Benny & Ray 119

Enough

Ray walked towards home, passing through a gentle rain.  He didn’t have an umbrella and he was soaked to the skin.  He didn’t mind, though.  It felt good.  July had hardly rained at all, except for the occasional passing thunderstorm that passed so quickly it left the ground steaming.  August, so far, had been the same.  Maybe he’d go down the Y tonight.  Take a swim instead of playing ball with the fellas. He crossed the street, pausing briefly to wait for a few cars to pass.  A van kicked up a mist as it sped by.  Ray thought the hiss of tire on wet road was peaceful, but a little sad, too.  He turned himself toward Octavia Avenue.

Ray slowed to look over his shoulder.  Benny was back there, someplace, pretending Ray didn’t see him.  It was both unnerving and reassuring, what Benny was doing.  Ray wasn’t even sure how long Benny had been tailing him, how long he planned to keep this up.  For months? Years? 

Ray was on his way back from his checkup with Dr. Taddeo.  He had had lots of blood work last week, and Dr. Taddeo went over the results with him.  Everything checked out fine.  He was just fine.  Sometimes he worried, still, late at night when he had insomnia, or some mornings when he was in the shower, that the cancer would come back for him, finish him off.  But it hadn’t so far.  “If only I was as healthy as you,” Dr. Taddeo had said, flashing him a confident smile.  Like always, Ray had let out the little breath he was holding, and like always, she said “See you in six months.”

Uncle Lorenzo had cancer now.  Terminal.  Ray thought he might go see him on Sunday morning, take Carie, while Benny and Ma went to mass.  Lorenzo had never met Carie.   It was a shame she wouldn’t know him, wouldn’t even remember him when she was older.  Pop’s oldest brother could be pretty cantankerous, sure, but he also had a good heart, and a mind still sharp and full of stories, when he was in the mood to tell them.

When Ray was a kid, Lorenzo was the uncle with the smiles, the stories, and the pockets full of jingling change. He’d come over and hang out with Pop.  They’d sit in the parlor and drink until Ma kicked them both out to the back porch, “and take that stinking hooch with you.  There are children in this house.”

Come dinner, Lorenzo’d sit beside Pop at the head of the table, tell Ray and Paul about growing up in Valparaiso, Indiana.  Valpo was a different city, back then.  They were all so innocent.   But they grew up fast.  Ray liked to hear the stories about Lorenzo and the other Vecchio boys running the numbers, once they came to the big city.  He liked to hear about them going up to Canada on Fridays and messing around with the pretty girls, then  sneaking kegs of booze over the border when they came home on a Sunday night.  He liked the stories about them getting a street hustle going, targeting some poor sucker and cleaning him out playing pool or poker. 

Ray passed the old Five and Dime, its store front vacant now, papered over with yellow newsprint.  He passed the old diner, too.  The place was looking pretty long of tooth, but it was still going strong.  It was still the best place to get a burger or dog in Little Italy.  Still a fun place to hang in on a Saturday night.  You could sit at the counter facing outwards and watch the people walking down Taylor Street.

Ray turned right and stopped for a moment to look at the clothes in the window of the Haberdashery.  The Armani suits in the window had been there so long that the fabrics had faded. Armani!  He hadn’t had an Armani since before the baby was born, since before Benny enrolled in the academy.  No, since before Benny started going to school, actually, and all of a sudden the money got really tight. It was one of the many sacrifices, great and small, that he had made for a life with Benton Fraser.  Benny never acknowledged the things that Ray did for him, or the things Ray gave up to make things good for him. 

Maybe Ray’d splurge and buy himself an Armani this fall.

He moved on. 

Ray had Carie all weekend.  Benny was dropping Carie off late morning, and she was his for two days.  He thought he might take her down to Peanut Park for a little while.  Or maybe if the weather cleared up, he’d take her to the Dunes.  Pearson too. 

Ray felt a pang in his gut, though.  He didn’t want to go to the Dunes without Benny.  He wondered if he should ask Benny along with them.  He missed talking to him.  Being apart from him, he realized how much Benny was his best friend.  He missed just sitting across the table from him, or on the front stoop, and just talking, seeing the world from the Benny Fraser point of view.  He missed the sound of his voice.  He missed touching him.

Ray thought about the rest of his weekend.  Tomorrow night, he’d asked Rosanna to watch Carie for a few bucks.  He had called some of his buddies up for a game of Texas Hold’Em.  Jimmy was coming over, and Vinnie and Domenic. Maybe he’d call Short Petey and put him on standby just in case one of the guys bailed.  Benny had become a pretty good poker player too, over the years, once he’d learned to bluff.  Maybe he should invite him over for a hand sometime. 

