by Rick R. Reed
Ethan saw his point. He realized that long after this surprising meeting was over, he’d be mulling over Ben’s words. He was already wondering how he could transform what he perceived as life’s calamities into gifts. Was that even possible?
Living proof was sitting right before him.
Ben said, “And someone in that same twelve-step group took me to my first meeting of Center for Spiritual Living.” Ben looked away for a moment, turning away from Ethan. “And I felt like I’d come home.” He shook his head. “I never thought a church could do that for me.”
“And so you became a minister, or pastor, or whatever, right away?”
“Ha! You know me. I took my time. But in time, after taking classes, and more classes, and realizing I wanted to help people like people had helped me, I finally got serious about changing the course of my life. I became a prayer practitioner first—that’s like a spiritual counselor at CSL, you get licensed and everything—and after that, I went to ministerial school.”
Ethan shook his head, grinning. “If you’d told me, back when we worked together, that you would one day be a minister, I’m sorry, but I think I would have pissed my pants laughing.”
“I know, right?” Ben winked. “I would have too.” Ben got quiet, and they sat in silence for a while, finishing their drinks.
Ben pointed to Ethan’s empty glass. “You want another one?”
And the question prompted Ethan to have a surprising thought—he was having a good time. With Ben, of all people! “Sure.” He reached for the back pocket of his jeans to grab his wallet and some cash.
“No! No! I’ll get it. I owe you more than a couple of drinks after the way I treated you once upon a time.”
Ethan’s astonishment must have been plain on his face, because Ben said, “Oh, I know what a little bitch I was.” He hurried toward the bar, taking their empty glasses with him.
When he returned, though, he didn’t go back to self-incrimination and reproach. He simply set down their drinks with a flourish, along with cocktail napkins, and then proceeded to settle back in his chair, second “Margarita” in hand. “I’ve been babbling on and on about myself. Tell me about you.”
And, wonder of wonders, he actually leaned forward to listen. He set down his drink and folded his hands on the table. He stared at Ethan expectantly, a small smile playing about his lips.
Ethan wasn’t sure where to begin. His life had narrowed down and down and down until it seemed like almost nothing else existed other than his grief. “Oh, there’s not much to tell,” he said softly. “Tell me more about you, Ben. The change in you is really quite remarkable.” He tried to paint a smile on his features and knew he wasn’t very successful. But all he could think of was telling Ben how terrible his life was, how lonely, how sad. A darkness where no light could ever penetrate….
See, even thinking about talking about himself resulted in crushing self-pity.
And who in the hell wanted to come out for drinks and hear about that?
Ben lightly stroked the top of Ethan’s hand. The touch was electric. It wasn’t a sexual thing, but Ethan felt an immediate warmth, almost a tingling. He looked up at Ben in surprise, and Ben smiled back, as though he knew. He half stood, let go of Ethan’s hand, and lightly touched the top of his head for a moment.
Ethan felt the same tingling warmth. It wasn’t magical or anything—in fact it felt very real, as though Ben was just a bit warmer and was transferring that heat to the top of Ethan’s head. After a moment he took his hand away, but the warmth there remained. Ethan had a flash, in his mind’s eye, of a glowing rock, brilliantly illuminated, turning in the dark recesses of his mind.
Ben sat back down. “Now, I know there’s a whole lot to say, contrary to your claims, sweetheart.” Ben eyed him closely. “Just talk to me. Have faith. I listen, and I’m here.” He smiled. “What else are we gonna do?”
Something stirred inside Ethan. Sometimes life’s best and truest gifts were the simplest. He realized that Ben just being here, willing to listen, giving him his full attention, was one of those gifts. It felt pure and simple yet powerful, all at the same time. A part of him, small, wanted simply to get up, make an excuse, go home, and bury himself under his down comforter and cry. But another part, a stronger one, wanted, at last, to unburden. And if the universe did send out signals, then Ethan wondered if Ben, and his sudden reappearance and his willingness to listen, was one of them.
He took a sip of his drink, set it down, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “You remember back when we worked together? The guy who showed up one day to deliver flowers to me? A little pudgy? Dirty-blond?”
