Page 6 of Born Into Trouble (Occupy Yourself)
“Lewis?” Her shout could have been heard a hundred miles away. “Keys. Benny’s coming with me.” Ben slowly walked to the doorway and stood, feet still inside the threshold where he’d been instructed to wait. “Benny, comeon,” she turned and called, snapping her fingers again. A glance at Simons showed he wasn’t about to try and naysay Benita Owens, even against what evidently were her own father’s accusations.
Ben took a single step forwards, and she whirled, turning back to Simons. “Any paperwork to sign?” The cop shook his head, glanced up at Ben when he handed over his permit, then over towards the captain’s office, darkness behind the shutters at this hour. From across the room, Benita called, “Benny,Jesus. Will you comeon?”
Before he really knew what was happening, she had him out the door and into her car; the vehicle miraculously transported from the school, where he’d parked it this morning, to the curb outside the police station in downtown Enoch. He buckled as she pulled out, and then rode in silence for a moment before twisting in his seat to look at her. From fear to anger, his emotions had traveled the gamut, and he was solidly on the side of pissed off now. “What exactly just happened?” She shook her head, not responding. “No, seriously, Benita. What the hell was that?”
“That was Daddy being pissy.” Her father was Darren Owens, a man who wielded a great deal of influence in their little town of Enoch, and one wealthy enough to gain the ear of the state governor at will. He and his most recent wife had spent the last six months in South America, and Ben didn’t even know they were home.
“Why would your dad be pissy at me?” This wasn’t adding up. But it had to be a vendetta against him. First, the call to the school to ensure the greatest embarrassment, and then the maneuvering at the station to keep him there without charging him, ensuring that most folks would have a chance to find out? In small towns, perception was everything, and the town drunk’s whoreson being escorted off the school campus and into the station would have made the rounds in about a nanosecond.
“Not at you, silly.” Her hand crossed the expanse of vehicle between them, landing high on his thigh. He reached down and plucked it off, putting it on her own leg. “Benny.” Her voice was soft and sweet. “Don’t be like that. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He was doing this to get back at me.”
“Intent doesn’t matter. But I’d still beg to differ. It was only me who was hurt today.”
“I quit college.” Trembling boldness colored her words, but it was undercut by a swath of fear. This was her making a statement to her folks.
It shocked him because she liked what her parents did for her. Money, cars, education, vacations—all paid for as long as she toed the line and maintained a modicum of decorum. They didn’t even care about her grades, only how things looked. This act of defiance shocked him enough that he sucked in a breath, blowing it out on a soft “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. Thanks. Eloquent as always.” Her words stung because she had no way of knowing what he’d been doing for the past six months. She couldn’t have seen the shoebox shoved underneath his bed alongside a guitar case, those two things holding more dreams inside them than anything else in his life ever could.
In the months she’d been gone, he’d made friends outside the narrow circle she’d previously defined for him. Down in Cheyenne, Ben had met a man who owned a motorcycle shop. That shop had become a place where he could hang out, help if he could find something to do, and there was always something to do. A safe place, a haven. The owner was a man who knew his brother, a man who had helped Ben more than he probably understood.Harddrive.
Harddrive had handed him an old beat-up six-string one night when he was leaving the shop. In his gruff manner, he’d told Ben to, “Fuck around with that flattop a little, see if you like it.”
He had fucked around with it, learning what sounded good, and what didn’t. He’d even talked to the music teacher at school and got a chord chart then taught himself fingerings and patterns, listening to songs again and again, dissecting the sounds the guitars and drums made. Fucked around with it, and liked it. Liked how it made him feel, his blood heating when he got it right, feeling a rightness in his bones. Liked how it opened a door inside him, letting feelings and emotions pour out through his fingers. Liked how it felt in a way that made playing it as addicting as anything else.
With the one gift, something that probably cost the old man nothing, taken in trade on a bike or some shit, Harddrive had helped him stay straight. More than he would ever know, the man had impacted his life in so many ways. But, this one?Profound.
Part of fucking around with it was coming up with his own sounds, chords, which when played in sequence, pulled words from him. Painful as a horse foaling, but just as natural, things flowed sometimes, and the words strung together helped change the pain and anxiety inside him into something he could hand away. Danny was the only one outside of the folks at the shop who had heard him play. And his grandparents of course, but he tried to keep it to a dull roar inside their house, out of respect for them.
Without knowing anything of what he’d been through since she left town, Benita was calling his pleasure into question, and Ben sat straighter in the seat, coming to a decision.One I should have made a year ago. “Take me home.”
“Bad idea, Benny boy. Daddy’s there, and while he’s pissed at me, as you learned today, he will not hesitate to take it out on whoever is in his path.” She’d misunderstood him, and he set her straight right away.
“No, Benita.” At her name, she turned and glanced at him. “Take me to my house.”I’m done with you, the words danced on his tongue, wanting to escape.
“I rented a cabin.” She didn’t acknowledge his request, simply carried on with what she wanted.Classic Benita. “We’re going there. I’ve got groceries in the trunk; that’s what took me so long. Do you know you can’t find risotto in Enoch? I had to go all the waybackto Cheyenne. Jesus.”
Distracted from his demands, he asked, stupefied, “You were in Enoch and then left to go grocery shopping in Cheyenne?”
“Well, yeah. I needed risotto.” She said this like it made any fucking sense in the world. “And I know a guy at a liquor store there. He gives me a discount.” A flirty grin was thrown his way. “He came through all the way. We’re going to party.”
“Take me home.” With a loud sigh, he twisted so he didn’t have to look at her, batting at her hand when it entered his field of vision. “You left me sitting in a police station while you went grocery shopping, knowing all you had to do was make a phone call. Un-flippin-believable. Take me home, Benita.”
“Benny.” Her voice softened, gentled, reminding him of the first Benita he met. Sweet and kind, she’d claimed to have a need to get to know the kid who had talent on the football field, and wanted to get past the stigma of his mother to know him. He’d believed her. Believed the sweet. Then she’d gotten a taste of his dick, and there had been an abrupt end to the sweet. “I want to spend time together. Just you and me. I’ve missed you. We haven’t had that for a long time.”Gentle, sweet, saccharine lies.
“No, we haven’t. Because the last dozen times you got my cock down your throat, you wanted it with a taste of your girlfriend’s pussy. Take me home.”So done with you.
She hated it when he was crude, and she showed that hadn’t changed, snapping, “Benjamin. There’s no need to be like that.”
“Take me home.” The stress of the day was fast catching up with him, knots of tension making themselves felt in his neck and back.How many people know?
She turned the car, steering them onto a narrow road.
“Take me home.”Is football still an option?
Carefully navigating between huge potholes, she said, “Nearly there.”
“Give me your phone, then. Let me make a call.”Not Andy, please, God. I’ll call Danny.
