It Wasn't Worth It

“Package for you,” Ben’s mother wheezed. She was a wide woman, with hips twice the width of her shoulders and half the width of her waistline. She never averted her gaze from the television, with an ashtray to the right of her and an oxygen tank to her left.

Ben slowly closed the door to their house. It was a little house, and it looked like every other little house on his little street, except it was quite a bit more unkempt. The little street ran through a little town in flyover country, where people only stopped on their way to more interesting places. Without a word, Ben passed his eyes over the brown cardboard box that sat near the door. With a sigh and a grunt, Ben picked it up and carried it into his room.

Placing the package down on the unmade bed, he switched on the bare bulb in the center of the room to read the label. Little of the early morning light made it through his blackout curtains, and his Pokémon screensaver was not bright enough to read by.

Handwritten in black Sharpie was his name and address, but there was no return address. Forcefully, he ripped open the flaps of the box to reveal a leather bowling bag with silver grommets. Strange -- Ben had not ordered a bag.

As he opened the bag, his eyes became ever so slightly wider. He turned away for a moment, a hand running through his greasy black hair, and he blinked in confusion. He reached in and took hold of a thick wad of cash. All twenties, freshly minted, still in their little paper wrappers. One thousand dollars. Twenty wads in the bag. He counted them, and then recounted them, and then counted them again. He was in the process of counting the wads a fourth time when he was startled by a sharp rap at the door.

He hastily threw the wads back in the bag as his mom swung the door open. “What’d you order now?” Her hands were on her hips.

“A new part for my computer,” he said, without looking up. “What difference does it make?”

“Well it was just weird, because this guy dropped it off, and he didn’t seem like a UPS guy or anything.” She gesticulated wildly as she spoke.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Ben, worrying about it. “I work for my money, I can spend it however I want.” He glanced at the bag.

The usual argument ensued, pitting his minimum wage job against her disability check. Ben argued it curtly, as usual. His mother relented eventually, as usual. She couldn’t bite the hand that fed her, but she always took the opportunity to snap at it a little.

“What time do you work tomorrow?” His mother asked in her deep, raspy voice. “I need the van.”

Ben sat down in his chair and told her that he needed to be there by seven, just like every Saturday night, and she knew that.

“Alright, kid,” She smirked. “I know you need the van. Just bring mama home what she needs.” She ruffled his hair and left the room.

Mama needed more opiates. She always needed more opiates. She didn’t need the van.

Ben loved his mother enough to enable all of her many bad habits. His mother loved him enough to tell him so, maybe once every other full moon. To any objective observer, their relationship was a dysfunctional one, but to Ben, he owed it to her after her husband died. Ben was all she had left. But when he pondered his mother in the context of twenty thousand mysterious dollars, somehow his debt to her evolved in his mind.

He went back to the bag and stared at the money. Where did it come from? What would he do? Who would he tell? Certainly not his mother. His best friend Jim? No, he’d tell everyone, and they’d all want free stuff or something. Though, it was only twenty thousand dollars, right? Not a million or anything. Still, it was twenty times bigger than the largest amount of cash he’d ever seen in person before. To him, it could mean a lot of freedom.

He shoved the bag far into the back of his closet, beneath a pile of mostly dirty clothes. He turned off the lights, laid down in his bed, lit up a joint, and stared into the fading bare bulb. For a few hours, he pondered the contents of the silver-grommeted bowling bag before drifting to sleep.

As soon as he got to work the next evening, he started on the laundry. He washed the cigarette-burned comforters that the owner refused to replace. He folded the linens that had been left for him by the lazy afternoon shift. He then put on a pot of coffee and sat down at his laptop. He spent his time idly thinking about that money and where it came from. With every new guest, he wondered if they would provide the answer. Eventually, he would be right.

It was nearly two in the morning when Chris came in. Chris was a drug dealer that often visited the motel to sell to its patrons. He’d been Ben’s supplier for almost a year, usually at a considerable discount. The two had a mutually beneficial relationship because, as the overnight desk clerk, Ben could always assure Chris a relatively safe place to do business. Ben’s mom, consequently, always had the best stuff.

“Hey Chris,” Ben sighed. “Mom’s low.”

“Already?” Chris made a face. “She needs rehab, dude.”

Ben looked at Chris sideways. Chris had never before expressed any concern for Ben’s mother. “Yeah, probably.” Ben replied, eyeing Chris fiercely.

“Well, we have something else to talk about first,” said Chris, leaning across the counter. He was a ruddy-faced guy in his early thirties with drooping, angry eyes and unkempt stubble. He always wore a gray and yellow knit cap, even in the summer. A single gold chain dangled beneath his open leather jacket.

