Ben

There's this guy, right?  This black guy.  His name is Ben.  And my name is my name.  Whenever I would see him, I would say, "Hey, Ben, how's it goin?"  Or I would say, "Hey, what's up, Ben?"  And sometimes, I would say, simply, "How are you, Ben?"  He would reply in kind, that he's doing well, or okay; sometimes he would ask me how I was.  Often that would create an avenue for me to share my feelings with him, and make me open to absorbing his.  I often absorbed his feelings.  Other times, we would merely exchange pleasantries.   One time, we were sitting at a patio table, opposite one another but slightly off tilt.  The table was made of wood but the chairs were plastic.  He sat hunched over a bit playing on his phone; I was having a cigarette. My legs were crossed, and I felt pretty good about myself.  I didn't want to be too close to the wood in case I caught a splinter. I recalled the last time we spoke, he had mentioned he was going up to visit some family in DC.  He was a USC alumn.  So I asked him about that.  He said he had a good trip, and that it felt good to be with his family again; he had been calling me George for the last couple days.  So I asked him quite amicably if I looked like a George?  My name was not George; my name was my name.  He said he had been mistaken, I guess.  I thought, maybe, I reminded him of George "The Animal" Steele, or an ape, or Shiek Abu Khalid Mohammed. I had been wearing an oversized white V-neck undershirt recently on account of the heat.  I started wondering if perhaps I may as well change my name to George.  I wanted to tell him, "Ben, it's not me, Ben; it's the chocolate...those meds, and that quack." Oh Diary, I'll kill that fuckin' quack!  I'd run him over if I saw him crossing the street with a box of glazed donuts.  And if I were carless, I'd run to the first car at a red light and explain the situation.  Oh, he'd be happy to do it!  Anyway, more people joined us at the table.  Some smoked cigarettes, and some were hunched over.  When Ben decided to leave, he said bye to everyone at the table.  Some people replied, "Goodnight, Brian" and others said simply, "Take care."  It got me thinking, why the hell is everybody calling this mothafucker Brian?