Honestly Ben Read online

March 6, 1968

  Lo,

  Clete is dead. He was sleeping in the bed next to me. We were sound asleep. All I heard was a jarring explosion like it was inside my eardrum, and I swear to you I looked to my right and the bottom half of Clete was all that remained.

  It happened so damn fast I still can’t believe it.

  You don’t really cry here. It’s like you make these connections that are closer than intimate, and then your friend is gone and you just—suck it up. Be a man.

  I am not cut out for this. I know Dad will never forgive me, but if I could walk out of here tomorrow and not be captured and tortured, I absolutely would. It’s not human. It’s not right.

  If I ever get out of here, I’ll go down to North Charleston and visit with Clete’s mother. She sounded like a real nice lady.

  Love forever and always,

  Your Peter

  I looked for the next letter. There was none. I shuffled through to the beginning ones I’d missed. All from 1967.

  I’d just read Peter Pappas’s final words to his sister, and my heart plummeted into my stomach.

  Peter. Who would have been a friend and an ally, had we lived at the same time. Who liked Hemingway and deep conversations and Ring Dings.

  Who was no war hero. Not because he was a sissy, but because he objected to it. Who died for his dad’s love and approval.

  How the hell was I going to accept an award that was a lie about the person after whom it was named?

  “They call this Pakistani spring,” Toby said as we got out of Albie’s car at Walden Pond. The parking area was mostly empty despite the warmish temperatures, as it was the last Sunday in February.

  “What the hell are you talking about? It’s a pond, not a spring, you idiot,” Albie said.

  “No, the weather. When it gets warm like this before it’s actually spring, the racist powers that be decided to name it Pakistani spring. Like Indian summer, sort of.”

  “You have so many issues,” Albie said.

  “You have no idea,” Toby said, glancing over at me.

  The sun was out and yet the sky was still a wintery gray hue, as if the atmosphere itself was trying to decide whether it was spring yet. Toby was celebrating the premature fifty-degree day by wearing a yellow tank top. He twirled, arms in the air, as we stood in the empty parking lot. I hadn’t been here since we took a field trip freshman year. All I remembered was the guys sneaking away to smoke a joint while Bryce and I sat by the lake and tried to write a poem about nature, which was the exercise Mrs. Crowley gave us. The poems the lake inspired that day were memorable only for their awfulness, if I recall correctly.

  “They named this place after the poet, right?” Rafe said.

  “I think so,” said Toby.

  “It’s called Walden Pond,” I said.

  “Right. Walden.”

  “The poet’s name was actually Henry David Thoreau,” I said. “He wrote a book called Walden, based on living simply in nature, here at Walden Pond.”

  No one said anything for a while, and I felt my teeth clench. I hate being that guy, but people being wrong about American literature is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

  “Are you sure?” Rafe said. “I swear there was a poet named Walden.”

  “Not that I know of,” I said.

  “Huh,” he said.

  “Let’s go to the phones,” Toby said, grabbing his phone out of his pocket like a gun from a holster. He typed feverishly as we walked. “Walden … Yep. Henry David Thoreau. Ben for the win.… Ooh. Not a handsome chap, this Henry David. Transcendentalist—that means he transcends,” he explained, looking up at us. “Naturalist—that means nudist.”

  I laughed. “Yes. Thoreau, the famous author, was a transcendent nudist. Good job, Toby.”

  “I would NOT want to be at that nude beach,” he said, shaking his head and putting away his phone.

  We stopped to check out a wooden sign staked in front of a ramped footpath toward the pond. It read,

  THESE PARKING AREAS ARE PAVED WITH

  POROUS PAVEMENT

  PAVEMENT THAT LEAKS

  SINCE 1977, IT HAS RAISED THE LOCAL

  WATER TABLE WHILE REDUCING EROSION,

  POLLUTION, AND THE NEED FOR STORM

  DRAINS OR ROAD SALT.

  A BROCHURE IS AVAILABLE.

