Crossroads by Vincent L Howard

Author:Vincent L Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vincent L Howard
Published: 2022-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

WHO’S GONNA TAKE

THE BLAME?

“C

rown on the rocks…make it a double.”

Benji grabbed a Newport out of the pack on the bar, lit it, and took a deep, satisfying drag before sipping the brown liquor that’d been placed before him.

He was alone at the bar. It was not like any birthday he’d ever had, and definitely not what he imagined for his fortieth. He was working on his third double of the evening…an experienced drinker, he knew he needed to slow down so he’d be able to drive home later.

The place she was.

The place he didn’t want to go.

The Black Frog was nearly empty at this time of the early evening. Benji truthfully felt much older than his now forty years as the DJ honored Benji’s birthday request to play music from his teen years. Benji was fairly uninterested in the popular singers of the day— they were all OK, but Benji still strongly preferred the music of his youth. In his mind, they sang about things that mattered. Especially the women. “Women used to sing to a man—about needing a man. Like Dorothy Moore…Patti LaBelle…Teena Marie…them women that made a man feel like one.” Benji thought. “Most women today only sang about being empowered or strong or independent or some other such crap.”

As the music played, Benji’s rapidly reddening eyes glazed over as he lit another cigarette, ordered another drink, and let his mind wander backward to a fateful evening in his younger days.

The party.

The kiss.

Benji had been about ready to do something he didn’t quite know how to do, and that was break up with Shante, but their kiss turned everything upside down. He felt a connection with Tina he wanted to explore and there was something about that dark-haired girl too. But the problem was…they didn’t like him like that. Shante did. Or at least that’s what he thought back then. Girls had always been confusing…women too.

The kiss clarified everything.

And when Shante called him the next day after their kiss to say she was going to the mall, said she would be missing him, then came back later that day with a shirt she said he’d look cute in, he was finished contemplating. As far as he was concerned, this was the one. Because that’s the kind of things girlfriends are supposed to say and do.

The teens settled into a pattern. They ate lunch together, they went to movies, they were on the phone even more than before, and Benji went over to her house and they sat outside and talked— to his surprise, Shante even came over to his house a few times, and it was funny how shy she was at first. They were comfortable, but sometimes…Benji felt a little like he was playing a part in a play— the role of being Shante’s boyfriend. The result was that slowly, over time, Benji stopped doing the things he’d done before. He walked to school less and less with Ricky and Brian until eventually, he stopped walking with them altogether— they were still best friends, but he went to school with Shante.

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