Chapter 35 Benji #2
“That’s too bad,” his father says. “I bet he’d be a good football player.” His father turns to me. “You want some cobbler?”
“He’s already had two servings, sweetheart,” his mother says, steering him to a chair. She hands him a bowl of cobbler and he eats it while leaning over to watch the weather girl through the kitchen doorway.
We leave an hour later. His mother walks us to the ramp and hugs Mickey from behind, her arms around his shoulders in the chair, her chin on top of his head. She hugs me standing up. Her arms are strong and the hug lasts a full four seconds.
“Come back and visit us, Benji,” she says to me. “Anytime.”
“I’d love to, ma’am.”
“And stop calling me ma’am. You can call me Mama Weaver if you would like to. That’s what Tex calls me and I’m fond of it.”
“Mama Weaver,” I say. “I like it too. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
She reaches over for another quick hug. “Not at all, sweetie. I’d love another boy in the family.” She wipes her eyes and steps back.
On the drive back, Mickey reaches over from his seat and puts his hand on my knee. His hand stays there for the whole drive. He doesn’t say anything.
We’re on the highway and I’m about to turn toward the Roadhouse when I glance over at him.
“Let’s go do something,” I say. “What else is there to see or do here? Where do people go? Where’s the main strip?”
“Pier Park is a place the tourists go. Outdoor shopping center right on the beach. Ice cream shops, a big candy store. Restaurants, shops, a movie theater. They do festivals there, country music events, pirate festivals, softball tournaments. There’s a fishing pier with regulars who’ve been there every morning since before I joined the department. ”
“You know those fishermen?”
“I know every one of them by name. That pier was on my patrol route. I worked traffic and crosswalks there for years. Every festival, every event, I was the guy directing cars and keeping the crosswalk clear.”
“Let’s go now,” I say. “While we’re already in the car.”
His hand tightens on my knee. “Benji, it’s July. It’s a hundred degrees out there and the pier has no shade. I’d be sitting on that pier in a hot metal chair cooking like a hot dog.”
“We’ll skip the pier then. How about just the candy store? Dante has been asking for saltwater taffy. I’ve told him a million times there’s no saltwater in it. I don’t know why he loves it so much. In and out, ten minutes tops. You can sit in the AC while I shop.”
He’s quiet for a second. It’s been a big day already. I’d understand if he wanted to go home.
“Okay,” he says. “Just the candy store. Then back home.”
I take the next exit toward Pier Park. The parking lot is almost full with the summer crowd.
I get the chair from the trunk, Mickey transfers himself and we head towards the candy store.
Mickey’s chair rolls easy. The shops are open, and people are moving in and out with bags and ice cream cones.
I’m pushing Mickey through his hometown in the Florida sunshine and I’m happy.
This is what I wanted and needed this afternoon.
“This is fun,” I say. “After the candy store, then maybe we walk around a little?”
“Candy store first to get Dante’s order done, then we’ll see,” Mickey says. “Once you see the inside of the store, I might not be able to get you to leave.”
He’s right. The candy store is an explosion of sugar.
Bins of taffy, shelves of rock candy, old-fashioned penny candy that isn’t a penny anymore but keeps the name.
I park Mickey near the door and dive in.
I quickly text Dante a photo of the store, then grab two bags to fill. One for Dante and another for us.
I fill Dante’s order first. Saltwater taffy in six flavors. Rock candy on sticks, blue and purple. The pecan divinity in a wax paper sleeve. I’m holding up two options of chocolate fudge and asking Mickey’s opinion from across the store when I hear it.
“Mickey? Mickey Weaver?”
A man in khaki shorts and a fishing shirt, mid-fifties, tanned and thick in the way men get when they’ve spent thirty years doing yard work in the Panhandle sun. He’s walking toward Mickey’s chair with the easy stride of a person who’s known him for years.
“Hey, Jim,” Mickey says.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Look at you.” Jim’s eyes go to the wheelchair then back to Mickey’s face. “Heard you were home. Linda and I were talking about you last week. Said we should come by with a casserole but I didn’t want to intrude.”
“I appreciate that. How’s Linda? How’s the yard?”
“Linda’s good. The yard is winning. I lost the battle with the grass and I’m pretending it was on purpose.
” Jim shakes his head. “We were worried about you, Mickey. The whole street was. When the news came on about the shooting, Linda sat on the couch and cried. She said that’s our Mickey, that’s our neighbor. ”
“Tell her I said thank you. And that I’m doing good. Getting stronger every day.”
I walk over with Dante’s bag in one hand and a stick of blue rock candy in the other that I’d pulled off the shelf for myself.
I reach the chair and stand slightly behind, my hand finding the push handle the way it naturally does.
Jim glances at me. His eyes do the quick read. He doesn’t say anything.
“So, are you back at your house?” he asks. “I haven’t seen the lights on or a vehicle in the driveway.”
“I’m staying above Tex’s place for now. He built an accessible apartment upstairs. Easier than the house until I figure out the long-term plan.”
“That makes sense. Those front steps of yours aren’t great for a wheelchair. If you need anything from us, just say the word. Linda’s got a freezer full of casseroles she’s been threatening to deliver.”
“I’ll take her up on that. Tell her I appreciate it.”
“I’ll tell her.” He claps Mickey’s shoulder. “Good to see you, son.”
“You too, Jim.”
Jim walks away into the crowd.
I stand there. Dante’s bag in one hand. The rock candy softening in the other.
Mickey’s neighbor was here for three minutes. He talked about his wife, the yard, casseroles, Mickey’s house, the steps. He stood two feet from me and glanced at me. And at no point, not once, did Mickey turn his head and say this is Benji.
Not boyfriend. Not friend. Not anything.
I pay for the candy and we leave the store. I push him along the sidewalk because I need to move. My body needs to move while my brain processes. I take him across the street to a railing with a view of the pier and we look at the water.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say. And the word comes out the way Mickey’s “fine” comes out, flat and smooth and containing nothing of what’s underneath. I learned that from him.
Maybe it was an oversight. Maybe the conversation moved fast and the moment passed. Bumping into someone you haven’t seen in months doesn’t always leave room for introductions.
Maybe.
Or maybe two hours ago he said boyfriend in his mother’s kitchen because his mother already knew. The kitchen was private. And out here, on his old patrol route, in front of the man who lives two doors down from his house, the word isn’t safe anymore.
My father left us when I was seven. He didn’t say goodbye.
He walked out the front door with a suitcase.
My mother and I stood at the window and watched him go.
What I remember most is not the leaving.
What I remember most is that he didn’t turn around.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t acknowledge that we were standing there.
We were right there, in the window, watching him, and he walked to the car like we weren’t people he was leaving.
Mickey didn’t leave me. He’s right here beside me. But the not-turning, the not-acknowledging, the standing right there and being unseen — that part feels the same. I’ve been here before. In the window, watching someone choose not to see me.
I don’t say any of this.
“The water is nice from out here,” Mickey says.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s nice but we should get you back in the air-conditioning. We should probably go.”
We drive back to the Roadhouse and go upstairs. Later that night, he falls asleep with his hand on my chest while I stare at the ceiling and think about his mother’s kitchen. The pride in his voice when he said boyfriend.
Then I think about the candy store and the absence of any word at all for me.
His mother hugged me. She told me to call her Mama Weaver and invited me back. And two hours later, a man Mickey has known for years looked at me and Mickey said nothing. I stood behind his chair and I was no one.
He didn’t forget. Mickey doesn’t forget anything. He chose not to say it and I felt the choice happen in real time and I smiled through it because that’s what I do.
But this one I can’t smile through.