Ray was doing his best to get over Benny, and not think of him in “that way.”  He really was.  Benny didn’t make it easy.  They saw each other a few times a week, when he went to get Carie, or Ben dropped her off at the house. Benny seemed to make a point of standing too close to him.  So close that Ray could smell his breath or his shampoo or the soap scent that lingered on his skin.

Ray’s initial anger had faded a lot since that June morning when he had packed his bags.   Ben pressed him at first, to get back with him, but Ray made it real clear that there wasn’t going to be any reconciliation.  But he said it gently.  Ray never wanted to be cruel to Benny.  They had to be friends, no matter what.  They had a baby together.

Carie!  His little Carie Vecchio.  He couldn’t wait to see her.  He hadn’t seen her since last Sunday. Now that Carie was getting a little older, she was losing just a bit of baby fat in her cheeks.  Ray thought he detected something in her face that was Benny’s…her cheekbones, the way they sloped down toward her full lips—those lips that turned downward on their own when she was serious.  There was no doubt that Carie had Benny’s lips. And his ears. 

The rain had finally slowed to a few drops, and a cool breeze picked up.  It made Ray shiver.  His skin goose-pimpled.  He could see Octavia off in the distance.  He crossed left across the street. Traffic thinned as businesses gave way to residences.

He looked back again, searching for the familiar form. What Ray felt toward Benny now was….regret.  But there was no turning back. He wouldn’t. Ray had set himself down the straight and narrow path, and he was going to stay on it.  Yeah, the ‘straight’ path. He chuckled at the wordplay. 

Ray had everything now, didn’t he?  He was just a regular guy, with a girl.  He didn’t have to worry about the looks people threw at him and Stella while they were in public.  He didn’t have to explain, excuse.  He didn’t have to be scared that somebody would beat Stella up, or him, because they were together.  It was a relief. 

Stella was just…fun.  Uncomplicated.  They had talked about making their first trip together, going away over the long Labor Day weekend that fell between their birthdays, her 37^th and his 46^th.

Even as he thought of Stella with a rush of pleasure, Ray’s gut wrenched with worry for Benny.  He knew Benny wasn’t taking this break-up so well.  For Benny, he just wanted…he didn’t know what he wanted for Benny.  For him to move on?  For him to get another boyfriend? The idea was painful to Ray.  It made him sick to his stomach just thinking about it.  He knew he was being selfish and unreasonable.  He knew he couldn’t expect Benny to be alone forever, especially when he himself had a girlfriend.  That wouldn’t be fair.

But that was how he felt.  He didn’t want another man touching Benny, seeing him aroused, smelling his overheated body, caressing his smooth skin, tasting the salt of his thick eager cock, being inside of Benny and riding him, feeling his body tense when he—

He shouldn’t be thinking these kinds of thoughts about his ex, should he? He shouldn’t be having thoughts like this.  He had a girl now.  He was normal.

Ray looked over his shoulder, and saw him once more.  He sighed.  This cat and mouse game had to stop. 

He had made it clear several times that he knew Benny had been tailing him, and he knew that Benny had seen him turn around more than once today.  Yet, if he were to ask Benny if he followed him, he would swear, red-faced, that he didn’t know what Ray was talking about.

Ray ducked into Sal’s Quickie Mart.  Sal was at the front counter, digging in his teeth with a toothpick as he watched the Sox on TV.  “What’s up, Sal?” Ray said. Sal gave him a head nod. Ray headed for the back and grabbed a can of pop and some corn chips.  He snagged a bag of Twizzlers too.  They were Carie’s favorite.  She only got them while she was at her Papa’s because Daddy didn’t allow candy in the house.

Ray paid for his things.  “Hey, Sally, you mind if I go out the back?”

“Not at all, Ray, go ahead.” Sal hardly took his eyes off the television set as he bagged Ray’s goods.

Ray ducked out and through the alley, traveling back toward Benny.  Once he got to the end of the block, he set his bag on the ground and slipped behind a dumpster. 

Alright.  Enough was enough. 

Ben walked right by him, eyes focused straight ahead like a wolf with a caribou in its sights. 

Ray quietly set down his parcel, and launched himself.  Startled, Benny cried out.

“Come’ere!” Ray growled. He snatched Benny with two hands on the front of his shirt, and  pulled him into the alley.  He slammed him against the brick wall. 

Ray got right in his face.  Benny looked stricken.  Ray became aware of their labored breathing, reminding him strongly of other times when they’d labored together, writhing and wrapping around one another.  Ray glanced down at Benny’s mouth, enticingly parted.  He felt Benny’s breath on his cheek.

Ray took a huge step back.

“Alright, Benny! Basta! Alright? Basta!”

Benny took a step forward, reaching out to him.  “Ray, I—

Ray withdrew further. “You what?”

“I…” Benny let his hand drop.

“WHAT, Benny?! What?!”

The two men stood facing one another across the alley, breath bated.