Benji and the Wireman

by Charlie Winters

  “Ben, you’re doing it again,” Jesse’s voice boomed behind me.

  He looked stunning in a gray linen suit. Why the fuck did he get to wear gray and here I was in this pastel mess? Jesse had opted to match me in a pink pinstriped tie, but it was just to appease me, that I was sure. I was ready to scrap the whole thing and go back to the store, but it was too late and I was sweating—just sweating like a pig—and everything was too snug. It was just too fucking tight!

  “I can’t breathe,” I grumbled, plopping onto the mattress and staring down at my oxfords. “This suit is too tight and—”

  “It’s not too tight, Ben. You’re just freaking out. You need to calm down. You look gorgeous. Like a runway model. It’s fierce,” he said, rubbing peppermint beard balm onto his face.

  I stared at him. “It’s fierce?”

  “Yeah. Fierce. Your dad told me that you and your Oma used to say that. When an outfit looked good, it was fierce.” He turned toward me and cocked an eyebrow. “Did I get it right?”

  “I can’t even with you right now.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” he said, “but you need to get it together. Your mom and dad are gonna be here in a minute.”

  I stood and took one final look in the mirror, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow and putting the final touches on my hair. “I look fierce,” I repeated into the reflection. “I can do this. My boyfriend says I look fierce.”

  Jesse swatted me on the behind and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You do. Now come on.” The doorbell rang. “That’s them.”

  When I opened the door, I felt immediately relieved. My mother stood on the other side wearing a bright orange dress cinched with a yellow belt at the waist, a bright orange daisy pinned in her short hair. She was wearing light purple oversized sunglasses and a huge grin.

  “Hi,” she said sweetly. “Wow, Benji. You look just… amazing.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I collapsed into her embrace, holding her for a little longer than either of us had likely intended. I loved the way she always smelled, like tea rose oil from the little shop on Main Street. She’d worn the same scent for as long as I could remember.

  My dad wore a gray suit similar to Jesse’s, but with a pretty terrible tie, something I was sure he’d dug out of the box from the last funeral he’d attended. Maybe it was Grandma Nancy’s… I couldn’t remember. It seemed like a blur now.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said softly, giving him a quick hug.

  “You look really handsome, little bear,” he whispered.

  Goddamn it, Dad.

  “Thanks,” I choked out. “Um, Jesse picked it.”

  My dad gave Jesse a firm pat on the shoulder. I knew that was his way of saying ‘good job, son’ without having said anything at all. Basically, it was the bro-hug for dads. It was sweet and I loved him a little more for it. Jesse smiled back at him, giving him a pat of his own.

  “Bridgette, you look beautiful,” Jesse said, leaning over to brush a kiss to her cheek.

  She gave him a small curtsy and said, “This old thing?”

  “Jesse,” my dad said, “I’ve gotta tell you, that house of yours is the stuff dreams are made of. The pool, that bed, the grill, that giant TV. I’m never going home. I’m just gonna retire and move in there permanently.”

  Jesse turned toward me. “Well, David, you let me know when you want to buy it. I’ll make you a good deal.”

  I shook my head at him and made a slicing motion to my throat.

  “You selling?” he asked.

  Jesse shrugged his shoulders. “You never know. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these days.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned toward my mom. “I’m so glad you wore tangerine. Jesus, I can’t believe he talked me into wearing this ridiculous thing.”

  My mom looked over at Jesse. “What’s he talking about? Is he moving?”

  I let out a long sigh. “No, he’s just being dramatic.” I lowered my voice so only she could hear. “He said he wants us to live, you know… together.”

  “What?” she whisper-shouted. “What the fuck?”

  “That’s what I said,” I gritted out. “I told him he was nuts.”

  “He just met you.” Her lips didn’t move, speaking through her teeth. “I hope you said no.”

  “I did say no.” I mimicked her frozen lips, sort of talking through a muffled kazoo. “But you know how he is. He keeps asking. Last night, he was being very persuasive.”

