John Belushi Is Dead (22 page)

“You wouldn't know anything about it, Benji. You've never lost anyone.”

“Oh, for God's sake,” he roared. “Poor Hilda. Her parents are dead. It's not fair. She can't be happy because she's an
orphan
. Just get over it.”

“Get over it? But, Benji, isn't that why you like hanging around me so much? The novelty of being around someone who nearly
died? I know that's the only reason you were ever friends with me, so
you
get over it. You're the one who gets such a kick out of all this. But it's my life, Benji. It actually happened to me. You're just a fucking tourist.”

Benji made a face like he'd just eaten a handful of peppers. He walked to his car, got in, and drove off, leaving me standing alone in the garage. I walked back into the coroner's office, past the crying women and the eerily cheerful receptionists. I used a pay phone to call a cab. I took a seat, turned my back to them, and waited for my ride, and after a while I put my fingers in my ears to drown out the sound of crying.

I
NEVER MEANT TO HAVE
sex with Benji. It wasn't intentional. I didn't plan for it and I didn't plan on doing it again. It just happened. And I wish I could say that my first time felt right and natural and pure, but it didn't. I can't even say that it was traumatic or painful. The best word for it was
pleasant
, or perhaps something more benign, like
nice
. We came together and we came apart and it was just
nice
. In a way I was relieved to have it over with, that milestone in my life checked off and filed away in as efficient a manner as possible, and to be honest I couldn't see what the big deal was. But I always got the feeling Benji felt differently. I think it might have meant much more to him than I could imagine.

It happened last summer. We were sitting in his bedroom late one night. Benji was on the bed and I was on the floor.
Groundhog Day
was on the television. Mrs. Connor was somewhere in the house but you wouldn't have known it; I swear that woman always wore slippers just so she wouldn't be a disturbance to others.

Ironically, I'd seen
Groundhog Day
before, at least a dozen times. It was the kind of film you could slip into like an old nightgown, a faithful, trusty companion you knew would deliver the goods every time without fail.
Groundhog Day
would never let you down. The gentle softness of its repetition was soothing and reassuring.

Bill Murray wrapped his arms around Andie MacDowell's body and suddenly Benji's hands were on my shoulders, massaging, kneading, both apprehensive and eager at the same time. The longer I let it go on, the harder his grip became, until the constant rubbing friction on my shoulders felt like it would set my skin on fire. Benji had never touched me before, not even to brush past me. I sat, frozen, completely surprised and unsure of my next move. I kept watching the television. Benji continued rubbing my shoulders.

“What are you doing?” I asked, not turning around.

“You seem tense,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. I could tell he was trying to sound confident, but his next sentence came out as a croak. “Does that feel good?”

It didn't feel bad, but it wasn't great, either. There was no spark, no butterflies in my stomach, just a vague, uncomfortable awkwardness.

“Yeah, it does. Thanks,” I managed to say, still watching the television. I moved my shoulders slightly to adjust Benji's pressure, but didn't pull away. Bill and Andie were in a full embrace now, love was all around, and I felt myself being seduced, by the movie and the actors and everything they told me love should be and the love that was being offered to me now. I felt Benji's breath on my neck, smelling of the half-eaten bowl of popcorn that sat next to him on the bed. Slowly his mouth came down, and I tilted my head
up to meet him, and we kissed, teeth clunking, and I found myself trapped in his embrace, twisted like a pretzel. In a single moment hundreds of questions crashed through my mind and were just as easily discarded. A romantic song swelled from the movie that had been forgotten in front of us and I thought, Is this how it's going to happen? And before I knew what was happening, it did.

Benji pulled my T-shirt over my head and I raised my hands up to let him. His hands went down to my breasts and he squeezed them like they were melons at a supermarket. He turned me around and I let him, let him bring me up to face him, and I kept my eyes closed because I wasn't sure I wanted to look at him. I felt him kiss my lips, the top one and then the bottom one, and then my neck, his hands running down my back. I felt his hands on my scar, the scar that ran down my front, the scar from where the seat belt had pulled me back so tight it almost cut me in two. He lingered on it, running his fingers up and down the crusted skin, and finally I pulled his hand off.

