Ben - A Prequel

Life From A Distance

Ben – A Prequel

One

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We Two Boys Together Clinging

-Walt Whitman (1819-1892 )

We two boys together clinging,

One the other never leaving,

Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,

Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,

Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.

No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,

threatening,

Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on

the turf or the sea-beach dancing,

Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,

Fulfilling our foray.

We were born on April 22, 1985. My brother Michael Benjamin came out kicking and screaming and I, Benjamin Michael, came out four minutes later the color of the deep sea. My umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around my neck two times, but somehow the doctor managed to get it undone in time to save my life. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if he hadn’t.

Mom tells me I’m her miracle twin, or at least she used to. As I grew up, I had to go to the pediatrician constantly until I started school. The docs were sure that I had brain damage: there was no way I could have been that blue and avoided it. After a time, and after more tests than I care to remember, they decided I was fine.

Mike and I were identical twins. We weighed the same, were the same length, same color hair, same eyes, same features, same everything. My parents had to keep us in separate cribs and dress us differently to know who was who. Dad joked that they wrote our initials on the soles of our feet to help. Somehow I don’t doubt they did.

Mom and Dad were just 18 and 20 when we were born. They were young for their age. Mom was barely out of High School in her freshman year at college, dad was a starting junior. It took them one night to conceive us. Dad married mom because it was the right thing to do, and later they actually fell in love. They tell me they were in love before they slept together to make Mike and I, but the dates don’t work out. I never called them on it.

My first real memory is of Mike. He and I woke up and he was laying next to me, staring at me. I think we were two. There was a sense of recognition, a sense of sameness between us. I was him and he was me. If you aren’t a twin, you can’t understand what it’s like. Mike and I were one person split into two bodies. We couldn’t stand to be apart even for the shortest amount of time. We followed each other everywhere, and I mean everywhere. We’d even go to the toilet together.

From that first memory of Mike, I can remember everything that has ever happened to me. My brother had the same capacity. It’s amazing what an ability like that can do to a sibling relationship. Since we both knew exactly what had happened, we had no reason to argue with one another. Our parents thought there was something wrong with us because we never fought. One drawback of our famous companionship was that we never tired of each other’s company. We made very few friends as we grew up, and neither of us really cared. It wasn’t until first grade that we made our first real friend.

Ian was a cute six-year-old boy with brown hair and green eyes. His family had moved to the area just after school started. Unlike the rest of our classmates who tended to leave Mikey and me alone, Ian came right up to us the first day he was in our class.

The first words out of his mouth were, “Wow! You guys look like twins!”

From that point on it was Ian, Mike and Ben. We became inseparable, joined at the hip. Teachers would separate us, our parents would ground us, and no one could keep us apart for more than a day. Ian introduced Mike and me to his parents on the second day he was in school. Edward and Elizabeth Kettenger were in their early thirties when I first met them, and they took to us as quickly as we took to them. It seemed like no time until Mikey and I began calling them Momtwo and Dadtwo after the little robot of science fiction fame. They thought it was cute, but our ulterior motive was to get out of having to say Mister Kettenger and Missus Kettenger.

Our parents were a bit more stiff than the Kettengers, and once they met they became decent acquaintances but not friends. My dad and Edward were on edge the whole time they were around each other. My mom seemed to feel that Elizabeth was trying to supplant her role as our mother in some way. Eventually everyone made their peace and we three kids came and went at either house with impunity.

The spring and summer of our first grade year was spent playing baseball. Ian, Mike and me were on the same team. It was there we earned the nickname IBM, and that nickname stuck with us. The parents started referring to us by that as well after hearing our coach use it at some of our games. They thought it was funny.

It was also that summer, July sixth to be exact, the three of us had our own blood-brother ritual. Mike took a knife from the kitchen and we all used it to slice our left thumbs deeply. We were bleeding all over the place, but we completed the ritual. Of course neither set of parents were exactly thrilled that we were playing with knives at seven years old.

Somehow that childhood ritual cemented our friendship even more, transforming it into something else: something beyond friendship. I loved Ian. Mike loved him, and I knew Ian loved us. We became brothers that day during our blood-brother ritual. It had a profound impact on all three of us. Being with Ian was like an addiction for we twins. Our parents thought we were hiding something when we began going out of our way to stay in their good graces so we could be with him. I can’t explain it better than that. Life was good.

When we were ten Ian had “that talk” with his dad, and of course Ian filled us in on all the gory details. Mike and I were full of questions and we’d give him a list to ask his dad the next day. Ed was always a good sport about it. Later, when Mike and I finally got up the nerve to ask him our questions in person, he was cool with it and did his best. Sometimes the questions we asked were beyond his knowledge and he’d direct us to the internet or the library. I don’t know if my parents ever knew that Ed taught us as much as he did: they never brought up the subject and neither did my twin or I.

It wasn’t to much after that when we heard the term “jerking off”. Of course we asked Dadtwo immediately. He stammered a bit before getting control of himself and then invited us into his den, something he had never done in any of our previous talks. We three boys sat on the couch and Ed pulled up his desk chair to sit in front of us.

He calmly explained what masturbation was and how all the stories about going blind and not being able to have kids later and growing hair on your palms weren’t true. He also said that it was something we should do alone and in private.

Ben asked, “Do what, though. How is it done?”

“I told you,” supplied Dadtwo, “It’s when you rub your penis until it feels really good and tingly.” He seemed to realize that wasn’t the question Ian was asking and continued, “It’s something you’re going to have to figure out for yourself, because everyone is different.”

Ian thought for a moment. “Dad, they guys I heard talking we saying that they did it together sometimes.”

