Little Benny

Stephen Spurlock

  SPEAK NOW

Little Benny (that’s really what the runt told people to call him), held his stubby little arms imperiously over his head as though he might actually give the darkness a big mushy hug. Standing in the middle of a dark deserted house abandoned for years, this was Little Benny’s element; his moment to shine as he supposedly summoned up a ghost and bade it speak to be recorded for posterity’s sake-whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

    The only sound to be heard as Benny stood there expectantly with bated breath was a quiet creaking behind the wall by the dresser where two rats were getting it on(for posterity’s sake, most likely, I guess), and Benny’s annoying way of breathing in and out through his nose in little whistle-like puffs of air.

    Slowly lowering his arms to his side with an expression of sour disappointment on his face like he was looking around for a snack bar of sorts but didn’t see one, he shut his eyes up tight as though summoning some kind of inner spirit or something equally trite, then shot his arms back over his head like he scored a winning touchdown at the last possible second and squeaked “SPEAK NOW” again at the top of his little lungs.

    When nothing happened this time, he looked around the room with greatly exaggerated annoyance as though his expectant ghost was intentionally running late just to make him look foolish and whimpered “Hey, come on man. You’re killing me here. This is your big chance to speak up and be heard on my podcast so people know you are for real. Once I am gone, man, that chance is going, going, gone”.

    Jason Miller held a lighted portable camera on his shoulder and tried- without much success-at not snickering at Little Benny causing the cameras light-the only light in the room- to jerk spasmodically giving the illusion that Little Benny was jumping up and down in a fit of disappointment. Little Benny looked at Jason with one stubby finger held at his lips to implore silence with such a look of anxiety that Jason had to bite the inside of his cheek to avoid folding into gales of laughter. After all, a hundred bucks was a hundred bucks. And he’d done weirder shit than this to make a living…although not by much.

    Not an hour ago, Jason was sitting in a local bar having a quiet beer by himself when this stubby looking guy in a really ugly pale-white pinstripe suit walked up to him out of the blue and said in a nasally voice, “Hey, Buddy. You wanna’ make a hundred bucks filming me in a haunted house as I try to make contact with a ghost?”.

    Jason has had a long day. His eight hour shift at work turned out to be eleven hours because someone called in sick again when they were already short-handed. All he wanted was to quietly pound back a few and relax for a while. If the girl of his dreams-or even a reasonable close proximity-didn’t come into the bar to drag him back to her place to seduce him by his fifth beer or so, he was homeward bound.

    So now this gimpy little fella waddles in from nowhere hobbling right up to him like nobody else was around before he could make his way through beer number two. Feeling annoyed at being bothered                                                                                                                                by this little shit and what he might want from him, he thinks to himself ‘what the fuck does this guy want with me?’ Poking around in his head for something else to add, but satisfied for the moment, he nods to himself and says “what the fuck does a guy like you want with a guy like me”?

    With a look of mischievous joy sparkling in his eyes, he pulls up a bar stool, signals the waitress to bring two beers, then turns to Jason and wheezes, “I have a podcast on the internet about ghost hunting. I call it Little Benny’s house of ghosts” and points to himself like a puffed-up toad as though I could miss the reference that he was, indeed, the Little Benny he spoke of. 

    “It all began…and here Jason felt a lump of fear rise to his throat because he sat on enough barstools in his time to know when someone is about to start waxing rhapsodically, and the little man was just getting warmed up like a baseball pitcher at the plate. Much to Jason’s relief, he merely said, “It all began with one haunting which led to another haunting which led me to a lead I have on one that is just nearby here. I want you to help me to record it for my podcast”.

    Jason couldn’t give a tinkers damn about the little fella’s podcast. He didn’t listen to them so he didn’t give a damn what they were about. But the guy did offer a hundred bucks. Jason would still be at his job trying to squeeze the time clock for all he could get because times were hard, but his boss said go home before you fall down and hands him a twenty dollar bill. 