I let him bring me up onto the bed. The popcorn was kicked to the floor. I lay flat on my back, undid my jeans, and pulled them down, happy to have my gaze concentrated on the button and the fly and the challenge of working my tight Levi's down over my hips. Benji was already in his boxers (how that happened so fast I'll never know) and his chest was flat and hairless. He pulled down my underpants and kept kissing me, stuck a clumsy finger between my legs. I looked up at the posters on his walls, at Fall Out Boy and Green Day, anywhere but his face. After some rummaging around in his boxers he was finally inside, and it lasted only a second because a moment later I felt stickiness all over my legs, and Benji rolled off and was lying next to me, panting.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at the ceiling and running a hand through his hair. I bent over and pulled my underpants back on.

“It's fine,” I said, even though I wasn't sure which bit he was apologizing for. I joined my hands on my stomach and lay there, unsure what to do next. The Sonny & Cher song “I Got You Babe” started to play from the movie and I had the sudden urge to throw the television out the window.

We lay there like that for a few minutes, backs to the bed, staring at the ceiling, our hands crossed on our stomachs. Then Benji turned and wrapped his arms around me, and I stiffened, and once again his breath was on my neck.

“I love you,” he whispered, then kissed my cheek, and I didn't say anything. I guess we both fell asleep, and when I woke up Benji was gone. I pulled on my jeans and walked out into the kitchen. Mrs. Connor was making eggs in a frying pan and the smell made me feel sick. Benji was sitting on a stool at the marble counter, eating a bowl of Cheerios, a cocky look on his face.

“Hey, Mrs. Connor,” I said, and when she turned to me her smile was so wide it looked like someone had slashed it with a knife.

“Hilda,” she cried, putting the spatula down and walking toward me. Before I could say a word her arms were around me, squeezing tightly. I started to squirm a bit and she released her grip, but not before putting her hands on my cheeks and looking me square in the eyes. “Are you hungry? Do you want breakfast?”

“Um, sure,” I said, and she hugged me again, and over her shoulder Benji was practically glowing.

“You want some Cheerios?” he asked, jumping down off the bar stool and racing over to the cupboard. It wasn't like Benji at all
to be so accomodating, so I meekly agreed to a bowl of Cheerios, even though my stomach was churning with guilt. As we sat there side by side, eating cereal at the kitchen counter while Mrs. Connor tried to make herself inconspicuous in the corner, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I had made a huge mistake.

Over the next few days Benji tried to bring up what had happened, but each time I quickly changed the subject. We drove to Forest Lawn Cemetery to see the grave of Freddie Prinze, and as we stood looking over the headstone Benji tried to thread his fingers through mine, and I let my fingers go slack, my hand falling to my side. After that he drove me home, not saying a word, and when he dropped me off outside my house he slammed the door and sped off, swerving out of control and almost hitting a kid on a bike. I let him have his space, not sure if we would ever be friends again, and a week later he called me as if nothing had happened, excited by the news that a famous rock star had OD'd at a hotel downtown, and eager to get down there in time to see the body being wheeled out.

Although we never spoke of it again, what happened that day hung between us, like the dead cat swinging in the garbage bag, but more putrid, more fetid. It was the stench of dishonesty. Benji gave me something that day, and I chose to accept it, but I didn't really mean it. That was wrong. I had betrayed Benji, and it wouldn't be the last time. I liked to think I had no choice. Now I wasn't so sure.

T
HAT NIGHT
I
LAY
on my bed, trying to get the episode at the morgue out of my head. I tried to destract myself by reading
American Psycho
, one of my favorite books, but all I could think about was that boy's cold, unblinking eyes as he lay alone on that gurney, and Benji's excitement at our morbid discovery. Benji was out of control, and I had no idea where it was going to end. I felt guilty, as if my friendship with Hank, a friendship I had refused to share with Benji, had kick-started Benji's decline. I really had abandoned him, but there was nothing I could do now. Now I was scared of him, of what he was capable of. There was a soft knock at the door and I put the book down.

