Honestly Ben Read online

  Instead, I sat with the baseball team, which was about as un-Hogwartsian as it got. If my plan was to basically stay on the surface this semester, not get too entangled or deep with anyone, sitting with these guys three times a day was definitely a way to achieve that. Not a lot was expected of me in terms of talking.

  On Friday afternoon of the first week, I got carried away reading about James Polk’s presidency and Manifest Destiny, and by the time I looked up, dinner was half over. I ran over to the cafeteria, but the team was just finishing up their food.

  “Carver!” Mendenhall yelled, a huge smile on his face, as I approached the baseball table with my tray. “What up, dude?”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “We were just talking about the Schroeder incident,” he said, and I guffawed. Schroeder was a senior last year and a total hothead. He called everyone a pussy and made constant jokes about date rape. Mendenhall, then a junior, had gotten his hands on some habanero powder. The plan was for some other juniors to get Schroeder’s attention and they’d coat the inside of his jock with the stuff, but Schroeder was naturally suspicious about people’s intentions and wouldn’t take the bait. Bryce and I were the quiet guys, and in the spur of the moment, we improvised. Bryce pretended to fall and sprain his hamstring, and while we all crowded around his locker, the guys coated Schroeder’s jock pretty good. Bryce made a quick recovery, and when Schroeder got changed, the screams he made could be heard a mile away. The guys were all pretty impressed that Bryce and I had helped.

  “Where is Bryce these days?” Mendenhall asked.

  “His mom sent him to an Outward Bound program. He’s out in the wilderness of Utah.”

  “Shit, dude. That’s intense.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I heard they’re holding a bake sale for you,” Zack said. He was wearing an inside-out Celtics jersey.

  “What?”

  “Zack’s an idiot,” Steve said. “Donnelly said the school is going to pay your way to Lauderdale. Zack just thought it was funny, the idea of a bake sale for Ben Carver.”

  I ignored the profound and unfettered privilege involved in the last sentence and focused on the important information instead. “Really? They’re paying for me to go?”

  Steve shrugged. “That’s what Coach said.”

  “Wow. That’s so nice.”

  Steve stood to bus his tray. “You coming out tonight, Carver? Blowout in town. Joey Warren kid. Gonna be off the chain, dude,” he said. Joseph Warren High was the public school in town, located right across Dug Pond from us.

  For a quick moment, I thought about Hannah’s smile and wondered if she’d be at the party. But no. She’d feel about as out of place at an event like that as I always did. Anyway, I’d already decided: I’d do meals but not parties. I was tired of being the designated driver, the doofus sitting in the quiet room pretending to have fun. “Nah, got work to do,” I said.

  “All work and no play, dude,” Mendenhall said.

  “I know, I know.”

  “Suit yourself. More pussy for us.” This was Mendenhall again, and I was relieved when they all headed out. I was not one to quantify pussy.

  I pulled out my history text and put it next to my tray, happy to have company that wouldn’t ask me questions. Then I started on the mammoth salad I’d put together with the tail end of a pile of wilted lettuce and whatever vegetables were left on the buffet. I got through my entire salad while reading about the Dred Scott decision, and then I felt a light tap on my left shoulder.

  I turned around. It was Toby. I’m not great with clothing, but it seemed to me he was wearing a green blouse, cinched around his tiny waist with a big black belt. I scowled, remembering his visit to my closet just a few nights earlier.

  “Eek,” he said. “Not the reaction I was hoping for.”

  “Any more subliminal messages for me?”

  He gave me a toothy smile. “Nah. A more liminal one.” He turned and waved his hand.

  “No,” I said, when I realized who he was summoning, and I stood up so quickly that I almost knocked my tray off the table. I steadied it, and when I turned around, Rafe was standing in front of me, his arms behind his back and his head bowed slightly.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” My head felt tight, like my brain was too big for my skull.

  Toby looked at Rafe and then at me, and then back and forth at both of us. “Well? Come on. This is ridiculous. Spit it out.”