“Some boys do that, Ian, and some don’t. There’s nothing wrong either way, but if you do decide to masturbate with another person, make sure that you are both comfortable and that it’s their choice to be there. Never force anyone to do something they don’t want to do.”

“So, if I wanted to mas-tur-bate,” Ian struggled with the unfamiliar word, “with Mike and Ben, it would be all right?”

Ed looked hard at his son, then he stared at Mike and me. After a moment, he nodded and added, “It would be fine, but if you do, do it in private. And before you do, please let me know so I can make sure you have the privacy you need.”

Two weeks later the three of use were jerking off together. It was innocence itself, just three boys doing what felt good. We were beyond being embarrassed around each other. We didn’t know to be embarrassed. It was totally normal, and it continued for quite a long time.

It was an added bonus that Ian hit puberty before we did, about nine months after we began our group play. He told us what he was going through emotionally, what was bothering him, and because of our activities, we saw firsthand what changes were happening to his body and when. Ian’s dad, Ed, was very open with us about what was occurring and why. Ian kept Dadtwo more or less informed about what was happening to his body, and the three of us would ask questions. Dadtwo bore it all with kindness and patience. When Mike and I hit the beginnings of our own adolescence, he was there for us too. It wasn’t that Momtwo wouldn’t talk to us or anything like that, but she would rather have us talk to Ian’s father since he was a man and knew more than she did. She was understanding, easygoing and awesome.

The Kettengers threw a party for Ian the weekend after we noticed his first pubic hair. It was a celebration of the beginning of Ian’s path to manhood. It was completely a family affair with Ian’s grandparents and an uncle attending in addition to ourselves. Mike and I wracked our brains to come up with a small gift for the occasion and decided on a nice razor and some shaving gel. He wouldn’t need it for years to come, but it was the only thing we could decide on. Ian loved it. Momtwo and Dadtwo smiled widely when he opened it and that made us feel good.

Our parents were as closed about sexuality as Ian’s parents were open. We tried to ask dad some questions one weekend and he freaked out. Mom was no better. She told us to ask dad.

For Mike and I, our home life was uninteresting. When we couldn’t be with Ian we would be out riding our bikes in the park or playing catch. We didn’t do a whole lot in the house because mom and dad wanted us outside enjoying the fresh air, such as it was, as much as possible.

When Ian was available, the three of us would try just about anything. We liked skating, biking, baseball, football, basketball, wrestling, and whatever else the local youth leagues set up. Our parents put up the money without question just to get us out of the house.

Mike and I talked about it a lot. Mom and dad didn’t seem to like us very much. They loved us, but we felt we were in the way more than not. They would try to pawn us off on friends or on the Kettengers so they could go out and do what they wanted to do, either together or on their own. My brother and I were just happy that Ed and Elizabeth liked us well enough to rarely turn my mom and dad down. Sadly enough, what my mother once feared was coming to pass: Elizabeth Kettenger was replacing her as our mother through her own actions.

In January of 1997, Mike and I hit puberty. The hormones were making us more competitive with one another but there were never any hard feelings involved. We still jerked off with Ian when we could, and when he wasn’t around we did it with just the two of us.

It was also about this time that we decided we were gay, or at the very least, bisexual. My brother and I talked about it openly with each other. We both agreed that Ian was hot, and that neither of us would do anything to jeopardize our fraternity with him, no matter how much we wanted to. We decided to keep our realizations secret from everyone.

Mike will always be my best friend no matter how far away he is, and Ian too. Mike knew everything there was to know about me, even the things I didn’t want him to know. Of course, I knew all about Mike as well, and Ian knew almost everything. I loved them like my brothers, because they were my brothers. We’ll always be together, a part of one another.

Saturday, June 14, 1997 started out as a perfect day. We’d just completed the sixth grade and were going into Junior High that fall. Ian was off with his parents taking an early summer vacation, so Mike and I decided to go riding before the temperature rose too high. We toured the various parks and stopped at a convenience store to get a snack before heading over to the Grand Avenue Marketplace, a huge shopping center including a mall and outlying shops and restaurants. I bought a CD we liked at a music store and Mikey bought a book that we both wanted to read. We ate lunch in the mall food court. I had a piece of stuffed pizza and Mike had a burger and some fries. After eating we went on a leisurely ride back toward home and found mom and dad were still there. Knowing they would send us out again, we didn’t even bother to stop.

We rode down to 9^th Street and up to Dogwood Avenue. The entire block on Dogwood between 9^th and 10^th was undeveloped. It was a field of tall dry grass dotted here and there with shrubs and bushes. Along the east side of the area ran a canal that followed Dogwood Avenue through the whole city. There were a couple streets that ran between Dogwood and Elyssum Avenue, but the vast majority of the mile-square lot was overgrown.

The area was bumpy and hilly enough to make for some good bike riding. We’d jump over small hills and bounce along over the rough ground staging impromptu races. Mike nor I had ever ridden in a competition, but we both agreed that it would be fun.

By three o’clock we were pretty tired and decided to head home. I took off and led the route back to Dogwood and noticed a decent sized hill standing at the edge of the canal with tire tracks running from the bottom to the top. I veered toward it and pedaled as hard as I could, launching myself into the air and over the water. Sliding to a stop on the other side, I looked back to see what was holding Mike up. When I didn’t see him come over the hill, I rode back to the canal to see my best friend, my brother, lying face down in the water. I stood there helpless, unable to move, and watched Mike drown. He died, and it was my fault. I had killed my brother. I had killed my identical twin. I had killed a part of myself.