Ben was tall, somewhere over six feet give or take. When I met him at age 5 or 6, I felt short and small. I was a little guy with not much hair and my movement was limited. I had been out of the hospital a short time. The kid in me wanted to run and play but the repair from the surgeries and other trauma had yet to heal. I sat most days and read. There were odd times where I did play or try to run. Sometimes I had no problem; other times I retched and became bluiesh to the point of seizure.
Joe and my mother had been married or having a relationship of sort for nearly a year I guess, when I recollect on the maths. They met at a motor inn as we passed through a town called Perry, Florida on the way to a commune my mother knew of in Louisiana. We never made the commune but there were always cigarettes and plenty of convenience store snacks to fill the hippie void.
Remembering as best as I can, Ben's accent was as long and drawn out as he was. His lanky frame and disco ball braces in his mouth framed a drawl born of the upper foothills of South Carolina that would mark him either a full blown carny voiced redneck or a man making fun of Southerners. He added syllables where there were none. Men were called "buck" or 'bubba" while women were "ma'am" or "mama" with more heinous vowels inserted.
I was in awe of Ben. I only knew my Mom and her husband, being in transit and hospitals pruned what people I came into contact with. There were no other kids around. Ben was not a kid to me but a towering grown up who seemed interested in hanging out with me. I felt really short and young around him.
He took me into his room and showed me his things. I'd never seen such a big room with such fancy things. In a rapid fire auctioneer staccato he showed me his stuff. Cleats, bb gun, stereo, Atari, Kiss records, Kiss posters, Ted Nugent record, cologne and nearly every other object he could find. I sat there, whirling in my head, not imagining having, much less keeping this much stuff. Who has so many things? It was odd. Ben then said we should go into his old room.
Old room? What is that? He needed a new room? It did not compute.
We crossed the house to the living room, to a door in the rear corner. His father, Robert sat in a big poofy chair drinking a beer while watching television. He did not acknowledge our motions and disruption of his quiet drinking.
Ben flung the door open and the lights on with great ceremony.
Check it out! Dig around and find some stuff to play with!
I was stunned. In all of my wild shopping lust and looking at fancy Sears catalogues I had never seen such a morass of the coolest, shiniest, most random toys that a boy could ever conjure. There were GI Joes, Legos, Tonka trucks and so many Hot Wheel cars it looked like someone had stolen the toy department at a Kmart and hid it in Ben's old room. I swan dived right in and was a tiger running myself into butter. I had never seen such soiled goodness. He had a planet of the apes village. He had the apes dolls AND the human dolls. I had never even touched a General Urko!
Sometime later, I fell asleep into a pile of cars and blocks. I must have been worn out to lose the chance to play at this Olympic level. Maybe the adults enjoyed the peace and quiet? I was not a loud boy. My noise was tempered by fierce reprimand.
I felt Ben nudge me and I could hear Joe's furnace of a voice telling me we were leaving.
I sat up, unsticking blocks and dragsters from my person. Secretly I wanted to stay in that room and play until the world ended. I felt like a kid in the deluge of amusements.
We drove back to Lexington. I was excited to have met my new cousin (for lack of any other label available). For the next few years I visited Joe's people up there. I learned a lot about work but that's a different paragraph or two.
After leaving for Florida, I heard that Ben died in a car crash not long after I graduated high school. He was the first teenager I ever knew.
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