muscle and a suicidal sense of style.

He could glide up sheer rock walls like he was on an escalator. Gravity, for him, was more of a polite suggestion than a law.

I saw him hang by one finger, twist mid-air, and fling himself across a canyon like a steroidal bird. My job? Keep him alive between miracles. I handled his gear, meals, and sleep schedule. I was the brake pedal he never used.  

Women adored him —  he was rich, handsome, and had the kind of jawline that could split wood.

He had endorsement deals for everything from vitamin pills (which were crushed Tic Tacs) to titanium carabiners shaped like his abs.

Everything was great — until we went to Switzerland.

Ah yes, Switzerland. Land of neutrality, fondue, and sinister precision. We were there to scout cliffs and cheese when we saw them: Alpine ibex — goats that mocked gravity.

They scaled the Cingino Dam like it was a playground slide. Not for sport — for salt. They craved minerals like junkies hunted their next fix. 

Billy studied the sheep through binoculars, transfixed. “First time I’ve seen something that climbs better than me,” he whispered. “We could learn from these beasts.”

That’s when we heard the voice.

“Learn? No. Evolve, Billy.”

We turned.

She was blonde. Radiant. A solar flare with highlights. Her designer hiking boots still had showroom tags fluttering like prayer flags. She introduced herself as Marla. Just Marla. 

“When I was a vet,” Marla said, not blinking. “I realized the real animals were people who didn’t monetize their potential.”

She handed Billy a business card made of pressed moss and stainless steel. It read: MARLA — Legacy Consultant. Evolution Strategist. Goat Enthusiast.

“I’ve seen you climb,” she said, dragging a manicured nail down Billy’s arm like she was drawing a dotted line for surgery.  “Your true summit isn’t out here. It’s inside you. And possibly on merchandise.”

Billy blushed so hard his freckles nearly started a brush fire.

She joined our team — then devoured it like a charismatic parasite. Replaced me as though I was cracked carabiner.  Took over Billy’s diet (raw kale sludge with something called ‘moon minerals’), his wardrobe (vegan tactical couture), even his publicist — a parrot named Theo with a blue checkmark tattoo.

“Lose the helmet,” she said. “It hides your forehead of destiny.”

.Billy began reading books like Zen and the Art of Climbing Without Dying, Goat to Great, and You, But With Hooves.

He meditated. He bleated occasionally. He called his legs “lower ascension units.”  I think they made love on tie-dye sheepskins.

I tried to help him — before Marla totally rewired his brain.  I was no match.

She seduced Billy with her mind, body and promises. Turns out Maria had two Ivy League degrees — law from Harvard and psychiatry from Yale.

Over bubbling fondue and the hum of Marla’s Bluetooth crystal diffuser, she made her move. Her pupils were dilated. Not from the wine. From something deeper. Strategy.

“Billy, darling,” she purred, “recall our conversation about … hoof implants?”

“I was kind of out of it.”

“You remember. Hoof implants.

“Goats have evolved the perfect climbing foot. We enhance yours — with adorable split hooves. You’d be unstoppable. I already trademarked Billy Feet™. We’ll launch at Coachella.  Trust me on this one, Babe.”  

I could tell by Billy’s eyes, he was not buying this woman’s pitch. 

That night, Billy stared at the stars, whispering like a haunted monk: “Billy Feet… Billy Feet…”  My best friend was getting back in sync with the Billy I knew.  Recapturing the essence of what had made him fearless.  The billions of stars in the jet black sky might have had something to do with his reset.  

For Billy and me nature doesn’t cling to what’s broken or fading—it moves on, clear-eyed and honest. That’s the way Billy would have wanted it, and the way we owed it to him.”

By dawn, he was gone.  

No goodbye. Just a note taped to a box of kale pills: “Back to basics. No contracts. No surgeries. No hooves.”

Three days later I saw Billy halfway up the Cingino Dam, mingling with ibex. He’d found his tribe and maybe himself. 

He shared salt licks with a doe. Nuzzled her neck. They climbed in sync. It was beautiful — and deeply unsettling.

The herd’s dominant male — a glacier-eyed beast with a beard full of secrets — had other ideas.

While Billy was mid-snuggle, the beast launched.  

WHAM.

Billy flew off the dam … a ragdoll in a blender. He clawed through the air; screamed something about Marla, salt, and toe yoga.

They never found my friend’s body.

Some say he lives in the Andes training mountain goats to do parkour.

Others claim he joined a Mongolian cult that worships a god shaped like a carabiner.

God, I  miss my friend.

On stormy nights, when the wind howls down from the peaks, I nearly always hear a faint, mournful bleat drifting through darkness:

“Tell Marla… I’m not getting the hooves.”

It’s just my mind playing tricks on me.  Or is it?