better off dead -- benton vaughn

[like neon lights]

name: benton vaughn
age: 28
height: 6'2
weight: 180
sexual orientation: gay
occupation: los angeles county coroner
suffers from: panic attacks, severe social anxiety disorder, depression, insomnia
screen name: grave business
needs SLs, forthwith!




Benton never speaks, Benton listens. The dead don't ask questions, the dead don't make him uncomfortable, the dead don't make demands or stare -- they just lay there, waiting for him to decide what happened, waiting for him to bring them justice or bring them peace. He didn't have to worry about them talking while his back was turned or making fun of his lanky frame. They didn't make accusations of anorexia or tell him that being gay was a sin. No, they just accepted him for what he was; an animated corpse who'd earned a couple of degrees and fallen into a comfortable job with the county.

Benton didn't have any friends (unless you counted Larry -- but he was just the weirdo that wheeled all of the cadavers around... he smelled like tacos) or family (his mother had disowned him, called his lifestyle sinful) or pets. He didn't like to go out and drink with his co-workers, he liked to sit at home and read Voltaire, he liked to visit the museums just to watch people pass him by, he liked to sit in the park and scribble in a notebook that looked ratty and forlorn. People never equated a doctor with the ability to string words together, but he wasn't an ordinary doctor. People never thought doctors could be artists, but Benton was blessed with a steady hand and well trained eye -- when he put his pencil to paper, the world poured out.

But these were gifts he kept to himself, gifts that he wanted to give but couldn't. Benton Vaughn was a loner--a loner who didn't want to be alone, who stuttered, who couldn't bring himself to say hello to pretty people, who couldn't even make eye contact from across a room... a loner who had the biggest heart in the world but lacked the courage to share it with anybody else.

<font color="#FFCC00"><font size="1">[ August 19, 2004 02:17 PM: Message edited by: worthless ]</font></font>

<font color="#FFCC00" size="1">[ August 26, 2004 09:31 PM: Message edited by: worthless ]</font>

[like neon lights]

"Hey, Big B!" Larry was always very animated, even when he was wheeling somebody's dead grandmother down to the morgue. He always had a story to tell, a story that Benton knew had never happened, but he liked to listen anyway. He felt that it gave Larry a sense of satisfaction -- like maybe somebody really cared. "Brought ya another piece'a meat, man. They're droppin' like flies lately, boy -- you think it's the heat or what?" The conversations always started with a question, because Larry only heard Benton speak in partial sentences. As usual, though, he didn't get an answer in the form of words but only a gentle shrug of too-thin shoulders. "Yeah, I think it is too. So you want to go out tonight, man? I met this gorgeous girl named Sheila at the bar last night -- real fine ass, sweatheart too... but uh, I could maybe find you a friend'a hers or somethin'? You know, if you want to go..."

But Benton didn't lift his eyes from the chart in his hands when Larry made the offer, only stood there looking as pallid and waif-like as ever. "M-m-maybe next time." The stutter was what inhibited him most, it made him so self conscious.

"Yeah, all right. Well, you know, I can give you my cell number if you ever change your mind, okay?" Larry meant well, he really did, but Benton couldn't thank him for his efforts or even tell him that he appreciated the offers very much.

"O-okay."

"All right, man... well, I'll see y'round in a couple'a hours, I guess. I got some errands to run for Doctor B... he thinks I'm a fuckin' candy striper or something, I swear to god -- anyway, you take it easy man." Saluting the tall Doctor Vaughn as he pushed his way through the sterilized steel double doors, Larry felt a certain pang of guilt. Why was it so easy for him to make friends and so difficult for someone like Benton Vaughn? What had happened in his life, what was his story? Why didn't he let people get close, why did he hide behind corpses all day and hole himself up in his apartment at night? Larry didn't know and he wasn't sure he cared to find out. He was just fine with labeling Doctor Vaughn as the Creepy Coroner (like everybody else), content to leave him be until he made the effort to reach out.

But Benton was never going to reach out, he was going to die this way -- old, alone, unhappy and paralyzed by the fear that someday, somebody might get to know him... and not like what they found.

