Chapter 7
Bennett
“Chance, get off man!” I gasped, using all my strength to pull much needed oxygen into my lungs. Between the weight of his body and the raw heat, I was suffocating, each breath dragging more and more fine desert sand into my lungs. I coughed, sputtering as I tried to draw a deep breath. “Chance! Move!”
“No, man! If I move, you die!” We were in the bunks at basic training, worlds away from any real dangers. But the unmistakable rattle of gunfire echoed through the night and the shouts of soldiers just outside were nothing short of frantic.
“Dude, this isn’t funny. Off. Now.” As I tried to push him off, he laughed. What started low and rough, morphed into something loud and full, coming from somewhere deep inside my friend. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard come from Chance’s mouth.
He rolled off, clutching the battle worn picture in his bloody hand over his heart. “I forgot to save the arms, man, I’m sorry. I forgot all about the arms.” Sure enough, what I’d been using to push him off were gone, now only bloody stumps at the elbows.
“They don’t hurt.” I raised them, inspecting the beauty of the red muscle against bright white bone, jagged at the break. “Why don’t they hurt?” I look over and see Chance has my hands in his, dangling them over where I lay.
“They can’t hurt, Ben. They’re gone. I didn’t save them. Remember?” He was monotone, looking at the bloody scrap of a picture on the ground at his feet. “Ben, you don’t have arms. Now you can’t hold her. You can’t hold my golden girl. You don’t have arms, but don’t worry Ben. I can hold her with your arms.
He then began trying to grab the picture using my hands like the claw machine you’d see at an arcade.
I sat straight up, letting the darkness of the room wrap around me like a warm blanket on a winter morning. My arms, curled tight around my midsection, had fallen asleep. As I bent and moved each finger, pins and needles took over, reminding me they were still very much attached.
What the hell was that about? I shook my head, trying to shake off the residue of the dream. His golden girl. I didn’t even know her name. All I know is he grew up in New York. In the Bronx, actually. He was all The Yankees are bad asses, they’re gonna kick the Astro’s farmer asses this year. Truth? I didn’t care, but when he started talking smack about Houston, I became the ‘Stro’s biggest fan. It was a guy thing, something I hadn’t known much about before joining the army and meeting Chance.
It had crossed my mind more than once that I should try to find his golden girl. Did she know he was dead? Did she even exist? And how on earth would I find her with no name, a picture almost worn clean of ink, and the name of a soldier who let her live in his heart?
I’d spent more time than I’d like to admit watching the sun push the darkness away, craving that same relief. It was nights like this I wish I’d never surrendered to sleep. Pulling out the picture from my wallet, I looked again, willing something to pop out at me. A pudgy face with braces and what appeared to be dark hair, dark eyes. I just described more than half the population of Brooklyn.
Trudging out of bed, I started a pot of coffee before heading toward the shower. Fridays were always tough, thanks to 8:00 a.m. statistics. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but beggars can most certainly not be choosers. I was lucky to be enrolled at all. Plus, math and I got along just fine, so this was a fluff class for me.
The water took a millennium to heat up, but this was an odd morning. I actually had time to wait. I was caught up on homework and reading, and the night I changed Jill’s—no, Jillian’s tire—I’d come right back and used a computer on the third floor to knock out the paper I’d been writing for my sociology class.
When steam started escaping from under the bathroom door, I jumped in and stood completely still, letting the water run over my tired body. Hot showers were another thing falling under the ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’ category. There are so many things in life I’d taken for granted that the army taught me to appreciate. Hot showers, real food, beautiful women.
And there she was, in my mind, just like she was that night. Any red-blooded man would have appreciated watching her bend and stretch as she replenished the supplies, but when Jillian turned around, all coherent thought left my brain. I’d been speaking with Mrs. Lowe and there’s no way she missed how my words evaporated into thin air and how my eyes affixed to Jillian, following her for the rest of the night.