  Rafe turned to Toby and flapped his hand backward at him. Toby backed off. We stood there, just me and him in the cafeteria, and my thick brain began to buzz.

  “I know I kind of already said this, but. I just … ” He seemed lost for words. “Shit. Apology,” he said. “Sincere apology.”

  I laughed. He had caught me off guard, I guess. “So now you just have to say the thing you want to do, and that will suffice?”

  “Yeah, sorta kinda.”

  “Shit,” I said. “I’m so tired of being mad at you.” Until I said it, I hadn’t realized how much I’d felt it. My anger at Rafe had become my roommate, and I wanted it gone.

  “I’m tired of you being mad at me too. For the record, I was never mad at you.”

  “Well, why would you be?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

  He shrugged. “Can we just have a truce?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. My brain suddenly didn’t feel tight anymore. “I feel like we already have a truce,” I said. “I’ve placed my imaginary Maginot Line, and there is an uneasy accord along the Western Front.”

  “Oh, Ben,” he said, and the gentleness of his voice made me look away. “Wait. Am I Hitler in that analogy?”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. “I guess.”

  “So you made the Jewish guy Hitler. Nice.”

  I laughed, and so did he.

  “Tell those guys to get lost,” I said, pointing at Toby and Albie, who were staring at us from a nearby table. “Walk me back to the dorm. Let’s see how well our diplomats do in a postwar meeting.”

  “Those baseball guys must adore you,” Rafe said, and I laughed again, because aside from maybe a little with Hannah, it was the first time I’d used my actual sense of humor since the last time he and I had hung out. We could reach an accord. We’d have to. I wanted my friend back.

  Rafe made a hand signal that connoted, It’s okay to leave the cafeteria, I am not in mortal jeopardy, and Albie and Toby headed out. We gave them about a minute head start, and then we bundled up and went outside.

  It was that time of night when you can almost feel the temperature dipping and the wind picking up, when you can spend the entirety of a fifty-yard walk across campus savoring how your legs will feel under the covers as you watch the wind whip through the tree branches outside your window. Rafe walked by my side, and it felt peaceful, more so than I could have imagined.

  “How’re your folks? How was winter break?” I asked.

  “They’re good. Claire Olivia created a new holiday on December twenty-ninth called Rafesmas, where she covered a statue of a mule on Pearl Street with stickers she had made with my face on them.”

  “Sorry I had to miss that,” I deadpanned, and Rafe laughed.

  “How was yours?”

  “Oh, you know. Partays left and right.”

  “Right,” he said. “Of course.”

  “You’re doing the whole GSA thing now, right?” Steve had made a comment about it one day at lunch.

  “Yup.”

  I wanted to say something like, “Good for you,” but there was no way to say it without sounding like a jackass.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re meeting some new people,” I said instead, and then I winced, thinking it sounded like I was saying I was glad he wasn’t counting on me as a friend.

  “It’s been good. I’ve actually been hanging out with a guy.”

  Something inside my chest seized up. It was weird, involuntary, and surprising. It wasn’t like I owned Rafe; he could do
what he wanted. But somehow the idea of him hanging out with another guy hit me someplace deep and painful, right above my gut.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. Sure.”

  If Rafe noticed anything, he didn’t let it show. “Yeah,” he said. “You know Jeff Frazier?”

  I could feel myself gritting my teeth, like there was a vacuum somewhere in my throat and it was sucking my upper jaw into my lower one.

  Rafe stopped walking. “You okay?”

  Something stronger than me was kicking in. Maybe if I just willed it away, I could pretend it wasn’t happening. I tried to focus on him, but he looked fuzzy. In the dark night, he was a mere blur against the dim quad.

  “Oh. Yeah. Just. Preoccupied. Homework.” I was well aware that five one-word sentences in a row was strange, and I couldn’t figure out how to un-strange it. So I said nothing. Then I started walking. Not fast, because I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I figured that maybe if I wasn’t looking at Rafe and I started moving, some ideas or words would form to explain away my weirdness.

  “What just happened?” Rafe asked, walking behind me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, continuing to build walking speed. I spoke without turning around to look at him. “Just got stuff to do. Another time, okay?”

