XI.
Ben pulled the car into the parking lot of a little dive near Boston University. Jimmy peered out the windshield at the rickety building, weatherworn wooden frame and trimmed in shiny sheet metal. It had a painted wooden sign hanging over its door that was faded and chipping and its windows were misted, as though coated in grease. They had hung Christmas lights along the roof overhang and around the windows, but most of the strings had a dead bulb somewhere along them, they wouldn't light. There was a painting of a Santa Clause and his reindeer, but the reindeer all looked like road-kill and Santa looked reminisce of a heroin addict, with pallid skin and sunken eyes.
"Yeah, I'm not eating here," Jimmy declared.
Ben rolled his eyes, "The food here is actually really good. And you get a lot for cheap."
Jimmy stared at Ben blankly, blinked a couple times.
"I'm not even going to drink the water," he decided.
"Just get out of the car," Ben growled, muttering under his breath, "We can't all live in high-rise lofts and eat at fancy gourmet restaurants."
Side-by-side, they strolled up to the restaurant's entrance and Ben opened the door, ushering a disgruntled Jimmy inside. There were only a few patrons, mostly lone diners, sitting sparsely throughout the dining area. Ben scanned the restaurant, and then tugged out his cell phone. He had a new text message from Marty; she was running about ten minutes late. He shot off a text to Hatchet, 'we r here, where r u?', then motioned to an empty table and he and Jimmy sat down. The waitress brought them both glasses of water and menus. She had thick blonde curls, a long face, high cheek bones, and was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Her name tag read "Maggie".
"Can I start you boys off with anything?" she asked.
Jimmy spun the glass of water around, and squinted at it, wrinkling his nose, "A clean glass of water maybe..."
"Shut up," Ben seethed, and then to the waitress stammered, "He's just kidding. It's fine, the water is fine. Can we get a basket of cheese fries to start, please? With jalapenos on top…"
"I don't like jalapenos."
"Make that on the side. Thank you."
"Sure thing," the waitress said coolly, ripping the top paper off her order pad and slamming it at the kitchen window, bellowing to the cook in back, "Order a chedda' chips with a side-kick."
"I thought you weren't going to eat anything," Ben said.
Jimmy shrugged, pointing out, "You got up late, we didn't eat breakfast."
Ben sighed, "Don't be difficult."
"I'm not being difficult," Jimmy returned, looking somewhat hurt at the inclination.
Ben frowned, leaning back in his chair and resting his leg against Jimmy's under the table. Jimmy folded his arms on the table and stared at his water.
"There are things floating in this glass," he noted.
Ben rolled his eyes, smirking despite.
"We don't eat at fancy gourmet restaurants," Jimmy murmured.
Ben wrinkled his brow.
"What?"
"You said it in the car. We don't, my friends and me, we don't eat at fancy gourmet restaurants," Jimmy reiterated, dropping his gaze and sheepishly amending, "At least, not often."
"I didn't mean anything by that," Ben said.
Jimmy shrugged, frowning at the table unconvinced.
"Listen," Ben straightened in his chair and leaned forward, dropping his voice low, "When my friends are here, will you…" he faltered, shook his head and sighed.
"Will I what?" Jimmy pressed.
"I don't know. Watch your mouth?"
Jimmy sat up, raised his brow and demanded, "What?"
"No. I mean…what I mean is…" Ben fumbled for the right words, he took a deep breath and clarified, "You call me a dork and I don't care. I know I'm a dork, and it's fine, and some days I feel like, I don't know, you make out with me so you can call me whatever you want."
"It bothers you that I call you a dork?"
"No. Yes. Sometimes. No, that's not important," Ben stammered, continuing, "What I'm trying to say is that…well…my friends are dorks too. And they know that, and they don't care, they're fine with that. It's fine to be a dork. You're not, though…a dork, that is."
"No," Jimmy agreed.
"And when you're not a dork, and you call a dork a dork, well…well, it hurts our feelings," Ben said.
"So it does bother you that I call you a dork."
"Stay on topic, babe," Ben said, "This is important. My friends, they won't like if you call them 'dork'. Same goes for nerd, geek, or any other pejorative term used to reference an individual that is of above average intelligence, wears clothes and is interested in hobbies, games, etcetera, considered in the mainstream to be 'lame', in general, either does not practice good hygiene habits or is overly hygienic, and is regarded as being otherwise 'socially inept', 'awkward', 'odd', 'bizarre', 'peculiar', or just plain 'freaky'. So, I'm asking you, I'm begging you, baby, please, refrain from calling them any of those things."
"You dork."
"Jimmy," Ben groaned.
"What? I'm getting it out of my system now."
The door to the dive jangled, opening and then swooshing shut and Ben perked, and then waved at the newcomer.
"That's Hatchet," Ben explained.
Jimmy glanced over his shoulder at the now approaching young man wearing a polka dot bow-tie with a black t-shirt that said in white lettering, "the cake is a lie", black horn-rimmed glasses perched neatly on a long, broad nose, and then spun back to Ben and hissed, "Oh this is gonna be hard."
Ben stood and, extending a hand to his friend, who clasped it and gave it a good shake. They grinned at one another, exchanging pleasantries. Jimmy hastened to his feet as well, nodding acknowledgment at the boy.
