by A. E. Wasp
Troy flipped the box over and over in his hand. “So, you were injured badly twice, at least, and probably have a TBI, right?”
Mikey frowned.
“Traumatic brain injury,” Benny clarified. “And according to the Marines, it’s just a concussion. No long-term effects. It’s all there in my medical records.”
“What happened?” Mikey asked again, standing up and looming in the corner.
Benny looked at him. “The Humvee I was in hit an IED. A big one. The whole convoy. Bam, bam, bam, right in a row. Then they fired at us.” Benny said with no inflection. “I was thrown clear, landing on my fucking head and a piece of the truck landed on me. My buddies, the ones who didn’t get blown up, burned to death, their weapons melted to their hands. Fucking Sisco was cut in half. The last thing I saw was his head go flying past me like a fucking soccer ball. After it was over, the only reason they found me was because some fucking dog was sniffing around to see if I was dead or not.”
“And that was the second time?” Mikey’s skin had a gray tinge to it, he looked like he might faint.
“Second time for the heart, yeah.”
“Are you seeing a doctor?” Mikey tried to remember if he’d ever known Benny to go to a doctor’s appointment.
“No.” Benny crossed his arms over his chest.
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t have any VA insurance, right?” Troy interrupted.
Benny bit back the fuck you that leaped to his tongue. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a drink this badly. And he was in a fucking bar. Vincent had bottles of the good stuff lined up on a shelf on the wall right next to Benny. He could reach it and pour a good amount down before Troy or Mikey could stop him. His body trembled with a fight or flight response, and his hands closed into fists. This is what happened when you let people into your life. They asked questions and then you had to think about things.
“Why not?” Mikey asked. “I thought all vets got that.”
Something sharp jabbed into his palm, and he looked down. The yellow heart was crumpled in his hand. Forcing his hand to relax, he plucked the card from his hand and laid it flat on the desk. Gently, he smoothed it out. Maybe it was time to stop being such a fucking coward and face things. If Jasmine could survive her mother dying and still be so full of love, the least he could do was give her father the whole truth and let the chips fall as they would.
“I don’t have VA insurance because I’m not eligible. I have what’s called an Other Than Honorable discharge. Basically, I got kicked out of the Marines for being an asshole. And let me tell you, asshole is their default state. So I must have been a super asshole.”
Mikey’s mouth was a tight line, his eyes hard. His head shook back and forth like he was denying everything about Benny. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now,” he said, disappointment clear in his voice.
“I get why you’re angry,” Benny started to say.
“No. I don’t think you do. I don’t think you do at all.” He took a step towards Benny and Benny flinched. He couldn’t help it. Mikey was scary when he was angry.
Mikey stopped, exhaling deeply, nostrils flaring.
“Troy, thank you for your help. Can I take him home and call you later?”
“For sure. Call me anytime. You have my number.” He pointed at Benny. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We’re not done here. We need to talk.”
“Yes, sir.” Cold dread filled Benny’s stomach, but whatever he got, it was what he deserved.
Mikey strode past Benny and pushed the door open. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
“You want me to come home? I can stay with Chris.” Benny’s voice sounded small in his ears.
“It’s your house. Come home.”
With a parting glance to Troy, Benny followed Mikey out the door.
chapter seventeen
Mikey didn’t say a word as they drove through the darkened streets; the inside of the car tinted red or white as they passed streetlights and stoplights. Benny stared at his hands in his lap the entire way home, and Mikey just wanted to slap him. That ‘woe is me’ thing was just the tip of the iceberg of things Mikey wanted to yell at Benny about.
Mikey pulled in next to Vanessa’s car. Thank god for her. The slam of the car doors echoed hollowly in the night. The normally sheltering grove of pine trees surrounding Benny’s house felt oppressive and dark.
Benny walked in first, Mikey close behind him.
Benny made short eye contact with Vanessa, gave her a tight smile, and headed to the stairs.