Ben smiled but shook his head. “That was years ago, honey.”
Ethan gave Ben a gentle kick under the table. “Yeah, but how often did I get flowers?” He didn’t wait for Ben to respond. “Anyway, that delivery guy turned out to be my guy, like in the song with the same title?” Ethan closed his eyes, a little wistful. He could remember the early days with Brian and also couldn’t deny he felt his presence with him right now. It wasn’t like a ghost or anything, just a warm and loving sense—deep in his heart.
Ben nodded.
“It was the beginning of something beautiful. Something precious. Something I’d given up on ever happening to me.” Ethan closed his eyes, remembering. Walks along Belmont Harbor and farther north, along the grassy area where the Belmont Rocks used to be. Breakfasts at Ann Sather, still bleary-eyed and a little sore after not getting enough sleep the night before. Countless opening nights that Ethan dragged Brian to, when he knew Brian would have been happier at home with a beer. Countless nights in front of the TV, a shared bowl of popcorn between them and an old movie on TV. Dim dawns when the light was just beginning to give things form and definition in their bedroom, and heedless of morning mouth, they would turn to one another and revel in the comfort and passion of their bedclothes-heated bodies. Dinner triumphs and dinner disasters. Holidays and everydays. Anniversaries.
Ethan snapped out of his reverie to take in Ben, who sat quiet, looking quite content, on the other side of the table. “I expected it to last forever.” Ethan drew in a quivering breath.
“And then last fall….” The words trailed off, and Ethan looked desperately around the room, not wanting to cry but feeling a couple of tears sneak out and roll down his face. “And then last fall….”
Ben put a hand over Ethan’s and squeezed. “I know. I saw the messages on your Facebook. It was sudden?”
“He was hit by a car.” Ethan wouldn’t, couldn’t tell Ben it had been while they were texting each other.
“That sucks,” Ben said.
And Ethan liked that, liked that Ben didn’t say how sorry he was, or how the Lord worked in mysterious ways, or to be grateful for the time they did have together, or—God forbid—how Brian was in a better place. Sometimes, things just suck. And having someone acknowledge that meant more to Ethan than some platitude, no matter how heartfelt.
Ethan sighed. “Yeah, it does.” He stretched. “I’ve been in this hole now for months. I don’t know how to climb out of it.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “I liked what you said on Sunday, about being in the dark, something about shadows were cast by light and all we have to do is move into the light.” He gave Ben what he knew had to be the weakest, saddest smile ever. “I just don’t know how to do that.”
“You will.” Ben appeared to think for a moment. “And yet it’s already done.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“And you won’t—not right away. But believe it or not, perfection is always all around us. Love is always all around us. Your Brian is always with you. Love doesn’t die. And neither does what animates us. A very wise person once said that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience. I know that’s true. Just like I know the love you shared with your man can never be erased. It’s not in the past. It’s here, right now.”
; “Oh, how I wish I could believe that.”
Ben smiled. “I didn’t come here tonight to proselytize.”
“Why did you come here?” Ethan wondered. “I mean, after all these years? Plus, you have to admit—we were never close.”
“I think,” Ben said confidently, “that everything happens for a reason. Us sitting here right now is pretty good evidence of that. I think we needed to reconnect. No, I know it.”
Ethan, once again, found himself at a loss for words. He felt a sudden urge—not to get away from Ben but to be alone, so he could contemplate what Ben had said, to see if he could ferret out the meaning in it. He lifted his glass to his lips and drained it.
Ethan thought of that day in the office many years ago when Bubbles told him about wingpeople.com. That mention was really the first step to take him toward Brian.
Ben eyed Ethan’s empty glass. “You want another one? Or you maybe wanna go grab a bite to eat? You like Thai? We don’t have to talk about anything more serious than Project Runway.”
Ethan chuckled. “Actually, I’m really tired. I need to get home. Feed the cat. Get myself in bed at a decent hour, which for me, these days, is around nine, I’m embarrassed to admit.” He grinned.
“Oh, I get you,” Ben said. “Sleep is underrated in this old world.”