<font color="#FFCC00" size="1">[ August 19, 2004 01:13 PM: Message edited by: worthless ]</font>

[like neon lights]

In heaven everything is fine,
In heaven everything's all right,
In heaven everything is fine.
In heaven everything is fine.
In heaven...

Workin' on livin'
I'm workin' on leavin'
I'm workin' on leavin' the livin'.
Love you more than everything
Loved it more than anything
Loved everything more than anything
Workin' on drinkin'
I'm workin' on drivin'
I'm workin' on drivin' my dreams so
Workin' on livin'
I'm workin' on leavin'
I'm workin' on leavin' the livin'...

In heaven everything is fine...
In heaven everything is fine...
In heaven everything is fine...
IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE.

In heaven everything's all right
In heaven everything is fine...
In heaven.
-- Modest Mouse





The stutter, the stutter, the stutter, the stutter -- it was his beating heart, mocking him from beneath the floorboards of his soul, driving the fragile man out of his delicate psyche. The change in him was immediate, but small, when he learned that the world had better things to do than be out to get him... that the people in it had lives, lives that did not revolve around belittling his and causing problems. The Doctor wore gray today and though it did note a somber mood (as gray had become a somber suit color), the somber look was upon his face. Unyielding and unaltered, he looked as bored and bland as usual. Benton would have given the world for a reason to truly smile, something beyond forced reassurance lent to someone else who needed it.

People never reassured Benton because they caught one look at the gawky skeletal structure and assumed he was made of stone. The exterior by no means matched the interior and he assumed it was an overcompensation -- he needed to cope somehow, there needn't be a sign on his back "Help, I need friends -- I can't speak without stuttering or being spoken to first. Help! Befriend me!" Though sometimes he was fairly sure his body language alone gave off that impression. At any rate, the good Doctor Death had found a few people that had treated him well so far. A loony pair that had found their way into the morgue somehow and invited him for dinner (how he had agreed -- and gotten the address written on a toe-tag -- was beyond him still) and that lovely artist woman with the kind soul.

Perhaps things weren't all bad here and he hoped that maybe, someday, he might quell the obnoxious beating of his stuttering heart and replace it with something more refined -- something more akin to love.

[like neon lights]

I never used to be this tired.

I have angles and depth and breath and lungs and eyes and ears and I can hear every little whisper behind my back and feel every person who's uncomfortable in my presence. I'm quiet in person and loud on paper, I'm a man of few spoken words, chalked full of thought. Volumes upon volumes of thought, until I feel it may leak out of my ears and stain my carpet. I can write until my fingers ache or I can conceal it behind my clever facade of suits and ties and anemia.

I need to be saved, I need to relearn the fine of art living and laughing and loving and lying and kissing and hugging and hoping and praying. I haven't prayed in so long, I haven't had the heart to. God doesn't love sinners, that's what my mother said. I think that she truly believes that I have chosen this lifestyle, men over women, to hurt her in some callous attempt at righting the wrongs of my childhood. As much as I would love to take credit for that, to make her pain as unyielding as mine, I cannot honestly say that I have chosen anything thus far, besides my beloved occupation. Did I choose to stutter uncontrollably in the presence of most people? No. Why do I not stutter when I'm alone and why did I never stutter when I was with Vincenzo? I think I need that constant reassurance, the kind that my mother never gave me.

Oh no, here he goes, he's got a mommy complex... but it's the truth and denying that would not get my very far. I had a frigid mother who didn't care that I got beat up at school, who never told the goblins under my bed or the gremlines in my closet to go away, who never hugged and reassured me. One that made me function like a little adult at the age of eight, one who never cared that I existed until one particularly hot day in August, back when I was seventeen, she walked in on myself and Petey Masterson from down the street. We were "studying" and from then on things only got worse. It wasn't care, it was fear. Growing up in an overly religious little town outside of Amish Land USA (Pennsylvania, you know), the rumors that would have started could have put my mother in her grave. No one was to know anything about it and when I turned eighteen, I was shipped off to UCLA on a full ride because that's where the sinners are -- California.

I know I'm not a sinner anymore, I know that my mother just doesn't know any better. But it baffles me still that mothers are supposed to love their children, are supposed to be there regardless and unconditionally. I know now why my father left. It was like living with Carrie's mother...

