Ben Soul

neighbors very little. Ben let Butter in and gave her a morning treat. She went back to bed. Ben sat in a kitchen chair, letting the cold wood impress its chill on his body. Misery welled in him.

  He contemplated himself. So folded and flabby, he thought. His bloated belly, covered with goose pimples and fine gray hairs offended him. He felt old and unlovable. He sat in the cold chair deepening his gloom while morning cajoled the shadows into the corners of the kitchen. One by one, he noted the ache in each of his joints, committing the catalog of pain to memory. He thought about making tea, and he thought about going back to bed. Neither thought moved him to action.

  A small scrabbling noise distracted him. Some rodent rooting in the walls, perhaps. He listened. A loud meow shattered the mother-of-pearl morning light. Ermentrude intruded from behind the stove. Butter raced from the bedroom, barking furiously. Butter frightened Ermentrude, who leaped from the floor to Ben’s bare lap and then to a clawing perch on his right shoulder. All Ben’s morning misery rose like bile in his throat.

  “Bad dog!” he yelled at Butter. “Bad, Bad, Bad!” Butter kept barking; Ermentrude sunk her claws deeper into Ben’s now-bleeding shoulder. Ben reached with his left hand and took Ermentrude by the nape of her neck. He was sorely tempted to shake the cat with an eye to breaking her neck, but he forbore. He took her to the front door, pursued by the furiously barking Butter, opened the door and its screen a crack, and dumped the indignant cat on the porch. It spat at him as he closed the door. Butter continued to advise the cat of its proper place in the scheme of things.

  “Damn it, Butter,” Ben yelled, “shut the hell up!” He stamped his feet at her, and grabbed a newspaper, rolled it up, and swatted her. “Shut up!” he screamed at her. Butter slunk off to the bedroom, her final refuge. This furious Ben was a creature she had never seen, and did not want to know.

  Ben went to the bathroom and put some antiseptic on his cat scratches. Then he went to the kitchen and made his tea. It did not mellow him. He was tired. He hurt. His mind went round and round the “if-only Dickon had…” track, until his thoughts jangled in his mind like an out-of-tune calliope on an un-greased carousel. His mind was bitter; his tea was more so. He poured out half the second cup.

  The cold came through to him at last. He went into the bedroom to dress. He put on his jeans and a warm shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed to put on his shoes and socks. Usually Butter came, at this point in their morning ritual, and put her head under one or the other of his arms to nuzzle him so he would rub her. This morning she lay on the floor on the other side of the bed, nose between her paws, her eyes filled with reproach. Ben ignored her. When he left the bedroom, she did not follow him as she ordinarily did. Ben did not notice.

  Ben pulled out the stove a little way to look for Ermentrude’s entry point. He soon found it. A patched board over a hole where pipes had once passed through the floor had come loose. The cat had shoved it aside to obtain entry. Ben put it back in place, and nailed it down. Mice still might slip through the crack; mice were able, Ben believed, to flatten their bodies to a single molecule thickness to get through a tight place. Cats were clever, but could not flatten themselves as much as the mice could.

  When he had patched the hole and pushed the stove back, Ben tried to read, but his grinding mind could not stop wheeling long enough to concentrate on the words on the page. Eventually he dozed as the morning turned warmer. Butter came to bark an announcement that someone was knocking on the door at half past ten. When Ben opened it, Dickon stood on the porch. Ben invited him in. Dickon took a chair. Butter came to him and put her chin on his thigh. Dickon fussed over her; it was a way to delay whatever confrontation he was about to have with Ben.

  Ben broke the uneasy silence first. “Want some tea?” he asked.

  “No,” Dickon said. The silence returned and fermented between them. Dickon went on rubbing Butter’s ears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I was a prick at Pueblo Rio.”

  “A prick is what I missed out on,” Ben said acidly. Dickon swallowed hard, and looked at the floor with great intensity.

  “I’m trying to apologize.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to hear an apology.” Ben glared at Dickon. Then he shrugged. “Sorry. I’m in a foul mood. Ermentrude intruded, again.” Ben coughed. “Clawed my shoulder.”

  “What?”

  “Ermentrude clawed my shoulder.” Ben almost snarled the sentence. “She jumped up on me when Butter started barking at her. I hadn’t dressed yet.” Ben scowled at Butter, who studiously ignored him. Dickon kept rubbing her head behind her ears. “I had to yell at Butter several times to shut her up.”