The pull of gravity was stronger in Texas than it was overseas. It probably had something to do with the twenty-four/ seven adrenaline high of combat. Seeing Jillian that night brought that high right back. That apron tied around her slim waist created an off-key harmony with the stylish, name brand clothing hugging her curves, but it also served as a mask. I saw through her artifice though. I saw her. In the moments when she spoke with Chance, she let her guard down and her true self emerged. That girl, the one humming George Strait as she washed dishes, wiggling her hips to the beat when she thought no one was watching. That girl was someone the old Bennett Hanson would have given a limb to love.
Dressed and ready for class a full hour earlier than planned, I crept into Chance’s office, grabbed the phone receiver, and started dialing. The call was well overdue.
“Hello?” Her tone held a tremor I’d equate to fear. God, it was good to hear her voice.
“Rosie!” I heard the rustle of her covering the phone while she barked admonitions to whoever was in her kitchen. I imagine it was something like, Settle down and zip it, I’m on the phone. I have a wooden spoon and I’m not afraid to use it, or something like that.
“Mijo?” My son? I laughed.
“Yeah, one of them. Now you get to figure out which.” Rosie and Doc had fostered nearly a hundred kids over the years on their ranch. Well, technically, now it was my ranch too, but it would always be their ranch.
“Bravo, you think I do not know you when you call me? But I shouldn't, should I? I should forget your voice, you call me so little, but I will always know mi bravo.” Bravo. Brave. She’d called me that since I stepped on her porch as a skinny, know-it-all who had no use for a short, squatty Mexican woman who tried to wipe my face with her dish towel before she even introduced herself.
“I sure do miss you, old woman.” I could hear her smile over the phone and I felt it in my gut. It may have never been official, but this was my family and I think I missed them now more than I had when I was more than seven thousand miles away.
“How is class? Are you paying attention? Keeping up with your studies? You’re a smart boy, Bravo. Very smart.”
“It’s good, Rosie. I have a little apartment. And I have a job working in the library.” It was true. Due to my financial aid paperwork, essentially stating I had zero dollars, Chance was able to hire me as a student worker. I worked when I could, after hours, copying old documents in sets to be sent to different campus libraries within the Texas A&M University system. I can’t say it’s the most stimulating work, but I essentially get paid to push a few buttons and study, so no complaints here.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why would you think something’s wrong?” I swear she was involved in some Mexican voodoo. She knew what was up from hundreds of miles away.
“No me mientas.”
“I’m not lying. I’m just not sleeping.”
“Pesadillas?” Nightmares? She whispered it like a revelation, not a question.
“Yeah. It’s getting better though. It’s not as bad as it was.”
“Como se llama?”
“Rosie. Sweetie. I don’t speak Spanish. But who? I haven’t met anyone special.”
“Mentira.” She mumbled under her breath.
“Her name is Jillian. I changed her tire. She’s highborn, you can tell, and she’d never give a second look to a guy like me.” I sighed. “Besides, I’m not here to find a girl. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Bonita?” Grrr. She never listened. I dropped my chin to my chest, mourning once again the man I was and the man I could have been.
“Muy bonita.” And she was. She will make some man terribly happy. Hell, she might be with him right now, waking up in his bed, stretching out like a cat, before flopping back down for a few more minutes of sleep in his arms, lucky bastard.
“Come home, Mijo.”
“I can’t. I have to work. I have class. I’m taking a full load and if I don’t stay on top of it, I’ll drown.” But I wanted to. I really wanted to. I could work on the ranch without thought. Doc and I could work side by side for ten hours and exchange even fewer words. It was familiar. It was safe. But being on the ranch wasn’t moving me forward in life.
“Te amo mi cielo.” Oh, she was laying it on thick.
“I’ll try and come home for Christmas, Mama.”
“I’ll send you a bus ticket. And Benito? You are a good boy and you are so easy to love. Don’t ever forget.”