I just wish I could have had a childhood, I wish I could have done the silly things that all children do. Instead, I got stuck grocery shopping and paying the electric bill before the age of thirteen. If anyone ever asks me why I became a coroner, I tell them that the science interests me. The truth of the matter is, cadavers make no judgements. Dead people don't call you names like Big Bird because you're tall and skinny and have a big nose, they don't laugh when you try to say something and the words get stuck so far behind your teeth that you stutter -- and it only gets worse because they're laughing...

It never used to be this way though, it never was this bad. I remember a time, before Vincenzo left me, that I could laugh... I could smile... I felt whole, I felt loved, I was needed.





I wish I could have that back.

I can't remember ever feeling this alone.

[like neon lights]

As usual, it was a rainy Friday night and Benton Vaughn was locked away in his apartment, flipping through the television stations mindlessly (though he was particularly intrigued by a gadget that took the egg right out it's shell...) and delving every so often into a bag of goldfish crackers. They had become a staple in his diet as of late, something he knew was entirely unhealthy and didn't care to remedy. For a coroner, he was surprisingly unkempt about health -- though he supposed he was entitled, after the childhood he'd had. His younger years had been full of hospital visits for every little cough or sniffle, for every bruise and scrape. They knew his mother by name and had the lollipops on hand when he came in.

Sophia, his mother, was a hypochondriac with a tendency toward paranoia. Though she usually kept herself under a prism of remarkable control, her son was the exception. She worried about him like no other; worried that he was too skinny, worried that he had an infection from a paper cut, worried that he had luekemia because a bruise appeared overnight -- she didn't know that he had fallen out of bed because he thought the boogie man was out to get him. But once he was eight, things changed. His mother got a cold and decided that she was dying and poor Benton was in charge of groceries, of getting himself ready for school, of everything -- just because his mother was insane. He never knew, not until years later, that something was very wrong with her. He never understood the sudden change between the caring soul he'd come into the world by and the newly frigid woman that barely acknowledged his existence, that didn't care if he fell down or if he was afraid of the monsters in the closet. He never would understand her either, he knew that now. Women were too complicated, women made his head hurt.

But we digress.

Benton was locked away in his apartment, as usual, staring at the television. He never ordered anything off of the informercials (he'd heard about the scams) but he liked to watch them anyway, late at night. There weren't a lot of other options and the way the people bounced and flitted about, the way they maintained their perfect speech and perfect hair through it all, it transfixed the Doctor momentarily, every so often. He'd flip back and forth between that and some live-action surgery (where he would scoff under his breath and make fun of the incisions) on the Discovery Channel.

This wasn't the way Friday nights were supposed to be, he knew. He was supposed to be at the bar, writhing around and being felt up -- that'd never really appealed much to him though. His asthma would act up if he got overheated and he was always lingering in a state of exhaustion. (That was the anemia at work.) So instead, he lingered in doors, staring at his television into the wee hours of the morning...

Praying for something better to come along.

[like neon lights]

It was the later part of the afternoon; he remembered because he was thinking about how fast the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, and how much he was going to miss summer. Warm days and sunny weather made him feel less alone -- something about the snow and ice left him with a hollow feeling, deep in his chest. Nevermind the Christmas holiday, which he always spent alone. Mom said that he couldn't celebrate with Jesus because he was a filthy sinner and Jesus doesn't love sinners. Benton was fine with that. He didn't want to be on good terms with anyone who would be so quick to judge him and tell him right from wrong.

Anyway, the sun was starting to hang low in the sky, but not low enough because he was still squiting his eyes against the glare from windshields and store windows with his arm while he walked back to the hospital. It became immediately clear that he never should have taken that break -- everything happened so fast.

"What's--" A man had stepped in front of him, shoved him into the alleyway. He didn't even have time to get a word in edge-wise because he was impaled all the way to the hilt of a very long blade. The doctor stumbled a moment before crumpling to the ground, clutching his red stained abdomen. On the way down, his forehead caught a protruding bit of metal from a trash bin and his forehead was the worse for wear. A gash from one temple to the other, practically, in a crazy diagonal pattern. The blood stung his eyes and Benton was too worried about living through this to care that the robber had taken his wallet and fled.

