Chapter 14 Benji
Dante calls it Groundhog Day. “You’re living the same day on repeat,” he said last night. “Vendors, highway, hospital, highway, couch. The only thing that changes is the menu.”
Today the texting starts mid-morning and the conversation doesn’t stop. It runs underneath my entire day, something I can reach for between vendor calls and chair color emergencies.
Mickey: Tex showed up here early this morning. He brought biscuits and life advice. The biscuits were better.
Benji: What kind of life advice?
Mickey: Unsolicited. The kind I didn’t ask for and probably needed.
Benji: That’s the best kind. Also the worst kind. Dante specializes in them. What time should I come today?
Mickey: Whenever you want. I’m not going anywhere.
Benji: What do you want to eat?
Mickey: Surprise me.
Benji: You’ll learn that’s a bad thing to tell me, Officer Weaver.
Later, I’m getting off the phone with the florist confirming delivery times when my phone buzzes on the counter.
Mickey sending a photo of his hospital lunch, a tray of gray meat, limp green beans and a carton of milk, with the caption “identify this protein.” I type back “that’s not protein, that’s evidence. ”
I send him a photo of the wrong-shade-of-ivory chairs stacked in the beach house garage with the caption “these chairs are ruining my life and my will to live.” He sends back “they look white.” I send back a string of curse words that would get me banned from most social platforms. He sends back “I showed the nurse your chair photo and she said they look white too. You’re outnumbered. ”
I’ve been missing this in my life. Not the flirting. Or the texting. The ordinary part — having someone send you a photo of bad hospital food and ask your opinion on it.
By mid-afternoon I decide to give him one more chance to tell me what he wants for dinner. After seeing his hospital lunch plate, I don’t want to show up with something he doesn’t like.
Benji: Last chance. What do you want for dinner tonight?
The answer takes longer than usual.
Mickey: Seeing Tex this morning made me homesick. I know this is a lot to ask but would you be willing to swing by the bar on your way and grab me a plate of brisket? Tex does it low and slow on the smoker and there’s nothing like it. Tell Sheila it’s for me. She’ll hook you up.
I frown at the screen. Big Tex’s Roadhouse. The building I haven’t set foot in since the night I walked out of it covered in blood. I’m not sure I can go back in there.
This is... a lot to ask. Mickey knows that.
He’s a cop who sees things, and there is no way he doesn’t know that sending me to that bar is asking me to walk back into the place where everything happened.
He’s not just asking for the food. But I’m not going to call him on it because maybe he’s right.
Maybe the avoidance is eating me the same way the guilt was and the only cure is going.
And if he wants something, I’ll go get it for him.
Benji: Preference on side dishes?
Mickey: Whatever Sheila wants to put on there.
I blow out a long breath. Guess it’s settled now that I’ve taken his food order. After I finish up at the house, I drive that way. The lot is full of trucks and a couple of motorcycles. It looks exactly the same as it did that night except the sun is out and there are no classic cars.
I park and turn the engine off. I’m shaky.
Not a lot, just a tremor in my fingers that wasn’t there a minute ago.
I definitely don’t like this but I might as well get it over with.
I step out of the car. The air smells like salt and hickory from the smoker and the sun is warm on my arms. I walk toward the building before I can talk myself out of it.
Inside, the bar is half full with the late afternoon crowd. Classic rock from the speakers, the crack of pool balls in the back. I keep my eyes forward. The hallway to the restrooms is to my right and I can feel it pulling at the edge of my vision but I don’t turn my head.
Tex appears from the kitchen doorway wiping his palms on an apron that has more stains than fabric at this point. He’s taking up the entire doorway.
“Benji,” he says. “I bet you’re here for the brisket.”
“Mickey asked for it by name,” I tell him.
“I know he did. He texted me after I got back from there. He said ‘Benji’s coming by, make sure the brisket is the good stuff.’ The good stuff.
As if I have a bad batch somewhere. As if I’m running a two-tier brisket operation where some people get premium brisket and other people get the brisket I keep in an old bucket for my enemies.
It’s all the good stuff. That’s the only stuff I make.
I’m incapable of making bad brisket. It’s a genetic impossibility.
My daddy made good brisket and his daddy made good brisket and the brisket gene has been passed down through the family like a divine mandate.
Mickey knows this. He’s eaten my brisket a thousand times.
