Into This River I Drown (39 page)

“Benji, Benji, Benji,” my Aunt Nina said, petting my hair and kissing my cheek. “You are strong and brave. Big Eddie always thought so. You know that? He always thought so. All the time he did.”

I must stand,
I thought.
I must stand and be true.

“I just don’t get it,” Christie said, sounding upset. “Why do you have to go in there?” She wrung her hands, cracking the knuckles.

“His wallet was lost in the river,” I said, my voice rough. “His wallet is gone, and even though it’s his truck, they still need a family member to identify him.”

“Griggs knows him,” Mary muttered. “
He
should have been able to do it just fine. Don’t know why he needs to involve
us
.”

“Benji,” my mother said, biting her bottom lip. More tears welled in her eyes. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe you shouldn’t see—”

I shook my head and said, “No. No, I will do this. This is my father. He would do the same for me, so I will do what needs to be done.”

A knock on the conference room door. We fell silent as the door opened. Doc Heward, on call because the county coroner was out of the state at the moment, stuck his head in, eyes somber and gentle. “Everything okay in here?” he asked kindly.

“You tell ’em, Doc,” Christie insisted. “You tell ’em that Benji doesn’t need to go in there. You’ve known Big Eddie since he was a tyke. You can tell if it wasn’t him. Please don’t make Benji do this.”

He looked miserable. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said, darting his gaze to me before looking away. “It’s the law, Christie.”

“
Fuck
the law!” she snarled, looking wild-eyed. “
Fuck
the law!”

Mary recoiled and Nina covered her mouth to keep from snorting at her sister using a bad word. My mother shook her head, tears falling from her eyes. None of them knew I’d already talked to the doc. None of them knew he told me he would be more than willing to identify Big Eddie for me, that it
was
Big Eddie in there, he already knew. He’d fudge the paperwork a bit. No boy, he said, should have to see his father in such a way, especially a boy like me and a father like Big Eddie. Let him help in what little way he could. Let him take some of the pain away so I could remember Big Eddie the last time I’d seen him, that smile on his face, the stubble on his head. Let him do this for me, please. By the time he’d finished begging me, there were tears in his eyes.

But not in mine. No, thank you, I’d said. No, thank you. I will do my job. I will see to my father the way I am supposed to. You shouldn’t try and stop me.

He’d hung his head.

“
Fuck
the law!” Christie repeated. “Griggs said—” She stopped herself and shook her head. I didn’t care right then to know what Griggs had said. All that mattered was seeing to my father.

Old Doc Heward said in a small voice, “Benji, are you ready?”

No. No, I wasn’t ready. No, I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to stand. I didn’t want it to be true. All I wanted to do was find a dark corner and curl up until I was as small as I could make myself and just stay there until the world passed me by. I’d put myself in this position but could only now fully realize what I was about to do. Some small, tiny part of me still believed this to be a nightmare I couldn’t seem to wake up from. That part of me was sure that any moment now, my screams would be heard, and a rough but gentle hand would shake me awake and I’d open my eyes. I’d open my eyes and find myself staring into green like so many fireworks blasting across a black sky. He’d have a tight frown on his face, lines around his eyes as he squinted at me. “Benji,” he’d say, his voice a deep and worried rumble. “Benji, it’s okay. Wake up. You need to wake up because it was all a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you because they aren’t real. None of this is real and you need to
wake up
.”

“Yes,” I whispered aloud. “Yes. I think so, yes.”

I’d always heard the first step is the hardest, and once you take that first step, all the ones that follow are infinitely easier by comparison. I contemplated that first step for what felt like ages, but in the end, my right foot lifted slightly off the floor and the step was taken. Then another. And another. It did not become easier.

Doc Heward held the door open for me, his eyes filled with so much pain for me. I made it through the doorway and into the long, cold gray hallway. The door closed behind me, but not before I heard my mother gasp and shatter again, the quiet murmurs of the Trio, the only family I had left in the world.

