Careful--- another story

**dwim** · February 5th, 2001, 08:02 AM

Ben Whitehouse had a feeling that he will win this game that he was playing. It was a cold afternoon and that feeling of things happening was just in the air. He felt something can happen, anything can happen. His opponent, Huey, a black man with dreadlock who often take breaks at the coffeehouse from his paintings by playing chess, had pretty much wiped out most of his pieces with his queen. It seemed somehow lucky that Ben still got his queen, one knight, two castles, and a couple of his pawns.
Then that when Ben saw it: a clear space down to Huey's king. Ben's queen is sitting in front of his castle. All he had to do was move his queen down to the left side of Huey's king up one square ahead. Huey did not have his rook. Ben took that rook about five moves ago. It seemed safe and a good way to get him in a checkmate and that's what Ben went ahead and did it.
Huey looked at this brand new move then let out a joyous air of excitement. "Good move there!" A witness saw all this and let out an air of wow. Huey started laughing about all this and reasoned to the witness that he had moved his queen too much, getting too offensive that he had let his guard down.
In the 'smokey room' of The Gocchami Coffeehouse, everybody were joined in one conversation involving relationships and for some, people that they had loved before.
"I hate it when I'm walking down the street and there's guys hollering 'baby' out of their cars," Mindy explained. "I do not find that really enjoyable. I mean, what do they expect to gain from action like that?"
Here, Huey got his mind off the outcome of the game. "It's all about conquest. To some guys, it's all about having sex with the most girls. Luckily, some guys don't place too much importance on that. I know I don't. Ben here don't. It's about getting the most pussy as possible for some guys. I used to think that way but I grew up. Now that I've grew up, I found it to be childish and selfish, not to mention egostitical to think that every women that walks down the street would want a guy like me."
Ben remained quiet. He lit up his cigarette and leaned back in his chair to listen.
There were about seven people in the room all connected for one point in the world's time joined in this conversation.
Mindy was a roomate's of Goerge, who, several months previous, had started a lawsuit that had cuaght the attention of local newspapers and was going through the courts. It would end up in The Supreme Courts. She had since moved out of Goerge's apartment and moved in with June.
Mindy Greene brush back her blond hair, listening to Anna tell her story.
"I met this men one night at a bar," Anna began. "After awhile, I started believing that it's was turning to something serious. It got to the point where I took him home and told my daughter that we're going to get serious from here on out. My daughter said ok and went to her room for the rest of the night and this guy slept with me in my room. It was the best sex of my life. Then the morning came and the guy said that he cannot get into a serious relationship because he's still in love with some other girl. That's when I said, 'All right, but you're walking home.' So he left and started walking home. I don't understand what it was to this day, but I think it was how he just walk out that door so calm and cool as if he was acting that he had done this thing before. My daughter came out of her room saying that she needs a ride to school. At that moment I was so mad. We got in my car and I saw him walking along the road and I was just trying to run him down all the way to his house. I was just following closely behind shouting out profanities out of that car at him all the way to his house."
Anna was the oldest in the room, but not without a young heart. Everybody was good friends with Anna and they loved her so they think of her as the 'experienced young.' More of a young person with so much life fulfilling experience. She teached at a Junior High where kids call her witch and she had so many stories about how she took advantage of such rumors that would've sent another person on a hysterical war path. Anna was fifty years old but most everybody thinks she's at least forty with a spirit of a twenty one years old.
"How long ago was this?" Mindy asked.
"A long time ago but my daughter talks about it all the time."
"Yeah, I hate guys who just seem to be out for one night stands," Mindy stated. "All I can think of is how pathetic that they think can get every girl to cream."
"I think it's all in the mind," Huey spoke up. "I practice this thing called tantra. IT's a practice where I would make love to woman for as long as possible without coming. I only do it with this girl that I've really loved all my life. It's quite enjoyable."
"Yeah," Anna replied. "I kept myself for husband and he never made me orgasm. It wasn't until the one night that I cheated on him that I was able to orgasm and it was the greatest feeling I ever had. No one had made me scream since that guy."
There were stories told of orgasm spread around the room except for Ben and this other guy listening in with his arms crossed keeping quiet. As for Ben, he could tell all about this fling he had with an older woman, the best relationship he had all his life at the age of nineteen, but he felt that the information is best kept quiet. He had talked about her enough and whenever he tells someone of her, he missed her. He was now twenty five and she had been out of his life for quite awhile.
The guy who had his arms crossed spoke up the reason why he's really wanting to keep quiet on this subject.
"I've never had an orgasm," he spoke up.
Now everybody in the room fell to a deafly silent shock.
"Never?" Mindy asked.
"No, not even with this girl that I loved a couple years ago. She would just keep rubbing against me and I still wouldn't feel the pleasure of it."
"Did you try jacking off?"
"Once but nothing."
There was sadness as the guy went through the many ways that he had tried and all the attempt proved to be futile.
Ben started to feel respect for him to be able to say something like that so open and so beautifully honest. Ben was the type of guy who much rather keep quiet about such things and keep it between his partner and himself.
Without a moment hesistation, Ben offered his hand to the guy. "I'm Ben."
"I'm Leonard," the guy replied.
"How were you able to say something like that?"
"It's the truth. It's been like that all my life."
"Yeah," Ben replied. "I can't tell you how I understand that kind of thing. For some reason, I wish I could."
Ben wanted to become Leonard's friend somehow. He had seen him around the coffeehouse involved in some conversation about the state of the government but never joined in anything with him until now.
"Well, all I can complain about is how my relationships just ends up right in the gutter. I once had this ex-girlfriend who I bought tickets for to see her favorite band. I guess it didn't occur to her how much I loved her enough to do that for her. But, one night, just two days before the concert, she told me that she had sex with someone else the week before that. Man, I was so mad that night. But I took her to the concert anyway and everything just started breaking down from there. It got to the point that she didn't say goodbye to me before she left for the military."
"It seems to me like she's trying to tell you that she's not worth your love there," Leonard said.
"Yeah, that could be it. The damned thing about that is, I haven't found any other girl that I want to fall in love with."
"I heard you read poetry here every Thursday night and saw you hanging around Genevieve. Didn't you ever think that Genevieve was worth your love?"
Ben had met Genevieve about several months ago in this very 'smokey room' and she was a fellow poet who got her own chapbook out just about a previous few weeks. They became friends and it got to the point where they started trading e-mails over the computer.
