New fic 5
Mom and Dad couldn’t get a bed for Benton and we would have to share for the rest of the summer. I didn’t mind, at all. Benton had been reading to me every night, and I never knew that books actually had a purpose, or were so much fun.
But there was more fun to be found in our adventuring then there ever was in books.
The day after our first day in the woods, I took Benton to play with the rest of the kids in the neighbourhood. Tom and Jenny acted really nice, but I could tell that Benton didn’t really like them because of yesterday… I couldn’t blame him, they were like a pair of dummies sharing one mind, but then because they were nice to Benton everyone else though he okay, and no one said anything that they would regret, or I would make them. Benton was my friend, and my cousin, and if they were going to say anything bad about him, it was my duty to make them pay I figured. And if anyone was going to make Benton unhappy, it was my job to make it better.
The neighbourhood was ours, ruled by unruly children. We all played tag, and kick ball like we had a super league, but not Wolf…. I don’t know why but I was happy when Benton never mentioned it… it was special and the summer had just begun, there were other games to play with the rest of the kids.
That summer the heat hit a record breaking high, and we all went down to the corner store a few days later, with Sally Jensen’s older brother. There we bought popsicles. I went to pay for Benton’s Popsicle; mom had given me money when I had begged for the treat. Benton was standing quietly behind me at the counter but already had money I learnt, when he placed a funny looking bill with a lady with a crown on it onto the counter.
Benton began to un wrap his popsicle as enthusiastically as any 10, or 11 year old child would but the teller stopped him, and so did everyone else in our group to see what the problem was.
“Hey kid,” the teller drawled, his eyes squinting through the thick framed glasses that he held between the thumb and finger of one hand, examining the bill like it was an artefact, “ this ain’t no money I ever seen before, I can’t take this.” Benton looked shocked, then very angry, so angry that I was startled. I had never seen Benton show that much emotion to a stranger outside of the house yet. Benton was so quiet, to everyone apart from me and my mom…
“I’m sorry Sir, but that is all I have, and it is real money, you should be able to accept it just like an American bill.” He said very intelligently.
The teller looked absolutely shocked that such a young kid was correcting him. He scowled at Benton and looked at the bill again,
“What is this British? We fought fair and won so we wouldn’t have to use your money, boy, I don’t have to take your money, this is America and we have freedom and rights.”
Benton’s little mouth was hanging open, I felt like laughing, this man was about as smart as Tom and Jenny’s one brain, I probably should have felt intimidated at this large older man’s words and behaviour, but he wasn’t dad so what did I care, and I wanted to go, my popsicle was melting.
“Its Canadian money Stupid, and Canada’s in America too, right Benton?” That’s what Benton had taught me because America was a conti..net, well it was a big piece of land.
I paused.
I actually remembered that! I actually remembered facts, I was able to bring to my mouth to say, I was able to think…
But while I was frozen trapped in my own wonderment of brain, Benton was talking, then saying my name…
“Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley...”
“What.” I snapped, because it was annoying and I didn’t really like hearing my name that much… I didn’t really like my name all that much. It was so plain… and funny sounding.
“Let’s go,” then he was dragging me out of the store with the rest of our group, while the large stupid man behind the till was getting yelled at by a younger larger man, I guessed was his boss.
Once we were walking and everyone was talking, or eating their treats, I turned to Benton who looking oddly at me and asked, “What did I miss?” Benton unwrapped his popsicle.
“The man got really angry because you called him stupid and he told us to leave, but then that other man came over, I think he was his manager, and sent us away when they started to fight… I didn’t get my change.” Benton finished flatly and I laughed.
“What were they fighting about?” Benton pulled his popsicle out of his mouth, the cherry colouring already staining his full lips. He smiled real evil, and it was another look I had never seen, Benton looked good evil, and I smiled back to match after he told me his answer, “They were fighting over if Canada was in America, they didn’t know what state it was in.” I was shocked once again. I guess they didn’t have someone around as smart as Benton to teach them about the important things in life, “Stupid Americans.” I giggled around my popsicle, and Benton laughed full out almost dropping his popsicle in the act.
When we finally stopped laughing, I noticed Tom and Jenny whispering to each other, and scowling at us from where they walked in front of us. I gave them a funny look and lopped my arm with Benton’s to skip the rest of the way home.
When we got back to our block, the rest of the kids ran off like wild animals into the brush… or back to their homes. It was almost dinner time. By then I had swapped popsicles with Benton, his tasted better than I could have imagined, I didn’t like cherry but for some reason because Benton like it, it made it all that much better.
That’s when Tom and Jenny came up to us and both scowled in the power of two. Uh Oh...
