Benji and the Wireman

by Charlie Winters

  Jesse chuckled softly against my neck. God, the feel of his incredible body against mine was so amazing and it was so nice to just… be with someone who… let me be.

  “And he likes Chopped,” I added. “All of the Food Network, really. I think he has a man-crush on Alton Brown. But Chopped is probably his favorite. It’s where we all sort of became obsessed with cooking even though none of us are really good at it. A few years ago, everyone in the family bought each other a cookbook. It was sort of like an exchange. Like, you get me one and I’ll get you one. So I got my dad Alton Brown’s cookbook. My mom got me Barefoot Contessa’s because, come on, why wouldn’t she? And my dad got my mom Giada’s because, again, my dad likes tits and I think he just wanted to look at the pictures.

  “Anyway, I tried almost every fucking recipe in that Barefoot cookbook and none of them came out like Ina’s, you know? I think it’s because Ina lives in the goddamned Hamptons or whatever and you can just get better cheese and meat than you can in Topeka, but… I really tried.” I pulled the sauce off of the stove and onto a cold burner. “It’s just like tonight. I’m probably going to end up burning the chicken because I can’t multitask. I’m pretty terrible at most things because my head goes in eighty different directions a hundred percent of the time.”

  “It’ll be perfect,” Jesse said softly. “Because you made it. And because you welcomed my family. And because they love you already.”

  “Your brother doesn’t look anything like you.” I peeked over my shoulder where Will and Janine were talking to my parents on the sofa. Janine was sitting with her legs straddled over one of Will’s thick thighs as he palmed her knee. “He’s like the complete opposite of you. I couldn’t have picked him out in a lineup,” I whispered. “But I like him. I like both of them… like a lot. And Janine. Jesus, where did he get her? Was she a Cracker Jack prize from a porno convention?”

  “Right?” Jesse answered with a laugh. “High school sweethearts. Janine’s always been hot like that. And she’s always had it bad for Will.”

  “Really?” I asked quietly. “I mean, not that he’s not a nice guy or whatever. He’s super nice and pretty cute if you like that rough and tumble type, but I’m surprised, I guess. She looks like a fucking model. Like a Dita Von Teese or something.”

  “Remember the other day when you asked me why I liked you? You couldn’t possibly fathom why someone like me would like someone like you. You were obsessed with the fact that I should be with someone like Doug. And remember what I told you? That Doug was boring and that I didn’t want to be with someone like him. That I wanted you, right? That you were perfect for me. You shouldn’t question why people are attracted to who they are. Some people just fit. You fit for me, Ben. And Will fits for Janine.”

  I looked down at my sauce, embarrassed that I could have said such a thing. Of course they fit. One look at those two people could have told anyone within a five-block radius that. And I—the shallow fucking dickbrain that I was, no better than all of the other assholes out there—was questioning that.

  “Of course,” I choked. “I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Your brother is amazing and she’s not better than him. I’m ashamed for saying that.”

  “Ben.” Jesse tugged at my shoulders, turning me around to face him. He propped my back against the stove and forced my chin with his thumb. “Look at me.”

  Oh God. Tears were always my weakness when I became embarrassed and that moment was no exception, a few forming in the corners of my eyes. “God, Jess, I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “Jesus, Ben. Will you stop?”

  Jesse pressed a slow kiss to my lips, parting them with his tongue. I knew that everyone was behind us, but fuck them if they couldn’t stand a little PDA. I mean, Janine was practically straddling Will directly across from my parents. So, I continued to maul Jesse, my arms wrapping around his shoulder blades as his tongue basically fucked the inside of my mouth. When we finally pulled back, four sets of eyes were on us as the timer for the oven buzzed loudly in the background.

  “Um… chicken’s ready!” I shrieked.

  “Wow,” Janine mumbled through a bite of chicken. “This food is like… my God, Ben.” She shoveled another scoop of the curried rice into her painted mouth and chewed. “It’s so good.”

  Will stared at her, his fork suspended in mid-bite. “Slow down there, Chopper. This isn’t the Last Supper. No one’s gonna take your plate away from you, babe.”