“So, you don’t mind?” Ethan asked. “I want you to know I really enjoyed our time here tonight.” For the first time, he again noticed the pianist. He’d gone off on a poignant, slowed-down rendition of Irving Berlin’s mournful classic, “What’ll I Do?” and the song’s plaintive and longing lyrics for a lost love just about broke his heart—and intensified his need to get out of the bar. He stood suddenly.
“I did too,” Ben said. “Are you going to the ‘L’ station?”
Ethan nodded, wishing the pianist would move along to a song that didn’t hurt so much. He was afraid if he actually tried to speak, all that would come out would be choked sobs.
“Mind if I walk with you?”
Ethan took Ben’s hand in his own and tugged. Ben had the good manners, or the sensitivity, not to question why Ethan had suddenly gone mute. He simply let Ethan lead him from the bar and out into the night.
4
OUTSIDE, THE rain had stopped, and the temperature had actually gone up. There was a warm undercurrent to the early evening air. The streets, though, bore evidence of the recent precipitation. They were shiny in the glow of the sodium vapor streetlight, and the cars and cabs made a hissing sound as they whizzed by on Armitage Avenue, their tires throwing up mist.
Away from the music, Ethan trusted himself to speak. “Oh, that song he was playing? ‘What’ll I Do?’” Ethan shook his head. “If I had to listen to one more note, I would have been a total wreck.”
“As opposed to a partial one?”
Ethan laughed, and it felt good. “You like The Golden Girls?”
“Yeah, what gay man doesn’t? If they ever sculpt a gay man’s Mount Rushmore, it won’t be presidents on it, but Sophia, Rose, Blanche, and Dorothy.”
“I’d love to see that!” Ethan said. “But there was an episode where Dorothy sang ‘What’ll I Do?’ Whenever that episode comes on and I hear Bea Arthur’s gruff but beautiful voice singing that, I tear up.”
“That episode was called ‘Journey to the Center of Attention.’” Ben took Ethan’s hand in his own and held it as they made their way west, to the station. It was a small comfort to Ethan, yet he couldn’t help but think how the world had changed—when he was younger, walking down a busy street in Chicago holding hands with another guy, even if it was innocent, was a good way to get yourself, at best, heckled and at worst, bashed.
“You really are a fan!”
“I have all the seasons on DVD,” Ben confessed. “I have watched every episode, I’m embarrassed to admit, dozens of times. I swear I know most of the girls’ lines by heart. That show is like comfort food is to some people.”
“Wow,” Ethan said. “Were you even born when The Golden Girls was on?”
Ben nudged him with his shoulder. “Aren’t you sweet? I was born, but honestly, I was too little to have watched them. Back then I think I was most captivated by the bear in the Snuggle fabric softener commercials.”
Ethan found himself laughing again. Laughter, especially more than a couple of times consecutively, felt both weird and wonderful, as though he were using muscles that had long fallen into disuse and neared atrophy.
They walked for a while in silence. The night all around them was alive with traffic noises, conversations between other pedestrians they passed, the rumble of the Brown Line station a couple of blocks ahead. Once a door from a bar opened, and along with the jumble of voices, a snatch of song tumbled out before being cut off by the bar’s thick door closing again.
The song? The theme from The Golden Girls, “Thank You for Being a Friend.”
“Did you hear that?” Ethan asked. “Unbelievable! I mean, literally, you couldn’t make something like that up. What a coincidence.”
Ben didn’t take his gaze away from the traffic. “There are no coincidences,” he said.
Ethan realized, as they got closer to the “L” station, that he didn’t want the evening to end. He was about to ask Ben what the Thai place he had in mind for dinner was called when a bicyclist flew by them, a gray messenger bag affixed to his torso. His long blond hair trailed out behind him. Ethan was about to remark to Ben that the guy was going much too fast for the damp streets and the heavy traffic when the bicyclist, without even looking, veered left and into traffic. Later, Ethan would suppose he thought he could cross the street quickly enough to dodge any oncoming cars, that there was a break big enough for only him.
But what occurred next happened so fast, there was no time for analysis or second-guessing.