    It seemed clear to Jason that this guy was some kook who wanted him to hold a lighted camera as the guy stumbled about an old abandoned house desperately beseeching some lost soul or other to fart or something and then play such recording or video on his podcast saying nya nya nya. I told you they were real and HERE’S MY PROOF.    

Giving Little Benny a look which he hopes is both cunning and calculating-neither of which Jason really was by any stretch of the imagination-he says, “buy me two more beers after the one you ordered and let me hold the money now, and I’m all yours, you handsome little devil”. If he had any idea of what the rest of the night had in store for the two of them, he would have bolted from the bar and hid under his bed.  No questions asked. 

    But here he stands in what is indeed a very old and abandoned house with nobody living nearby around it in any direction for a good three or four houses at least. That made the area look a little like a mini dead zone where electricity can’t circulate leaving no power what so ever. 

    Once they got inside the abandoned house, Jason thought of beating up the little shit and stealing his expensive looking camera complete with extended light fixture and microphone boom which would be just perfect for filming porn, but changed his mind. Jason’s night was looking like just a couple of beers before he went home to watch t.v. until he fell asleep, but this promised to be at least marginally more exciting than falling asleep during the middle of the Late Show and paid a hundred bucks to boot. 

    After his second request for a word or a rattling, or a sneeze, or maybe even an ectoplasmic fart and getting no response whatsoever, he staggered to the middle of the room as though drunk and, staring imploringly up at the ceiling with his hands half-raised by his shoulders, Little Benny croaked “something?. Anything?”.

    It dawns on Jason through his vapid murkiness that he had seen someone standing just like that saying exactly the same thing; but where did he see that?...before his foggy minds eye bobs an image of Tod Rundgren with his arms spread beseechingly to the heavens on an album cover from the seventies crying out something? Anything? Good ole Todd is beseeching the heavens for some kind of inspiration for his music to share with the masses, and here dumpy Little Benny mirrors such sincerity in his search of an old abandoned house using the same words to get a ghost to say something as though he were making contact with an alien for the first time ever.

    The juxtaposition of the moment was too much for Jason to bear causing him to finally give into his laughter. Once he could breath again, he Looked at Little Benny and snickers “Hey Boss, I’m not so sure that anybody is at home. Are you sure that we were expected?”.

    For an answer, Little Benny snarled like an angry old mutt and farted ambitiously as though to illustrate some kind of point or something. Turning back to the middle of the room, he once more beseeches the supposed ghost not to be afraid, nobody was going to hurt it, everything would be just fine if the ghost were to just speak up like a well-trained parrot.

    The hour was getting late and Jason was starting to think that enough was enough. He humored the little guy by following him here to an abandoned old house to film a ghost, he played nice by not beating up the guy and stealing his camera. But hearing the little freak telling the ghost don’t be afraid, nobody is going to hurt you…this was getting a little too surreal. Deciding to have a little fun with the situation, Jason puts part of his thumb over the light to cast a shadow of it on the wall and-adopting an attitude of stunned terror, he points with the other hand at his thumb-shadow and stammers, “wh wh what is that”?

    Little Benny looks at the thumb-shadow on the wall and just about jumps out of his skin with excitement. He squeaked “make sure you are getting all this”, and hops up and down like he has to pee really bad. Turning the dial to increase the volume so it sounds like the noise is emanating from all over the room, Jason groans terribly as he moves his thumb in and out of the light so it seemed like a dark circle in the middle of the light had a threatening, pulsating look about it.

    This is just too much for poor Little Benny. Thinking that it is some kind of spiritual monster trying to reach the land of the living so it can devour him alive, he squeals like a stuck pig and bolts out of there leaving the camera guy and his expensive camera far befind never to be seen again.

    Looking around the now empty living room of the abandoned house, Jason considers whether to bring some girls here to make some porn films now that he had the camera for it. Snickering to himself, he turns to leave when he hears a dark gravely voice that sounded like it could have come from Batman yelling, “Now fuck off and don’t come back”.

       THE END