My Gift To You

Chapter Eleven: Lonely Dreams Are Satisfying

It had been raining since Billy woke up, an endless parade of thick sheets of water, loud thunder and lighting bright enough to blind a man. He was glad to have taken a day off from school, but it was impossible to try to sleep in his attic bedroom. So he was camped out in the living room with a quilt wrapped tightly around him, sprawled out on the floor (the couch was too uncomfortable) and watching taped episodes “Salute Your Shorts.” He was getting graham cracker crumbs all over the carpet, but he’d vacuum those up before his mother got home from work in two hours.

The doorbell rang at the closing credits of his favorite episode. With a sigh, Billy paused the video tape and gathered himself up. Careful not to trip over the ends of the quilt, he waddled over to the front door and opened it.

Why on earth was Benji standing drenched in front of him?

Benji laughed. “You look like a giant, walking blob of patchwork.”

“Comfy,” Billy stated calmly.

“Looks like it,” Benji replied. “I brought your homework. Joel told me your locker combination.”

“They still do that?” Billy took the books from Benji.

Benji shrugged. “Joel does, I don’t know about anyone else. You don’t look that sick to me.”

“My mother believes in sane days, but I can’t tell the school that so I just call in and tell them that I have a bug or something,” Billy explained. He noticed that Benji was shivering. “Would you like to come in? I can make you tea, cocoa, coffee, whatever.”

“Thanks, but I have to get back home and start getting dinner ready...” Benji wanted to come in, but he was soaked to the bone and didn’t know what to do if and when he went inside that house.

“What could possibly take three hours to make?” Billy moved aside so that his visitor could come inside.

Benji was about to come up with a good answer, like beef stew or something, but sighed and walked into the house. “Do they work? Sane days, I mean.”

“I think so. I haven’t lost my mind yet.”

Following Billy close enough to rip off his heels, Benji entered the kitchen and stood in the middle of the tile floor. He was afraid to touch anything in his wet state, he didn’t know what Billy’s mother was like. Most likely he looked like a fool, but even if he did sit down his nerves would make him look like an even bigger fool.

“What would you like?”

“Just put chocolate powder in some milk and heat that slowly over the stove,” Benji instructed. The brew tasted horrible, but for years that’s what he drank instead of real hot cocoa and he knew that if he tried the real stuff now he’d get sick from it: like someone stranded on a remote island that, after a long time of eating barely anything, got a five course meal.

Billy only nodded and set to work. Joel had spoken to him about their situation, but asked sternly for no pity or anything of the sort. “You can sit down if you want, my mom won’t mind. She cleans the chair cushions once a week anyway. Tomorrow they all go in the wash.”

Benji raised and lowered one shoulder. “I can’t stay long,” he said simply. “I have to go home and make dinner, then head out to my new job.”

“This late in the day? What happened to your old job?”

“I’m a night stalker at Kohl’s. I got fired from the hair salon because of all the time off I’ve spent writing songs and setting up gigs, trying to get us signed.”

Nodding his head, Billy didn’t want to ask how Benji planned to work nights and go to school during the day. Their mother was ill and with their father gone, someone had to support the family. “Has anyone called?”

“Just people saying they’re from The Atlantic Record Company, making fun of us. No one real.”

Billy sighed and got out one of his mom’s old commuter mugs. “It’ll happen eventually.” He couldn’t bare to look at Benji at the mention of this topic, so he focused on stirring the milk and watching to see if it was going to curdle from the heat. He turned it down to low just in case.

“I’m starting to lose hope,” Benji replied. “What if we never get signed?”

“I don’t think it’s a question about whether or not we get signed…it’s if anyone will buy our records or not.” After shutting off the stove, Billy poured the drink into the mug and snapped on the top. Did he make it right? “Anyone can get signed, but not everyone can sell enough CDs to stay afloat.” He handed Benji the commuter mug.

Benji, still resembling a drowned rat, never took his eyes off Billy. “What do you think will happen to us? Can we make it?”

“You’re the big kahuna, you should know all of this. It’s your job to tell the rest of us that we’ll be bigger than sliced bread, that there’s nothing we won’t be able to do.”

“Even Alexander the Great had his doubts, right?”

Billy rearranged the quilt around him, blindly looking off to his left. “We’ll make it. Give it time. We’re like the Boston Red Sox. You just have to keep the faith and one of these days we’ll do the unthinkable.”

“Yeah, but they’re cursed. They haven’t won a world series in decades. They suck.”

Billy laughed. “No one can stay cursed forever. It has to lift sometime.”

Then it happened again. They kissed. Only this time everything seemed to slow down to a snail’s pace. Billy looked back at Benji, to see the shorter man still staring at him. An invisible signal passed through the air, at the same moment they leaded toward each other. It seemed like twenty years before their lips finally touched, but when they did….

Unlike the last time it wasn’t rushed, fevered and “trying to prove a point.” Like in those cheap horror movies, it seemed like they were morphing into one being but without the crappy music and screams of bloody murder that are so obviously prerecorded and from an entirely different person. It was soft, slow, something you only dream about.

They both pulled away at the same time, just as slowly as the kiss and staring at each other like they were going to fade away any second.

Somewhere in the background a door slammed and Billy’s mother’s voice rang through the otherwise silent house. “I got a promotion so I’m home early! When your sister gets home we’re going out to celebrate.”

If they had had time to panic, would they have? Billy turned his head just in time to see his mother walk into the kitchen with a big smile on her face. “Wha?”

“I got a promotion, sweetheart,” Mrs.Martin said again still not losing that smile. She looked at Benji. “Who’s this?”

“Benji Madden,” he said quickly, “I’m Joel’s older brother—only by a few minutes, but I still like to rub it in.” He shook her hand politely.

“For a second there I thought Joel had gone under a drastic make-over. Any friend of Billy’s is a friend of mine. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Benji shook his head. “I just came by to drop off Billy’s homework. He made me some hot cocoa and I was just about to leave. Maybe some other time.” He looked at Billy, his eyes shinning. “See ya.”

Billy could only wave good-bye.

As Benji walked to the front door, Mrs.Martin sighed happily and looked over her son. “You seemed dazed, what’s wrong?”

“Absolutely nothing,” her son replied sincerely.

“Good. Are you going to clean up the living room or should I?”