  “Oh my God.” She turned us both toward the wall in the kitchen so, you know, we’d be wayyyyy less obvious. “You are my son. I don’t want to know these things.”

  “I’m just saying,” I growled. “He is saying it doesn’t make sense because we’re together all the time anyway and that we should just kill two birds with one stone and—”

  “We can hear you,” Jesse called out behind us. “Bridgette, tell him it doesn’t make financial sense to have two places less than two miles apart. I mean, my place is paid off, so it seems like it would be a no-brainer for him to move in there, but I know how much he loves this place, so we could just sell mine.”

  We both turned around slowly to face him and my father.

  “I mean, we’d make a mint because I’m on the beach and he isn’t,” he continued. “Then again, if you moved in there, we’d be on the beach. And we’d have a bigger pool… oh, and a hot tub. Ben loves hot tubs.”

  I swallowed and tried to force a smile. “We are going to be late.”

  My dad looked over at Jesse and then at me. “He does make a point. The house is paid off and—”

  “Ohmigod, Dad. Will you guys get in the fucking car?”

  My mom let out a laugh, clasping her hand over her mouth. “Yeah,” she corrected quickly. “We’re late.”

  There were gerbera daisies everywhere—Oma’s favorite—strewn throughout nearly every space, the tacky rainbow colored ones that she loved so much. They didn’t grow from any garden in nature, but she’d always said that “someone really knew what they were doing when they came up with the idea to dye those things.” She’d said, “Look at ‘em. Turquoise daisies, Benji. You can’t find that color anywhere except the ocean.”

  I took a quick glance toward the end of the long room. Awaiting me there was a casket—ivory and gold—and… it was open. It was the first time I’d felt real fear, clutching Jesse’s hand just a little bit tighter. I didn’t want to see her. I was actually afraid for the first time in my life to see my favorite person in the world.

  “I’m scared,” I whispered to Jesse, my voice cracking.

  “I know.” Jesse squeezed my hand back before letting it go and placing it against my back to give me a small shove. “You’ve got to though.”

  “Stop it with the pushing,” I groaned. “I’ll get there. I just need a minute, okay?”

  Next to the ornate casket were a few huge collages, four or five of them, all strewn with photos that were hard to make out from the far distance. I longed to be closer, but my feet just wouldn’t work in my too-tight oxfords.

  “Did you make those?” I asked my mother.

  “That’s what your dad and I did yesterday. I told Jesse he needed to keep you occupied so we could finish.” She nudged me gently. “You should go have a look. And you should go take a look at her too, Benji. They did a great job.”

  I looked down at my pants and sighed. Jesus, why did I wear this suit? “Okay,” I said quietly. “I’ll go.”

  Jesse held my hand, rubbing his thumb against the inside of my palm, as I made it to the front slowly. When I looked inside, she was there, an almost-immediate giggle escaping from my throat.

  I knew people laughed at inappropriate times, but this seemed like the worst time to lose it, even if we were the only five people in the room. I craned my head back to look at my mother, her hand covering her own lips in a smile.

  What the fuck? I mouthed.

  She looks amazing, she mouthed back.

  Oma was wearing a red polka-dotted
dress cinched with a thick white patent leather belt. It looked a bit like a stage prop from a Minnie Mouse convention, complete with a few black buttons down the front. A bit of white crinoline stuck out at the elbows of each sleeve. Her hair was in its usual style—that was to say no style at all, sticking out in all of its madness, as if she had died by electric-shock rather than natural causes. Her lips were painted a bright crimson to match the dress and her eyes would have made any drag queen proud, so thick with ice blue and white glitter shadow, complete with a set of glamour black false eyelashes.

  A light hand touched my back as I heard my mother’s voice whisper, “It’s quite the spectacle, huh? Down to the tee. Her instructions. The dress, the makeup… everything.”

