B.S: The Actual Initials & The Others- Memoir Excerpt

 I just thought about Benjamin. 
I thought about what I was writing and then I thought how self centered I am for writing like this then I thought about a comment in a thread by someone I suspect might have been Benjamin Stratz.

He told people his name was James. He didn’t think Benjamin was a strong name.

He used to say and think exactly like what I read in the comment thread.

It read; “Is she still thinking about her special purpose and stealing my oxygen?”

See, B.S instilled in me, well he tried to instill in me, the notion that we, all human beings, all creatures, are alive only by default, we are only breathing because it is a default mechanism. He believed or wanted someone to convince him otherwise, that there is no purpose to our ongoing life at all. He was a very sad boy with a bleak outlook. I almost believed him because he was obscenely intelligent, borderline genius. Which made it fairly difficult for me to not believe everything he said and swallow it as truth. 

He was romantically in love with me and I did not posses those feelings for him. 

I was not attracted to him in that regard. Though I would try so hard to make myself.  He was an attractive young man. Every other straight girl or woman thought he was, and I was not blind. 

He also had a fantastic, twisted, dark sense of humor.  Both of us with our jet black hair and mock goth-punk wardrobe, I remember we wore each others clothes. You also happened to look way too much like Johnny Depp circa 1992. An odd combination of John Water’s Cry-Baby and Benny & Joon, you were so sexy, just not my type. 

I would be more turned on by Adrian Brody then Johnny Depp any day. 

So I suppose my taste is a bit refined in sexual attraction.

You had a history of extraordinarily good looking ex girlfriends. You even Dubbed Helen, Helen of Troy. I saw her picture she looked like she just walked off the set of Lords of Acid video shoot. 

You wanted to settle down, wanted to take care of me. The entire endeavor was unbelievably sweet but completely ludicrous and untimely. You even tried to get M*** to send divorce papers so you could marry me. Benjamin even took under his dark wing my baby brother. Even let him move into the house we shared on 313 Woolbright road, right next to the highway.

He was originally from a small town in Michigan, before opiate usage and addiction in Detroit sent him my way in Florida. I loved him very much and a part of me still does, a dusty, rusty part of me, but he was my best friend for a few years, which is a long time in my history of hysteria. Yes. I know that supposedly signifies some kind of psychological problem, psychologists and psychiatrists both always give me the “I see…” and scribble in their note pads or move their fingers across a keyboard like mad, always asking me to re iterate my short lived relationships without taking into consideration the outside circumstances. I have yet to meet a Psychiatrist or Psychologist of my caliber. If that sounds arrogant, blame Benjamin. He was constantly telling me we were an intellectual power couple and I was by far the smartest girlfriend he had ever had. Always giving me a random quiz or teaching me something new, we would do that to each other. He said I gave him the best gift he had ever given by a girlfriend, I found and bought for him an antique encyclopedia collection of about eight of them, hard covers. “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” He Loved Ancient civilization, power, rulers, etc… He was the one that taught me about “The Prince” and Niccolo Machiavelli. You had a bit of a Napoleon complex and I did find your downloads of dominatrix porn. Is that what you wanted, for me to hurt you, for you to let go of control and give it to me? Why didn’t you ever say so? Is that what it would have taken to make you warm in the bedroom? We were not suited for one another in this regard. We wanted similar things.

We were more like an incestuous brother and sister with an -us against the world- idea that you loved to fan and encourage then an actual romantic partnership.

 We both had scooters. I had one first. Mine was yellow and black and his was blue and black. We used to drive them around together, sometimes, just for fun. All over downtown Delray and back. I would scare him because of the reckless way I would drive, it’s just that I knew my scooter. I knew what it was capable of. I pushed it to all its limits. I guess I do that often, with everything, at least I used to… I would have a blast with my bumblebee. I would make it dance in tune to whatever was playing in my ear buds. I would weave in and out of traffic. It made him nervous. He was a very rigid, controlled human being. I wanted to scare him out of his regimented ways.  Or perhaps even Love him out of it. I could make him laugh, but he had this suffocating effect, when he would really look at me, into my eyes, they were so dark so far away, like planets I was looking at through a telescope. 