Doc started to speak, but I couldn’t hear his words because I was so far away. I was so far away and I almost couldn’t tell which was the dream and which was real life. I heard my father’s voice in my head, like so many memories rising at once, the cacophony so brilliantly loud that it caused my—

eyes to water as my father said, “I got a guy, Benji. I’ve got a guy who can get us a V8 cheap for the Ford. He tried to swindle me a bit, but I reminded him we don’t do that kind of thing here and he

“—told me he understood and gave me a fair price,” I whispered aloud.

“What was that, Benji?” The Doc asked kindly.

I shook my head. “You think you can give me a moment?” I asked. “I’ll meet you down the hall. I just need a moment.”

He nodded sympathetically and moved slowly down the hall, pressing his hand up against the wall as if he couldn’t support himself.

This was getting more real by the second, and I almost couldn’t catch my breath. My vision narrowed as I took another step, and bile rose at the back of my throat. “It’s not real,” I said. “It’s not—

going to be easy, but I think we can swing it,” my father said with a laugh. “Look, I know I said this was going to be just an office, but think about it, Benji. What if… what if we could just build a whole other house? It won’t be as big as ours but just… what if? If we really buckled down and agreed to do this thing, it could

—be yours one day,” I said as I took another step. “It could be yours one day, if you wanted to stay here, that is. I know there’s a big wide world out there, but sometimes… sometimes, you just want to come home, you know?”

I did know. Oh God, how I knew.

I followed Doc’s silent advice and pressed my hands against the wall to help support my weight. The concrete was cool underneath my hand, and didn’t the hallway seem longer somehow? Didn’t it just seem like the longest hallway ever to have been built? It went on for miles, it seemed. I didn’t know if I could make it. I didn’t know if I could travel that great distance, realizing more and more what waited for me at the end. “I’ve always thought,” I started then paused. I slid my fingers over the stone, rough against my skin and it—

was so funny to see Big Eddie dressed in drag that Halloween, getting ready for the Roseland Chamber of Commerce’s big party. He came down the stairs in the ugliest dress I’d ever seen, plaid with greens and blues and oranges and red. I burst out laughing as he tried to squeeze his gigantic feet into what had to be the biggest pair of high heels in existence. My mother collapsed against a wall, holding her sides, tears on her cheeks as she laughed so big. Big Eddie glared at the both of us and said, “What’s so flipping funny? I’m going to show the town how much I support my son. My big old gay son, because he
is
my son. If he is gay, then I want to show I’ve got his back. I’ve always—

—got his back,” I said as a tear slid down my cheek. “Even if I look like a big old tranny, the people here are gonna know that my son isn’t going to take shit from any of them.”

Memories like knives. Memories like ghosts.

I was haunted all the way down that hallway. I felt stabbed repeatedly as I heard his voice in my head again and again. I couldn’t stop the memories, no matter how much I wanted to. I hated myself for all the good I remembered, because I wanted to let my anger consume me so I could focus on all the bad. I wanted to scream and shout at him, to let him hear my fury. To let him hear my fury and wake the fuck up, to stop playing this dangerous game that was breaking me apart.

I was six when he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder and tickled my sides.

Another step.

I was… I don’t know. I was some age somewhere when he looked at me and smiled for no reason at all. He reached over and ruffled my hair and said, “You’re going to be a good man, you know that?”

Another step and I
didn’t
know that, not anymore.

He sat on the patio beside me at Little House as we watched the sun go down. After a quarter-hour silence, he said, “Sure is a great night.” Then he grunted that sound that meant he was happy. I could only nod.

Another step, and I opened my eyes to see I was almost at the end of the endless hall. The doc waited for me near a door that looked like black iron. He had his hand on the handle, and he didn’t know I saw him wipe his other hand across his eyes and take a shuddering breath.

It was almost real.

I heard my father singing quietly to himself as he sanded a piece of wood that would become the trellis up the side of Little House. It was something I’d heard him sing many times before. An old Seven of Spades song. “Float,” it was called. Some bluesy riff from the forties. Covered by many others through the years, but the Seven of Spades one was always his favorite. It was the song he sang when he was content and lost in his own little world. He—

I stopped. This couldn’t be real.

“Sometimes I float along the river,” I sang quietly to myself, my voice cracking. “For to its surface I am bound.”

I took another step.

“And sometimes stones done fill my pockets, oh Lord,” Big Eddie hummed. “And it’s into this river I drown.”

“Are you sure about this?” Doc Heward asked me with a worried look, as if he could hear my father singing off-key in my head.

No.
“Yes.”

“Benji, this doesn’t need to happen. I’ve told you I can—”

“Open the door, Doc.”

He watched me for a moment. I don’t know what he saw, but it must have been enough. He heaved a great sigh and opened the door. It squeaked on its hinges, the sound low and grating. I ground my teeth together. It went on forever.

Finally he walked through the door. I followed him down a shorter hallway until we came to a second door. This one had a small window about head height, and was a pale green. The doc paused again and turned to look at me. I almost screamed.

“We’ll go through the door,” he said quietly. “In the upper-right corner, there is a TV. When you are ready, I’ll turn the TV on, and on the screen, you’ll see a video of the room next door. I’ll ask the ME’s assistant to show you a face. You say yes or no and that’ll be it. We’ll be done. You can leave. You can go back to your family and let them hold you. That’s what you will need, and you have to let it happen. Do you understand?”

I was distracted by a low buzzing noise. I looked up. The fluorescent light overhead was flickering. The electrical buzz was soft but steady. I stared at the light as it went out then back on. Out then back on.

“Benji?” Doc said, sharper.

I looked back at him and nodded tightly. The light continued to sputter.

He opened the green door. It made no sound. I was led to a windowless room. It was colder than the hallway, much colder. A small desk was against the far wall, battered and littered with papers and pens. Pencils and a handful of paper clips scattered near the edge. A stapler and a half empty cup of coffee. The swivel chair next to the desk was blue and worn. There was another door on the opposite side of the room. It was closed.

In the right-hand corner above me was a TV. The screen was black, and I could see myself in the reflection, eyes blown out, mouth slack. The light in the room flickered here too. I disappeared on and off the black screen with the flashing light. The doc muttered to himself, something about the wiring in the old building. He said nothing about the charge in the air that I was sure he felt. How could he not?

He turned to me again and opened his mouth, but I stopped him. “Doc,” I growled at him. “If you ask me if I’m sure one more time, I’m going to get angry.”

His shoulders sagged as he exhaled. “I’ve known you since you were born,” he said finally. “I’ve known your father since he was even younger than you are now. I can tell you the ache I have in my chest, but it won’t even compare to what I know you are feeling.” He looked away. “I hurt,” he said. “Because he was my friend, I hurt. But you? Benji, he was your
father
. I can’t even….” He couldn’t finish.

“Show me,” I said. “Show me.”

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Eric? The family is ready. Okay. Okay.” He closed the phone and slid it back in his pocket. “Deep breath, okay?”

I nodded.

He reached up to switch on the TV and I thought
no, no, no
, because it
wasn’t
real,
none
of this was real. I thought I felt the brush of a hand on my shoulder, but that was impossible because my back was against the wall. There could be no one there.

But even as I screamed at the doc in my head, I said nothing aloud, because I needed proof. I needed proof in this nightmare. Tangible, verifiable proof that I could see with my own eyes, so I wouldn’t have to hear the words I still considered untrue. It was necessary, I told myself. It was the only way.

Doc touched the button on the front of the TV, and there was an electrical snap. A small shower of sparks fell from the back of the TV to the floor, hissing as they hit the cold concrete. The doc jerked his hand away and stared dumbfounded at the TV. A smell of burning plastic permeated the room. “Goddamn wiring,” he muttered. “Told them a thousand times to get this fixed. Not in the budget, my ass.” His phone rang. “Yeah? No, the TV shorted and damn near shocked me! The what? The camera went out?” He frowned. “That’s not hooked up to any of the wiring, is it? That’s odd. How the hell…. No. Just give me a moment.” He snapped the phone shut and reached up carefully toward the TV again, which had already stopped smoking. He tapped the power button quickly, as if thinking he would still be shocked. Nothing happened. He pressed the button and held it down. Nothing.