Bird Came Down

He was smoking pot again. In another time, in a few years, when Felix was less innocent, he wouldn’t mind that. He wouldn’t mind anything that Ben did. But at this moment, though six years older than Ben, in some ways he was infinitely younger.

I love the time and in between

the calm inside me

in the space where I can breathe

I believe there is a

distance I have wandered

to touch upon the years of

reaching out and reaching in

holding out holding in

He was younger, because he was innocent. He didn’t really understand too much. He understood love, but he didn’t understand loving someone didn’t mean you would be loved back, or that loving a sorry person meant you would be loved in a sorry way.

“I believe this is heaven to no one else but me

and I'll defend it as long as I can be.”

Ben sat on the floor smoking what Felix now knew was bad pot, and raising one finger in the air he explained, “Sarah McLachlan really isn’t good at all. The real artist is her father, John.”

Apparently John McLachlan was a great guitarist, and apparently Ben was too. Now that he was high enough, Ben was about to take out his electric guitar, and show him how good he was. This was Wednesday night, and he was more or less happy. Still living with his family at the time, just having begun graduate school, Felix would travel to the mini efficiency of the pale Benjamin Thompson. He would leave Thursday afternoon to return to his family’s home. Ben was the beginning of his life. Ben was the door to life. Felix thought all of those things, and he was right, even though he didn’t know the painful way in which this beginning would end.

While Ben sat on the floor, eyes closed tight, passionately riffing on his electric guitar, Felix reached for the pack of cigarettes near Ben’s thigh. Years later, remembering Ben sitting on the floor playing guitar was funny. Back then, when Ben was the deepest, sweetest, most wonderful boy in the world and the bearer of all good things, watching him play was a worshipful experience.

It’s not silly. It’s not foolish to love someone with all your heart. When you love someone unworthy of it you’ll learn that the most interesting thing about them is that you loved them…

There were mornings when he would wake up on his pallet in Ben’s apartment. They always slept separately, Ben on his mattress on one side of the entertainment stall, Felix on a pallet on the other side. Ben would be sitting up playing his folk guitar. He would look at Felix and sing, in his sweet tenor:

What would you do if my heart was torn in two?

More than words to show you feel

That your love for me is real

What would you say if I took those words away

Then you couldn't make things new

Just by saying…

But the son of a bitch would never make it to the “I love you,”

“It’s funny,” Felix thought, years later, how easy it was to put up with bad love, half love, less than what you deserved, when you were young.”

Benjamin Thompson would do all sorts of awful things. They sat up and planned their classes together one semester. He scheduled an especially horrible class: The History of Epistemology: How Do We Know That We Know? Five weeks into it, Ben dropped out to smoke pot. In fact, he simply disappeared for days, turning up again with a bruise under his eye and saying, “I’m not going back to that class.”

“The only reason I’m in it is because we planned to be in it together.”

“I didn’t make you take it.”

This had been the root of another long separation, and after a month they sat across from each other in the Pub.

“We should never fight again,” Ben declared. “Life’s too short.”

He surprised Felix by holding his hand under the table.

That night Ben told him that he’d met a new friend named April, and they were going to a party on Saturday. He was free to come.

Later that night they prepared to sleep in their separate spaces, and falling asleep, Felix’s hand landed on something square, like a wet nap packet. No… not quite. In the semi darkness, as Ben fell asleep, Felix’s hand realized a condom.

“I hate him already,” Scott said. “No wonder you were so careful with me.”

“And I was right to be.”

“Well, then where does he get off with doing what he did?”

“Well, there is more to the story.”

Amidst the wreck of the room, Felix and Scott lay, fully clothed under a light blanket on the futon.

“Do you want to tell me the more of the story now, or as we’re driving?”

In the light of a new day, Felix looked around his living room where all of his books were most carefully disorganized and spread all over the floor, where a bookshelf had been tipped onto the ground.

“Oh,” Felix said, “I think we can talk while you drive.”

Ben was the most interesting thing Felix Owenshad ever seen. Felix was in the public library one day when he saw a boy, otherworldly pale, with the palest almost shaven blond hair, checking in and checking out books. When he came down, Nancy the librarian introduced him: “Felix, this is Ben. He’s new. Ben, this is Felix. He’s not new.”

Over the course of their relationship Felix, who had never been in love with anything, would fall in love with every feature of Ben, be amazed by how his pale blond hair grew into a honey red beard at his cheeks, how red his perfect mouth was, even the shape of his somewhat sharp nose. He would fall in love with his quietness, with his reserve. He would also be disappointed by what was revealed when those things fell away, and he, like many before him, would deny the truth of what he saw.

“I knew that Ben was for me, that I had to be with him, stand by his side.”

After nosing around he even planned his classes in the hopes that Ben would be in one, and so Ben had been. In fact, looking back he had set the trap for Ben as neatly as anyone could set a trap. That it would backfire on him so profoundly was almost a just desert. They were walking from class when Felix suggested, “We should exchange numbers.” They did. Felix used Ben’s back as a notebook and scribbled his number.

After Ben folded it into his backpack he said, “I’ll probably never call you.”

“Is this the house?”Scott demanded.

