by James Frey
I looked over at Ben, who was sitting with the people at the table. They were all speaking Spanish, which he seemed to speak just like them. The word policia kept being used and they were laughing a lot. Watching them, they looked like a family, a really really happy family. I was a little bit jealous, because they looked like the family I had always wished my family was, smiling and joking and being nice to each other. It didn’t even matter that they all looked different from me. I wanted to be one of them. I had been living alone for a long time, and I had my parents’ whole house and whole farm all to myself. It was not a happy place and never had been. It hadn’t been awful or violent or scary, it was just empty. An empty house and empty fields. And I was empty. And I was tired of it. Tired of being sad and alone. I wanted to know what it was like to smile there and be happy there and to know love there. I wanted to hear someone laughing in my house. I couldn’t remember ever having heard it, unless it was me laughing at a TV show that I was watching alone while I ate dinner or something. I wanted to come home from my job, which really stunk, just standing checking people out at a superstore all day, and feel like there was something or someone at home waiting for me. Who might even be happy or excited to see me.
Mariaangeles came out of a bedroom with a little girl. A beautiful little girl who looked just like her, though she sure seemed young to have a child. The girl ran over to Ben and gave him a hug and sat on his lap. Everyone was still talking in Spanish. I didn’t know what they were saying at all, but I imagined they were talking about where they were going to go and what they were going to do. I sat down at the end of the table, in the only empty chair. I felt happy to sit down and be part of the table. And I had an idea. It was a great idea, I thought. A wonderful, really fun idea. I raised my hand, but nobody noticed, so I raised it a little higher, and waved it a little. Ben looked over at me.
You don’t have to raise your hand.
I don’t speak Spanish, so I wasn’t sure about the rules.
There are no rules.
I didn’t want to be rude.
You’re not.
I have an idea.
About what?
About where to go.
We’re okay here.
But those men, they’re going to come back.
Yes.
And they’ll keep coming back until they get you.
Probably.
I have a farm. It’s upstate. There’s a big house and land, and it’s just me. I live there all by myself.
It’s not just me.
Whoever you want could come. I’d like it a lot.
They might come for me there as well.
Oh man, if you think you have a good system here, we could really have one there. Our nearest neighbor is a mile away. We’d know for sure if someone was coming.
He smiled.
You’re sure you want us.
I smiled.
Yes. I’d love it. It would be so fun.
And the yard would be awesome for the little girl. We could get her a wagon or a bike or something.
Her name is Mercedes.
I smiled at her.
Hi, Mercedes.
She smiled at me. He tickled her.
You want to move somewhere with a yard?
She laughed.
Yes.
He looked at Mariaangeles, smiled.
She smiled at him.
She seems okay to me.
He breathed through his nose and nodded.
She is.
I ain’t ever lived anywhere but here. Be nice to get out.
Yes.
She looked at me.
You sure?
I nodded.
Yes.
She smiled.
Let’s go.
I smiled.
No way.
You asked for it, white girl, you got it. I hope you know what you in for.
I laughed and she laughed and I stood up and hugged her and she hugged me. The man who drove us asked when we wanted to leave and Ben smiled and said let’s go now. The man stood and said cool with me and the old woman gave all of us hugs. One of the other women asked Mariaangeles when she’d be back and Mariaangeles said if she was lucky, never. We took the elevator back down from the seventh floor and we left.
I didn’t even go back to the hotel and get my stuff. The man put my address into the computer in his car, and off we went. The drive was real easy. And it was fun too. We listened to the radio and sang along with some of the songs whenever we knew the words. Ben could sing beautifully if he wanted to, like an opera singer or something, but mostly he just sang for laughs. He’d make faces and do little disco dances and pretend to be crying during the love songs. He’d take Mercedes’ hands and make her laugh and laugh over and over again. During a duet, he and Mariaangeles took the separate parts and sang to each other. We stopped a couple of times for food and bathroom breaks and stuff, but Ben didn’t really eat anything. He would drink water and stand outside, staring up at the sky. I asked one time if he was looking at God or talking to God or something, and he just laughed and said no, he just liked looking at the stars and that he couldn’t see them in the city. I looked up, and the stars were just coming out, and I have to say, they were pretty cool.