  “It’s, like, better than Southern Spice in Orlando.” Janine dug another huge bite into her mouth and took a quick sip of water. “And you know how I feel about Southern Spice.”

  “They know her by name there,” Will said proudly. “Her ass has an imprint in every booth in that place.”

  She pointed her fork at Will. “They’ve got that chicken with the almond and the coconut gravy. Oh, and the butter chicken… and the tikka masala. I mean, you know how I feel about chicken in general. Especially chicken with sauces.” She turned all of her attention back to me. “What’s in this one?”

  I shrugged. “It’s kind of a half and half mix, you know?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “It’s like a half and half. It’s Jeffrey’s roasted chicken. It’s from the Cooking for Jeffrey book. And then the pan sauce is a different recipe. It’s from the tomato-chicken one. Then I just made the rice with like five recipes jumbled together because there wasn’t one with curry, so I sort of made it up because I like curry. I don’t think Ina likes curry so much because she doesn’t cook with it a lot.” I shrugged again. “The whole cookbook only has maybe two recipes where she calls for it. I’m pretty sure she could never live with an Indian family.”

  Janine continued to chew while she stared at me. “Who’s Jeffrey?” she finally asked.

  “Ina’s husband.” Um… duh.

  “Who’s Ina?”

  I put down my fork politely and placed my hands onto the table.

  “Oh boy,” my dad said quietly.

  “Ina Garten is like the Coco Chanel of the goddamned Food Network. She basically makes Martha Stewart look bush league. Like, why would you want to be invited to Martha’s little amateur hour Thanksgiving when you could buzz out to the Hamptons and be a part of history?”

  “History?” my mother said somewhere in the background.

  “Yes,” I said louder, focusing all of my attention on Janine. “History, Mother. Ina once made this lemon cake on the show, you know? It called for three large eggs. Now, you and I would just go to the refrigerator and grab some, right? Oh, no, not her. She just walked outside and into some attached chicken coop, which of course was delightfully clean and beautiful, and picked three up right there. The chickens were all well-behaved and gorgeous because, of course they were. Ina smiled the whole time and just… picked her eggs, you know? Put them in this little basket with a nice red and white checkered napkin all perfectly placed. Of course, once she was out there, wouldn’t you know that the most amazing roses had bloomed right that morning and Ina, God bless her, had a pair of shears right there in her goddamned pocket.”

  I made a snipping gesture with my hand. “In the basket they go, right there with the eggs. Back into the house to make that cake and arrange those flowers… just like it was nothing. Waiting for Jeffrey to come home in his perfect car from his perfect job in the city where they could just eat that very same chicken—maybe the one who laid the eggs, I mean, who knows?—and they would just sit on that patio and drink wine by candlelight and eat that cake she made right there in that three-thousand square foot kitchen with the eggs she found right there in that pristine chicken coop not two hours earlier.”

  “Wow,” Janine beamed.

  “Right?” I agreed, picking back up my fork. “She’s basically my hero.”

  Janine turned to Jesse. “I meant wow about him.” She nodded her head toward me. “He’s basically my hero.”

  Jesse tipped his glass of beer. “Yep. He’s, uh,
a storyteller. You should ask him to tell you what he thinks about that show Girls.”

  Janine started to open her mouth, but I gave her a swift gesture of a knife to the throat. “No,” I replied. “Let’s just enjoy tonight. Let’s not ruin it.”

  “Oh,” Janine said quietly. “Okay.”

  “Or black licorice,” Jesse teased. “Ben has a lot of… opinions.”

  “Remember that part where I told you I loved you?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “I take it back.”

  The whole table became quiet for a moment until I realized the fuckery that had just slipped out of my mouth. Oh Jesus.

  “I’m kidding,” I blurted. “Everyone calm down.”

  “No he’s not,” Jesse returned calmly, cutting his chicken. “He doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s wildly nuts about me because he thinks that it’s too early. He’s worried that people shouldn’t say that they love each other at this stage because it seems disingenuous.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Truth is, I don’t know that you can put a time on something like that. Let me ask you something. Will, how long did it take before you knew that Janine was the one for you?”

