Chapter 8 Benji #2
“Yes, and they followed me. All four of them. They were waiting in the hallway when I came out. The big one told me I had a smart mouth. I told him many people had tried to fix that and I was difficult to train. He called me a faggot.” I wave my hand in the air.
“Why do they always go with that word? Can’t they come up with something original?
It’s the word that always comes right before the fist. By now, you would think I would automatically duck when I hear the word, because the fist is always coming after.
I stood there, knowing exactly what was about to happen, knowing Sheila had been right, knowing I should’ve left, and I corrected the grammar on his T-shirt.
Because that’s what my mouth does when I’m scared.
It gets faster instead of slower. It’s a flaw. I can’t help it.”
“No, that’s not a flaw. What happened after the grammar lesson?”
“They beat the shit out of me. The big one hit me first, closed fist, and then I was on the floor. They ripped my silk shirt. I really loved that shirt, too. It was the nicest piece of clothing I owned. I bought it at Nordstrom Rack and still paid too much for it. I know it’s stupid to be whining about my shirt, but I always felt pretty in that shirt.
And then Tex showed up and he saved me. He came around that corner and he threw one of them into the wall so hard. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I stop. My throat is so tight it’s hard to swallow.
“And then you came,” I say. My voice has gone thin and the heat is building behind my eyes. “You came down that hallway and said, ‘Bay County Sheriff’s Office, everybody on the ground’ and you were, you were just...”
The first tear hits my cheek and I don’t fight it.
I have never in my life been able to stop crying when the crying decides to start.
Some people can hold it back, push it down, swallow it until they’re alone.
I’m not one of those people. When it comes, it comes, and the only thing I can do is let it happen and keep talking through it.
“You had the situation handled,” I say, and my voice cracks on the word handled, and the tears are running now, both sides, warm down my face and dripping off my jaw.
“I thought it was over. They were on the ground. And then that other guy, the younger one, his hand went to his jacket, and you saw it. You dropped the guy you were cuffing and you took a step. You moved directly in front of me.”
I reach across to the tray table where a box of tissues sits next to the pizza and pull one out and press it against my face.
I laugh through the crying because that’s the other thing my body does, it laughs when it should be serious, a reflex I’ve never been able to turn off. It’s embarrassing and I hate it.
“Damn,” I say, dabbing under my eyes. “There goes my eyeliner again. I want you to know I looked fantastic before I walked in here. Well... I mean as fantastic as this face can look right now with the bruises and busted lip situation.”
His face softens. He’s looking at me, steady and patient, not trying to rush me through it.
“The gun went off inside his jacket.” I wipe my face with a tissue that’s already soaked.
“The bullet hit you. And you fell backward on top of me. All of you. And your blood was suddenly everywhere, on my shirt, soaking through my jeans, and your body was shaking against mine every time you tried to breathe. And I was lying there on that floor underneath you and I thought you were dying. I thought you were dying because you stepped in front of me. Because let’s face it, I would be dead if you hadn’t done that.
The bullet was headed straight for my head, you took a step and it hit you instead. And here you are now.”
I pull another tissue. The tears aren’t stopping.
“I’m a cop, Benji,” he says. His voice goes gentle. “I saw a threat and I moved between it and the civilian. That’s what we’re trained to do. I’d do it again.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” I choke out. “Don’t you dare do that again! What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t say that!”
He’s lying in a hospital bed, unable to feel anything below his waist, and he’s telling me he’d do it again like it isn’t even a question.
“Anyway, that’s why I’m here,” I say. I ball up the tissue in my fist and take a stuttering breath.
“That’s why I brought pizza and coffee. Because you did that for me.
Because nobody in my entire life has ever stepped in front of anything for me, Mickey.
When the bad stuff comes, I take it alone.
And you put your body between mine and a gun.
So how could I not be here? Tell me that.
How could I possibly not be here? You’re in this bed because of me.
Because Sheila told me to leave and I didn’t.
Because I’d rather correct someone’s grammar than save my own life.
And you’re lying here alone and you can’t feel your legs and I’m supposed to what?
Forget about you? Drive back to my rental and answer idiotic emails about napkins?
Go about my life like this didn’t happen? ”
I’m a wreck. I grab more tissues. My ribs ache from the crying, that deep bruised-rib ache that makes every breath painful.
He’s not saying one word. I need him to give me an answer. To say something, anything. So I keep talking.
“How could I not be here, Mickey? Someone should be here for you. And that someone should be me. And it will be me. I’ll be here.”
Neither of us says anything for a long time. I cry until I’m cried out for the night and there’s nothing left, just the hollow, wrung-out feeling that comes after.
