Chapter 42 Mickey #2
They swim back in and stretch out on the towels.
Benji lies on his back and Dante is rubbing sunscreen on Benji’s arms. Again.
Benji says something and Dante puts his forehead on Benji’s shoulder for a second while he laughs and the contact is so natural and easy.
It’s just how they are. Two men who touch each other constantly because touch is their language.
Then Benji’s laugh hits. It comes up through the window, loud and unmistakable, the laugh I first heard in a hospital room, the laugh that fills my heart and a whole fucking beach. The sound carries across the sand and up the side of the building and through the glass like it was aimed.
“Jesus! Can you hear that?” I ask.
“His laugh? Yeah. I can hear it from up here.”
“Benji knows exactly how sound carries across open space. He’s been managing outdoor events for years. He knows the acoustics of every venue he’s ever worked. That laugh isn’t an accident. That volume isn’t an accident. He wants me to hear him having a good time.”
“And you’re hearing it.”
“Every damn note.”
Another laugh. Higher this time. Dante leans closer and Benji throws his head back. The sound of it comes through the window like a bell. The laugh is beautiful. It has always been beautiful.
“You know what’s bugging me?”
“What now?” Tex asks.
“Dante,” I say.
Tex chuckles. “No shit. What about Dante?”
“I wanted to hate him. I really did. When Benji first started talking about Dante every five minutes, Dante this, Dante that, Dante’s flying in, Dante says.
The way Benji says his name. Like the name itself is a comfort object Benji drags around.
I wanted that guy to show up and be a dick.
I wanted him to be shallow or rude or possessive or just slightly off in some way that I could point to and say ‘see, your best friend is an asshole.’ That would’ve made my life so much easier. ”
“But?”
“He came with Benji to see me in the hospital. He sat in a plastic chair. He looked me in the eye and shook my hand. The handshake was firm. He didn’t squeeze too hard or hold too long.
His handshake told me everything I needed to know about him.
He reads a room the same way I do. He assessed me in three seconds and decided I was worth Benji’s time.
He didn’t have to decide that. He could’ve hated me.
Dante had every right to walk into that hospital and look at me like the man who’s ruining his best friend’s life.
Instead, he handed me his business card and told me to call him if there was ever trouble with Benji. ”
“You like him then?”
“Yeah, I like him. Like I said, wish I didn’t.
Was hoping he’d turn out to be an asshole so I could hate him but I can’t.
He loves Benji how you love me. Completely.
And the worst part is he’s good at it. He’s better at loving Benji than I am right now because Dante has never once introduced Benji as the help. ”
“You gotta admit, that’s a low bar, Mickey.”
“I know it’s a low bar. That’s the point.
The bar is on the ground and I still tripped over it.
Benji told me something interesting about Dante once, though.
He said Dante has a saying — that by the time someone gets close enough to shake his hand, Dante already knows exactly how he wants that person to feel about him. ”
Tex stops chewing. “Damn,” he says. “That’s deep. I need to sit with that for a minute.”
“Yeah, it is.”
A lifeguard walks past the towels. Young guy, tan, broad-shouldered. He nods at them and keeps walking. Then Benji stands up, calls out to him and the lifeguard stops and comes back.
“What’s he doing?”
“Looks like he’s talking to the lifeguard,” Tex says.
Benji’s hands are moving. The animated gestures, the way his whole body leans forward when he’s interested in a conversation.
His smile is visible from up here, wide and bright, the smile he turns on like a floodlight when he wants someone to feel like the most important person in the room.
Then his hand reaches out and lands on the lifeguard’s forearm. It stays there.
“Now he’s openly flirting with the lifeguard,” I say.
“Looks like it.”
“He’s touching the lifeguard’s arm. He’s smiling at him. He’s doing the lean.”
“The lean? What’s that?”
“The forward lean. Where he tips his whole body toward you and his eyes lock on yours and you feel like nothing exists except the two of you. I know the lean, Tex. He did the lean on me in the hospital bed. He’s doing the lean on a twenty-three-year-old lifeguard on a public beach.”
“Didn’t we just discuss how Benji touches everyone? It’s not flirting. It’s Benji.”
“Looks like flirting to me.”
“Everything Benji does looks like flirting,” Tex says.
“Benji ordering a sandwich looks like flirting. Benji asking for directions looks like flirting. The man has one setting and the setting is ‘I’m the most interesting person you’ll meet today and we both know it and isn’t that fun?