The drive took five hours. When we arrived, the house was dark and there were no lights. Mariaangeles said she’d never been out of the city before and Mercedes started crying. Ben held her and whispered in her ear and she stopped right away. The house was big and white and old. It had six bedrooms and four bathrooms and was sort of falling apart a little bit. There was a barn and the fields were overrun with weeds and little baby trees. When we pulled up right in front of the house, Ben got out and smiled and looked up at the sky again. I went right inside and turned on the lights. Mariaangeles brought Mercedes in and I told them to take whatever rooms they wanted, and the man who drove came in and I made him some food I had in the fridge. Ben stayed outside. I got a little worried and looked out the window and saw him walking into one of the fields. The moon was only out a little bit, and before I could go out to him he disappeared.
I waited up for him and watched TV. There are so many good shows on late at night. He never came back, though, and I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up the next morning, I could hear Ben standing near the front door with the man, and I heard him say:
It could be tomorrow, or it could be in five years, but there’s no stopping it. Protect the good around you. Love the good you know. Keep them safe.
How do I know who’s good?
You know.
I can’t tell the way you can.
We all know good and bad in our hearts. We can see and feel it. Trust yourself.
You sure you gonna be okay up here?
Yes.
What if they come for you?
Then they come.
They gonna lock your ass away if they get you.
They won’t get me unless I let them.
You gonna?
Live your life. Love your children. Don’t believe what you’re told. Forget the lies of religion and government. And don’t worry about me.
You need money?
No.
Anything?
No, thank you.
Get in touch if you do.
Go, my friend.
Ben hugged the man, and the man turned and got in his truck and pulled out. Ben came inside and smiled at me and kissed me. He asked how I was and I said great and he said thank you again for having us here, it’s a beautiful place, a perfect place. I said sure and he hugged me and it felt great. When he let go of me, I missed him right away, even though he was right there. He asked what I was going to do for the day and I told him I had to go to work. He asked if I minded if he did some work around the house and I laughed and told him to do whatever he wanted. He smiled and said thank you, and walked away. I got dressed and went to work. The store I worked in was the biggest store ever, the size of a whole bunch of football fields. It sold everything
you could ever imagine, though the most popular things were steaks, beer, and guns. I just rang things up all day. I sat on a little stool when I could, but mostly I was standing up, which isn’t easy for someone like me. On my breaks, I went to the break room and ate. I had a couple of people I talked to at work, but mostly I didn’t talk to anyone. I sat by myself and watched TV. On the first day with Ben and Mariaangeles and Mercedes, I could hardly sit at all. And I didn’t mind being alone. I kept wondering what they were doing, or thinking about them walking around the house and the yard. I always tried to be cheerful with customers, but I was extra cheerful. And it didn’t even bother me when they ignored me.
When I came home, I couldn’t even believe it. The whole house was clean. Really really clean. Everything had been wiped down and the floors were all mopped. Even the kitchen was clean and the fridge was scrubbed. The yard, which I only had done three times a year, was totally cut. We had a push mower, so I knew it must have been hard work. I started looking around the house for everyone. I found Mercedes in her room, playing with a doll. I don’t know where they’d found it, but it was one of mine from when I was a little girl. It was cheap but pretty cute, with a little pink dress and plastic hair, and I hadn’t seen it in years and years. I went in and started playing with her. And she wanted to play with me. And it was awesome. Just playing with this little girl. Who didn’t look at me and think bad things about me and wasn’t scared of me. She was just happy. We played dance and nurse and singer. We played going to the grocery store and ice cream summer day. And the rest of the world disappeared. The rest of the world didn’t even matter. I felt like I felt with Ben. Like what was important was right now, not sometime in the past or sometime in the future. It felt like life was what it is supposed to be.
We played for a long time, and near the end I heard some noise down the hall. I hadn’t seen or heard Ben or Mariaangeles, but figured they must be around somewhere in the house. I stood up and told Mercedes I would be right back and went down the hall. The noises were closer. They were clearly hanky panky noises. They made me nervous and scared, but also pretty excited. The door was sort of open and I peeked around the edge. Mariaangeles was on top of him and she was really moving her hips. It looked like she was dancing or something. Ben was watching her, and smiling, and his hands were moving up and down on her body. I started to move away but Ben saw me. He smiled wider and motioned for me to come into the room, but I was too embarrassed and ran back down the hall and went back in with Mercedes. I kept hearing the noises for another half an hour or so. I had always thought of sex as dirty or bad. Something you weren’t supposed to be open about with other people. Something that was against the rules of the church and God and that laws were made against. But they sounded happy. And when Ben was inside me, it was the best feeling I had ever had in my whole life. I had been in churches with my parents many times. And I had never felt anything in them. It was just boring. And it seemed old and silly. But when I felt that feeling with Ben, when I saw the light, and saw forever, and felt them, that was God.
