Benny & Ray 132

Closet of Memories

 

The entire contents of Benny and my hall closet were spread all over our living room.  Looking at everything placed in a bunch of piles, I can’t believe that it all came out of this one closet.  Then again, it had been accumulating for eight years of living together.  I nearly tripped over a box of old vinyl 45 records.  Don’t know what the hell I still had those for.  I threw out my record player after it broke five, six years ago.  I guess I was hoping that vinyl would be worth something one day.  I stooped down for a moment to finger the old black discs.  Geez, I had an old ‘Jackson 5’ tune, I’ll Be There.  I wonder when the hell I got that. I had an old ‘Mungo Jerry’ tune, ‘The Kinks’ Lola, Elvis’s The Wonder of You. Oh my God.  I had to laugh at my taste back then.  I pushed the heavy box to the ‘keep’ pile; maybe next time Benny dragged me to the thrift store, I’d look for a portable record player and dust off these old records.

 

I pulled a pair of leather chaps out of the far back corner.  I grinned, remembering Benny and my trip to South Padre Island*. Benny naked except for the chaps,  riding me up and down like crazy, moaning like he was out of his mind, cock beet-red and dripping all over my belly.  I felt my cock stirring with pleasure just remembering that hot Texas night.  I glanced at my watch.  Benny’d be home in the next few minutes.  Maybe after dinner, if we could get Carie to sleep at a decent hour, I could get Benny to strip down and relive that night. I gave my cock a reassuring little squeeze, and dropped the chaps into the keep pile.

 

In the living room, I could hear Carie having a conversation with Pearson.  She was watching one of her Pooh videos.  Carie and I hung out together most of today.  I had the day off, taking her everywhere with me as I did errands.  Carie was at the age where every little thing was an adventure, a new thing.  It probably took me twice as long to get things done with her around, but they were also twice as fun.  She had to stop and stare at everything, including a parked fire engine, a department store window display, two poodles being walked on a leash. I found myself staring too, thinking, you know, these things ARE  kinda cool, aren’t they?

 

I took her to the baby gym this morning.  Benny and I had enrolled her in gymboree this fall so she wouldn’t go stir-crazy because it was too cold to go to the park.  I watched her do her little kiddie workout in a class with about ten other kids, something I always find kind of funny. The kids looked like a mini-version of the Keystone Cops as they did their little excercises.

 

The gym is kind of near the Canadian Consulate, so for the hell of it, I brought her by so she could see where her Daddy used to work.  Mac was there, and Chick, and Turnbull, too**.  Of course, they went gaga over Benny’s baby.   Everybody had to hold her.  They wanted to know what Benny was doing, so I had to fill them in.  It took me about forty minutes to get out of there. 

 

Then we stopped for groceries, and then we went shopping for a new winter coat for Carie.  She was growing like a weed, and last year’s coat sleeves looked like ¾ sleeves on her. 

 

It was after noon before we finally got home.  I made us some lunch, and then started going through the closets one by one, separating stuff into piles to keep, throw away, and donate. I already have a stack of boxes piled up in the living room.  Me and Benny are moving to the house on Octavia at the end of the month. 

 

Benny hadn’t been easy to convince, but in the end, he had to give in to the simple economics of it all.   The fact was that we both needed to put more money aside for our supplemental retirement accounts, plus Carie’s college fund…and Benny’s college fund for that matter!  He’s not even done with his undergrad degree and he’s already talking about getting a PhD in sociology.

 

We had lay in each other’s arms one night not too long ago, and had this long soulful conversation about the future.  Benny had told me that, the fact was, that the bullet in his back bothered him more and more these days, and that the scar tissue at various points in his body reminded him that he couldn’t be a cop forever. He occasionally blew a knee out, chasing down some perp in the streets.  He threw his back out last summer. The hard truth was, that he needed to have an alternative career to fall back on; Benny had sacrificed the well-being of his body to help so many people over the years.  I knew he wasn't sorry, but thinking about it made me bitter.

 

Hopefully, Benny’d be done with college by the time Carie starts! I wasn’t looking forward to more of his being away from home, but if that’s what it takes to make him happy, then I’ll keep my mouth shut.  Besides, I gotta admit I like the sound of Dr. Benton Fraser. 