’ That’s charisma. Besides, it’s no fun to flirt with the lifeguard when you’re heartbroken.
The lifeguard is a prop. The audience is you. ”
The lifeguard moves on. Then Benji lies back on the towel. Dante shakes his head and even from up here I can tell Dante is smiling. He reaches over and pushes Benji’s hair off his face.
“Look at them,” I say, waving a hand. “They touch each other constantly. Have you noticed that?”
“How could I miss it?” Tex says. “Their hands are all over each other. Dante keeps rubbing and rubbing that sunscreen.”
“It’s nonstop. Benji touches Dante’s arm when he talks.
Dante fixes Benji’s hair without being asked.
They lean into each other when they’re laughing.
Benji puts his head on Dante’s shoulder.
Dante steers Benji by the elbow through doorways.
It’s like watching two bonded puppies who grew up in the same litter.
They can’t be in the same room without some part of them touching some part of the other one. They’re so handsy.”
“Maybe it’s a Miami thing,” Tex suggests.
“It’s not a Miami thing. It’s a Benji and Dante thing. They’ve been doing it for seven years and they don’t even know they’re doing it. Or maybe it’s a Benji thing. He does it with everyone he cares about.”
“Not everyone,” Tex says. “He doesn’t do it with me.”
“Because you’re the size of a building and you’d crush him.”
“I would not crush him. I’m extremely gentle. Stormy will attest to my gentleness. I am the gentlest large man in the Florida Panhandle.”
“You cracked a man’s drywall with his own body.”
“That was a different context and a justified use of drywall. The point is, Benji and Dante touch each other like it’s breathing and you’re watching it from a window. It’s making you crazy because you want to be the one he’s reaching for.”
“I’m not crazy. Can you imagine if we did that? You and me? If we touched each other the way Benji and Dante do?”
Tex looks at me. “Touched each other how?”
“Like they do. The constant contact. The arm touching, the shoulder leaning, the hair fixing. What if I reached over and fixed your hair right now?”
“I would remove your hand from my face and place it back in your lap,” Tex says.
“What if I leaned over and put my head on your shoulder?”
“I would stand up and you would fall out of your chair,” Tex says.
“What if I started rubbing sunscreen on your back?”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“What if I touched your beard?”
“If you touch my beard, I will punch you in the mouth. I don’t care that you’re in a wheelchair.
I don’t care that you’re injured. I don’t care that we’ve been best friends for twenty years.
The beard is off limits. Stormy is the only human being on this earth who is allowed to touch my beard and that permission was granted under very specific circumstances that I’m not going to describe. ”
“What circumstances?”
“I said I’m not describing them.”
“Was it during sex?”
“Mickey.”
“I’m just asking.”
“Stop it, Mickey. The beard circumstances are classified. They are between me and Stormy and the bedroom ceiling fan that was a witness and that’s the end of it.
I’m ending this conversation. We’re done.
I’m going to sit here and eat my pork rinds and watch your boyfriend that you treated like the caterer punish you from the beach. ”
Benji stands up from the towel and walks back to the water. He walks in slowly this time, letting the water climb up to his chest. Then he dives again and surfaces and floats on his back with his arms spread and his face to the sky. The coral trunks are a bright spot on the blue water.
“I need another beer,” Tex says, “but if I leave, I might miss something.”
“You’re watching this like it’s a show.”
“It is. Benji’s a performer. You know this.
He performs for a living. He stages events and creates experiences.
Right now, he’s performing for an audience of one and the performance is titled ‘look at what you’re missing’ and the production values are excellent.
The swimming trunks alone deserve a ‘Best Costume’ award. ”
Benji and Dante are back on their towels and Dante is reading his phone. Benji is lying on his stomach with his face in his arms and from up here I can’t tell if he’s sleeping or crying and the not knowing is worse than either.
At three o’clock, Tex checks his phone and a look crosses his face.
“We need to wrap this up,” he says. “I’m sending Stormy down there to check on things.”
“Check on what exactly?”
“To see what they’re doing and if Benji’s alright.”
“He’s perfectly fine, Tex. He’s drinking wine out of a solo cup and flirting with lifeguards. He’s doing better than I am.”
“I’m sending Stormy anyway.”
“Tex, don’t send Stormy into the middle of this. It’s not his problem.”