The Happy Trail

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The kid wanted water but all Ted had on him was a stick of Dentyne. The tent bag over his shoulder had started hurting around the same time Benny had asked for it, thirty minutes after they started walking. Ted’s bet had been twenty minutes. He supposed that meant the kid was defying expectations for once. 

Benny had taken the gum and stuffed it into that quiet mouth of his with a woebegone look. Ted doubted the kid knew what woebegone meant. Ted doubted he even knew how to hammer a tent peg into the ground.

“And you know why we’re going on this trip, Benny?” He shuffled his shoulder as he spoke, feeling the mallet press into his spine through the bag. Benny kicked a rock along the trail. 

“To learn a valuable lesson.” 

There was a hole eating its way into his left sneaker that gave sight to the very end of his sock. The kid would need some new ones soon, he reminded himself. The kid grew like a weed. The kid grew like a tumour, Dolores had always said. He imagined a tumour, blood and pus and all, dressed neatly with Benny’s comically large specs, and couldn’t help chuckling to himself. Benny’s woebegone-ness latched eyes onto him.

“Come now, son,” Ted placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing in a way that might soothe the four-foot-eight beanpole of nerves walking beside him, “This is going to be fun, don’t you think?”

“I’ve never been in a forest before.” The rock tumbled along once more. Benny looked like he might want to tumble along with it. 

“That’s why this will be so much fun.”

And when the sun shone down to fray through the trees and the birds sang their gospel, Ted admitted he expected the boy’s expression to lighten. Even for the former, it could bring a smile to his face. The heft of the tent bag and the sweat that seeped through his shirt didn’t so much bother him at that precise moment, such a beauty the forest was. So different from the forests he had known in service, where the heat blistered and the humidity boiled and the leaves were not soft but waxy and stiff. Where he was still just Ted and not Captain Bennet. Now he stood in fallen needles rather than fallen soldiers, and carried a bag rather than ammo. It should’ve been preferrable but Ted had never much had a taste for the twee. He smiled even so.

“I’m not sure I like forests.”

Like he’d said, Ted wasn’t sure he liked them either, but Ted didn’t like a lot of things. Ted didn’t even like water and everyone liked water. Water was nothing and you couldn’t dislike nothing because there was nothing to dislike. Forests, though – Ted felt it took one miserable lump of a soul not to like forests.

“But it’s beautiful, Benny,” he ruffled dark curls and heaved the bag once more, “You can’t not like the beautiful things in life. Otherwise there isn’t anything left.” Ted imagined a world without birds and trees and, really, he didn’t much mind the idea. The smiles they brought were fleeting. Fleeting was never really worth it. 

Benny gave him an odd look. “Do you want me to help you carry the tent bag?”

Ted gave an odd look back. “No, Benny.”

“It looks heavy.”

“It is.”

“I could help?”

“No, Benny. It’s part of the lesson.”

“Oh. Do you have any more gum?”

“No, Benny.”

“This piece lost all its flavour.”

Benny stuck his tongue out and showed the mangled bit of white in his mouth.

“Spit it out, then.”

The kid’s following look was rather distraught, and even when Benny explained the reason, Ted still wasn’t sure why.

“But the animals,” he frowned, “They might eat it and die.”

The way the branches above shadowed Benny’s face only made him more melancholy in appearance, though that wasn’t much of a stretch. He always looked sad in some way or another. Dolores said his soul had a crack in it, made from cheap china and paste and painted with all those dreary little figures in a watery blue. Dolores’ penchant for an analogy was nearly as irritating as her face, but they were always pretty spot on. Benny was certainly cracked somewhere emotionally. It was why he needed the lesson more than the other kids.

“Animals die all the time, Benny.”

The tent bag weighed down his words with each inch of fabric. He could’ve slumped to the floor at this point, had the trip not been so important. They were nearly there, anyway. The clearing was just up ahead, lit up by that frayed light like an oasis.

“Not all the time.” 

Akin to some old, time-withered man with the weight of his tax evasion on his shoulders, Benny wrung his hands over each other. His eyes scanned the forest around them as if waiting for squirrel corpses to rain from the heavens. Ted rolled his eyes.

“They do, in fact. It’s the way of life.”

Or the way of death, he supposed. 

“I really don’t think I like forests.” Little hands continued to wring.

“But you don’t even like ceiling fans, Benny.”

The kid’s eyes went inexcusably wide at that, the mere thought of those spinning devils causing an anxiety unrivalled by even the Big C.

“Because Lydia says they could chop you up.”

Benny stepped through a puddle as he spoke that seeped right through the hole. He didn’t seem to mind but Ted could feel his own irritation already. That would knock at least a week off of the time he had to buy the kid new ones. 

“There are worse ways to go.”

Benny’s frown was all too telling. In his mind, being sliced and diced by Satan’s AC was the worst thing there was. Despite his statement, Ted wasn’t inclined to disagree.

“Are we nearly there?”

Not the most subtle subject change but Ted would give Benny the benefit of the doubt.

“Yes, actually. It’s just up there, see?”

He pointed an (admittedly stout) finger to the pasture up ahead. The ground there would be soft, not too chalky, and it was nice and secluded. If Ted had owned a dog, he would’ve brought it to sniff out any animal dens nearby, but half the kids were allergic and he couldn’t abide sneezing. Animals or no animals, the spot would do just fine.

“Here we are.”

They were finally here, at the precipice of this lesson Ted had been dying to teach for such a long time. Ignorance was another thing he couldn’t abide and Benny’s ignorance had always wafted off him in droves.

The tent bag slid off his shoulder and he dropped it to the ground.

Ted knelt down, not caring about the damp floor nor Benny’s nervous eyes on him. The bag’s zip was sticky but he managed to pull it open with one long strike. 

“There,” Ted nodded with satisfaction, “Travelled well, don’t you think?”

Benny didn’t even bother to nod. His eyes were only fixed to the bag. He watched as Ted pulled out the shovel.

“You start digging, Benny,” he handed it to the kid, “It’ll be good for your arms.”

Now, Ted wasn’t really sure how Benny would manage to dig a hole of such a size, given that the shovel was nearly as tall as him. Benny began even so, his movements clearly stunted with anxiety. Ted unzipped the bag the rest of the way.

He stared down at the corpse.

“A well-featured face,” he ran a hand down the skin, “It’ll be a shame to cover it up, Benny, won’t it?”

The shovel stilled. Benny kept his gaze away from Ted.

“Yes, Sir.” He mumbled.

Ted pulled the polyester away from the body until it laid bare on the bed of needles and mud. 

“Won’t you look, Benny? I want you to look.”

“I don’t want to,” he sniffed, “I don’t like it.”

“But it’s important that you do. It’s the lesson.”

Large glasses fogged up with small tears. 

“I don’t think I like this lesson.”

Ted gave a flat smile. “But you know now what the lesson is, Benny?” 

To his credit, the kid did manage to peel his eyes from the shovelled dirt to glance at the body. It was the shortest look possible, though, worthlessly fleeting, and he almost instantly locked eyes with Ted instead.

“Yes.” His voice wavered.

“And what is it, Benny?”

“Don’t break the rules.”