When the noises stopped, Ben and Mariaangeles came into the room. Mercedes was really happy to see them, and we all went and had dinner together. I wasn’t sure how to act after what I had seen, but they just acted the way they always seemed to act, which was really happy. Dinner was great, my favorite, macaroni and cheese. After dinner, Mariaangeles took Mercedes upstairs to give her a bath and put her to bed. Ben smiled and walked over and kissed me. It was a long kiss. A real French kiss. I wasn’t sure what to do so I just did it back. And it kept going. We kept going. Kissing like teenagers or something. And he pulled me out of my chair and started taking off my clothes. Thinking back, I can’t even believe it, but at the time I couldn’t think at all. I was just feeling so awesome. He took off my clothes right there in the dining room. And we went down on the floor. And he started going over my whole body. He was using his hands and his mouth and his tongue. Everywhere on me and in me. And I just closed my eyes and let him do whatever he wanted. It was wonderful. Like the best thing ever. He was whispering while he did it. And I tried to listen but it took me away from what he was doing to me. But what I could hear was about God. That this was God. That what I was feeling was God. That God in books could never make me feel like this. That I would never feel this way if it wasn’t right, if it wasn’t natural, if it wasn’t part of God, the true God.
As he was doing all those things to me, I heard Mariaangeles come into the room and laugh. I opened my eyes and I was really embarrassed. Ben was the only person except for my parents who had ever seen me naked. I started to get up but she shook her head and smiled and kneeled next to me and put her hands on my shoulders and held me down and started kissing me. Something in me said it was wrong, but it wasn’t. It felt as good as it did with Ben. And I did it back to her. Even though I had always been taught that being gay or doing gay sex things was against God’s way, it didn’t feel that way. God doesn’t care if a man kisses a man, or a woman kisses a woman, or a woman and man kiss. God doesn’t care at all. It’s just love. Kissing or touching of any kind is just an expression of love, and it doesn’t matter who is doing it. Anybody who says God believes something else doesn’t know what they’re talking about at all.
We were together for the rest of the night. On the floor in the dining room and then upstairs in my bedroom and then in the bathtub. What a night it was. My oh my, I saw God over and over, and I saw eternity, and I felt complete peace and understanding, and I felt loved, boy, did I feel loved, more loved than just about anybody on the whole earth that day, I think. When it was over, we all fell asleep together, right in the same bed. Ben was in the middle, and me and Mariaangeles were on either side of him. I slept really great and didn’t even have any bad dreams. When I woke up in the morning, Ben was gone. Mariaangeles was still sleeping, but Ben was gone.
I got up and went to work, same as I did every day. When I came home, more projects had been done, like there was some wood stacked up and the barn was being cleaned out. Ben and Mariaangeles and me and Mercedes all had dinner together, and Mariaangeles put Mercedes to sleep. When she was done, we all went to my bedroom and did the same thing we had done the night before. We touched each other and we kissed each other and we licked each other. And we made each other feel wonderful. And we loved each other. That was what it was all about. What life is about. Loving each other. A man who was Jewish who could talk to God and a black Dominican girl from the Bronx and a fat white cashier from the middle of nowhere. We didn’t care about color or religion or money or what kind of school we’d gone to or what kinds of jobs we had had or what our families were like or even what our bodies looked like. We didn’t care that we weren’t married. Or that we were sinners. Or that some people would even say we were damned to Hell. We just loved each other. For what we were. Which is how it’s supposed to be. True love isn’t about anything other than how it makes you feel. And if it makes you feel good, keep doing it, regardless of how other people may think of it or feel.
