Walking half sober to John was the same as walking while nearly asleep. The shapes felt too general, the bodies looked far too familiar and yet so distant. There was a dim, hard hope that someone would recognize him boiling around in that brain of his. And a distant thankful sigh when no one did.
It felt so familiar, the lonely walking. Ryan was good about understanding the faraway glance in John's eyes when they just walked together, sometimes holding hands. John missed the chance sometimes to walk by himself. Ryan never smothered him, but there were even some things that John couldn't understand. A chill went down his spine when he realized that this was not a part of his world that Ryan could touch, even if he called and asked him to come. This was a part of his life that he had to deal with on his own.
To say the very least, John did not feel prepared to deal with it. The idea of it as a whole made John feel small, a very nervous and frightened kind of small. Spring thaw was setting in late and yet John continued to bundle in tight to himself as he sobered. His feet did the main job of carrying him. He was far too alone in his own head and in the fresh air. Everywhere he looked, he saw Ben or a memory, a few fake ones he had even made to fuel his grief. John knew he wasn't being incredibly healthy. The trouble was that John wasn't even sure he cared anymore.
A small part of him knew where he was going. It wasn't Michael's apartment or the comic book shop. He wouldn't be able to face the Diner or the stage at the moment. Those were shared experiences and he felt far too lonely. No, when the feet finally stopped moving, John found himself staring up. He felt old, the place cold and distant. Ben's light was still on, his blinds half open.
It was that place that could have made the tears begin again. Well, that is if he hadn't dehydrated himself over the past few days. John sniffled, tracks of invisible tears lining his pale cheeks. It seemed wrong somehow, it all just seemed wrong. How long ago had it been when he had just been in that office, leaning back in a chair and reading while pecking at a tuna fish sandwich every now and then, listening to Ben talk excitedly about a tea that was coming in special order?
John had to keep moving eventually. He couldn't risk drawing attention to himself. True, it was a big campus and true, there were many people walking by. But John knew he attracted natural attention and that there were many people on this campus who knew him by proxy. The great saga of John's first adult years. It sounded like a novel in motion.
There were only two quiet places on the entire campus where still sitting and glazed looks would be acceptable enough to pass through. One was the upper floor of the library, but John had a feeling that he would kill Anthony if the kid were working today. Anyone connected negatively to Ben was not worth dying for, he knew that inside, but the rage and sorrow that boiled over onto his skin could never be contained. The way Ben had been lulled and ambushed made John clench his fists. It had only been Ben's intervention the one time that had stopped it from occurring. And Ben couldn't stop it now.
The other option was the chapel. No, not the big Catholic monument just off campus that most of the Christian folks haunted. This place was different. It was more of an off-shoot of the diversity buildings where the social justice communities were housed. John remembered how Ben had reacted about every project he had done with them, as though he were proud of John for merely attempting something. All the time and resources expended on making Ben proud. John knew he had to sit soon or his knees would collapse from all the thinking.
The little house chapel was beyond the grove of buildings that sloped near one of the sides of the campus. It was tucked away, off the radar of the official maps. They had all abandoned the places to the freaks and hippies. People like John that needed real acknowledgment and real community. They had hired her as an afterthought and John had met the female preacher a few times. She was nice enough and blessedly out of the chapel when he got there.
It was partly the jet lag still, partially the hangover, and mostly the emotion of everything he had been cramming into his soul and trying to drown with booze. It was a fear that he felt crawling over his skin again. It was the tears that wouldn't come. John wasn't sure he would remember how. But in this small place, a slicing crack of stained glass lighting the candles playfully, John folded his hands for the first time in who knows how long.
They squeezed together until the knuckles were white. His skin still smelled like the bottle, his hair greasy. But John found himself awash in the painful emotions of his dead spirit. He felt dead without Ben. He knew his body survived, but the rest of him placed blame squarely on his own shoulders. All the ifs came back: the ones about Ryan and England, about his birthday, about Priest. He felt like curling up on the hard wooden pew and waiting for death.
His head turned when Vivian entered the building. It had been a long time, or perhaps the wind was just stronger today than he had initially thought. She looked just a hint older and a hint colder than himself.
"I didn't mean to interrupt." She called from the back of the room.
John shook his head. "It's a public building."
Vivian walked up the small aisle, sitting in the row ahead and watching the candles flicker for a moment. "I'm surprised to see you. I thought you were still in London."
John narrowed his gaze. "How did you know about that?"