  A DEMONSTRATION PROJECT BY

  MASS. DEP & MASS. DEM.

  “Man, even the signs here are poems,” Albie said.

  I burst out laughing. “A really bad poem. Especially the end.”

  “ ‘Pollution, and the need for storm.’ I may write a poem with that title,” Toby said.

  “Write it. Now,” Albie demanded.

  As we approached the sand, Toby put his arms out in front of him, as if he were a great orator. “ ‘Pollution, and the Need for Storm,’ by Toby Rylander. Hmm … One sec, gotta take this.” He picked up his phone. “What? Oh, sure. Of course. Thank you. God bless.” He put his phone down. “My agent just called. She said she didn’t think it was the right time for me to undertake a project like this.”

  We stood at the foot of the water, which tentatively lapped toward our feet like it wasn’t sure of its own power. The gurgling sound of the tiny ripples made me feel truly calm, and I imagined being here in the nineteenth century, alone, like Henry David Thoreau, noted author and nudist. I glanced to my left and right at my friends. Rafe, who was probably thinking about something else, per usual. Ditto Toby. Albie, who wasn’t much for literature unless it was written by someone with a fondness for postapocalyptic dystopia. But they were here with me, and I could be me with them. And that was a lot.

  “So peaceful,” I said.

  “Yup,” said Rafe.

  “C’mon,” Albie said, pulling at Toby. “Let’s give the boys a moment sans Toby.”

  “No fair,” Toby said. “I want a moment sans Toby too.”

  “Tell me about it,” Albie said, and he started walking down the beach.

  “Wait up,” Toby said, not moving.

  Toby looked at me, and in a millisecond I realized what was about to happen.

  “Albie, Rafe?” he said.

  Both boys nodded.

  “What if I told you I was gender fluid?”

  Neither Albie nor Rafe said anything for a moment. Then Albie said, “I guess I’d wonder what’s new with that? I mean, you’ve always been a little bit that way, right?”

  Toby nodded, and then shook his head. “No, yes, I don’t know. It’s kinda new. It’s like, I’ve been thinking recently more and more about it. The fact that some days I think I’m like, female. And other days, male. And then sometimes, both or neither, I guess.”

  Rafe smiled, walked over to Toby, and gave him a big hug. “I know about that stuff,” he said. “My mom was asking me leading questions about my gender orientation all last summer. I was like, ‘I’ll, um, let you know, ’kay?’ ”

  Toby kissed Rafe on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  “What’s your preferred pronoun?” Rafe asked.

  Toby looked over at Albie. “I’m okay with he or she, depending on how I feel. Or they, I guess. Although ‘they’ makes me feel like I’m more than one person.”

  “And one Toby is plenty,” Albie said.

  Toby cracked up. “Right?” He and Albie looked at each other. “We okay?” Toby asked.

  “Of course,” Albie said. “I don’t give a crap what gender you are. You’re Toby until I hear otherwise. Are you, like, going to transition?”

  Toby shook his head fast. “I don’t feel certain enough about anything to, you know, do that kind of thing. I’m just me, and me is confusing.”

  Rafe looked over at me. “You okay with all this, Ben?”

  Relishing the spotlight for once, I went over and picked Toby up. He whooped and clasped his legs around my waist. “Toby’s my buddy,” I said.

  “I thought you’d be confused,” Rafe said, studying me.

  “Actually, I already knew. So put that in you
r pipe and smoke it.”

  Rafe actually looked a little impressed, glancing over at Toby, who confirmed this fact with a nod. “ ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it,’ ” Rafe repeated. “Jesus. What century are you from?”

  “Nineteenth,” I said.

  “C’mon,” Albie said to Toby. “Let’s take that walk.” They tromped off down the beach.

  “That was interesting,” Rafe said.

  “I love how Toby is just—Toby,” I said. “I admire that.”

  “Yup,” Rafe said.

  We stood there for a while, and my thoughts drifted back to the letters I’d read yesterday. I turned my head to him. “So what if I told you that Peter Pappas wasn’t necessarily a fan of the Vietnam War?” I asked.

  He picked up a pebble and chucked into the water, creating a ring of small waves. “I’d tell you that Peter Pappas is dead and has been for many, many years, and his opinions are not so important to me.”

  I reached down and grabbed a smooth, round pebble. “Well, they matter to me, a little,” I said, throwing my pebble high and deep. “I have to write a speech about the guy, and yesterday I met with his sister and she gave me these letters he sent from Vietnam.”

  “That’s intense,” Rafe said.

  “Yeah, a little. And he’s totally not who the school makes him out to be. He was basically just a kid who wanted to make his father proud, and he went to fight a war he didn’t believe in, and then he died.”

  “Well, if you want my opinion, which, why wouldn’t you, I’d say give the people what they want. Who the hell cares as long as they’re happy, and you get your scholarship? Is it your job to set the record straight?”

  I shrugged and knelt down to find more stones. Had he heard what I said? When I didn’t respond, he knelt as well.

  “I think you’re amazing, Ben. Porcelain. Oops. Magenta. Whatever. Only you would be stressed because your acceptance speech for a hugely valuable scholarship might not reflect the utter truth of the guy you’re talking about. That’s just part of what makes you magenta. Okay?”

  I smiled a bit. He was basically right. Why was it my job to right all the wrongs of the world? “Okay.”

  We stood back up and stared out at the water for a bit, and then I glanced over and there was Rafe, and my body just sort of sighed in contentment.

  “Quarter for your thoughts?” Rafe asked.

  I shrugged. “Not worth it.… Keats.”

  “Keats? Like the British guy?”

  I laughed. “You’re such a scholar. Yes, the British guy. I was just thinking of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’ ‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.’ ”

  “Um. So would it be better if I pretended to understand, or do you want to translate for those of us who watch too many celebrity gossip shows in our free time?”

  I focused on the way the sunlight bounced off the placid lake water. “Keats is looking at this beautiful urn, which shows these young people celebrating, and he’s marveling at how, in that frozen moment that is captured on the urn, everything is—eternal. Nothing gets old. The feelings of expectation and … excitement … don’t ever go away.”

  I could feel Rafe smile a bit. He turned toward the water. “Wow,” he said.

  We stood there, side by side, staring at a placid lake. Then I reached down and grabbed his hand.

  It wasn’t like I planned it. I just did it because it was right.

  We turned back toward each other. His hazel eyes held a question in them, and they danced around, glancing left and right as if afraid that the moment might not stick. I wanted to assure him of the un-assureable.

  “I wanted to hold your hand. I kinda wanted to in the car the night of the dance too. But now I did it.”

  “Yes,” he said, gulping. “You did it.”

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at the sand underneath our feet. “Are you sure?”

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t sure.”

  “Wow. Should we talk about what this means?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay … ”

  The fireworks pinballed inside my chest. It felt so … perfect. I felt alive. Vibrant. Light.

  “So Hannah?”

  I shook my head. “The heart wants what it wants.”

  “Your heart wants … me?”

  I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed mine back, tightly.

  “Standing where Thoreau once possibly stood reminds me of a famous quote of his,” I said. “I may mess this up. It’s like, ‘In any weather, I have been looking to improve the nick of time. To stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.’ ”

  “You really lean on the classics, don’t you?”

  “It’s all been said so well already,” I said, staring out at the horizon. “ ‘To stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.’ ”

  Neither of us said anything for a while.

  “It’s like we’re there,” Rafe finally said. “We’re in this historical place, which is your place, and we’re talking about the future, which is kind of more my place, because it freaks you out.”

  “It doesn’t freak me—”

  Rafe interrupted me. “It’s okay. The point is that we’re here now. My dad always says this thing, that when you have a foot in tomorrow and a foot in yesterday, you’re pissing all over the present.”

  I laughed, and then I laughed some more, thinking about Mr. Goldberg saying that. “I guess that’s true,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Rafe said. “It’s like we’re more comfortable living in the past or the future because the present moment is too uncertain and scary. Do you think that’s what Thoreau meant?”

  I kicked at the sand in front of me. “I think that must be the nick of time. Like this sliver of a moment that is now, that’s where the past and future meet, and once you’re there and you recognize it, it’s gone. You can’t think it. You just have to live in it.”

  “Wow,” Rafe said. “Wow.”

  Time just stood still, like the pond was an urn, and I felt like I could fly. I wanted to look over at Rafe, my best buddy, my—who knew what? My person. The guy who made me feel like me. But I didn’t need to. He was there, and that was plenty.

  I said, “This present moment is particularly pleasant.”

  “And now it’s gone,” he said, and I could tell by the sound that he was smiling.

  I don’t know exactly what I expected when I called Hannah, but I hoped for some closure. The idea that she was out there, waiting for me to call, was painful to me. I put it off as long as I could, finding various things to keep myself busy. On Monday night, I studied for the math SATs and conjugated a ton of Spanish verbs. On Tuesday night, I studied Taylor polynomials and then read Pappas’s letters to his sister over and over. I took a couple tries at starting my Pappas Award speech. Then, when I could find no other excuses and my mind went to how, two days earlier, I’d held Rafe’s hand at Walden Pond, I called Hannah.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey. How are you?”

  “Meh,” she said. “What do you want, Ben?”

  I laughed, because it was awkward. That was the question, and I knew the answer, and I felt like I was about to know what it felt like to tell someone that they’d been rejected from a school they’d applied to.

  “I think you’re perfect,” I said. “I’ve never met a girl like you, and you’re just right for me. But. My heart is, well, there are two people in my heart, and I think, I guess, that can happen. But Rafe is in my heart first, and, even though I’m straight, I think I need to see where that goes, because if I don’t, I’ll never know where it could have gone. I think you’re the right choice, but Rafe is the choice I’m going to make, because my heart is there. Okay?”

  She laughed. Like, an incredulous laugh. She just kept laughing.

  “Wh
at?” I said.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “This just clinches it. I thought when my father cheated on us with a Marnie that I’d hit bottom, but I hadn’t yet been dumped by a straight boy for another boy.”

  “Come on—” I said.

  She interrupted. “Ben. You chose a boy over me. You’re a straight guy who chose another guy. Over me. How did you think that would make me feel?”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you, like, hooking up with him?”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that without talking to you first. I’m not like that.”

  She laughed again. “Wow. I’ve never actually wanted to punch a boy more than I want to punch you right now.”

  “You want to punch me?”

  “You’re so virtuous. And it’s like, a person can’t be mad at you. You say all the right things, but. You chose a boy over me. That’s what just happened here.”

  “I just thought I should tell you.”

  “Yes, well. You told me. Thanks for that. And fuck you, by the way, and when you get finished discovering yourself and decide you like girls again, please don’t call me. Bye.”

  I put my phone down and opened my history textbook to a painting of a battle scene at the Alamo, and I studied it, focusing on a bronze cannon facing an entire army of Mexican troops. I took a deep breath and felt my throat constrict. I read a page about how James Polk beat Henry Clay for the presidency because Clay was too wishy-washy about Texas.

  Had I been too wishy-washy? What if I’d just said, “Listen. You said to call you when I was ready to choose you over Rafe. I’m calling because I’m not ready to do that. I thought you should know.”

  Would that have been better? Better than all that equivocating and trying to be her friend when obviously she wasn’t going to be happy with me no matter what?

  I slammed the book shut. Damn it. That heavy, underwater feeling was back, and there was no air in my room.

  I knocked on Rafe’s door, and for once he was there and Albie wasn’t.

  “You look like someone who just found out Coach Donnelly is his history teacher,” he said.

  “Har har.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I sat down on his bed, and he sat next to me, which made my head buzz.