  Will looked over at his wife. “I don’t know. Few days?”

  Janine smiled and leaned over to plant a sloppy kiss on Will’s cheek. “Thank you, baby.”

  “And David,” Jesse continued, “how long was it before you knew that Bridgette was it?”

  My dad smiled over at me. “Sorry, kid, he’s got me. I didn’t tell her right off… I mean, I waited a good long bit so I wouldn’t scare her off, but I’d say about a week?”

  Jesse cut another piece of chicken and stabbed it with his fork. “It’s not that out of the ordinary, Ben. I hear this kind of thing all of the time. People say that they just know. I knew about you in the first few days. Maybe after you told me the Maid in Manhattan bit. There was something about it. You were fired up about romance and I liked it.”

  “You hated that movie,” I grumbled.

  “Yeah, but I like the way you talked about it. I like the way you talk about everything. You just spent an entire minute talking about some chicken coop like the story was leading up to where some hidden treasure was buried. I mean, you put down your utensils and everything. Just to talk about some cake someone made.” Jesse sniffed out a laugh. “I want to breathe you in, you know?”

  I looked at him for a moment before glancing over toward my mom. “I don’t know what that means,” I told him.

  “I don’t know, Ben. I guess I just feel like I need you now. I didn’t know what was missing before and now I do.” He smiled and took a final bite of chicken before dropping his fork to his empty plate. “You guys, Ben made these awesome peanut butter bars. Anyone want one?”

  “You’re in love?” my mom said quietly. “It’s true then, you know, what you said on the phone?”

  I nodded into my plate. “It’s embarrassing, right?”

  “No,” she returned. “I know why Oma took the photo. I know why she wanted him at the end.”

  “Don’t—”

  I could feel the fucking tears. God, not in front of his brother. Not in front of his brother.

  “He’s your happily ever after,” she finished.

  I breathed out and stood to collect everyone’s plates, hoping that they couldn’t see the baseball-sized lump in my goddamned throat. Fucking Mom… shut up, shut up, shut up!

  “What do you mean?” Jesse asked.

  “Ben’s Oma used to write these little books for him. Little stories, you know? She illustrated them and bound them with ribbon and everything because they didn’t have stories for, you know, boys like him. She knew, even back then, that maybe his happily ever after might be a little different than the stories that were already published. So, she wrote these books for him specifically. They were always fantasy books starring Benji. It would be Benji the Explorer or Benji the Traveler… then when he got a little older, she wrote Benji Goes to Africa and Benji Goes to the Prom. When Benji went to the Prom, his date was—”

  “A boy,” I finished, turning around to face everyone from my place at the sink. “Benji’s date was a boy named Griffin. Oma dressed him in a pink tuxedo with a black tie. I didn’t understand what the Prom really was back then, but I knew it was a dance and I knew that there were rainbow balloons everywhere. Griffin held Benji’s hand and they even danced a few times.” I laughed. “Turns out, the real Prom didn’t have a single rainbow balloon, like, anywhere. I ended up going with Candy and it was pretty horrible. We had a huge crush on the same guy and it was basically the worst night. I wore black, not pink, and I kept looking around the whole night… it was ridiculous, but I… I kept thinking that I might see Griffin there. Oma had read that story to me a thousand times. I guess I just thought that someday it might come true.”

  My mom looked over at me before turning her attention to Jesse. “The cover was black with, like, a hundred of those little star stickers, you know? The ones you get in school? Anyway, she ended every story with ‘and they both lived happily ever after.’ Of course, his dad and I razzed her for not being a little more creative, but he loved those stories… and there was a little romance in every one. There was always a happy ending.” She turned her attention back to me. “I know she couldn’t write you another story before she died, but she told me once that she’d take a photo if she ever met your Griffin or your Lance or your Abel in real life. She said she’d take a photo and she’d put it in the family album.”

  “Mom,” I said softly.