Oh Benjamin, what ailed you so? Why were you so broken? Why did you fuck me like a cold machine? I had never experienced the like. I still haven’t experienced the like since. Actually what was his name… the guy I screwed a few times while I was employed at Starbucks number two? It started because he was in the corner reading “The Plague” by Albert Camus and I was a single huntress that smelled intellect and dark eyes...He said he was a part time E.M.T and studying to be a professor, he worked odd hours, he kept his apartment dark and filled with Vinyl and two tall book shelves that was over flowing with them.  He liked Leonard Cohen and John Cale. It was Gabriel! That was his name, I think. He lived in Boca Raton. He came After the Bass player from a band that was called ‘The Secret French Kissing Society”. That was Jesse Steele , yes that was his name, he showed me his I.D when I giggled about the unbelievably appropriate name for a man such as him. (a Brazilian that fucked like a Jackhammer, loved poker, drank loads of Heineken, watched soccer, took Suboxone at nine A.M and then fuck again! Totally different experience.) Anyway, Gabriel fucked in a similar fashion as Benjamin.  It was as if you wouldn’t allow yourself to feel any emotion at all when you were inside me. You would grasp my jaw and say look at me. You would have this anger and intent in your eyes that was unsettling and you would push yourself all the way into me as far as you could go and silently release yourself. Then collapse onto my chest. Breathing heavy, your sweat soaking me, I remember feeling your heart pounding so hard. Then you would kiss me on the lips as if you wee kissing a child on the check. Stood up, grabbed our pack of Marlborough’s off the coffee table and light up one for each of use as I would lift the sheet to cover my breasts and wipe the sweaty strands of hair from my face. The music was always on wasn’t it? You and I lived with a soundtrack too. Sorry Benjamin but Tony and I did as well. We lived like that together first. I know that I came onto you while I was technically still with Tony. I think that I’ll explain that now. You deserve to know.

Back then I didn’t really know how to be a single adult. 
My self worth was practically non-existent. 

It depended on the lust men had for me and or their intellectual pursuits recognizing my own.  

So, you see, you fit the description I was subconsciously hunting perfectly. I was what age, twenty-three? When we eventually lived together after our three-year hot-cold, off-on friendship and liaison? I believe so. You know, I would really appreciate your input on some things right about now. See, the more I recall about you and I, the more questions arise. You loved “Asleep” by The Smith’s best of all, even more than Joy Divisions: “Love Will Tear Us Apart.  

You had the most adorable smile and that charming nerdish laugh. You would probably not take that as a compliment but it was totally endearing and infectious. 

I hope you found a young woman more suited for you. I wasn’t her. I was not brave enough to tell you that I didn’t have romantic inclinations towards you. I loved you Benjamin. That is an undisputable fact. You were my best friend, also a fact. You were sent conflicting messages from me, another fact, albeit a shameful one and one that I regret.  

 I know that hurt you. It hurt to do it. 
Please know and trust me when I say, it came back around more harshly than you could imagine.

I wish that I could have been the woman I am now back then. 

But alas, it is ash of a cigarette that’s nearly burnt to the filter.

I am sorry and I did love you. 

More than most of the men that made a guest appearance in my life’s story.

I hope you do not feel like you are only alive by default and have no purpose anymore. 

If someone said that to me today, seven or eight years past when you first vocalized this philosophy of yours to me, I now know what I would say.

First off, You are right that there is no pre-defined purpose to any of this.

It is up to you, to give meaning to your life. 

You have complete control over your existence. 

From one choice to the next, from one breath to the next. 

What do you do with this responsibility? 

Why do you choose to breathe? 

If you feel that you have no purpose then that means you are afraid to do what it is you want to do 
or have not figured it out what you want to do yet. 

You are responsible for your life’s meaning. 

Scary huh? 

Kind of like that girl swerving on that black and yellow scooter.

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen