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The sun casts an orange glow down on him. Cicadas and crickets harmonize into white noise. Benny swats a mosquito trying to settle onto his forearm. He’s sitting on the back porch, smoking a cigarette. Florida’s sweltering heat is getting to him today, then again, when does it not? It was humid all day, every day. Leather and denim don’t mesh well in this weather. He can feel the sweat gathering on his nose, on his forehead, and staining the pits of his arms. Maybe he’ll hit the shower; ask Kathy to do his laundry soon.
The cigarette is making him feel worse, gross. The heavy smoke mixes in with the moisture of the air; it makes it harder to breathe, or maybe he's imagining things.
Or maybe he’s itching to get out of here.
It feels like he’s been stuck here too long.
Sometimes he thinks something’s wrong with him. He can’t wrap his head around the fact that people are content with living. Or living the way that they do. Life was too much and not enough all at once. The mundanity of life just never did it for him. He didn’t want the same old shit that most fuckers settled for. But he did settle for it… He’s going steady, has a stable job that he clocks in and out of, day in and day out. At least his cousin cuts him some slack. And at least he gets to work with his hands. He doesn’t know how those poor bastards sat behind desks all day or in a cubicle.
He did what he had to do, but he didn’t want to do… anything, really. He was just living, still is. It’s not the same as being alive, though.
He feels like something’s missing. Some lingering ache. He feels like he was on a constant search to find something that made him feel alive. That proved he was still alive and breathing.
The sting of a needle when he gets a tattoo.
The adrenaline of a fight, bashing his fist into flesh, picking glass out of his hand. The sting of pouring alcohol over the scrapes on his knuckles and gashes on his arm after a scuffle.
Even a crash-out on his bike. Cracked bones, split lip, and all.
He shifts the cigarette to the side of his mouth and pops open a beer bottle. It’s cold, and the condensation on the glass feels soothing to his hand. He drinks it, it makes him feel dehydrated. Sick.
It ain’t like he’s unhappy. He’s happy, he is.
He should be.
He just wishes he could get back on that bike.
It’s sitting in the garage, untouched. He promised Kathy he’d leave it as is. He loves her, he wants to be a good husband. He just can’t help himself sometimes, so his mind wanders.
He dreams of being back on that bike. Whenever he hears the roar of an engine, it’s like his foot is itching to kick the bike into start and hit the road. Go on and on until his motorcycle runs out of gas and he doesn’t know where the fuck he is anymore.
That’s what he always did. He ran. Whenever things got to be too much, he’d leave. It’s one of the only things he was good at. Running away from his family when he was a teenager, running away from the club, from Johnny, from Kathy. From everything.
Fight or flight. It’s always been flight for the wrong damn things.
But he can’t run away now. He’s got a stable job, a wife, and their house. He has good things. He has a good life, that’s what everyone says. He shouldn’t be wanting to haul ass and disappear.
Kathy loves him, she’s been there for him like no one else has. So he won’t up and leave her, not again.
He glances at the ring on his finger.
And last time he ran, someone turned up dead. Johnny wasn’t waiting for him. Benny wasn’t there to back him up, and so Johnny took a cold bullet to the flesh.
Sometimes he still doesn’t comprehend that Johnny is dead. It felt the same way with Brucie at first. But with Johnny… It’s still not clicking. Maybe because Benny feels guilty, he was pathetic, because he left, and he only came back long after Johnny was six feet under.
He thinks of how Johnny died. He thinks back to how he watched Johnny shoot Cockroach in the leg. How the blood and flesh splattered and how he heard the crunch of bone splintering… Where was Johnny shot? The head? The heart?
He hated how life goes on. Johnny is dead, and the world kept going, and the Vandals got more fucked up, and he’s in Florida thinking of the dead, and maybe wishing he wasn’t around either. Johnny’s dead and he’s never going to see him again. He’s long gone, and so is everything about him. And Benny needs to stop thinking about it.
Death is inviting and unnerving. It’s still difficult for him to comprehend. Everyone dies. You die, and then you’re gone, and that’s it. You just don’t exist anymore. He always thought he’d die young, in some stupid mess he got himself into. Live fast, die young, and that’d be it; he wouldn’t have to deal with anything anymore. So, he never planned for a future, not really. It almost feels unnatural that he’s made it this far. As if it goes against his very nature.
He wonders if Johnny has it any easier under the dirt.
He remembers when he was in the hospital, that bastard had almost severed his foot with that stupid fucking shovel. He was scared, so scared they’d take his foot off. His only real vice to escape his own head was that motorcycle, and if he couldn’t ride anymore, what was the point? If he couldn’t feel the wind in his face, couldn’t speed off and feel that high, couldn’t pretend like that was all there was to life, then what was the damn point.
He never told Kathy or Johnny this; it’s embarrassing. He always thought that people who killed themselves weren’t right in the head, that’s what his folks used to say, but for a brief moment, he really did consider popping his brains out with his pistol if the doctors decided to amputate his foot.
He glances down at his boot, thankfully, he kept his foot, healed up just fine for the most part.
Sometimes he wants things to go back to before, before he came down here to Florida, before Johnny died, before the club got out of hand.
Benny just wanted to ride his bike. That’s all it was.
And he couldn’t drive slow, he couldn’t ride with all those carefully crafted safety rules. Kathy said that’d be the only way she’d ever let him ride again, let alone stick around if he got on that bike again. That was no way to do it, though. He needed to feel the rush. He needed the freedom to do what his heart craved.
What does his heart want now? He doesn’t quite know where to place this unquenchable aching. This emptiness that just festers within him makes discomfort take hold of his chest. His finger hooks onto the front of his shirt, he fidgets and pulls at it a bit, his collar is starting to feel oddly suffocating.
“Benny!”
He’s brought out of his thoughts when he hears Kathy’s high-pitched voice ringing out from the kitchen. He keeps his eyes focused on the backyard.
She calls out for him again, “Get in here! I got dinner on the table!”
He sighs, puts out the cigarette, downs what’s left of the beer bottle in one go, and slowly stands up. His feet almost drag as he steps inside. She’s standing there, hand on her hip. She started doing her hair differently when they moved down here, something about it being in style and easier to manage. He didn’t mind, she was as pretty as the day he met her.
“What’s got you lookin’ so gloomy?” she says and saunters over. She playfully hits his chest like she usually does.
He could say it; spill his guts about things he should’ve let go of long ago. But she’s smiling at him, she’s got dinner on the table, and maybe he’s hungry. He lets out a little scoff, plastering a small smile on his face.
“Nothing.”