It seemed as though they, and everyone else on the street, froze in their tracks as a white SUV came barreling east, also too fast. The grill of the SUV snatched the bicyclist from the roadway, lifting him up as an elephant might toss water on its back. The cyclist crashed into the windshield, leaving a mosaic of shattered glass, and then continued a trajectory that had him flying over the roof of the vehicle. The airborne grace was almost beautiful to behold, a terrifying instant of defying gravity. But then the bicyclist landed, legs tangled up in his bike, directly behind the rear bumper.
The SUV screeched to a halt. The little Prius following behind did the same. Thank God, Ethan thought, he wasn’t tailgating.
“Oh my God,” Ethan gasped.
He stumbled backward and found he was shaking so badly he thought he might go into convulsions. There was suddenly no air! Witnessing this was horrible enough, but the horror was compounded by the fact that it was someone getting hit by a vehicle. Ethan continued to stagger back a few steps, as though he’d been in a real bar and had too much to drink, and finally plopped down hard enough to bruise on the front stoop of an apartment building.
A crowd was already building around the accident, some of them spilling out into the street. Oncoming traffic slowed and then stopped. From far back, the sound of horns from annoyed drivers who couldn’t see far enough ahead to know what had happened.
Ethan saw a small woman with bright fuchsia hair pull out her cell phone and begin punching at its screen. He hoped she wasn’t too late.
He realized he couldn’t hear anything. Had he lost his hearing? Or had the world gone silent? He could see lips moving, feet running, cars in one lane slamming to sudden stops, and in the other lane beginning to move again but slowing to gawk, giving the accident scene a wide berth. He shook his head, wondering if this was what shock felt like. For a moment he couldn’t recall what had just happened or why he was sitting here, wringing his hands. He felt numb.
Ben leaned down and touched his shoulder. Ethan looked up. Ben was speaking, but he couldn’t hear the words. Straining, Ethan stared hard at Ben’s lips and at last read them. “I need to go to him.”
Numb, Ethan nodded a
nd watched as Ben wove his way through the crowd.
Suddenly, without warning, Ethan’s hearing returned, as though someone had pushed a button to unmute the world. Traffic sounds, excited voices, a siren coming ever closer rose, almost painfully loud.
Ethan drew in a deep breath and placed his palms on the damp and cold concrete stoop below. He pushed himself to his feet. He forced himself to weave through the crowd. A few people were actually taking pictures or videos with their phones.
At last he found Ben.
He was kneeling next to the cyclist. Ethan, as though propelled by a force he didn’t understand, wriggled through the closest onlookers to stand next to him. He noticed how blood stained the knees of Ben’s pants. Ethan covered his mouth as he peered down at the cyclist’s face. His pale blue eyes moved from side to side relentlessly. A line of drool, tinged pink, dribbled from the corner of his mouth. There was an expression not of pain but of wonder on his face—as though he was amazed at how he’d gotten here and why it had attracted so many people. The cyclist’s neck was twisted at an odd angle, screaming out what should be a red flare of hurt, but again, pain wasn’t reflected on his features.
Wordlessly, Ethan knelt down beside Ben and put a hand on his shoulder. He watched as the cyclist’s gaze connected with Ben’s. And Ethan listened as Ben spoke.
“Don’t be afraid,” Ben said. “Just rest. Know that you and the infinite source are one. Love surrounds you. And just as that infinite source is perfect, whole, and bathed in golden light, so are you, my friend. I see you walking, I see you riding along the lakefront, the water clear and blue beside you, almost Caribbean in color. I see you laughing. I see you with the ones you love. These things already are coming to pass. They’re already within you.”
Ben lowered his head a little more, and Ethan had to lean closer to hear him as he whispered, “I’m grateful for all you are, for your beauty, for your strength, for your unique presence.” Ben lightly touched the cyclist’s forehead, heedless of the blood there, the horrible bump rising even as he spoke. “Know that you are okay. Just rest in knowing that you’re taken care of, that you’re loved, and that this body is not you. Your spirit, your love, your energy is right here, right now. Shhh…. Close your eyes.”