Memory #8

I always felt displaced in Ben Wash's house, like nobody actually lived there, even when one of his kids had a birthday with a pinãta downstairs, which should have clinched it for me.

One room once contained a very large portrait of two tigers, and if I remember correctly, it was propped against the wall. There were a couple of rooms into which I never ventured, which, in my experience, were kept dark. I was wary of them, and I wasn't allowed in one of them anyway.

Two big dalmatians were fenced into the back yard, behind the kitchen, and they always barked at me. I usually avoided the kitchen.

Bria taught me how to play a board game that originated in Africa, I think; it had little colored stones that you moved among compartments on the board.

Tabitha (who couldn't have been older than ten) had a Britney Spears cd and Ben made a sarcastic comment about how wholesome it was for her. I remember thinking, "You're one to talk."

He made us pasta once, for dinner. For some reason (and what follows is simply my thought at the time) it seemed surprising that someone so tall and thin, and so immature, could do something so parental as making a meal. Go figure.

One conversation sticks out in my mind, I guess because it startled me so much. I hadn't been to the house in a while. I sat down on one of the kids' bed and was talking to Bria when Ben walked in. He stood a couple of feet away and gave me a funny look.

"Who's this?"

Bria filled him in. "Amanda. You remember? She came over a few times before."

A pause. He stepped back and raised his eyebrows.

"...The Amanda? The girl with the ponytail-- that Amanda?"

It took me about three seconds to get it. Trying to hide my revulsion, I stared at him dryly.

He fake-laughed and said in a patronizing tone, "Oh, God, don't be scared. I'm not that sick."

As a thirteen-year-old, I had lofty dreams of converting Ben-- mostly through indirect, almost subliminal means such as cleverly worded Christian cds, because I knew I couldn't hold up my end of an argument with him. But whenever I actually stepped inside, all my fervor dissolved into bewilderment. He made half-jokes that I had surely heard terrible lies about him. He must've really thought I was horrified in his presence. I wasn't. I told him I wasn't. But I was sad.