Rude Boy USA (14 page)

Celia left work early to get ready for her date with Ben. She had decided to live a little and not be so old fashioned. She had unopened rubbers that Rose had left over at the apartment. Rose dated a lot, and like Celia, she was not virginal. Rose was careful. She did not want to end up at the clinic for a procedure, like other young graduate-aged women she knew. Celia had only had one sexual partner in her life, a boyfriend from high school. They broke up when she began working at the Playboy Club. That relationship had hurt her so badly that she was determined to protect her heart and her vagina from disappointment. She wanted to wait for the right man. But just in case, she put those condoms in her purse. Celia wore a fitting blue wiggle dress. It was long but sophisticated. The dress was one of her favorites, as it displayed her curves correctly.

Ben arrived on time, and they took the train to a restaurant in Chinatown. When they arrived, the streets were crowded with couples, families, and people walking. They entered a restaurant called Chef Ma on Pell Street. Ben
knew of her indulgence in Chinese food, so he figured that he could not go wrong with this destination. He also wanted to take her to the Mee Sum Mee Tea House and Pastry. This restaurant was one of Ben’s favorite places to get a bite in Chinatown. They talked and laughed all night about their likes and dislikes. The radio began playing “Bring ’Em Home” by Pete Seeger. Celia asked him about his time in Vietnam.

Ben had only served a couple of years before being discharged from the Army. He had been only twenty-two years old when the war began and twenty-seven when he entered. Benjamin decided to join the military because they boasted the benefits of service. He was just fine being a young person trying to find his way in life on his own, but he felt that he did not have enough money to survive. Ben thought that a couple of years enlisted in the army would not be bad; the time would allow him to reap the benefits and cause people to view him as a hero to his country. Before he went, he approached Bernie for possible work, and Bernie put him on as an intern. Bernie accepted him once he explained that he was an enlisting soldier. The war began, and Ben shipped out shortly after he started working. Bernie promised him employment if and when he returned. When he left, Ben’s other friends volunteered, believing the military’s promises of special training and choice assignments, which never came to fruition. All of them eventually became disenchanted with the war and began to rebel. Instead of fighting, they focused on CYA, which meant Cover Your Ass. Morale was
down, and instead of inspirational chants of encouragement, they sang, “You’re going home in a body bag, doo dah, doo dah…”

Ben and the other soldiers turned to drugs to take their minds off the situation, and the mental illness Ben had fought to shield from the world was beginning to manifest itself on the field. He used marijuana and morphine to deal with the environmental stress. The soldiers would rig a gun with a smoke pipe and use it as a bong. They would pass it around and inhale the cannabis smoke from the shotgun barrel. They called it riding shotgun. Ben first got his taste for heroin in Vietnam, where the purity was nearly 100 percent. The purity back at home was only about 5 to 10 percent. He started using heroin because his friends were snorting and shooting it and he wanted to blend in. It was also cheap, costing only a couple of dollars for a vial of white powder in Vietnam. At home, the same amount would run about fifty dollars. The residents of Vietnam used it for leisure, and so did Ben. Ben would get sick from viral or mental stress and snort the heroin to feel better, which usually worked for him. Before he knew it, he was sick and addicted. Many of the soldiers contracted hepatitis from dirty needles, and some overdosed. Ben overdosed on heroin. About three months after his first use of heroin, his five-dollar vial purchases turned into hundred-dollar purchases. The Army provided rehabilitation and gave him amnesty for admitting he had a problem. Frustrated by the requirement that he remain at Fire Support Base Aries, which was fifty miles north
of Saigon, Ben was one of ten GIs who staged a pray-in for peace. When he declined his squad leader’s and officer’s requests that he stop praying, they court-martialed him for refusal to follow orders. Bernie’s connections to military personnel helped bail Ben out of the situation. Bernie sympathized with Ben because he had also been in trouble while serving. Ben began working for Chimera full time.

Ben did not divulge all of this information to Celia. He did not want to scare her away. He kept the conversation about the war light. Celia wanted to talk about the protests that were happening throughout the country. She told him about the time when she attended the march that went from Central Park to the United Nations building. All sorts of people attended the rally. Martin Luther King walked with them from start to finish. She told them that some people even burned their draft cards. “Would you have burned your card?” Celia asked him.

“I would have. I thought by joining I was doing something honorable. I would have run to Canada with the rest of them if I really knew what I was getting myself into. It changed me forever,” he said. “Thank you for marching for us,” he added.

Celia reached her hand to touch his. “You’re welcome. Most of us think this war is senseless,” she said. The date was reminiscent of her times with John, and she had a brief flashback. She quickly cleared her mind and continued on the date. Neither one would ever have thought a meeting like this possible when they first met each other.

Once they left the restaurant, they went to the movies and watched
The Me Nobody Knows
. He thought it was appropriate since the storyline seemed to parallel their lives in New York City. After they had left the theater, they went back to her place to end the night. Ben was impressed with the way she arranged her apartment. Celia had her eight-track player running. She had the bottle of wine that he had gifted her still unopened. He noticed it and suggested that they pop the bottle. Celia went to get the wine glasses. Ben looked around, sneaking a peek into her bedroom. He noticed her bed. It was small. He wanted to ask her about that but decided not to. He then saw a keyboard in the corner of her bedroom. It was a Bontempi electric organ. She had splurged on it as a gift to herself. She did not want to get rusty in her piano playing and thought this would be an excellent way to brush up on her practice, just in case she decided to return to school or play for someone special. He asked her about it.

