Page 20 of Born Into Trouble (Occupy Yourself)
“Heard you had a breakthrough, man. Congrats.” Beans, the resident long-timer, greeted him at supper. Mortified, gaze fixed to his plate, Benny didn’t respond. The man leaned close and quietly, for Benny’s ears only, said, “No, man. This ain’t me raggin’ on you. We all advance at our own pace and I’m envious. When you know part of what’s fucked-up in your head, you can find a way to fix it, man. That’ll lead to you figuring out more, fixing more. Before you know it…” He sighed. “You having a breakthrough, and nobody knows what it was but you and Doc, is a thing to celebrate.” Straightening in his chair, he said, “When you’re ready, you’ll find the person to celebrate with. Until then,”—picking up his fork—“congrats.”
Through supper and beyond, Benny turned Beans’ words over in his head. It seemed absurd. First, to assume he could fix himself by uncovering things in his past that might have had a hand in shaping who he became. Second, to believe he wanted to be fixed.
The need never stopped. That bitch was riding his shoulders every day, pointing out how much easier this or that situation would be with a drink in hand, or a spoon at the ready. Some days worse than others, like today. Every time he thought about what happened inside Doc’s office, he cringed and reached for a drink that wasn’t there.
Tossing and turning, his sleep was restless, and he spent most of his time staring up into the darkness. Thinking. Remembering. Scenes playing ceaselessly through his head, underscoring every failure. Full color, on repeat, Coach couldn’t have done a better job putting together a highlight reel of fuckups. He knew daybreak was waiting and for once, he prayed the night would speed by, but like with most things in his life, his desires had no place in reality.
When the afternoon rolled around, he was early, waiting in the hallway well before appointment time. Doc had to note this change in routine, but didn’t point it out, simply unlocked the door and invited Benny in. Even before they took their seats, Benny had started talking. Asking questions about how this worked, why it worked, how he could speed it along if itwasworking. Before Doc got an answer out, he had already segued into a story about Benita. Dredged up in the middle of the night by his restless brain, it was something he’d never told anyone. One of the sessions where she basically pimped him out to her girlfriend while he was so wasted, if he’d been older than fifteen, there was no way he’d have stayed hard.
“It was like she hated me, but couldn’t get enough of my cock. Always fallin’ on my cock. And nothing I did was enough. I wasn’t enough because she’s layin’ there on top of Hayley, grinding her pussy into the girl, and having me dip between them. I had a condom on. Yeah, early on I got real good at self-preservation, but in one, then the other, nothing there good for me. Not the first time I didn’t get off,” he scoffed, “not the last, either.”
“When did you realize she was using you to fulfill her own fantasies?”
“I’m stupid, so it took longer than it should have. At first, I liked the attention. An older woman,” he scoffed again. “Older, right. But in the little world of Enoch, she was a big fish. Her daddy was a bigger fish, owned half the town. She wanted me. Out of all the boys in school, she wanted me. Something prideful in there, because of who my ma was, and she wanted me anyway.” His words slowed as he found something there that bothered him.
“But, she didn’t want me. She immediately set about changing me. Different clothes. ‘Talk like this, Benny. Hold your fork like that. Come to this party. Do that thing.’ It wasn’t a control thing, but more a veneer she needed to paste over the prairie kid to make me into what she wanted to show off.” Shaking his head, he dropped into the chair finally. “She whittled me down until I matched the picture she had in her head. It was never me at all. The only thing that was me was the music. The band. She latched onto that, and I still don’t know why because we sure weren’t lush with success, but she stayed, and nothing ever changed. Nothing changed.”
That talk led to another the next day, and the next, and finally Benny's calls with Andy became anticipated rather than dreaded. Between Doc and Andy, they eventually talked him into taking a call from GeeMa, and that led to him sitting on the floor in the office again, shaking with tears as she told him what was in her heart. “Always loved you, boy. Didn’t like what you did. Those are different things. Always love you. Always will, Ben.”
Then he set to work trying to separate the acts from the man. It was hard work, and he would never have believed it to be work before now, where he found himself in all of this. Found the heart of who he needed to be, and the things that had concealed him falling away. The music still wasn’t flowing, but he hoped that was a piece he would again hold at the end of the day.
***
Wordlessly, he stared at Beans. The man held his stare for a minute, then the most beautiful smile Benny had ever seen spread across his face. “You did it, man. Graduation day.”
At the reminder, Benny broke the stare, looking down and away. “Scary shit. The world out there.”
“Yup. You got this, though. Know what you need to do. Remember what Doc says. You can do anything a minute at a time. Just break things down into sixty-second slices, and you got this whipped.” Those words were similar to what his brother had told him last night, calling from the hotel near the rehab center, killing time until he could pick Benny up today.
“Yeah, I got this.” Self-doubt worried around the edges of his certainty, but he had the doc’s words to fall back on, and Andy was committed to helping him keep it together. It sounded like his brother had a steady girlfriend now, and that was good. Benny hoped he hadn’t met her in the few hours he was in Fort Wayne, but even if he had and given her the worst first impression in the history of first impressions, even if she hated him, he’d work his ass off to turn her opinion around, for Andy’s sake.
Turning to face the door, he squared his shoulders, guitar hanging down his back. Feeling like a nomad troubadour, Benny walked out the door and into what he knew would be a better future.