 

I kept digging into the dark corners of the closet.  Stowed in the back were a couple of Benny’s old flannel shirts.  Oh, yeah.  I remembered when we got these.  It was after he got burned out of his apartment on West Racine, and he was living with me at the house, before he moved into the apartment on St. John Street.  He had bought about ten used shirts from the thrift store, all pretty much different patterns of plaid.  The shirts were now threadbare and faded.  Benny sure as hell got his five dollars worth out of them.  I tossed them in the ‘throwaway’ pile.  It was time to say goodbye to them.

 

Benny had saved a Mountie uniform, the brown one.  I carefully laid it flat on top of the keep pile.  I wondered where the serge got to.  I know he had a full red uniform someplace.

 

I dug out our old Halloween costumes from one year- some 70’s clothes, toy guns and big fake hairpieces.  We went to Jack Huey’s party as Starsky and Hutch one year.  Which year was that again?  Had to be before Carie was born, I think.

 

I heard Carie give a sudden loud laugh from the living room.  I smiled.  Her laugh was the best sound in the world.  I dug out her first pair of baby boots.  They were sealed in a Ziploc bag.  Benny had been meaning to have them bronzed, but hadn’t yet found the time.  I dropped them in the ‘keep’ pile.  Maybe I could get them bronzed for him for a Christmas present. 

 

I kept digging through the pile of mementos, smiling, remembering.

 

 

VVVVVV

 

 

I was just finishing with the hall closet when I heard Benny’s key in the door.  I had just pushed the ‘throwaway’ and ‘donate’ piles against the wall and had boxed up all the ‘keep’ stuff and slipped that back into the closet.

 

I walked to the front door to meet my lover.  I took from him the dry-cleaning that was slung over his right shoulder.  I pulled him into my arms and gave him my best lover boy kiss.  His mouth remained dry and stiff.

 

“What’s wrong?” I said.

 

“Nothing.” He smiled politely.  “How are you?”

 

“I’m alright.  How was your day?”

 

“It was just another day, Ray.”  It was a shockingly blasé thing for Benton Fraser to say.

 

“What happened? Briggs again? Did you talk to Welsh yet?”

 

“No, he couldn’t find the time for me today.  He had two meetings and a conference call.  Plus Chief Silva dropped by unexpectedly.”

 

“Benny, you better do some—

 

“Daddy!” came a voice at our waists.  Carie had launched herself at Benny’s knees, and clambered to be picked up. 

 

“Hello, Carie.  Did you have fun today with Papa?”

 

“Yeah,” she grinned.

 

“Tell me what you and Papa did,” he said, picking her up and walking with her into the living room. 

 

He left me standing there holding a dry cleaning bag of Calvin Klein suits.   Benny had just done a nice job of skirting the issue. I hated it when he did that. I took the clothes into our bedroom and put them away before I returned to the living room.

 

I came right after him.  “But you’re going to talk to him tomorrow, right?”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

I drew back in surprise.  “Whadda ya mean, ‘yeah, yeah’? You don’t go ‘yeah, yeah’.  I go ‘yeah, yeah.’”

 

“I guess you must be rubbing off on me at long last, Ray, because I’m telling you ‘yeah, yeah’,” he said glibly. Benny sat down with Carie on his lap.  He turned his attention toward her, doing his best to ignore me.

 

“I mean it, Benny.  If you don’t talk to Welsh, then I’m going to talk to the chief.”

 

“Don’t do that, Ray!” He looked up at, alarmed.  “You’re only going to make it worse. He’ll just—

 

“He’ll just what, Benny?”  I could already feel my blood begin to boil.  I fucking hated Briggs from the moment I laid eyes on him, instantly and completely.  Just being in the same room with him made the hair on the back of my neck rise. 

 

“Ray, did you get dinner started?”

 

I blinked at the sudden transition. “Yeah, I put some chicken on.  And I bought you those fake mashed potatoes you like and I was gonna make some mac and cheese.”

 

“I’m starved.  How soon until its ready?”

 

“Twenty, thirty minutes, I guess.”

 

“Daddy, will you read me Cat in the Hat Comes Back?”

 

“Of course I will, my darling!”  Benny scooped Carie up and quickly headed toward Carie’s room.  “Call me when dinner’s ready?” he called over his shoulder.

 

Damn, he was slipperier than a greased pig at the state fair.

 

“Ray!” Benny called, still out of sight.  “You’re not getting rid of my good flannel shirts, are you?”

 

I rolled my eyes.  “Of course not, Benny.”  I went into the kitchen to finish making dinner, letting him slide for now.  But the fact was, me and him had to talk before the situation came to a head.