“Stay,” Mikey barked out, pointing to the couch.
Benny slunk over to the big old wooden couch that had come with the house.
Vanessa closed the book she had been reading and stood up. Mikey gave her a hug. “How was she?”
“She cried a lot and then fell asleep in the car. I carried her upstairs and put her to bed. She’s still in her clothes, though. I didn’t want to wake her up.”
“It’s fine. Thank you so much, V. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
On the table, the baby monitor hissed its lullaby of Jasmine’s breath. The sound calmed Mikey a little, reminding him what was important, what he had already survived, and what he had to fight for.
Closing the door behind Vanessa, he turned to face Benny.
“I’m sorry,” Benny said before Michael could get a word out. “I know I should have told you about the bad paper, and the injuries, and everything.”
Vanessa had only turned on the reading light next to the couch, leaving most of the room in shadows and turning the window into a dark mirror. Mikey sat in the corner of the purple couch. “So why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
Mikey wasn’t having any of that. “Try harder.”
Benny ran both hands through his hair, tugging at it. “It’s just – it’s so much, you know? You shouldn’t have to deal with all of it. I mean, the drinking, the bad behavior, and me being you know—”
“Hurt? Injured? What?”
Benny slumped down on the couch. “A loser.”
“Hmm. So if I know you, and I do, your thought process, such as it was, went something like, ‘if Mikey finds out what a loser I am, he’ll run away.’” Mikey’s foot jittered with the energy coursing through him. “All that topped off with a healthy dose of self-pity for all the shitty stuff you lived through.”
Benny’s eyes were wide. His mouth opened and shut, and Mikey could tell he was running through all the arguments and counter-arguments he had been practicing in his head and coming up blank. Mikey had taken this conversation in a different direction than Benny had been expecting and now he was flailing wildly for footing. Good. Let him flail.
Mikey got up and stood right in front of Benny, forcing him to tilt his head up to look him in the eye. “You know what you need to do?” he asked, once he had Benny’s full attention.
“Leave?” Benny looked like a kicked puppy, his big brown eyes all red and tear-filled.
“You need to get the fuck over yourself.”
“What?” Benny asked incredulously.
Mikey kept his voice low, conscious of Jasmine sleeping upstairs, though he wasn’t sure he would stop even if she woke up, came downstairs, and sat on the couch next to Benny. He knew he would only get one shot at this and he wasn’t going to waste it.
“You heard me. Get over yourself. Do you think you’re the only one bad things have happened to? You’re not even the only one in this room.” He leaned into Benny’s personal space, and Benny leaned back.
“Do you think the last couple of years have been easy for me? I was twenty-two years old with a freaking kid. You know how long I’d known Julia when she got pregnant?”
Benny shook his head.
“Three months. So there we were, stupid kids, both trying to stay in law school, trying to make it work, trying to figure out the right thing to do.” Mikey looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “A
nd then she gets sick. Real sick. And, it’s fucking cancer, and she had have to have chemo and radiation, or she could die. But Jasmine was almost here. She was six months pregnant, so of course, she said no. Not until the baby is born.”
Benny covered his mouth with his hand and shook his head.
“Yeah. Her freaking parents were telling her to take the chemo. Have a C-section at twenty-six week, as if there was a chance Jasmine could live.”
“Holy shit.”
Mikey would rather do anything else but talk about this, but the time had come and gone for him and Benny to hide from the past, to pretend it hadn’t happened and didn’t matter. “So, long horrible, horrible story short. Julia died. We were never married because she needed to stay on her parent’s insurance. I’m, just —” He shook his head, unable to get the words out. “Well, I’m not good. And I have a two-year-old, and I have her parents telling me how much better for Jasmine it would be if I would just let them have her. My parents are in fucking India.”
Benny risked putting a hand on Mikey’s arm. “I can’t even imagine.”
“You know how hard it is to raise a kid alone? And as a black man? I was fucking terrified that she might hurt herself. I had the whole damn house padded because could you imagine if I had taken her to the ER with a broken arm? Or, god forbid, a burn?”