  I’d seen her wear the dress before, but it had been years—maybe when I was ten?—and I hadn’t seen it since, but if this is what she’d wanted to be buried in… well, who the fuck was I to deny her? I was standing in front of her in a pink suit. Her daughter was behind me in an orange goddamned cocktail mini, so…

  “Wow,” I said with a weak laugh. “She’s… well, she’s Oma.”

  “She looks great,” Jesse said, not a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

  I looked over at him and smiled. Of course he would say that. Of course he would because he was the most amazing man I’d ever met.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “She does.”

  “Jesse?” my mom asked. “You want to see some pictures of our family?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took his hand and led him over to the display. She and my dad must have spent hours on it, every single photo nearly taking the breath from my lungs. There had to be hundreds of them and over half were of Oma… and me.

  “These were my mothers. This was Mom and this was Momma,” she said softly. “Ben’s other grandma, Nancy.”

  My throat was thick staring at that photo. I’d looked at a million photos of my Oma and Grandma Nancy together, but now… now, looking at them together, I hoped—God, I really hoped—that they had found their way back to each other. Oma missed her so badly. She talked about her every single time we’d spoken like they’d never spent a moment apart. If there was such a thing as true soulmates in this world, my Oma and Grandma Nancy were the truest example I’d ever seen.

  They were the reason I never gave up on finding my one true love.

  They were the reason I’d fought so hard. I’d dated a million-and-a-half guys hoping that I’d look at even one with the same adoration and love that I saw between those two women.

  And now, looking at Jesse, I knew.

  I knew what they felt. I knew why they constantly touched each other. I knew why they fought, why they held hands, why they took those long walks, why they planted flowers in that garden, why they danced in the kitchen, why they argued over that birdfeeder, why they giggled through the walls of their bedroom when they thought I’d gone to bed.

  I knew it now.

  Looking at him, I knew.

  “Ben,” Jesse said with a laugh, pointing at a photo. “Look.”

  It was the fucking glitterbomb. My mother had included it. The most embarrassing of all of my moments and there it was, on full display, for all of my Oma’s friends to see. The Nomi Malone… fucking… Halloween… extravaganza.

  “Mom, just tell me why?” I tapped my foot expectantly.

  “Because it’s my favorite picture in the whole world. And it was hers too. I mean,” she said with a single shrug, “we couldn’t just not include it.”

  “You couldn’t just not include it?” I asked. “You couldn’t just not include it?”

  “Oh boy,” my father grumbled. “Okay, Ben. Here’s the deal. I just want you to know that I had nothing to do with it. I told her—”

  “Ohmigod,” I groaned before forcing a smile. “Okay. I’m calm. I’m good. This isn’t my day. This is Oma’s day. She loves this picture, so I love this picture. Jesse, hey… so, do you want to break up with me yet?”

  “Nope,” he replied, still staring at the photo. “You look really hot. I mean, if I was into girls.”

  “Okay.” I tapped my foot again. “Um, alright. So, let’s move on.”

  “Hey,” Jesse said quietly. “Look. It’s us.”

  He pointed at a Polaroid toward the bottom. It was the last photo, Cheryl’s messy scrawl in marker with the print, “Ben and his boyfriend, Jesse” highlighted across the thick white band. My mother had painted a thick red heart around it, complete with some glitter glue and silver sparkles.

  “Oh my God,” I blurted with an eye roll. “A heart and glitter, Mom? Could you have made it more obnoxious?”

  She shrugged and rubbed my back gently. “I mean, kind of. I wanted to put those star stickers all over it, but your dad told me to pull back a bit.”

  “I love it,” Jesse replied.

  I wanted to return with another snarky comeback, but when I turned to face him; his eyes were glossed over staring at that Polaroid, his throat bobbing thickly with emotion. He turned to face the window, quickly wiping at an eye with a single finger before turning back to me with a fragile smile.

  “Oh, hey guys,” my dad said, interrupting our moment, “someone’s here. Let’s go say our hellos.”

  Twenty-Two.