"Yeah," Ben replied in deep thought now. "For awhile, I was thinking that I could love her and, in a way, I do. But there's so much respect for her poetry that I didn't want to go the whole serious relationship way."
"Well, there you go. By the way, you read some good poetry up there. I liked hearing you read."
Ben thanked Leonard then said that he had to get going to his classes. As he went around the room telling everybody bye, Huey had told him that he played a good game once again. As a matter of fact, the chess board was left alone.
"Yep, he had captured most of your pieces," Leonard said to Ben.
"Be careful," Anna said to Ben.
Ben turned his head towards her, pausing on his way out the door with a cocky grin and replied, "You know I'm always careful."
That night, while working at a transportation company on a graveyard shift where he works to help carry him through school, he had recieved a sharp pain on the back of his neck. He was down in the belly of a trailer loading packages down under the flaps. The trailer had gotten busy and so many packages started to seem to come down all at once. A somewhat haevy box went off the rail and went down on to unsuspecting Ben. It knocked him down to the floor, knocking his glasses off. Needless to say, there were loud curses ricocheting around the trailer.
A supervisor was walking by the trailer and, just by chance of looking into the trailer, saw Ben head snapped back. To him, it seemed to be in all slow motion. The box fell off slowly, hit Ben on the neck, Ben's head snapped back, then Ben was out of sight. The supervisor, a former Marine named Will, feared the worst and rushed to see if Ben was all right. Upon getting into the trailer, he found Ben trying to find his glasses amid the boxes still coming in. WIll found his glasses and asked Ben if he's all right.
Ben mentioned that his neck was in a sharp pain so Will went and got an ice pack for Ben. "Just punch it and it's ready," Will informed him.
Ben punched the ice pack and placed it on the back of his neck. It felt cool and soothing. The trailer was hot so it was quite a relief. Before Ben left work that morning, he through another ice pack.
Will walked with Ben on the way out of the building.
"You are one lucky guy," Will said to him. "I could swear I saw your neck snapped back. Somebody was sure watching your ass, it's like you got angels or something like that."
"Yeah," Ben nodded. "I guess I got some guardian angels."
Next day, he sent Genevieve an e-mail about the incident mentioning something about the gaurdian angels. Genevieve sent back an e-mail the day after that saying, "But don't you think that, if you had a guardian angel, the box wouldn't have fallen on you in the first place?" Ben would get that message Friday night.
In the whirlwind of all this, Will asked Ben how his neck was feeling. Ben mentioned that there was still some pain but just a little bit. It would get better in time.
Ben met Leonard on a Tuesday. It was now Thursday when Ben showed up at The Gocchami Coffeehouse feeling quite happy about things. It was hours before a poetry reading. After Ben got his coffee and walked into 'the smokey room,' Anna jumped up from her chair and led Ben back out to the adjoining room.
"I got some bad news to tell you," she said.
Ben inquired as to what had happened.
"Leonard got killed Tuesday night."
Then Ben went quiet as Anna mentioned that she saw Genevieve earlier that day and that she took the news hard.
"I didn't even tell him bye that night. I just assumed, took it for granted, that I'll see him again."
Ben was all ready deep in his own thought. He was thinking about the box falling on his neck and how Will had told him the previous night that he was lucky he didn't get killed. Ben had just laughed at that statement. All of a sudden, it wasn't funny anymore.
Where was Leonard's guardian angel that night?
Ben thought of the movie "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With me" where Laura Palmer's gaurdian angel were represented by paintings along her wall. Through out the movie, they were disappearing one by one until the last one disappears on the night of her death. She had actually sat down and watched this last angel disappear the night she was killed.
Ben's mind was starting to go wild with grief as Anna got up and went back to 'the smokey room.' There were thoughts of dreams that Ben had about a place to call home. A place to stop and smell the flowers every once in awhile with a family kind of life where he comes home to see his wife and take in her news of the day, whatever she'd be doing. He felt nowhere near that simple kind of life yet.
Mindy sat down across from Ben.
"Have you heard the news?" she asked. Ben mentioned that he did.
"I find it so sad," she continued. "That he didn't even experienced the pleasure of an orgasm."
Ben wished he knew the guy more than he had the opportunity to do. He had shook his hand then Leonard was called off somewhere else all of a sudden. They said the death was at 4 in the morning. This struck Ben hard. It was at about that same precise time that the box had fell on his neck. Now the pain in the neck seemed like a blessing but Ben wished the guardian angels could save and protect Leonard instead.
He didn't show up for his classes that night. He drank tea instead of coffee all that night towards the poetry reading. 'The smokey room' was quiet most of the night and no chess game was played.
Ben had a new poem to read and one of the lines went "Every seconds click to the big bang." He had wrote it the previous Friday as a tribute to a poet who had committed suicide a long time ago. He wasn't thinking but then it struck him hard how that line felt much too true at that time. No one knew anyone would die the previous Friday. No one can know. Ben had it in his head that he would read this new poem on that Thursday night and it was a coincidence that someone would die just before that.
Ben thought of how Leonard may have heard that poem. Maybe his spirit walks the room.
Ben had met him once, but this death and the events of his own life surrounding would haunt him for the rest of his days. Ben knew it at that precise moment.
He was late to work that night. Will didn't mentioned about the accident that had almost happened. Ben went quietly to bed thinking about Leonard and his own place in the world and how little time there seemed to be to do all that needs to be done, the important things that really matter. Ben learned that Leonard was only twenty one years old.
The next night, Ben saw Genevieve e-mail with the reply about guardian angels. "Don't you think that, if there are gaurdian angels, that the box wouldn't have hit you in the first place?" she wrote.
Ben thought, for a moment, about joking comment. He had it written in the e-mail box but then deleted all of it and wrote about Leonard instead, about how he just met the guy on Tuesday. Genevieve didn't go to the poetry reading the night before.
Ben went outside of his school building to smoke a cigarette. The day was nice. Sun was shining and everything just seemed so beautiful with the sky so blue. There were the engine sound from the car traveling on the highway running right by the school building. It occured to Ben, at that moment, that he need only to feel lucky to be alive. It was all the luck he needs. As long as he is alive, that's all the luck that he needed. Eveything can go wrong and they will, but as long as he was alive, he can fix all that and them move on.
He plan on driving to his own family about two and a half hour away from Indianapolis the next day so he went to give them a call as to let them know when he'll be home.
"Be careful," his mother said on the phone.
Ben grinned, "You know I'm always careful." Then Ben noticed that the feeling that always come with saying that was gone. The statement felt totally empty. "Let me take that back," he said this in a hurry to prevent them from going on to hang up the phone. "I'll try to be careful ok?"
The next day, waiting on meeting with Genevieve to make plans on their friend's birthday which was up coming, Ben looked at a burning candle in 'the smokey room' and had a silent moment moment in respect of Leonard.

