WASHINGTON — Over the years, “Little Billy” learned much from the country’s top minds.
Secretaries of state, touched by the 10-year-old’s letters handwritten on notebook paper, wrote back advising him how to settle a treehouse dispute with his sister. O.J. Simpson’s attorney told him how to get off the hook on accusations he destroyed a doll. A publisher of racy magazines, asked whether there was a version for children, told him to read the Sears catalog instead.
Billy also turned to twisted minds for their counsel. He wrote to notorious criminals asking whether he should stay in school. Son of Sam told him not to waste his life, like he did. The Unabomber merely wished him luck.
It was all a big setup. Little Billy was actually grown-up Bill Geerhart, punking the famous and infamous by writing letters asking questions out of the mouths of babes. Their correspondence back — humorous, head-scratching, poignant — is compiled in a book, “Little Billy’s Letters,” out this week.
Geerhart, who admits to a history of making prank phone calls and other mischief in his youth, collected the letters over 15 years, starting in the mid-1990s while he was an unemployed writer in Los Angeles.
Most of the letters in the book go back to a time before e-mails took over written communication. But some are recent. In 2008, Sarah Palin’s dad, Chuck Heath — handling the deluge of mail for his daughter, the Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate — declined to take Billy hunting wolves by air. “No wolf hunting from helicopters here,” Heath scribbles.
For career advice, Billy — who was leaning toward convenience-store clerk because he would have access to video games on the job — polls those in other fields. From his prison cell, assisted-suicide figure Dr. Jack Kevorkian responds, “Sometimes I wish I was a 7-11 clerk!”
As Billy campaigns for third-grade class president, he gets good-luck wishes from former President Gerald Ford and former Vice President Dan Quayle.
Less civic-mindedly, Billy writes to Anheuser-Busch asking “if there is a beer for kids” just as he asked Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt about porn for the pint-sized. No dice.
Flynt writes that Billy could subscribe to Hustler when he turns 18: “Until then, you should read the Sears & Roebuck catalog.” An Anheuser-Busch executive rats on him, sending his parents a brochure on how to talk to children about drinking.
Robert Shapiro, a member of the legal “dream team” that won O.J. Simpson’s acquittal in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, was full of ideas when Billy wrote to ask for help defending himself against allegations that he — not his dog — destroyed his sister’s doll.
“Is there any forensic evidence that will support your theory that the dog killed the doll?” Shapiro replied. “Were any scraps of doll clothing found near his dog house, perhaps? How about tooth marks on the doll’s remains (assuming there were remains)? If so, a good forensic dentist should be able to match them to the dog.”
Geerhart, who works as a record producer in Los Angeles, once had Little Billy’s exploits catch up with him.
As Billy contemplated which religion to join, he asked officials at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to verify that “you get to wear cool underwear and have extra wives.” The inquiry earned Geerhart a visit from a pair of Mormon missionaries wanting to meet the youngster. Geerhart concocted an excuse for Billy’s absence and snapped a picture of the missionaries in his apartment. Naturally, he includes the photo in the book.