  Jesse

  She was the last person I’d expected to see. Dressed in a formal black pantsuit, I stared over at the woman signing the guestbook and swallowed again, unsure of what to say. I clasped Ben’s hand and turned to Bridgette and David before asking, “Do you mind if I talk to her for one moment with Ben, please?”

  They both looked at me in confusion but nodded, turning back to the collage.

  Ben looked confounded as well, but followed behind, his fingers laced tightly between mine.

  When we reached her, her gaze immediately dropped to our hands, but she had the decency to look back up, an unsteady smile crossing her lips.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Mom,” I returned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Will told me, um,” she replied, her voice frail, “that your… friend had a death in the family. I thought that it was only right that I pay my respects.” She turned toward Ben. “Is this…?”

  “Ben.”

  Ben let go of my hand and reached for hers. “Hi,” he said sweetly. “I’m Ben Watts. It’s really nice to meet you, Mrs. Solomon. Thank you so much for coming. I… I mean, we didn’t expect that—”

  “No, I don’t expect that you would have.” She looked down for a moment before looking back up. “I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother, um… Ben.”

  “Thank you,” he repeated, glancing over at me.

  “I don’t understand,” I stammered. “Dad… he—”

  “Your father won’t be joining me,” she said matter-of-factly. “He hasn’t changed his mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “But Will and Janine told me about it and I just thought… well, I’ve made some mistakes and I know that, but I’m not ready for you to cut me out just like that. Will said some things. He said that things were going to change and… well, with them having the baby, he just wanted us to be more of a family. He said that that would involve you.” She turned toward Ben. “And Ben. He said that if we weren’t willing to be a part of that, well, maybe things would be different there too.”

  “Mom—”

  “No,” she continued, “I’ve thought about that. I don’t know why it’s been so hard for us. Who you see shouldn’t impact our lives. If you have a… a… boyfriend… well, I guess that should be okay. It should be no different than you having a girlfriend, I suppose. And we should be a family again, I think. We sort of lost that there for a while and we’ve let you be our son, but we haven’t really let you be who you are. I take responsibility for that.”

  I looked over at Ben. “I take responsibility for that too. I hid from you because I wanted to be part of the family and I didn’t want to upset anyone, but I don’t want to do that anymore, Mom. I don
’t want to hide Ben. I love him.”

  My mother quickly glanced at Ben in discomfort. “Oh. Um, okay then. I guess we can just start with little steps and get to know him then.” She reached out her hand again. “Hi, Ben. I’m Caroline Solomon. My friends call me Carrie.”

  “Carrie,” he returned with a toothy grin. “Like Sex and the City.”

  Oh Jesus.

  She looked at him in confusion. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I guess so.”

  “I loved that show,” he blurted. “You know, you and I already have something in common. My mom always said I was such a Carrie. My mom thinks she’s a Samantha, but I never had the heart to tell her that she’s really a Miranda. Actually, she’s kind of a Carrie too because she’s basically just like me.”

  My mother nodded and stared at Ben for a good ten seconds. “Uh huh. And… is that your mother over there?”

  Ben looked behind him and smiled at his mom. “Yep. You want to meet her?”

  She nervously looked over at Bridgette and David. “Yes. Sure. That would be nice.”

  “And do you want to see my Oma?” Ben asked.

  “Is that your grandmother?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. Yes, my grandma. She looks really, um, amazing.” He smiled widely at me.

  God, he was doing so well. I admired him so much in that moment. He was handling everything so much better than almost anyone would in his position. My God, he had loved the woman in that casket unlike any other and he was smiling and laughing and so proud of her on that day. He’d even brought a smile to my mother’s lips for a second with that Carrie/Samantha thing and she rarely smiled these days… Ben was amazing and I was so glad to have him by my side.

  Ben took my mother’s hand and guided her to the front, placing her right in front of Oma. My mom didn’t even flinch, just looking down at Oma’s peaceful body as Ben started to describe her in ways that only Ben could.