“Yup,” Felix shielded his eyes from the sun. “And that…. Is the car.”

Scott parked behind him, and Felix murmured, “Never thought he’d come back here. I haven’t seen that duster in years.

“Can we change seats?”

“Sure?” Scott looked doubtful, but he handed his keys to Felix.

“Are the license plates still covered?”

“You’re doing something bad?”

“Do you mind?”

“Nope.” Scott said.

They switched seats and Felix pulled out just as the door of the house opened and out came good old Ben.

“Is that him?”

“Yup.”

“He looks different.”

Felix pulled out into the street, perpendicular to Ben’s car and said, “Well, that’s what hair and a beard does to you.”

And then, just like that, he pulled into drive, and then into reverse, and broadsided the hell out of Ben’s car.

Ben was screaming, coming down the yard, as Felix turned and pulled back down Hurst Street.

` “And now,” he began, while Ben shook his fist in the rear view mirror, “the rest of the story.”

Once a weekthey spent the night together, and one afternoon while Ben was in the shower Felix got on his computer and, because he was nosey, went through the history.

Gayboys

Gaylove

Gaysex

Notgay

Bicurious fellows

Felix moved away from the computer.

Up until then liking was liking, and he liked Ben a great deal. He had to have Ben in his life. He had never actually conceived of what having a boyfriend would entail. He didn’t know much about sex let alone gay sex, and while Ben sang off key in the shower:

This is the light that keeps me awake

My head explodes and my body aches!

Felix tried to picture having sex with him, but he could not.

All he knew was that he was in love with Ben, that he was pretty sure by now that he was gay and he had sensed, but could never be sure, that Ben was the same. He didn’t have the assurance or knowledge that would come soon enough. Now he knew, and he wondered if, perhaps, Ben might be gay for him? After all, why were they in the same apartment together? But what would happen if Ben let him onto his bed? And was that the reason Ben wouldn’t?”

That afternoon Felix walked Ben to his job at the public library, and when they got there he went into the sexuality and sociology section, sat down and pulled out The Book of Gay Health and Maintenance.One day he would buy the book and from the book he’d learn a great deal other men found out the hard way.

Anal sex is often seen as the definitive form of gay love-making. You might think, and be pressured to think, that if you’re not doing it, be you top, bottom or versatile, you must be some sort of second rate closet case. But is it for you? It can hurt (a lot) at first, comes as something of a shock to the system, and might well be termed an acquired taste. If you fancy it, here are a few tips on how to begin to acquire that taste…

That was the most unappealing thing he’d ever read, but he read on.

Spend time on your own discovering your anus before having sex with others. Run a bath and get naked. Go to the toilet. Then put some lube on a finger, work it around the outer anus, stay there awhile, and start pushing it in…

Was he supposed to do this to Ben? Or was Ben going to do it to him? Couldn’t they… just hold hands or….

When you withdraw you might feel you want to defecate again. This is normal. Probably nothing will happen. If anything does, don’t worry… Sitting with your ass to one side can work well. If you’re standing, make sure your legs remain relaxed. If they tense, the sphincter will follow. Push it in slowly. Don’t force it. Don’t sit on it.

“Hey!”

Felix slammed the book shut and looked up to see Ben grinning down at him.

“Don’t you ever stop reading?”

“Uh…” Felix began, shocked.

Chuckling, Ben shook his head and went down the aisle, leaving Felix alone.

Maybe we’ll just… sleep close together. One day.

But only a few months later there they were in the Pub.

“We should never fight again,” Ben declared. “Life’s too short.”

He surprised Felix by holding his hand under the table.

That night Ben told him that he’d met a new friend named April and they were going to a party on Saturday. He was free to come.

Later, that night, they prepared to sleep in their separate spaces and falling asleep, Felix’s hand landed on something square, like a wet nap packet. No… not quite. In the semi darkness, as Ben fell asleep, Felix recognized a condom.

And, in the dark, tears springing into his eyes, his heart cracked open.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Scott held up a finger in the middle of Felix’s story.

When he opened the door, there was Ben.

“Is—” Ben began, but the last thing he heard was Scott growling:

“Asshole!” as the tall man’s fist crashed into Ben’s face and sent him spinning into darkness.

Ben blinked into the light, moaned, and turned his head to see Felix sitting over him, looking down with a sinister smile.

“Welcome back, motherfucker,” he said.

“He’s gone now,” Felix said. “He hit you in the head.”

“Who?”

“Scott?”

“Is he… What is he?”

“He is my friend. He’s back in town,” Felix said.

“Are you all…”

“It’s really none of your business what we are,” Felix said almost negligently.

Ben sat up, winced and put his hand to his head.

“Can I at least have a cigarette?”

“No, motherfucker, you can’t.”

Ben sank onto the sofa and Felix continued, “You cannot break into my house, fuck up my house, and then come back to my house and expect a cigarette.”

“You ruined my car.”

“You ruined my life.”

Felix continued, tonelessly.

“It’s all about you, isn’t it? You think it’s all about you. You always did.”

Ben sat up, looking like a poisonous cat.

“You know why I did what I did.”

Suddenly, Felix leaned forward, hit him in the head, and Ben yelped.

“And you know why I did what I did,” Felix told him.