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I am not real. This is not real. I am a character. I am in a movie. Those thoughts kept running through my head as a stared at a coffee table loaded down with cocaine. I’d never seen anything like it in the real world, so I figured I wasn’t apart of the real world.
“Benny, why are we here?” I asked.
“What do you think? Should we take a bit?”’
I looked into Benny’s crystal blues, sure that they were about to turn into the devil’s own. His shaggy, light blond hair swept over his face and over one of his eyes as he waited for my response.
Benny would often just show up at my house. He’d take me by the hand, bring me to the beach, show me a new painting, a rock or a flower. Sometimes we would just wander around looking for adventure together.
Yeah, that’s how that day started. I woke up, made myself some tea and lit a cigarette. The doorbell sounded and Benny was waiting on the other side.
“Hey Benny,” I hugged him in greeting.
“I’ve got something to show you,” he took me by the hand and led me down the street. He hushed me every time I tried to speak. We stopped in front of a cute, little, yellow house. It had a sweet front porch all decked out with flowers and old style rocking chairs.
Benny directed me around the side of the house to the back door. I watched in silence as Benny slowly pushed open the rusted, metal screen door that so contrasted with the front of the house’s character.
Benny seemed deaf to my questions as we crept into the house. At first glance the living room that we entered looked almost like any other. It was furnished with a middle-class sort of generic living room set. There were cute paintings hanging on the walls. The only thing that set it apart was the wooden chest that served as a coffee table. It wasn’t the chest that was so unusual, but more so the fact that it was covered in a white powdery substance that I could only assume was coke.
“No Ben,” I answered him at last, “you don’t steal, it’s wrong.”
“But it’s drugs; it’s already wrong.”
“It’d still be stealing,” I hoped he couldn’t hear my voice falter. That amount of coke both excited and terrified me. “I didn’t think that you even liked coke?”
“I don’t. It’s bad shit. I want to sell it.”
“You can’t. Now, let’s get out of here.”
“So you think it’s a really bad idea?”
“Yes,” I tried to make my answer sound firm and final. Though I was younger than Benny, I always kind of felt like he needed my guidance. He’s kind of like a sweet, little boy who was dropped into a man’s body; a man with friends and a scene, neither exceptionally healthy for the boy.
I left; Benny followed.
“Benny, I’ve got to get ready for work. What are you doing today?”
“I don’t know yet. I suppose I’ll discover that as it happens,” he answered with his usual sense of mysticism.
“Sounds good.”
“If you want, I’ll stick around for a while and drive you to work.”
“Really? Could you?”
“That’s great. Thanks so much,” I kissed his cheek.
We went back to my house. Benny sat on the toilet, talking to me while I took a shower. I am not particularly self conscience, but I am even less so when I am with Benny. He’s the only boy that just made me feel natural and comfortable. I stepped out of the shower, watching carefully as Benny stared, un-bashfully at me, all of me.
He watched as I dressed and did my hair. He talked to me the whole time, reciting poetry he’d written, telling me about adventures he’d been on and showing me with his hands new painting techniques he’d been working on.
I stood in the mirror, a short, slight girl in work clothes. My strawberry blonde hair was already tied back in a ponytail, but I knew that it matched my freckles. Benny stood behind me, he wasn’t big either, perhaps skinnier (he often forgot to eat.) His overall look wasn’t too different from mine, though masculine and shirt-less, Irish looking I guess.
“Benny, it’s time to go.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I kissed him and thanked him for the ride in the parking lot of the restaurant where I worked. I had to cut him off in the middle of him telling me about a new Bob Dylan CD he’d bought so that I wouldn’t be late. I promised to call him when I got out.
It was a slow day at work; without very many customers. I might have had three or four tables, one of which was only an order of fries and two diet cokes. My boss cut me early so I called Benny right away, but he didn’t answer.
Benny didn’t answer any of my calls, as a matter of a fact, for weeks. He didn’t answer my text messages or e-mails either, but it didn’t faze me too much. Benny and I enjoyed each other’s company, but both knew that at any moment one of us could become completely erratic. That’s why we never made it official and I never worried when I couldn’t get in touch with him.
I ran into one of Benny’s friends, a drug dealer, at a party. He asked if I had seen Benny lately. I told him, “no” and he replied that he hadn’t been seeing much of him either. The drug dealer friend also mentioned that the last time he’d seen Ben he’d been acting a little strange, but had figured he was just tripping or something, as he often did.
I can’t say that I was exactly worried about him, but I figured that the situation called for further investigation so I called him when I got home that night. The phone rang a few times and I was just about to hang up when I finally got through.
“Hey Benny, where’ve you been? What’s up?”
“I’ve been here all along. And all sorts of things are up, but more things are down.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to stifle a giggle.
“I meant what I said.”