Lynette opened the door a crack and peered in. “Hilda?” Her voice sounded tense. I looked up.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“There's someone here to see you.”

Mrs. Connor was standing on the doorstep, neat and tidy in a
pink cardigan and pearls, her face somber. I looked for Benji, but thankfully he wasn't with her.

“Hi, Mrs. Connor,” I said, and she gave me a small smile, as if it took all her strength to form it.

“Hello, Hilda. How are you?”

She said it with such concern in her voice I thought it was a trick question. “I'm good,” I assured her. “Really good. Just reading, hanging out. You know.”

She nodded slightly but didn't say anything, just stood there in the middle of the porch fingering her pearls, her blond hair plastered down and severe.

“Do you have a minute, dear?” she asked, looking at the porch swing.

“Sure.”

We sat down. For a moment I saw Lynette through the window, looking out at us, but when I turned to look again she was gone.

I put my foot up on the swing and pushed it slightly so we began to rock back and forth. I waited for Mrs. Connor to say something, but she just stared at Lynette's geraniums hanging from the ceiling in a little wicker basket.

“They're beautiful,” she said, still looking at the flowers. I began to chew on my thumb.

“Is everything okay, Mrs. Connor?” I asked. I'd never seen her look so pained, and for once I wished she'd flash me one of her robotic smiles, a reassurance that all was right with the world. She looked down at the ground.

“When you have children, you never quite know how they're going to turn out,” she said. “Of course you hope for the best, try to give them everything they need to grow, make sure they feel
loved and nurtured. Make sure they feel like they are important. You can control only so much. You can't control whether your child becomes, well, a beautiful flower, or something else. Something else.”

“Like what?” My mouth went dry.

“Something else, Hilda. Like a weed. Or a parasite.”

“Mrs. Connor, don't say that.”

Her eyes started to well. “It's true. You can have all the best intentions in the world, but intentions don't mean shit.”

I flinched when she cursed. It was like seeing a Stepford Wife malfunction. I half expected her eyes to start spinning and her head to come flying off, exposing the wires beneath.

“Maybe it's my fault,” she continued, sounding stronger, as if taking the blame for Benji absolved him, protected him. “I always worried about him. You know, most parents worry that their child will become sick, or be crippled in a horrible accident, but I never thought about those things. I worried that my son would be different, too different to ever be accepted. I worried he would be wrong.”

“Wrong?”

Her eyes widened. “Everyone loves to blame the parents, to point their fingers and say it's their fault, they are to blame. No one ever thinks how hard it is for the parents. Those boys that killed all those children at their own school, did anyone give a thought to how horrible it was for their mother and father? The fact that their child had become everything they feared? What do you do when your child becomes a monster?”

My stomach dropped. “Has something happened, Mrs. Connor? Is Benji okay?”

Something in her eyes snapped. “Oh, Benji's fine,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “He gets up, he showers, he eats, he goes out with those
people
. Everything
seems
fine, but I know, Hilda. A mother knows. Something is very wrong with my boy. He's like a tightly wound spring, coiled, and soon, I don't know. Something is going to give. Soon.”

She grabbed my hand, her hard, French-manicured nails digging into me sharply. “Mrs. Connor, you're hurting me,” I said, and tried to twist my wrist away, but she held on tighter, fixed me with a deathly stare.

“Hilda, you are the last chance for my boy. Help him.”

“I can't!” I cried. “I don't know what to do!”

“Be a friend to him,” she said, and her grip tightened again. She looked at me like a woman possessed, a mother fighting for the life of her child. “You're his only chance. His only chance at being normal. Please, Hilda, help us.”

“Is everything okay?”

Lynette was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. Mrs. Connor let go of my arm, smoothed down her skirt.

“Everything is just fine,” she said, the robot having returned once more. “Hilda and I were just chatting about when she might pop by again.” She leaned across, stroked a lock of my hair, and placed it behind my ear. “It's so long since we've seen Hilda, and we miss her. Benji misses her.”