ben

    My life isn't a chore, by any means. I have almost everything I could want or need. My six bedroom house is always clean, meals are attended by all, everyone displays a grin, and yet something big's missing. I'm positive that no one notices these things but me anymore, as it's been quite a few years since everything went awry in my life.
      I had three sons and one daughter, all perfect angels and remarkably different from one another. Benjamin (or Ben, as he liked to be called) was the youngest, and therefore will always be my baby. He would be almost 16 if he was still alive. He was born with mild autism, making him a real handful. He could still function like all of the boys his age, except he was a bit slower than them, and for that, he never really fit in.
      He had very few friends, most of whom were in his Cub Pack. Even when they were being nice to them, it was as if the whole thing was a trick to make him feel accepted, or just an elaborate scheme to mock him. Ben would waltz in through our front door at home after his meetings, baring bruises like they were some kind of battle wound. He told us that he got them from being his team's goalie, and that the boys in the troop loved floor hockey so much, they didn't hold any power back. His father and I would smile lightly, requesting more care when playing, possibly even some pads to cover his boney arms and legs. He promised us that one day he would wear the pads, but I guess he never did. He came home every week, with increasingly more bruises. My husband and I grew a little suspicious of his "friends", but as we had no real evidence that his bruises were made intentionally, we couldn't do a thing.
      Ben had a very unique personality, mostly due to his disorder. He was usually quite energetic, typical for 7 year old males. He'd run around our property, search for frogs and snakes, and aided my husband in building a tree fort for himself. His bright and lively moods were offset by days of either solitariness, or violent tempers. During these periods, he couldn't stand us or his big brothers and sisters. He didn't know why he went into these bad moods; I couldn't bear to tell him that there was something actually wrong with him. I'm not even sure if he'd understand it.
      So, on the long and very anxious days in which Ben would make the whole house turn upside down, he would sit in his tree house. I'm not sure what he did up there, exactly. There were no chairs, no blankets or crates to sit on, so I imagine he would have sat on the cold and rough wooden floor. There were no books, because Ben didn't care much for reading. He never could get the hang of grammar, the poor soul. There were a few cars lying about under the tree house, wedged into the ground at the foot of the tree, but he didn't like them too much. He always told me he would much rather have a REAL car than those cheap imitations.
      Yeah, that was my Ben. So innocent and pure, yet so baleful at the same time.
      The only indication of what he did up there, were the drawings he tacked to the walls. Ben, bless his heart, loved to draw pictures of things he saw. Dogs, birds, flowers, trees. He had many drawings of squirrels on his walls, as well as many Blue Jays, all named and with dates of when they had "met". I questioned Ben about this once, while delivering him some sandwiches for lunch one spring day. He casually looked over his row of pencil crayons, and away from his drawing of a rabbit. Even to this day, thinking of his response brings tears to my eyes.
      "Why not, mother? They Ben's friends.... Ben's only friends. They listen to Ben, not like the kids at school. They don't hit Ben like the Cubs do, they don't laugh at Ben when he tries to read," was his reply, and he continued drawing his rabbit without any emotion present on his face.

      Honestly, after hearing what Ben had to say about his "friends", I was shocked. I was beyond shocked, I was so horrified that someone could do such cruel things to a little boy. Especially one as helpless and defenseless as my Ben. The moment I got back to the house (and I admit, after a few falls over Ben's mini cars that were jammed into the ground, in deadly car-wreck poses), I called Ben's Cub leader. I told him what Ben had told me, about the boys in the troop with him and how they, supposedly, beat him. His leader was appalled, yet I got the impression that he kind of knew all along, obviously not to the extent of it though. He told me he would speak with the boys about their actions during the next meeting, which was, coincidentally, that night.
      Ben didn't go to Cubs that night. He didn't go for quite some time, in fact. He was very scared of the boys in his Cub troop, and what they'd do knowing he had "ratted" them out. I tried to tell him that nothing would happen, everything was taken care of. But children are more intuitive than us adults, I guess.
     It was a month later when the whole Cub subject was brought up again. I didn't want to pressure him into going, I'm not that kind of mother. If he didn't want to go, I wasn't going to force him to, Cubs was intended to be fun and not a chore. Actually, Ben was the one who brought it up. We were seated at our kitchen table, just the two of us, eating some peanut butter and banana sandwiches (which were his favourite).
      "Ben thinks he will go to Cubs this week. It's been a long time since Ben went, and Ben does't want to run from his problems anymore," he said, and took another gigantic bite of his sandwich, leaving peanut butter in the corners of his mouth. I smiled proudly, what more could a mother want? I had an incredibly moral son.
      So, just like that, Ben went back to Cubs. Little did we know, that would be the last time he would.