Ben

I hadn't thought about Ben in decades.  Saturday, a friend said something and suddenly a few memories of Ben dusted themselves off and presented themselves to me.  Who was Ben?

Ben was a co-worker.  He had a leg in a brace.  I remember he used to sit on his desk chair [it had wheels!  I no longer do chairs with wheels...] with his braced leg extended out.  He was from a small town known for its' small town college and a fair amount of drinking.  Ben didn't seem to drink very much.  [Well, no one there seemed to drink nearly as much as I did...].

I was a quiet person back then.  I hardly said anything to anyone.  I didn't talk unless it was part of the job.  I was not given to small talk.  I didn't want work friends.  I was living on a relative's farm and after working hours, my life was dominated by cows and chickens and huge snowbanks and freezing pipes.  The farm was up in the mountains.  The company was dominated by city folk.  City folk were noisy and nosy and not very nice.

Ben decided that he was going to give me pep talks.  He didn't want me-- it wasn't that kind of a thing.  Or if he did, I didn't notice.  Once every few days or so, I sat in his office with him in order to do his version of "hanging out."  And Ben would talk.  He talked about his brace.  He talked about his small town.  He talked about the small town college in his small town.  I nodded.  I let him talk.  I thought to myself that at least it looked like I had sort of a work friend.  But I didn't feel any connection to Ben.  I let him talk anyways because after all, the half hour or so that he was talking I wasn't working.  And not working was preferable to pretending that I was working.  I didn't have a whole lot to do at that job.  And I wasn't good at pretending that I was working when I ran out of things to do.  Which was often.

One time the boss asked me if Ben was "bothering" me.  The question confused me.  "No," I said.  "We just take a break together once or twice a week.  That's all."  I suspected that the boss wasn't completely satisfied with my answer.  But I didn't know what to do about that so I did nothing.  And so I sat in Ben's office once or twice a week and listened to him expound upon his brace, his small town, the small town college in his small town.

I'd forgotten Ben for several decades.  When I left that job, I didn't look back.  Ben was forgettable.  And I suspect that I was forgettable too.  Ben was small town.  I was farm.  Them other people were citified.  I wasn't like them and they weren't like me.  I wasn't really like Ben either.  Being so different from the others around me bothered me then.  I never admitted that to anyone back then.

Being so different from most other people doesn't bother me now.  After awhile, a person can get used to almost anything I guess.

sapphoq on life