“We do.” Ben was shrewd enough to recognize that Chris was talking about the money. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced toward the place where the owner kept a shotgun behind the counter. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that it was missing.

“I think we do, Luke.”

Confusion washed over Ben’s face as he leaned back in his chair, trying to be calm. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you,” Chris said slowly. “Ben Skywalker.”

Ben Skywalker was Ben’s immature online screen-name. Of the things he expected to come out of the mouth of his drug dealer, that was not one of them.

“How do you…?”

“Step outside with me, Ben.” Chris backed away from the counter. “I need a smoke.”

Ben stood up slowly and backed away from the counter. He could get a better view of where the shotgun was usually stashed, and it was definitely missing. Ben had never thought Chris was dangerous. All drug dealers were dangerous, he thought, but not Chris. Ben had never crossed Chris and he never expected anything would happen. Yet somehow, as Ben came out from behind the counter, he suspected that he was about to die.

Chris lit up a cigarette and leaned against one of the pillars in the motel’s overhang. Ben’s eyes scanned the parking lot. It was dead silent, as usual, except for the sound of trucks on the nearby interstate from his right, and a horde of insects to his left. There was no one who could help him.

“I know about your little band of revolutionaries, Ben,” Chris said nonchalantly before taking a drag of his cigarette. “I know what you do, what you’re a part of.”

“Why… why would you care about any of that?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” replied Chris. Ben stared at him in stunned silence, trying and failing to put on an air of perfect composure. Behind his back, he twiddled his thumbs nervously. “But the point is, I know.”

“That’s all just silly games,” Ben smiled nervously. “No one is really serious about any of that.”

“Oh no,” said Chris, stamping out his half-burned cigarette with a sly grin. “It’s dead serious, Mr. Skywalker.”

Ben gave a little nervous laugh as Chris walked up to him and stared straight into his eyes. “You’re in over your head, Ben.”

Ben said nothing as Chris kept staring. After a few moments, Chris turned away. Ben let out a little breath of relief.

“You have two options,” Chris said as he paced, his back toward Ben. “Option number one includes the police arresting you for your role in the supply of drugs to this shithole. They raid your house tonight and they find your drugs. They find your mom’s percs and she spends the night in jail. You get a felony on your record and you’ll probably go to state prison for a few years, just because of the sheer amount of evidence I have on you.”

“Are you a cop or something?” Ben muttered, his voice about half as loud as usual.

“Something,” Chris replied coolly, turning to face him. “Do you want to hear the second option?” Ben stood nervously, his mouth slightly agape. Chris resumed his pacing.

“The second option is that you keep the money we delivered yesterday. You never see me again, you can deposit your mom safely in rehab, and maybe you can actually start a life for yourself. Which option do you want?”

“Look man,” Ben began to stammer, “I don’t know who you are, or, or where you’re from, but I don’t…”

“Think about it for a second, Ben,” Chris said, turning toward him. “All I need from you is a list of names. Addresses. Whatever info you have on your compatriots.” From his back pocket, Chris pulled out a small, black notebook. He stretched his hand out toward Ben. Ben stared down at it, but did not move.

“I don’t… those guys are my friends, they…”

Chris cut him off, his face turning angry. “Are they your friends, Ben? Really? Because those men are plotting insurrection against the United States, and you were there, with them, in your little incognito videochat your friend Jim thinks is so clever. Are you sure you want to refer to them as ‘friends’, Ben?”

Ben stood silent again. He had learned from a tumultuous childhood that silence was usually better than talking. He had a habit of saying things he shouldn’t. Indeed, he’d felt like he was drowning with this group of online personas that had been meeting to discuss various ways to overthrow the government. Some of those ways were being actively pursued, yes, but Ben didn’t think they’d really amount to anything. He’d become involved with them for just over a year, right after…

The wheels slowly began to turn. Jim had invited him into the group only a month or two before Chris had first started selling drugs at the motel.

“Who are you?” Ben asked grimly, “For real.”

“Look,” Chris said. “I know you’re not a bad kid, and you believe you’re doing something noble, but you are in over your head. Now, which option do you want, Ben?”

--------

A month later, Ben was sitting in his gaming chair. The light from the flat-screen television hanging on the wall cast a bluish glow across his face. The matronly nightly news anchor appeared on the screen, and her reflection could be seen in the tears in Ben’s eyes.

“Our community still has no answer to the tragic slaying of twenty-seven-year-old James McClandish, who was shot and killed last Friday in an apparent drive-by shooting. Police believe he was randomly targeted at the gas station near…”

With a click, the television switched off. Ben sobbed. It wasn’t worth it.