“Benji,” he finally says. “What happened to me is not your fault. I need you to hear that from me. Not from Tex. Not from Stormy. From me, the person it happened to. Four men followed you into a hallway and beat you up because of who you are. One of them had a gun. That’s whose fault this is. Not yours.”
“But if I had left…”
“If you had left, you’d have spent the rest of your life knowing that those men chased you out of a room you had the right to be in. And that would’ve been wrong.”
I’ve spent my entire life hearing that I’m reckless and stupid. And now he’s paying the price of my stubbornness with his own legs and he’s telling me he understands.
I wipe my face one more time. My eyes feel swollen and raw. I’m sure I look terrible, blotchy and red, eyeliner probably streaked to my chin. But the knot in my stomach has loosened a little.
“You’re not what I expected, Officer Weaver,” I say, before I can think better of it.
“What did you expect?”
I think about every cop I’ve ever dealt with.
The ones who pulled me over and laughed at my makeup.
The one who took a statement after I got jumped outside a club in Miami and treated the whole thing like a paperwork problem he didn’t want to deal with.
The one who told me to “tone it down” if I didn’t want trouble.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just not someone who would say what you just said.”
He picks up his coffee and takes a sip. He starts to say something and then stops. I don’t push because pushing feels wrong in this room.
“Our pizza’s getting cold,” he says. “You told me everything I needed to hear. I’m ready for another slice. How about you?”
He’s telling me to let it go. The hard conversation is over.
“Do you want me to go find a microwave and heat it up for you?” I ask, reaching for his plate.
“No, it’s fine for me,” he says. “I didn’t want your pizza to get cold.”
I reach over and automatically adjust the blanket where it’s slipped off the edge of the bed. Doing things for him makes me feel a tiny bit better.
“Tell me about your wedding planner job,” he says. “Let’s talk about happier things. How many weddings have you done?”
“Forty-seven, if you can believe it. I’ve seen brides faint and grooms run.
I once had a flower girl throw a tantrum so legendary that the videographer sold the footage to a reality show.
And there was this one time where a mother-of-the-bride tried to change the seating chart forty minutes before the ceremony because she didn’t want to sit near her ex-husband’s new wife, and the new wife was the maid of honor. ”
“How do you handle things like that?”
“I smile and make things happen. I move tables and seating charts and give the brides everything they want, and at the end of the night I drink heavily. And I do mean heavily. Mostly, I do a lot of handholding of the bride and their mothers. The job is half wedding planning and half therapist.”
He’s eating and watching me talk. I’m going too fast, my hands moving with the words, my body doing half the talking.
He eats, nods and listens. I tell him about Callie who wants burlap in a thirty-two-million-dollar house, and about my condo rental with the ugly shell-pink bathroom.
“What made you become a wedding planner?” he asks.
“I’m good at making things beautiful on a tight deadline.
I love walking into a room and seeing what it could be instead of what it is.
And I like the puzzle of it, fitting all the pieces inside a space and a budget and making them work.
The moment right before the wedding starts, when everything is set and the light is right and you can feel the whole room holding its breath for the bride, that’s the part I love the most.”
“And the rest?”
“The rest is a rich woman who thinks the difference between a fan fold for the napkins and a bishop’s hat is worth forty-five minutes of my life.”
He laughs. Carefully, with his hand pressed to his side, but a genuine laugh that makes me want to hear it again. I smile back at him.
At eight o’clock a nurse knocks and tells me visiting hours are over. She says it with the firm politeness of a woman who has already noticed me sneaking past her station earlier with a pizza box and might not let it happen again.
I stand up and close the box. There are two slices left.
“On my way out, I’ll ask at the nurse’s station if they can refrigerate this for you. How is breakfast here?”
“The worst you can imagine,” he says. “They serve fake scrambled eggs poured out of a carton. Pizza for breakfast will be perfect.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you for the pizza and the coffee. And for telling me what happened.”
“You’re welcome. What do you want for dinner tomorrow?”
“Benji, you don’t have to keep driving back and forth every day. That’s crazy.”
“I know I don’t have to. I’ve already had this conversation with Tex, my best friend Dante in Miami, and now with you. I’m not listening to any of you. See you tomorrow, Officer Weaver.”
I stop at the door, turn and give him an awkward wave bye. I swing by the nurse’s station and ask if they can refrigerate his pizza overnight. They take it from me, write his name on it and walk away without a single word as if I’m bothering them to ask.
When I reach my car, I sit for a minute. My hands are still shaking, the leftover tremor from crying and sitting in a room with the man I put in that bed.
Then I start the car and pull out of the lot. I have two hours of dark, empty highway ahead of me. Two hours is a long way to go, but tomorrow, I’ll be doing it all over again.