“Kids get hurt. I mean, we were always at the hospital.” Benny tried to laugh but didn’t quite manage it.
Mikey covered mouth with his hand to keep the words in. He stood up, pacing around the room. He stopped in front of Benny and looked down at him, hands on his hips. “Nito, if I had taken her to the ER for anything that looked even vaguely like I could possibly have done it to her myself, I would have had CPS on my back in a heartbeat. I might have been allowed to see her, but probably not.”
“They can’t do that!” Benny stood up as if to stop someone from barging in and snatching Jasmine from her bed.
“They can, and they do. I wouldn’t have been able to see her until some social worker investigated me and decided I wasn’t abusing my child. And even if they did deign to let me take my baby home, how long do you think it would have taken Julia’s parents to take her from me then? There were times I let the doctors think Vanessa was my wife just so I had another layer of respectability between me and my blackness. So don’t go thinking you have a monopoly on pain and heartbreak.”
Benny sat back down, pale and shaking.
Mikey didn’t give him a break. “So, yeah. What you went through must have been horrible. Even I have heard the stats on PTSD, but you’re not the only one. So fucking start talking. Other people know things and can help. Chris? Chris is a real friend. I’m your friend. And friends don’t let you get away with this self-pitying shit.”
Mikey sat back down on the purple couch, catty-corner from Benny. “I remember this now, I remember this about you; what a drama queen you used to be about everything. It was funny when we were kids, but I don’t have time or energy for this shit, and frankly neither do you. It’s not helping. You know what helps? Doing something.”
“I did do something! I joined AA, and I moved a thousand miles away from every friend I had to start over.”
Their voices were rising, and Mikey slid closer to where Benny sat on the other couch. “And that’s awesome. I’m proud of you. But that was step one! Have you called your parents? Have you gone to anyone for help with anything?”
“Go to who?” Benny said bitterly.
“Me! You could have fucking called me when everything went to shit. I would have been there for you, man. I would have.” Mikey was horrified to realize he was near tears. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
Mikey heard the creak as Benny stood up, heard the brush of his shoes over the wood floor, and then the couch sagged with the weight of Benny sitting next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said.
He’d said it a hundred time tonight in one way or another, but this time sounded different. This wasn’t ‘I’m sorry, please don’t be mad,’ or ‘I’m sorry I hurt you,’ this was Benny truly sad and mourning what could have been.
“It wasn’t you, Mikey. I was in a seriously bad place. Really messed up. You’re lucky I didn’t call you because I would have been looking for a handout, a place to stay, a loan. Me back then would have fucked you in that bathroom, left and gotten another guy back there as soon I could get it up again. And I would have been high as a kite on whatever someone had handed me.” Benny turned his head away as if that would stop Mikey from seeing his tears. “And stop me if I’m wrong, but I got out about two and a half years ago. I don’t think you were really in a place for angry-drunk-cabrón-Benny.”
Two and a half years ago had been right when Julia was dying. The worst days of Mikey’s life. “It would have been a disaster. But, Nito,” he shifted on the couch, turning his whole body towards Benny, “I really could have used my old best friend right then.”
Benny shifted to face Mikey, their hands touching across the back of the couch. “I am so, so sorry. If I could do my life over, believe me, I would make different choices.”
Mikey laced their fingers together, caught as always by the contrast of dark and light skin. A car driving by outside painted matching stripes of light on the dark tree trunks and across their faces. “If I could have a do-over, I would have found you that night and kissed you. Made you forget all about Clark fucking Hansen.”
Benny laughed out loud, an honest, happy laugh. “Oh, my God. Could you imagine? You would have blown little Benny’s mind.”
Mikey sighed heavily and then tugged Benny towards him. “Come here.” He maneuvered them until he sat stretched out on the couch with his back against the armrest and Benny sat with his back against Mikey’s chest. Mikey wrapped his arms around Benny’s waist, and Benny covered his hands with his own.