“Oh,” I paused, trying to think of something to say. We sat in silence for a while, “I’ve been calling you,” I paused again, “I-I’ve missed you.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll come over soon, I think.”
The line went dead; he’d hung up, leaving me more puzzled than ever. This didn’t bother me too much though, because Benny was just a perplexing person and I liked Benny.
I met up with a friend, Jenna one Friday night. We went out to diner, but both of us had a bit of an “itch.” I was hyped up with nothing to do. Jenna made the suggestion that had been running through my mind all day: “You wanna get some coke?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
So we went and bought some come. I guess that we must be cute girls or something because we wound up with quite a bit of coke, for not very much money. We gave him, maybe twenty bucks for what was worth at least sixty. Pleased with the results of out negotiations, we returned to my house to shove it up our noses. We did the lines on a mirrored box that housed my rosary, a fact that I found amusing and Jenna found disturbing.
We were high and talking. I guess I was talking; really, Jenna was just sitting there nodding and staring at me with he huge eyes. I was talking about “The Little Match Girl” who died cold on the street, dreaming of a holiday feast.
I heard a noise and flipped. My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure that anybody who had made the noise by the door could hear it’s every beat. I took a deep breath and held my hand on my chest.
“I’m scared.”
I watched, horrified as Jenna got up to open the door. Relief flooded through me when I saw that Benny was waiting on the other side.
“It was bad. I should have listened to you,” Benny stood in the drizzling rain, on my doorstep.
“What?”
“I should have listened to you. I couldn’t face you,” Benny looked crazy, his eyes wild, his face set into an intense expression. I couldn’t grasp what he was talking about.
“Come in, it’s raining,” and he did, following Jenna’s instructions. He didn’t look at her though, just stared at me. He stood there, dripping onto the floor; none of us said anything for a while.
“Benny, are you okay?”
“No. I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have stolen the coke. I went back after I dropped you off,” with every word his speed increased, “I started having bad experiences right away. My car died. I lost the charger to my cell phone. The only paint I have left is black and red, even when I paint a flower, it looks evil. I should have known this would happen. I took acid and sold the coke. I did coke. It’s bad and I don’t like it.”
“Relax,” I’d nodded periodically during Benny’s frantic speech, but didn’t really take in a word of what he was saying; I just knew that he was freaking out. “How did you get here? Why are you so wet?”
“I came on my skateboard.”
“Come, sit here and chill out with me for a bit, then Jenna will drive you home,” The three of us snuggled onto the couch and watched a movie on TV. I held onto Benny the whole time, even though he was sopping wet, because I missed him and at this point was worried.
Eventually we all got into Jenna’s car. Benny still seemed a bit shaken, but he decided that he wanted to visit his friend Chris who lived in the city. We agreed to drop him off there.
Benny got hit by a truck on a city street that night. He was pronounced dead at the scene. I few days later I attended his funeral and the only thought in my head was how sweet he’d always been.
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Did this really happen. The story has the sense of not really having a definitive plot, but something that really happened. If it is real I am sorry you lost your friend. If not, it was a decent enough story. I am the type of writer that you have to hook the person in the first paragraph. If you start off slow. Most likely I am not going to finish your story. This story did that.
There are some nice moments like when its written about the differences between the boy and the man in Benny. Overall though, I think the story is amateurish at best. While short can be good, there are very many things left up to circumstance, that might be flushed out more if you wanted to persue this story further. A man the narrator kisses, at least it seems romantically, dies and all she says is oh well he was sweet? Something needs to be put at stake for the character as to perhaps Benny’s whereabouts. Try to write more consistently like the good moments. Dialogue needs work, also.
The first things I couldn’t help from noticing were the spelling and grammatical errors here and there. Buy some come? You mean coke? This might just be a rough draft, but proof-reading matters—the first few lines matter. Overall the story is awkward and not incredibly moving, but it does have potential. I think you could have developed your characters more, particularly the narrator. The dialogue between Benny and the narrator is awkward, too. Even though you probably were intending for it to be dramatic, it sometimes comes off as humorous.
“His overall look wasn’t too different from mine, though masculine and shirt-less, Irish looking I guess.” What???
Well written, however I struggled to find the exact tone or direction of the story. Is this story about the dangers of cocaine? Is this story about a nice guy getting hit by a truck? You have developed a certain climax by not knowing the whereabouts of Benny however you seem to drop the readers by making him arrive at the doorstep and then snuggling on the couch watching T.V.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this short story and I think you have enormous potential.
Riki
This has a much stronger start than a finish. After the intro, it’s kind of all over the place in time, representation, character logic… First, why wouldn’t the people who had the coke be upset and go looking for who took it? Second, why did the narrator decide to do coke later (first written as “come”) when she was against it before.