I hung up the phone, lonelier than I’d been before. I’d always been part of something bigger. I entered the system at fifteen after both of my parents were imprisoned for running a drug ring out of our shanty in East Texas. From there, I was sent to a foster ranch, where I met Rosie and Doc. For the next three years, they did their best to infuse into me all the love I’d missed out on in a household where I remained invisible… albeit tough to do most of the time.
The day I turned eighteen, I enlisted in the US Army and the rest is history. Now, four years later, I’m stronger, smarter, and despite my current living situation, I feel more stable than I have in years. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss being part of a group. I thought all this alone time was what I needed, if for nothing else than to sort myself out and get my mind right. But the persistent silence was doing more harm than good.
All day long, I’d been debating dinner. I was surviving fine on bread, peanut butter, and whatever else I could pick up at the general store on the edge of campus for weeks, but the idea of a hot meal was too much to resist.
I hadn’t returned to The Community Cafe for their infamous big Friday night dinner since I’d changed Princess Jillian’s tire a few weeks before. The Monday/ Wednesday dinners were different. Sometimes breakfast food, once a big salad bar, and a few days before, when the temperature dropped, they served soup and sandwiches. I enjoyed those meals, but I’d been dreaming of all-American beef for a month. I think part of me still struggled with the whole charity aspect of things, but another part of me knew Friday was the day she was there. I had no desire to see the mix of pity and disgust in Jillian’s eyes when she looked at me in that place. I could go a lifetime without hot food to spare myself from that look again.
“Hey, wait! Bennett?” I was thinking of food, deciding if I should shower or not, as I entered the library. But hearing my name, I stopped cold. I’d gotten so good at skirting past the circulation desk undetected, but it was Friday afternoon—the place was deader than disco, and I feared my cover had been blown.
It was cool, I was cool. I certainly wasn’t a stowaway in the weird little hobbit hole under the stairs this guy may or may not even know about.
“Yes?” Oh, it was the guy I’d named Napoleon. Hardly taller than the desk itself, but built like a brick outhouse to compensate for his ‘shortcomings’ I guessed. I must have smiled at the thought because the guy’s face broke out in a wide grin.
“Hey, glad I caught you. Chance wanted me to give this to you.” He held out a book, wrapped in a nondescript plastic sack. “He said you might come through, so I’ve been looking for you.” Great, Chance. Way to keep this thing on the down low.
“He’s usually here at this time, right?” I asked, wondering why he hadn’t just given it to me himself.
“Well, yeah, but it’s barbecue day at the cafe, so he had to go tend to the smokers or pull the pork or some other nonsense.”
“Okay. Well, thanks—” I waited, wishing I was less of an introvert at times like these.
“Oh, Leon.” He smiled and pointed to his ID tag. “My name is Leon.”
And I know I laughed at that. I certainly wouldn’t ever forget NapoLEON’s name.” I waved and we turned in opposite directions, him going back to his job and me going to, what, my apartment? Sure, that worked for the time being.
Once safely inside the confines of my temporary dwelling, I removed the book from the bag. Only it wasn’t a book, it was two freakishly thick magazines. The first, The New England Journal of Medicine, dated a few weeks back and the second, Psychology Today, was more recent. Both, I noticed, had pages flagged, but there was also an envelope tucked behind the cover of one.
Bennett,
Today is barbecue day at the cafe and I sure hope you’ll join us. Lillie says you’re losing weight and I only seem to pass you on your way out. I can always drop a plate by, but it wouldn’t kill you to get out and socialize a bit.
So, because it’s barbecue day, I had to leave early, which means I had to come in early. That being said, I heard you having a hard time in there this morning. Dreams, I’m guessing?
I don’t mean to pry, but my father had CSR (Combat Stress Reaction) after coming home from fighting on the Pacific front in WWII. There wasn’t much known about it back then, but in the last ten years, that’s changed. I marked some articles that might put words to what you’re going through and, when you’re ready, I’d like to point you in the right direction to get some help.
Hope to see you tonight,
Chance