“I’m still really angry and disappointed with you,” Mikey said.
“I know. And you should be.” Benny ran his fingers across Mikey’s hand and leaned his head back against Mikey’s chest.
“I wonder how different it would have been if I hadn’t been so scared?” Mikey wondered out loud. “If I had just talked to you?”
“And if I hadn’t been such a drama queen,” Benny said. “I mean, really, what kind of asshole joins the fucking Marines out of spite?”
Mikey laughed. “Actually, that was such a Benny move. It’s exactly the kind of thing you would do.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Considering I did do it.”
Mikey’s glance wandered around the room that had been Benny’s alone and now had traces of Jasmine and him everywhere he looked. Vanessa had straightened up the mess of papers Jasmine had been playing with earlier, sticking them back in the art basket they kept for her on the coffee table.
Would he still have Jasmine if he had kissed Benny eight years ago? Who knew that one small moment of indecision when you were trapped in that liminal space between childhood and adulthood would have repercussions that would last the rest of your life?
“I hate to ask this,” Benny said, squeezing Mikey’s hand. “But where do we stand now? I mean, what are we doing?”
Mikey shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. One day at a time, right?”
“You know, I get the sentiment, I really do,” Benny said. “But I’ve always hated that stupid saying. I hate living incrementally, counting the hours and the days, and always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“What does that even mean?” Mikey asked.
“What?”
“Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where did that saying come from?”
Benny twisted around in Mikey’s arms to stare at him. “This is what you’re thinking about right now?”
Mikey dropped his head down on the arm of the couch. “I can’t think of anything serious anymore. I’m done. Burned out. Julia’s parents are coming next weekend to try and take Jasmine from me, you’re brain damaged – which, duh – and, believe it or not, I ac
tually have some serious cases going on at work.”
“Pobrecito.”
“Shut up.”
Benny lifted Mikey’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I am truly sorry to have to be an item on the list of things that are causing you stress. Seriously. All joking aside. I promise that I will get over myself and try to get some help. I’ll call Troy tomorrow and let him yell at me and then ask him what I can do.”
“What can you do?” Mikey cupped Benny’s cheek in his hand. Despite how crazy Benny made him, how serious his issues actually were - and Mikey wasn’t kidding himself, he knew they had a rough road ahead - he still couldn’t help loving Benny. Maybe one day he’d even tell Benny that. But not tonight.
“I have no idea,” Benny said. “But I’ll try to find out.”
“Maybe Kevin can help.”
“Maybe.”
“God, I need a drink,” Mikey sighed.
“Fuck, yeah. You and me both.” Benny sat up. “Tea?”
Mikey rubbed his eyes. “Sure. What kind?”
“Chamomile? Sleepytime? Benny headed to the kitchen.
“Live fast, die young,” Mikey called after him.
“You know it.”
Mikey sat up, swung his legs off the couch, and rubbed his hands across his eyes. He checked the time. Nine-thirty. It felt like midnight. He’d left his briefcase next to the couch earlier that day, and he reached for it, pulling out his laptop. There was research he needed to do.
chapter eighteen
Benny put the kettle on the stove and turned the dial to high. With a whoosh of gas, the burner lit, and he watched the blue flames licking the bottom of the kettle. His favorite mug still had coffee in it from the morning, so he rinsed it in the sink.
The heavy stoneware cup from Sequoia National Park reminded him that there had been good times, excellent times even, mixed in with all the shit over the last years. He and Honey D and a bunch of guys from the club had gone camping there a few years ago.
He remembered how it felt to walk amongst those giant trees, soaring hundreds of feet into the air and so wide around that when they had linked hands, arms stretched wide, they hadn’t even come close to reaching around the enormous trunks. Some of the trees were thousands of years old; they had survived fire and flood, had been there when Jesus was born halfway across the world and a thousand years before white men had stepped foot on the continent.