"Jimmy, this is my friend Edwin, he goes by Hatches. Hatchet this is Jimmy," Ben introduced.
"Pleasure to meet you," Hatchet piped cheerily, taking hold of Jimmy's hand between both of his own sweaty palms and giving it an enthusiastic shake.
"Pleasure's all mine," Jimmy returned, sardonic, fighting the disgusted expression wanting to swarm his face.
As soon as Hatchet released Jimmy, Jimmy quietly excused himself to the bathroom, holding his hand out away from his body. The restrooms, as it turned out, were a revolting mistake. He shielded his nose from the god-awful smell using his t-shirt collar, washed his hands and used a paper towel to reopen the door, racing back out. When he got back to the table, the fries Ben ordered had arrived, and both boys were already halfway through the basket, chatting excitedly about something or the other, all Jimmy understood of their conversation was computer and game.
"So…Ed…why do people call you Hatchet?" Jimmy asked, looking quizzically at Ben across the table furiously shaking his head back and forth in warning.
Hatchet suddenly got misty eyed. He sniffled loudly and croaked out, "It was the name of my…uh…my first and still my best toon from Diablo. He died, during a…uh…an orc mob. Some bastard noob trained the whole fucking mob on me and…well…may Hatchet 1.0 always rest in peace."
Jimmy raised a brow at Ben, darting concerned looks to their company. Ben sighed and shrugged.
"Jimmy, Ben hasn't really told me anything about you, I got to say, I'm really curious. I mean, he's got a bad track record with guys, but I'm sure you know all about that," Hatchet said, suddenly cheerful once more.
"No, actually, I don't," Jimmy murmured, darting a curious look at Ben. They had never discussed exes before, Jimmy hadn't ever been with another boy and, for some reason he had simply assumed Ben hadn't either.
As Hatchet spoke, Ben dropped his eyes, studying the fry in his hand that was topped with a particularly large glob of processed cheese-stuff. His expression was unreadable, but his demeanor was a little gray.
"Well, long story short, he dates some real grade-A assholes," Hatchet explained. Ben made a face and put the fry back in the basket, turning his face away to glance out the restaurant front window, "I'm not saying you're an asshole. I mean, you're not an asshole, are you?"
"Uh…I can be," Jimmy said.
"Right," Hatchet chuckled, "We can all be assholes, I guess. I mean, I can do some real asshole things when I play Minecraft…wait, have you ever played Minecraft?"
"I don't even know…" Jimmy started, shaking his head as he mumbled answer.
"It's an awesome game, you should play. It's addicting though, it's dangerous around finals, I swear, you will lose your entire day. I mean you're like in this world that's like a giant tub of Legos and there are zombies and you have to build…well, you just build is really all you do. You build stuff. Oh, and you got to mine for stuff, blocks and things like that. The mining part is important. Sort of. Not as important as the building."
"Sounds…uh…Legos…zombie…what?" Jimmy darted a look to Ben who was muffling a laugh behind his palm.
"Do you play any MMOs?" Hatchet questioned.
"Do I play any what?" Jimmy gaped. He sent Ben a look in silent plea for help.
"He doesn't," Ben spoke up, "He does play some first person shooters, racing games…uh…he loves Mario Bros."
"I do…like Mario Bros…yeah," Jimmy confirmed.
"And he likes Legend of Zelda, also," Ben added.
"Oh, I see. A Nintendo, fan," Hatchet said, giving Jimmy a once over, "I guess you do kind of look like a little girl."
Jimmy's face wiped blank, and Ben smacked a hand over his face.
"Hatchet, no…" Ben hissed.
"What the fuck did you just call me?" Jimmy seethed.
"Well, I'm just saying, my little sister and all of her friends love their Nintendos," Hatchet shrugged, obviously missing Ben's signals to drop it, "I thought only girls and white otaku wannabes played Nintendo."
Jimmy opened his mouth to be angry, but was suddenly confused as to how he was being insulted and instead demanded, "What the fuck is an ota…what?" He shook his head, and grumbled, "I played when I was a kid, I don't really play video games anymore. Maybe when I'm bored but…"
"Yeah. Right," Hatchet returned skeptically, then hastily added, "Real men play WOW…is all I'm saying."
"Leave him alone, Hatchet," Ben grumbled.
The front door jangled open, and Ben and Hatchet both turned to look at the newcomer. Jimmy just buried his face in a palm, he wasn't sure he could take another one.
.
.
.
A/N: Okie, two things: I haven't much gotten into the characters of Ben's friends in Fire Light. I didn't want to go too much into it now, so please don't let this story's version of them color your thoughts of them in Fire Light. Also, confession time, Jimmy's friends are based more on people I hung out with in school and...now. No, I wasn't a pothead, yes, all my friends were...now you don't believe I'm not a pothead, seriously, why does this always happen to me. I'm not a foul-mouthed pothead, I'm just foul-mouthed, and I smoked pot once...twice...a few times! Fuck you people. Anyhow, Ben's friends are based more on...my older sister and her group of friends. Hence, I feel I write Jimmy's friends better, because I have a better working knowledge of those types of personalities...I guess...
Oh well...
Have you reviewed yet?