It wasn't until later, when he was half-conscious on a stretcher in the emergency room, that he even really comprehended what had happened. Even then, it was hard to take. Why him? What had he done wrong? Did anyone else have to go through this? Was God maybe punishing him? The questions were boundless and the answers non-existant, he knew. It just wasn't fair.

"You were very lucky, Benton. Very lucky. If there's a right way to get stabbed, you found it." His colleagues all smiled when they piled into his room, cooing and fussing over his bandages for about half a day -- then the novelty and gossip about Benton Vaughn being stabbed wore off and the only people who visited him now were Tobias and Elijah.

That was more than he'd ever expected in the first place.



<font color="#FF9933 " size="1">[ October 03, 2004 08:05 PM: Message edited by: worthless ]</font>

[like neon lights]

I worry. It is simly in my nature to do as such; I am worrier. It should come as no surprise to me now, as I sit here at my old kitchen table that came with this old apartment, that I'm worrying about whether or not things are going to be cemented the way I want them to be. This dog whose head rests across my foot was not only starved for food but for attention as well, and now that he has both I'm sure that he worries he might lose it again. I understand the feeling so well because it's resting heavily in the pit of my stomach as we speak, swelling with conviction until I will either be forced to vomit or let it overtake me.

I would really like to vomit right now, but osmosis is much more appealing.

I met a man named Elijah. A police officer by trade, he needed a friend and I needed a steady shoulder to hold me up and keep the pain in my side at bay. Being stabbed is an excellent conversation starter, that much I am sure of. But Elijah is more dynamic than I thought he would be, he is more akin to myself than I imagined anyone besides Tobias could be in this godforesaken city. Sometimes I even wonder about Toby, about his sanity and rationale -- but he covers me, he keeps me up to date, he keeps me sane when we're in the basement by ourselves, locked away all day with dead bodies. I can't recall a time in my life before this that I had unconditional friends. I don't remember the last time I was so comfortable around someone that I didn't stutter -- and suddenly I have amazing friends who accept what I am and what I am not, who listen even when I can't speak, who know where my train of thought has derailed at and backtrack to find it.

I appreciate that, I love them dearly -- and yet I feel as though I don't know them at all, I feel as though at any second this is going to collapse into a fantastic dream and when I wake up, the only warmth I'll have is the space heater near the bed. Or perhaps I'm in a coma now, after being stabbed (surely I wouldn't dream that up for myself, right?), and when I awake it will be five years later and everything I know will have turned to dust. Relationships will have frayed and people will be gone.

I'm so afraid that I'm going to wake up. I'm so afraid that this newfound confidence is going to deflate.

And I'm so fucking tired of being afraid.

[like neon lights]

For Elijah.
Thousand Mile Wish
Forgive me if now I wear the face of worry
This time alone could never cause any doubt
But I?ve been cold too long
Such a strange time to find myself coming down as the rain
With all the holes my love,
To fill up from the middle
This storm could stay all night

So can you stay until we close our eyes
Til your dreams hold mine
Just stay until we know we tried one more time

Cause laughing lovers can overcome their closest demons
And they?ll go on and they won?t let go
They saw something that they know
Has never come so close
Can it stay here for us, for now?

Can it stay until we know ourselves?
I?m torn as I tell
You?re the story that I know and fell from
I?m so far into your story I don?t know why
We think we?re in control
When we lie between the lines

We?ll find a line to follow
It?s got to show real soon
Or we?ll never reach this high

We climb a little further
Cause there?s nothing we can?t get around together
Further gets colder until nothing was all that I saw around

So we stay until the ground
That we can?t come down from splits us away
Maybe stars know why we fall
I just wish they were thinking out loud
Oh, I could wish all night
-- Finger Eleven.




October 19, 2004:
Things have been so... so.
I'm going to snap out of this though.
(It's either out of it or snapping period -- I've already been snapped before.)
It isn't as easy as it sounds and you'd think I'd know that by now.
But I'm going to snap out of this, I promised myself.