Vivian turned in her seat, brown bangs sweeping across her brow. She pushed them back with her clean and polished nails. "After you left, Professor Bruckner began joining us for different events. He claimed you had got him interested and he thought I'd like to keep tabs."
John smiled half-heartedly. "Sounds like him."
Vivian let her eyes cast down. "I'm sorry." Her arm came across the pew and gripped John's shoulder.
John felt his hand cross over hers and squeeze. In older days, he would have embraced her, perhaps cried in her arms a little and felt much better. "Me too."
"I wish you could have come back with happier circumstances."
"You and I both."
"How long are you staying?" Vivian's eyes were filled with concern.
John sighed. "I don't really have any plans at the moment."
Vivian turned back to face the front. "You know, I think about what's happened and I worry. I worry about him and you and myself and the future."
John responded wryly in rote. "God clothes the sparrows. So why should you worry about food or shelter?"
Vivian shook her head. "That's not what I mean, and you know it."
John suddenly found his fingernails very interesting. "I try not to think about it. Good is too morally relative to matter in terms of heaven."
"What about happiness?"
"Of who, Viv? The people he's left behind or those who were waiting for him like Vic?"
Vivian waited a moment to respond. "Are you more bitter or afraid?"
John chuckled, causing Viv to turn and look into his red eyes. "Neither. I've pushed it so far down that I'm not sure I'll ever really be able to think about it."
"How are you going to grieve?"
John shook his head, avoiding her concerned gaze. "I don't think that far ahead. I can barely keep up with my own performance dates."
"Do you think this is what Ben would want for you?"
"That doesn't matter anymore."
"I think it matters a great deal."
John stopped a moment. "Have you been talking to Michael?"
Vivian nodded. "We've met a couple of times to discuss things."
"Huh. Vivian, if you don't mind..."
She nodded, getting up. "I understand. But think about how many people's lives Ben touched. You can't believe that you're alone. Not even you."
John wasn't sure how long he sat there. The place was warm enough and the pews stiff enough that he didn't want to sleep, just sit. He began to cry again, softly. The tears were alien and painful across his swollen cheeks. If God was talking, John couldn't hear.
Eventually, he thought to move, taking the side exit so as not to disturb Vivian in her tiny office, crammed with equality paraphernalia and such. The back of the chapel led through a small, circular dirt path that had all but been forgotten. Weeds didn't grow and the earth was hard-packed in the place. There was a bench stuck unceremoniously in the midst of the dirt. John knew the feeling. The desolation, the abandonment, the potential all withering away behind a chapel.
He sat on the bench and just looked at the dirt. John sat hunched over, doubled over from all the pain and alcohol and memories. Humans, he thought, we know how to punish ourselves. We know it better than any other species on this planet. Even the flowers....
John fell down to his knees, squinting in the dirt. He began to dig with the tips of his fingers. Clods of dirt grabbed his nails. He stopped a moment to catch his breath and then continued scratching away and sweating. He gave a furtive glance when he found it. There it was, a deep red wild flower growing in impossible odds. It was the prettiest thing John had ever seen.
It is said that purpose and action give you the power to overcome. Not even John was sure he believed that, but all he knew was that the dull ache and bleeding hours began to fill with the sense of project. The place behind the chapel became his anthem and his theme. It was a reminder that his hands still moved. It was a chance to study and learn again, to feel the earth and the sky and remember. It was the reason that he finally took the call from Devon.
He heard Vivian's footsteps in the makeshift garden. "You're doing a wonderful job."
John stood, wiping the dirt on his jeans. "I'm sorry. It's not my garden, I know, but..."
Vivian raised her hand. "Please don't explain. I know Ben brought you out here."
John looked around, slightly aware that Ben's name was still a very twinge in his body, but not the chasm of pain it had been. "Do you think so?"
"It's fitting. And I've petitioned the school to name the garden after him."
John scoffed. "He did have tenure. How fast did they turn you down?"
Vivian smiled, shaking her head. "They didn't."
John gasped as she produced a bronze plate from the pocket of her robes. "Since there's a bench already here, I just thought that we might memorialize the place. It's only fitting."
John nodded. "When it's finished and things have begun to grow. Before I return to England and maybe with Michael here. I couldn't thank..."
Vivian reached in, pulling John into a hug. "I didn't do anything, John. You survived and he would love that as a testament to your friendship. Maybe even more than the garden itself."