  “Um,” he said, and I could tell he’d stopped trying to keep up with me. And I was glad, because I definitely didn’t want to make a scene, and it was stupid of me to even feel whatever the hell I was feeling, and there was no way I was going to let him know any of this. No chance.

  When I finally got inside my room, I exhaled, closed my eyes, and leaned against the door.

  Why was I such a freak?

  What was this? Why the hell did I give a crap what he did with some stupid guy? I didn’t care. He could do whatever he wanted, and it was none of my business.

  I went over to the refrigerator Bryce had left behind that I’d put in the closet and grabbed an orange Gatorade. I tossed it from my right hand to my left and shook it up. Then I threw it down onto my bed and stumbled over to the bottom drawer of Bryce’s old desk. Under a bunch of file folders was my old, half-empty bottle of vodka. I’d promised myself I would stop drinking last semester, when it started to feel a little bit like a problem. Screw it, I thought. I just need to take the edge off a little.

  We called orange Gatorade and vodka a plastic screwdriver, and that had always been the drink of choice for me and Bryce, and then for me and Rafe. I swigged down a third of the Gatorade and closed my eyes as I got a brain freeze. Then I filled the bottle back up with vodka. I put the top back on and shook it. I placed the vodka bottle deep under my bed in case someone walked in, and then I sat down, waited for the brain freeze to subside, and took a sip of the screwdriver.

  I exhaled as the alcohol burned my throat.

  Rafe. Damn. I let my guard down for one second, let him back in, and what did I last? Two minutes before I got hurt again?

  He’d sure gotten over his broken heart pretty quick. Jesus. I grimaced. Why the fuck was I even thinking about this? Rafe was a guy. I was a guy. A straight guy. For most of the last twenty-four hours, I’d been thinking about Hannah’s cute button nose and her sweet red lips. I didn’t think about guys that way. Ever. But then last year Rafe had gone and opened up this strange, weird, crazy part of me that had never been there before, and—damn him. Damn.

  I took another swig and closed my eyes, feeling the alcohol seep into my bloodstream. There was always this moment in drinking when you could sense the alcohol starting to do its thing.

  What was I going to do about Rafe? He could date or whatever anyone he wanted to, and I sure wasn’t going to let him know that it upset me, because that was a closed door, sealed off with concrete, never to be opened again. And shit. Had I been too obvious? Why hadn’t I just ignored it and kept talking? Why couldn’t I just be cool for once?

  I took a long swig, and suddenly my bottle was empty.

  A piece of white paper slid under my door.

  I knew who it was from, and as much as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t.

  Ben,

  I’m sorry. God, I say that a lot, huh? I don’t know why I always do the wrong thing with you. I don’t mean to.

  The stupid thing (the stupidest of the many stupid things, maybe?) is that I only said that about Jeff because I was trying to let you off the hook. It was kind of my way of saying, “Don’t worry. I’m not into you anymore.” I should have known not to say anything. I’m sorry I’m so stupid. I just want to be your friend again. That’s all. I promise.

  Your sad and stupid wannabe friend,

  Rafe

  I pulled the note into my chest, and then, when I realized I had done that, I crumpled it and threw it onto my desk.

  Yeah, I got it. Rafe was nice. That didn’t change the fact that right now, I wanted to be left alone. I had more than enough on my plate, thanks very much.

  I went back to the closet for another Gatorade, and I went through the same steps as before, minus the brain freeze this time. Once the bottle was full and shaken, I curled up under the blanket with it, huddling it close like a football, or a baby. Then I slowly pulled the bottle out, opened it, and took a sideways sip, which nearly made me choke. Hard to drink sideways, but I didn’t feel like moving. I put the top back on and cradled the bottle again.

  This used to be a lot more fun with Bryce. Before Rafe. We’d play two-person Would You Rather, and we’d crack up about how stupid the guys acted at some party, and Bryce would do spot-on impressions of all of them, and when he’d turn it into a full-on conversation between them, I would almost pee my pants, I’d laugh so hard.