**dwim** · February 7th, 2001, 05:32 PM

the story up above is just one of the story that is part of a novel i have in works, mainly surrounding a coffeehouse with differnet characters and such... the following in this post is just an introduction kind of thing.

Prologue
In Indianapolis, at the intersection of College and Michigan near downtown, there was a coffeehouse. Johnny Strucci, an Italian who owns the place, was at loss for a name until he overheard a religious conversation among the Buddhists, and heard the word 'gocchami' and decided that he liked the word enough to call it The Gochammi Coffeehouse.
The building was old but homely enough to the people who were drawn to it. In a few short months, it had became a refuge for the poets, artists, young people disenfranchised with the world around them, as well as people who loves coffee. The young people who could be found working behind the counter are mostly college student and this is their only job that carries them through college. The coffeehouse was divided into two rooms. One part is called 'the smokey room' as Johnny loved to put it and the other room was where the counter was, along with tables here and there. The furniture were among the antique variety, found in thrift shops and antique stores that were mostly dotted about the town. Along the walls were mostly paintings hung by artists who was hoping for them to be sold to those interested and others, artists not in it for cash, just there for a show.
The patrons felt free enough, not to mention bold enough, to bring guitars and other musical instruments to play in the smokey room. The poets came to share their works with others. The artists came to relax with a cappucino, caffe latte, or a cup of French Roast, as a way to take a break from work.
The coffeehouse in a few short months became a haven of young Libertarians, poets, chess players, punk in the true sense of the word, goths, musicians, and those who feels left out of the world.
Johnny welcome all and whoever. All was welcomed into his little humble coffeehouse on the corner of Michigan and College.
To some, it became a refuge. The one place in the world where they can look forward to be seen at. To most, it became a home away from home. Here, they became part of a family that refuses to judge and always there to comfort those left out of the world.
They've learned a lot at The Gocchami Coffeehouse. They've learned how to be human beings, how to stand up for themselves, and how to just hang in there in order to continue living.
This is about the one coffeehouse that had truly stood out from the rest and there may never be another place like it that carried its human spirit.
But the world would be truly blessed if there were only more like it.