Flatscreen by Adam Wilson

refrain calling Alison back into my arms, back into the pathetic cradle of my confusion.
    Couldn’t find Dan. Must have gone with Nikki, off to an upstairs room to unzip winter wear, search drawers for a condom, give up, Dan promising to pull out, secretly excited to explode on her stomach.
    Jennifer and Stef stood in a circle of people laughing, smiling, drinking, Jennifer blushing. Guests revolved around her at an incalculably slow pace; they were her moons.
    “Ben,” I said into the phone. Never called him Ben. Hoped it would make me sound serious, situation appropriately dire.
    “I thought you had a date.”
    “Didn’t go so well.”
    “Have you been crying?”
    “I’m not a pussy. Just sensitive. I’m a sensitive man, okay?”
    “I’m coming,” he said, because he was a martyr.
    Benjy drove, Erin rode shotgun. I hopped in back, slouched, stretched.
    “What were you doing out here?” Benjy said, like his spine was crawling with ghetto-lice.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Looking for something, I guess.”
    “A mugging?”
    Erin hit him on the arm, said, “Apologize.” Something of her mother in her: she wanted to take care of people.
    “Sorry,” Benjy said, which surprised me. He rarely conceded. Drove with both hands on the wheel, radio off. Sensed that I’d intruded on a non-me-related tension, given the duo excuse to focus on a problem not their own.
    “Was it a good party?” Erin said.
    “Not really.”
    “How’d you get here?” Benjy said. Unclear whether he was asking about the party or my state of existence.
    “Dan,” I said. An accurate, if incomprehensive answer to both questions.
    “We’re going to get ice cream,” Erin said. Benjy’s silence made it clear this unnecessary endeavor was neither his idea nor a good one. “Do you want to come?”
    Too cold for ice cream. Store empty; counter kid flipped through Cliff’s Notes for Othello . Steel soft-serve machines mumbled their own mourner’s Kaddish. We ate with handstucked into sleeves, plastic spoons poking out like cheap prostheses.
    Benjy drove the back route, off the highway, on the road with the speed bumps. Hopped speed bumps like hurdles.
    Erin said, “Slow down.”
    Benjy eased off the gas.
    “That’s the house I grew up in,” she said, pointing.
    “But you didn’t go to our high school.”
    “Private school. Country Day. I was one of those horse-riding girls.”
    Erin was still looking out the window even though we’d passed the house.
    “She has different parents than I had.”
    “Who?” I said.
    “My sister. They split when she was six. They were together my whole childhood. We went to Nantucket in the summer.”
    “Mary seems nice, though.”
    “She is,” Erin said. “But it’s different. It’s different now. Maybe it’s better. It’s probably better. I’m sure my mother’s happier. He drove her nuts. But she still takes care of him; he still drives her nuts. I know she tries. She tries too hard. He doesn’t try at all.”
    “He does,” I said.
    “What the fuck do you know?” Benjy said.
    “It’s just different now,” Erin said.
    I wanted to say, “He loves you,” but wasn’t the type of guy who said things like that, and wasn’t even sure it was true. Lit a cigarette.
    “You can’t smoke in here,” Benjy said.
    Threw it out the window. Dropped Erin at our old house, watched the automatic security light go on, hold herlike a spotlight as she punched the garage code. Garage opened, swallowed Erin. Still looked like our house.
    Mom asleep in front of the TV. Empty wine bottle on the floor, Argentine, average-priced. White noise of an infomercial. Mom’s shallow breath. Lifted her gently—he at the feet, me at the head—carried her to bed. She woke for a moment.
    “What’s going on?”
    “Bedtime, Mom,” Benjy said. “You stole my bed.”
    When we came out of Mom’s room, Benjy put clean sheets on the couch, then lay down in all his clothes, including shoes, stared up at