“I didn’t know you played instruments,” he said.

“I do. I have been playing since I was a little girl. My mother taught me,” she replied.

“Can you play for me?” Ben asked. Celia did not want to do it. She had promised John that if she were to demonstrate her abilities, he would be the first to hear it. She was a woman of her word, and she felt that some things were reserved for special occasions. This was not one of those occasions.

“Not today. Maybe some other time,” Celia answered. They both sat down. They were comfortable on her bed as
they continued small chatter. He gave her a loving glance. He leaned over to kiss her, and she kissed him back. He unzipped the back of her dress and proceeded to remove it. She paused. For a brief moment, she thought,
It was supposed to be John doing this
. She had to shake him out of her head. She let Ben continue, and they ended up making love on her twin bed.

When they were done, he got up and used her bathroom. While he was there, Celia’s telephone rang. It was John, and he just wanted to chat with her. She spoke to him for a few minutes, not mentioning that she had Ben over at her place. While Ben was in the bathroom, he heard Celia talking to someone on the phone. He noted her lowered voice and peeked through the crack of the door.

John wanted to come over, and he said that he missed hanging out with her, but she told him not to come. She said she was on her way out on the town with Rose and some other friends. Ben continued to peek through the crack, and he noticed her face was relaxed with a slight smile on it. He made a noise to distract her. Celia sensed that Ben was finishing in the bathroom, and she told John that her friends were there, and she had to go. Ben returned from washing his face, and Celia ended the call with John. Ben looked at her and then lifted her chin with his finger. He kissed her, and they were ready for another round of lovemaking.

Another day passed with no word from Bernie. Celia was concerned, but the guys were not. They had known Bernie to take days away from the office often. He did not always divulge his whereabouts. He felt that some things needed to remain private. Celia decided to pay a visit to Bernie’s townhouse to check on him. She was terribly concerned. She took a cab over to his place. To ease her nerves, she had a conversation with the driver, who was polite. When she arrived, she got out of the cab and made it to the top of the stairs. She rang his doorbell to no answer. Celia had obtained keys to Bernie’s place; he had locked spares away in a safe at the office. He kept a backup of important things in his life in that safe just in case he misplaced his first set. He was a big fan of redundancy. She unlocked the door and went upstairs. His front door had several locks for security purposes. She knocked and called his name but received no answer. She figured if he had gone on vacation, everything would be okay and she would inform him of her visit to his place. She knew that he did not have a lady to look after him anymore since the sudden passing of Gina. She was willing to take on the role, as she had been used to visiting her mother to check on her. It took her a while to get all of the locks undone, as she had to figure out which key went to each lock. She finally got them all open and walked in.

She walked through the short hallway, which led to the living room. Both of the windows were open, which she found unusual since it was early April and it had snowed after the rainstorm a few days prior. The temperatures had dipped below freezing. It was freezing in the apartment. She
looked over at the couch and found Bernie covered in a blanket. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. She did not want to scare him with a sudden noise, so she slowly walked over to touch him. He was cold, stiff, and unresponsive. She shook him to no avail. In her heart, she knew what she was seeing. Bernie was gone. She leaned over and hugged him. She thanked him for everything and cried. She went to the telephone to call the police.

When the ambulance arrived, they attempted to revive him to no avail. They announced him deceased at the scene. They inquired of next of kin, and Celia replied, “We are his family.” She informed them that she would let the others know. She went back downstairs and stood by the steps to collect her thoughts. She watched them remove his body, which was covered with a white sheet from the apartment. Her mind kept returning to the open windows. She looked up at them from below. When she was younger, her mother had told her that when a person dies, you have to open the window so the soul can go up to heaven. Celia wanted to think that he had known that it was time and had been letting himself go. She took the information she had about where he would be located and returned to the office to find the others and inform them.

When Celia returned to the office, all three guys were there, to her surprise. It was a rare occurrence these days for all three of them to be together with a few subworkers and security. They were having a discussion among themselves when she walked in. They welcomed her back in unison.
Her eyes were red and teary, with smudged mascara, as she had cried in the cab ride back to the office. All three looked at her. They asked her whether anything was wrong with her and asked everyone else to clear the room. They had never seen her in such distress. They wanted to make sure that she was OK.

“He’s gone,” she said.

“Who’s gone?” John asked.

She looked at him. “Bernie’s gone,” she replied. All of them stood silent. You could hear a feather hit the floor. They were all in shock.

Chapter 7

T
he first two weeks after Bernie’s sudden passing went by in a blur for everyone at the company. It was the first time in Chimera’s existence that they had no leader. Productivity completely halted for a week before Celia and John agreed to reopen the offices so they could move on and heal. John was a mess, and Celia thought that he should get out of the apartment. Jerome was stressed and sad. He had his parents, but Bernie was the second father to him and a person whom he felt understood him and his ambitions the most. Ben handled the situation the best way he knew how, by disappearing and indulging in mind-numbing narcotics.