  Last September we were playing this game called Two Truths and a Lie, and I had broken out a little-known nugget about how the Nazis co-opted the Harvard fight song and used parts of it for their Sieg Heil march. He thought that was the lie, and the ensuing conversation went from the invasion of Lichtenstein to Rommel to Rommel McDonald House, which he said was a place where they encourage kids with cancer to annex northern Africa.

  I thought about disappearances.

  In my life I’d been close to three people: Uncle Max, Bryce, and Rafe. Uncle Max had been the only one who got me back in New Hampshire, and he was the one who encouraged me to apply on my own to Natick. He knew I needed to get out of there. We talked about life and ideas and history and literature, and even feelings sometimes, and he was my lifeline. Then, one day a year ago, driving home from God knows where at two A.M. on the Mass Turnpike, he crashed into a guardrail. Luke said he heard that he’d been decapitated. I wish he’d never said that, because now, when I thought of one of the three people in my life who’d ever really known me, I pictured him headless.

  Bryce had been assigned at random as my roommate freshman year, and we became best friends fast. He cared about ideas and didn’t think it was weird that I liked to go to the World War II museum alone. He told me when he was depressed, and when I broke up with Cindy, my first-ever girlfriend, he was there to talk to. When Uncle Max died, Bryce went to the funeral with me. Then I think being the only black guy at Natick really got to him. We used to talk about race and privilege together, and then one day he stopped talking about it. He’d stare at one spot on the wall for hours at a time. I’d watch him do it. And I should have gotten him some help, but I didn’t know what to do. He took a leave of absence and went home to Rhode Island, and he wasn’t coming back.

  Rafe had been there for me to pick up the pieces. He cared enough to come to my room when Bryce disappeared, and he was funny, and silly, and sympathetic, and there was just something about him that lit me up inside. Maybe it was the silly stuff. I’d never met someone who could get me to do things in the spur of the moment that made me feel so light inside, and I’d never had a friend who laughed so much at things I said. He’d become the friend that made me forget all the other pain, and I’d fallen into the deepest friendship of my life, and I’d opened up to him. Then he’d reached into my c
hest, grabbed my heart, and stomped on it with his dishonesty, and I had no one—absolutely no one—I could talk to about it.

  I took another sip of the screwdriver. The alcohol warmed my nose. I took another gulp, closed my eyes, and threw the covers over my head, and I felt the alcohol flow into my ears, my chin, the nape of my neck.

  Good alcohol, bad alcohol, I thought. This stuff, used recreationally, can ease the pain. You can use it and then stop before it gets to be a problem. Rafe, on the other hand. Bad alcohol.

  I leaned over to the desk and picked up Rafe’s note. I smoothed out the paper, grabbed a pen, and wrote on the bottom:

  Rafe = alcohol.

  Alcohol is bad for me.

  I stared at the words I’d written, and then I rolled my eyes and crumpled the note back into a ball. So much for me putting words down on paper. I leaned back into my bed and lay down. Forget studying for the night. I was going to sleep drunk, or whatever this was. Buzzed. When I woke up, things would make more sense.

  My phone woke me. Disoriented, I looked around. My light was on, my clothes piled on the floor, and I was cradling a nearly empty Gatorade bottle. My head was cloudy. Like drunkish cloudy. I’d never woken up drunk before. It was strange. I scanned for the clock on my desk. It was just 8:37 P.M. Jesus.

  I fumbled for my phone. It was Hannah, calling me for the first time. Timing. Wow. Not answering was obviously the smart thing to do, but I was so fucking tired of doing the right thing. She’d understand.

  “Alcoholics Anonymous,” I said, my voice cracking.

  She laughed. “Uh-oh. Are you drinking?”

  “Yup.” I was enjoying the way the vodka felt in my bloodstream.

  “Edgy. Who’s there with you?”

  “No one,” I said, before I could think about it.

  “Drinking alone? That’s bleak, Ben Carver.”

  “I got troubles,” I said, feeling very un-Ben.