  “No wonder Butter’s so friendly with me,” Dickon said. He leaned forward, to talk directly to Butter. “Grumpy boss this morning?” She gazed at him adoringly. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid. I wasn’t very nice to your boss.”

  Ben got up and went toward the kitchen. “Sure you don’t want some tea?” he said. “I know I need some.”

  “None for me,” Dickon said, getting up to follow him. “I’ll sit with you while you have it, though, if you don’t mind.”

  “Suit yourself.” In the kitchen, Ben busied himself making tea. Butter sat by her food dish, and gazed at Dickon. She hadn’t forgiven Ben yet.

  “Does Butter need her meal?” Dickon asked.

  “It’s a little early. You can feed her, though, if you want. She likes you best this morning.” Ben’s jealousy curdled his voice.

  “Hey, Ben, Butter’s not done anything wrong. She only tried to save you from a wild pussycat. Lighten up on her.”

  “Don’t be lecturing me on how to live with my dog.”

  “You’re pissed off with me. You get Butter’s meal, while I fix your tea. You make up to her.” Dickon spoke in a quiet voice, with all the authority he had learned to exercise years ago in the pulpit. “Furthermore,” he went on, “when you’ve finished your tea, you take Butter out for a run on the beach. You run with her. Get rid of the nasty things between you. If you’re lucky, she’ll forgive you.”

  “Yes, master,” Ben said, sarcastically.

  “You and I will talk later. I’m going home now. You make nice with Butter. When you’ve got that settled, and then we can maybe sort some things out. Butter, be patient with him. He’s only human at his best, and a little less than that today, I think.”

  Dickon turned and left the kitchen. Butter followed him. Ben heard the door shut and the clink of Butter’s chain as she came back to the kitchen. Silently he fed her, and sat to drink his tea. When he finished his tea, he got her leash, and Butter began to forgive him.

  Ben Redemptus

  Ben took Butter to the beach, and released her from her leash. Unlike her usual cheerful self, Butter, still smarting from Ben’s rebuke, strolled sedately along the sand, ignoring the gulls and killdeer that she ordinarily chased with glee. The birds eyed her warily, but did not leap into flight. Ben was no longer so lost in his own misery that he failed to notice the downcast dog. Near the ocean end of the beach Ben found a rock to sit on and called Butter to him.

  “Hey, dog,” he said, gently. “I’m sorry I was so mean this morning.” He rubbed her behind her ears. She accepted his caress with minimal grace, and turned to watch the gulls wheeling over the cove. Ben sighed. He understood better how seriously he had offended his friend and dog. He gently stroked her head. She suffered him to pet her. Her tail did not move.

  “Butter,” he said, “I’m very sorry. I was mean to you when you were trying to guard me from that evil pussycat.” Butter continued to study the gulls. She growled low in her throat at them.

  “You see, I had expected something from Dickon, and I didn’t get it.” Ben sighed. “I think I expected Dickon to be another Len.” Ben scooted slightly, so Butter could lean against his knee if she so chose. She stiffened into an even more u
pright sitting position.

  “You didn’t know Len,” Ben said. “He’d have loved you. Probably have fed you too much. He was too generous, sometimes.” Butter flicked her ears back, and raised them forward again. She turned her head away from Ben to follow a flock of killdeer dancing on the sand.

  “I miss him, Butter,” Ben said. To his surprise, he felt tears on his cheeks. “I miss having somebody who cares where I am.” He started stroking Butter’s back. She relaxed her spine ever so slightly under his touch. “If you weren’t with me, Butter, I’d go crazy, I think, from loneliness.”

  Ben sighed. Butter suddenly raced away from him to scatter the killdeer flock. She scampered through the cuneiform their feet had written on the sand, erasing whatever epic they had written. Ben let her go. Butter did the killdeer no harm. She wouldn’t stray far. He wiped his eyes and watched Butter race around. She soon came back to him and lay down near him, panting. She was, however, just out of his reach. “Good show,” he said to her. She softly thumped her tail a couple of times on the sand. “Still not happy with me?” He hoped she wouldn’t punish him much longer. He felt so alone.

  “Why did Dickon do that, though? I don’t understand him, Butter. I thought we really had something started.” Ben bowed over his knees and looked at the sand