  “Oma took a photo of him,” she returned before glancing over at Jesse. “She took a photo of Jesse. He’s your Griffin. You don’t have to look for him anymore.”

  I brought the plate of peanut butter bars over and placed them into the center of the table. “So, I probably should have asked earlier if anyone was allergic to peanuts. Um… Will? Janine? Allergies to peanuts?”

  They both looked up at me, blank stares on their faces as they slowly shook their heads in unison.

  “No? Good.”

  “Ben.” Jesse’s warm hand wrapped around my hip, encouraging me to sit on his lap. I sunk onto one thick thigh with a sigh.

  “What?”

  Jesse nuzzled into my neck, rubbing his soft beard against my skin. “I’m your Griffin or whatever.” He smiled widely. “That’s really sweet, right? And now we can go to Africa or whatever.”

  “Lance goes to Africa,” I mumbled.

  “Okay, well, maybe we can write our own story where Benji takes Jesse to Africa.”

  “Dude,” Will said with a laugh. “You are so gay right now.”

  “Shut up. I’m having a moment with Benji,” he teased.

  I rolled my eyes. “Will you stop? No one calls me Benji except four people.” I held up and ticked off four fingers. “My dad, my mom, Oma, and Grandma Nancy. Now we’re down to two.”

  “And now I can call you Benji when we write our adventure. I can even take over and illustrate it.”

  I wrapped my arm around his neck. “Mmm, I’ve seen your pancake art. You should probably keep your day job.”

  “Wait! Benji Goes to Disney World!” he shouted. “With Jesse, of course. Not Griffin. Or that douchebag, Lance. I’ll start practicing sketching the Magic Kingdom now.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Actually, Jess is a pretty great artist,” Will added.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said quietly, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “You heard your mom. I’m your happy ending.”

  Eighteen.

  Jesse

  When we got back to Ben’s house, he was quiet—much quieter than normal. He brushed his teeth without talking in between strokes. He washed his face thoughtfully, staring at himself in the mirror much longer than he usually did. He took an excessive amount of time in front of the closet, seeming to look through every shirt he had with a watchful eye before turning to the next one with a long sigh.

  “Ben,” I chided. “Come to bed.”

  “Yo
u think my parents are okay at your house?” he asked. “Maybe I should call my mom.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “I have to find something to wear to the viewing,” he said quietly. “Maybe I’ll just shop tomorrow. Nothing I have says ‘funeral.’ Actually, nothing I have is appropriate.” Ben shifted through two more shirts. “So much pink and just… light blue and so many patterns and blech.”

  “I’ll shop with you if you want. Now come to bed,” I repeated, patting the mattress.

  “I’m not tired,” Ben said drowsily. “I think I’m going to take a night swim.” He stripped off his shorts and underwear, letting them pool on the floor beneath his feet and grabbed a towel from the closet.

  “No trunks?” I asked.

  Ben shook his head. “Privacy fence. It’s dark out. I won’t turn on the lights other than the ones to light up the pool. It should be fine.”

  “Can I join?”

  He gave me a single shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not feeling super social right now.”

  I tugged off my underwear and kicked them off of the side of the bed. “I can change that.”

  “Jess,” Ben pleaded. “Please just maybe let me be alone for a little bit.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” I told him. “I want to be with you.”

  “Fine,” he conceded, handing me a towel. “Cover yourself until we get in. You’d definitely get arrested with that thing.”

  “There’s my Ben.” I nudged him in the shoulder. “I thought he’d gone missing in the last hour.”

  “He’s just exhausted.” Ben tried to smile, but failed.

  “I thought you said you weren’t tired.”

  Ben did look tired. He’d looked tired on the way home, letting me drive the Jetta while he’d slumped into the passenger’s seat and stared out of the window. He’d looked tired while he’d loaded the dishwasher, even though I’d said I would do it myself. He’d done everything. Wrapped the leftovers, cleaned the kitchen… Ben liked to be busy. Busy Ben kept his head from doing whatever it was doing now. Shutting down… taking itself into an ugly place where he wasn’t doing something right.