And yet he texts me ‘make sure it’s the good stuff’ like I need the reminder. ”
“He’s starving for home cooked meals,” I say.
“Yeah, he’s homesick. He misses this place.” Tex pauses. “You’re keeping him going, taking him food every day. Four hours round trip. That means something, Benji. That means a lot. To all of us. We see what you’re doing and it’s appreciated.”
He says it fast, like he’s trying to get the serious part over with so he can go back to being Tex.
“Now go on and get out of my kitchen before Sheila sees you standing here without food in your mouth. She’ll put you to work. She’ll have you drying glasses and folding napkins and you’ll be here until midnight. Sheila’s got the cooler ready.”
Sheila is behind the bar, towel over her shoulder, pouring a draft with one hand and wiping the bar top with the other.
She looks up when I approach and the recognition moves across her face.
She doesn’t smile at me. She finishes the draft, delivers it three stools down, throws a towel back over her shoulder and walks to where I’m standing.
The last time this woman looked at me was in the ER waiting room. She looked across those beige chairs at me while I waited for her accusation that didn’t come. She didn’t say a word to me that night.
“Hi, Sheila,” I say.
“Benji.”
“Mickey asked me to pick up some food for him. Tex told me you’ve already got a cooler ready.”
She doesn’t respond right away. “You go there to visit him every day?” she asks.
“Yes. So far.”
Her eyes hold mine. Then she nods, slow and certain. “I guess you really don’t leave, do you?”
“No,” I say. “Guess I don’t.”
“Let me go get the food for you. Sit down. I’ll be a minute.”
She disappears into the kitchen. I sit on a barstool, then quickly stand back up. The crinkle of the vinyl under my legs sent up a flare of recognition that made my pulse jump. I want to get out of here as fast as I can.
Someone appears behind my shoulder. Blonde, slim, quiet. Stormy. He’s carrying a bin of clean glasses. He sets it behind the bar and turns to me with a shy, quick smile that changes his whole face for half a second before it settles back to his focused seriousness.
“Hey Stormy.”
“Hey.” He puts a glass on the shelf, then another, working while he talks. “How is Mickey?”
“He’s making it. Pretending he’s fine when he’s not.”
Stormy puts another glass up carefully. Then he says, without looking at me, “Mickey eats more when someone is sitting beside him. Especially when they’re eating too.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
He shrugs without looking at me. “I’ve noticed when he sits at the bar. He doesn’t finish his whole plate when he’s sitting by himself. If the bar is busy and there’s other people sitting around him, he eats more. You need to eat too.”
“Thank you for telling me. That means a lot.” I smile at him. “I’ll make sure he eats good tonight.”
“Tell him I said hello.”
He gives me another quick smile, picks up the bin and disappears into the kitchen. That’s the whole conversation.
Sheila comes back carrying a small cooler, the kind with a handle and a zipper, packed tight. She sets it on the bar in front of me.
“Brisket,” she says. “Ribs. Coleslaw. Baked beans. Cornbread. Enough for two. There are ice packs in the bottom so it’ll stay cold for the drive. Tell him to keep the cooler and eat the leftovers tomorrow too. Hospital food might kill him.”
She packed enough for two. She didn’t say anything else about it and she didn’t have to.
“Sheila,” I say. “Thank you.”
She reaches across the bar and squeezes my hand. One squeeze, firm and brief. Her fingers are strong and she holds on for about two seconds. Then she lets go and picks up her towel and goes back to wiping the bar.
“Be careful driving, baby. Tell Mickey we love him.”
She called me baby. I didn’t know how badly I needed that until her fingers closed around mine.
I pick up the cooler and walk out into the lot. Big Tex’s Roadhouse is behind me. I made it through. I went in, I came out, and the world didn’t end.
I strap the cooler in carefully on the passenger seat and pull out my phone to send Mickey a photo of it.
Benji: On my way with valuable cargo.
Mickey: Want to talk on the way?
Benji: Will you arrest me if I’m driving and talking?
Mickey: Not if you don’t touch the phone. Call me.
I snap the phone into the cradle on my dashboard and hit his name. It rings once before the call connects through the car speakers, filling the car with the quiet, hospital-room silence of his end of the line. I pull out of the Big Tex parking lot and head for the highway.
“Okay, Officer Weaver,” I say, glancing at the road as I merge. “I’m on my way. Two hours and counting down. Tell me all about your day.”