“Why did you say that back there, Stanley,” Jenny started, ‘stupid American’. Your American, it’s Ben-Ton, who’s not, he’s a stupid Canadian.” I woulda growled if I had picked up the trait yet, so instead I yelled “Don’t say his name like that! And Benton’s, not stupid, you’re stupid, Benton’s smarter than anyone I have ever met! I wish I could know what he knows, than I would never have to be a stupid American ever again! Stupid, Stupid!”
I was on a role, I was thinking, I was firing on all cylinder, I had a brain! Yes people, I could compute.
But Tom and Jenny couldn’t unfortunately, they both looked shocked, and then Tom hit my popsicle out of my hand. “You’re stupid, and all you ever do is talk for your stupid Canadian cousin and stick up for him, I wish he never came! You used to be fun!”
Benton looked angry, very angry, yet hurt, definitely. I knew how vulnerable he was and wasn’t going to let Tom get away with that, but I didn’t have to do anything because all of sudden Tom flew towards us, but not on purpose I realised, when he flew stumbling forward, landing face first, or eye first on Benton’s popsicle!
The cry that Tom let out was a squeal that only a little kid could muster, yet what could be heard as well, in that same instant, almost as loud as Tom’s pained scream, was Benton’s laughter...
Tom lay on the ground crying, with a foot ball by his side, and a dirty purple popsicle. The football had been the cause of this… beautiful situation, as the ball hit Tom’s back, thrown off course by some strong armed Teen.
Jenny was holding Tom trying stop her brothers crying. And Benton was still laughing, and of course I was as well, because a popsicle to the eye was definitely something to laugh over, but then Benton started to talk, and I knew that this was going to be good.
His face bore a cruel grin as he spat, “You’re crying over that?” Then he giggled, “A popsicle! Try an ice ball hitting your face, or snow rubbed into your eyes! Have you ever felt that? Well I have and that’s worse than a popcicle or even your unkind words. Then you can cry. You’re just a sissy,” He announced with menace and certainty. Benton looked truly possessed as he continued, and as I watched with a torrent of excitement, and pride. “Do you wear your sisters dresses as well, I bet you do little girl. If I cried like that then I never would have got my first gun. Now if you lived in Canada you would be used to a little ice in the eye, American!” He accused, and it was delight to my ears, Benton had a gun! Or wait. Yay, we beat them! And that part about the dresses! So good!
Benton left out the stupid, but I was practically rolling on the ground. Definite victory! We had beaten the stupid twins, and we were a pair now, Benton and Stanley. Jenny was helping Tom home, and when I grabbed Benton’s hand and ran off with him laughing towards our own home, and asking fervently, “Do you really have a gun!”
Jenny yelled after us, “Freaks!” And that was the first time I had ever been called that.
We didn’t hang out much with anyone else after that day, and I really didn’t want to anyway, I wanted Benton to myself, and I think that Benton felt the same way. The summer was fast coming and the weeks would go by like a flash, the summer always did.
8888
We spent the rest of the summer exploring the woods behind Mr. Bunion‘s. It felt like a new adventure every time we would breach the border between ‘the block’, and the woods, and because Benton was there it truly was for me -- an adventure all of my own, I felt in my over excited heart..
In my mind, we were the first people to step into that untamed world of the stray brush and wild black berry bushes, that made up the small square of land that we ruled like nomads, isolated in the mist of Illinois suburbia.
Benton loved it back there. He said that it was like a page from a story book, and it really was after we were through with it. Dad gave us a whole bunch of scrap wood that he had lying around, and a bag of nails and a hammer, then told us “Go at it.” Those were the good old days… when hammers and nails were handed out freely to 10 year olds.
So it became after that, that when we weren’t exploring our untamed land, we were also desecrating the innocent trees in a sick mish-mash of nails and planks. Soon they transformed into the props of our combined minds, imaginations: one hyperactive, and one deeply imaginative.
My imagination was one filled with images of gun, and cowboys, but I soon came to learn that there was a much broader field of choices, when it came to the imagination of boys...
For Benton it was all long pauses of dialog, followed by heroic leaps of faith from our wooden fantasies. Benton was a hero in our conquests, and I was there to help battle the evil men who were holding some unsuspected maiden hostage, or just a random bystander. We were fighting demons I realized years later, Benton’s daemons...
Though at the time we were the heroes of our own little world, and it was the best one I had ever found. In our world Benton always had to fight the villains like I said, but why not get your cousin Stanley to stand in for that role... Villains were tumbled and pinned, wrestled...
Touched...
And that was when my adolescence world began to finally grow, and expand like the horizons of a life forming before my eyes, when I finally began to realise that there was so much more to the world of a boy, or a man, then just pin up pictures of half dressed women in dens.
There was so much more, feeling and purpose behind everything in life that I didn’t know how I had missed it, but now I was seeing it, now my eyes were open, and they were seeing Benton.