Also, the idea that Benny is a free spirit is clear, but it doesn’t make sense that the narrator wouldn’t care that he just went missing for a long period unless there was some prior situation where that was the case, so maybe his disappearing for a while in the past would be better than mentioning at least four times that it didn’t bother the main character. Then later, when he is actually there, the character is worried?
Finally, the start grabs attention but then you step back into the past and then pop forward into present with no transitions. Make it smoother. Do we really need to know how it was before the table of coke and do we need all of the details of the narrator getting dressed when its irrelevant to the plot?
I want to see a Version 2 :) I think this has potential.
this was a great read. it took me into her life, making me feel her pain and her worry. made me think and reflect on my life as well, which is a really good thing to do. i really enjoyed reading this and actually read it through several times.
just a few things: in the beginning of the story it starts off with coke on the table. but i don’t see how they got to that table throughout the rest of the story since they didn’t go into the house together… and after, the story is about him not being around. did they actually end up inside the house? i imagined them just sneaking around the backyard and looking in through the window.
in the middle of the story, i was a little confused when you wrote “I met up with a friend, Jenna one Friday night…” at first, i thought it was a flashback, but then it wasn’t a flashback. i think the actual day of the week messed me up since you didn’t mention days anywhere else in the story.
“I took acid and sold the coke. I did coke. It’s bad and I don’t like it.” a little confused here too. did he do coke? or did he do acid? if you were going for frantic, you definitely had me confused.
the ending was fantastic. i liked the abruptness and matter-of-fact style. :)
Hi,
This story starts off really strong and engaging. I like the language and interaction between the characters as well. It just seems to flow well.
With that said, I think the story starts to unravel about halfway through. It feels raced, like it’s trying to be hurried to an ending. You also have a few typos here and there, but those are pretty minor.
My main suggestion is that you go back to this story and add a lot. There are plenty of details that could be added, which would really bring this story to life. Give more time between Benny Disappearing and them getting in touch with him. Show the narrator spending time trying to find him.
The ending, too, needs to be expanded. In the last paragraph, there’s a good, solid 3 pages or so. Don’t be afraid to add to this.
Again, you started this story off so wonderfully well, I’d like to see you turn this into the story I see it being.
Whatever you do with it and your other writings, good luck.
Alec
Great opening, but it would be much more effective if you didn’t interpret it. End with her staring at the coffee table full of cocaine. Great opening.
Cut out “crystal blue.” It’s a bit cliche and that moment with Benny is great. The great part of that line is: “sure that they were about to turn into the devil’s own” That’s spot on.
Cut out “Yeah.”
Your dialog is perfect at parts, not so good at places like this: “No Ben,” I answered him at last, “you don’t steal, it’s wrong.” and I don’t know yet. I suppose I’ll discover that as it happens,” he answered with his usual sense of mysticism. (this one could be all right if you hint that the narrator thought it was a silly thing to say—as you do later on) Rework those. Read it aloud.
cut out “all of me.”
You need about five more pages and to continue what you’ve got going here. Develop the characters more and finish the story. Go through up to the death. This is a great start.
Overal Criteque:
Except for the abruptness of the ending, this was a wonderful piece. I would give you a 10 buts its not a 10 because of the ending. Sorry.
To your credit, both main characters were very real. I know Benny. I was Benny. I have always wanted a girl like the main character that saw past the addictions and saw the human there.
Again to your credit, I really hate the ending. This could have been a great romance as you developed the characters and the story in such a way that it only seemed fitting.
You are a great writer with some rally brilliant lines that i have pointed out. My only suggestions other than the grammatical, would be to work on the ending. It was too abrupt… kinda like you left the story, came back to it, and said “eh, this will do.” Even if Benny dies, I think it would do the great story that you have developed justice in flushing it out a bit more. Seriously, wonderful job and please keep writing. You have a gift.
Corrections and/or Stuff not to change:
Though I was younger than Benny, I always kind of felt like he needed my guidance. He’s kind of like a sweet, little boy who was dropped into a man’s body; a man with friends and a scene, neither exceptionally healthy for the boy. (Great stanza. Sums up Benny’s character completely for the reader—good job!)
We did the lines on a mirrored box that housed my rosary, a fact that I found amusing and Jenna found disturbing. (Well written and does a fellow Catholic proud. Now say ten Hail Marys and never snort coke off your rosary box again! Brilliant line)
Jenna was just sitting there nodding and staring at me with he huge eyes (this line needs fixed).
I few days later I attended his funeral and the only thought in my head was how sweet he’d always been. (This line needs fixed as well.)
of out negotiations – our
There were a few more errors like this as well.
The dialouge is good but needs to be broken up a bit by who is speaking.
The story for is good for the most part. I just think it could be more detailed. A litte more detailed of the drug experience.
Keep writing!
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