We fell into a routine. I would go to my job. Ben and Mariaangeles would work around the farm. We would have dinner together and go to bed. He was never there when I woke up. I asked one day where he went at night all alone. He said sometimes he went into the woods or the barn and had seizures, and sometimes he laid in the grass and stared at the stars, and he said sometimes he walked to town, which was three miles away, and went looking for things other people had thrown away, like food and clothes and stuff. I told him he was being silly and that he didn’t need to do that anymore because I could buy everything we needed at the store with my employee discount. He said he didn’t want bought things. That buying things just fed the system that was destroying the world. I asked him if he really thought the world was being destroyed and he smiled and said yes, it is, and it will be final soon. I asked him if he was mad that I worked at the store and he laughed and said of course not. He kissed me on the cheek and said that it wasn’t his place or anyone else’s t
o tell me how to live. I told him I wouldn’t mind quitting my job and he said I should do what I wanted to do, that my life was my own, and when it was over, it was over, and that I should do and see and try and feel and experience everything I could and everything I wanted to. I told him I didn’t know what I wanted, and he smiled again and said yes, you do, we all do, we just need to be honest with ourselves about it, and stop being scared of it. Fear, he said, ran all of our lives. Fear, he said, after religion, was the most destructive force in the world.
Other people also started coming to the house. At first it was just one or two a week. I don’t know how they knew Ben or how they knew where he was. They would be there when I came home, or they would knock on the door. They all seemed crazy or sad or sick or on drugs. Ben would walk with them. He would go walking into the fields where my daddy used to farm. The fields were overgrown and scary. Even though I knew better, and I was grown up, I was always sure there was something evil in them, like a monster or something. Ben would walk in there with people, and sometimes they would come back in five minutes and sometimes they would come back in five hours, but the people were always better. I didn’t really know what to think about it. Something was going on out there, but it was hard to really think about it for real. Miracles were something people talked about, and I would read about in the newspaper, and people would pray really super hard for, but they never really seemed to happen, or if they did it was like one in a billion times. But people kept praying for them, millions of people did it, every single day they did it. Some of them were going to get lucky. And that was really all it was for them, and for their praying for miracles, just dumb luck. Something good is bound to happen like one in a billion times. Really most of the people who prayed for miracles were just wasting their time. It was silly. They begged and pleaded for some kind of help that never came. They should have spent the time having fun or something. Especially if it was for health reasons. They could at least have some kind of fun before they died instead of praying. And when these not really real miracles did happen, there wasn’t really any reason for them. Like the people involved couldn’t say what had happened or why it had happened. Not for real, at least. But with Ben it was different. Sick people would walk into the fields with him, and they would walk out healthy. Drug addicts would walk in with him and come out without wanting drugs anymore. People on crutches would come out running. I saw a couple of people with sunglasses and white canes come out smiling and blinking. A man in a wheelchair skipped across the lawn. It was crazy. And beautiful. It was miracles for real. Not praying to some thing that wasn’t even there and couldn’t even listen. Not praying for some promise in a book that never made any of its promises come true. But having someone actually do something that changed someone. Knowing that because you met this one person, and he did something, that your life was totally different and totally better. That was a miracle. And Ben could make miracles happen. He could make prayers, which really are pretty useless considering how many there are and how little they actually do, he could make prayers actually come true. I don’t know how he did it, except to say that he was the Messiah, and he had the same powers that that Jesus Christ man had, if that man was even real. He could make miracles. I’ve never heard of anyone else who could do it. But he could, for real. And it wasn’t like it was easy or just some little thing. After he did it, he would always come out looking worse than when he went in. Like whatever he did took something from him. Like he was giving something of himself to the people so they could be better. Sometimes he didn’t come back at all. The people would say he’d told them he was going to have a seizure and they should leave him. Or he’d walk out of the field and just have the seizure right in the yard. They were really terrible scary ones. He’d shake and grunt and spit and stuff would come out of his mouth. I’d get really worried and want to go help him, but I knew he wouldn’t want that, so I’d usually just bite my nails on the porch. Once I asked why he did it, gave people the miracles. He said he did it because he loved them, and that miracles aren’t done, miracles are given. And that anyone could do it. If people were willing to love enough, and to give enough, that anyone could change someone’s life. And that that was the easy way to describe God on earth. People changing other people’s lives. Not some heavenly being, or some made-up superhero, but people changing other people’s lives.