Free Embracing Darkness by Christopher D. Roe Page B

surprisingly did not creak, he stood about ten feet away on the lawn and admired the sky, where the stars shone with startling clarity.
    His attention was quickly drawn to a path between the end of the lawn and the bushes in front of the rectory. Intrigued, Father Poole decided to follow it. As he looked up from the path, Poole saw the small house owned by Old Man Benson. Thirty feet from the house, the priest noticed not only that the porch light was still on but also that a dark figure was rocking back and forth on the left side. It was too far away to tell exactly who it was, although Father Poole would have bet that it was the one person who, as he already knew, lived in there.
    His hope for an early meeting with this neighbor was realized when he heard the figure yell, “Fancy a smoke, do ya?”
    The priest walked hastily up the path to the front porch of Mr. Benjamin Benson.

NINE
Ben Benson  
    “Don’t know if ya heard me. I asked if ya wanted a smoke.” Mr. Benson’s words sounded in the thick, humid air, a cloud of smoke surrounding him like a white silhouette against the yellow glow of his porch light. In front of the porch was a white sign with black painted letters that read “BENSON.”
    Father Poole saw this and asked, “Mr. Benson, I presume?”
    Benson took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled. “Yep! That’s me. Ain’t had no one else livin’ up here in… Je-ody! Longer than I care to remember.”
    The priest didn’t know what to say to this. It seemed a sad existence to him, living alone on the top of a hill with no one to talk to. “So you live alone?” Father Poole asked.
    “No man comes out his home at three in the mornin’ just to look up at the stahs,” the old man said, as if ignoring the priest’s question. Benson’s melodic New England accent reminded Father Poole of his paternal grandfather.
    “No, thank you,” the priest replied in delayed response to Benson’s original overture. “I don’t smoke.”
    Mr. Benson looked the other way, his cigarette clamped tightly between his yellow teeth. “Warm night, ain’t it?” the old-timer commented.
    “Yes,” Father Poole began as he cleared his throat. “It is. I would ask whether it’s always this hot in Holly this time of year, but I came here from Exeter and… .”
    Benson shot him a friendly look and said, “It’s different up on the hill.” The old man continued, “Everything is different on the hill. Hell, we don’t even have the same water as the rest of the town. Theirs comes from a natural source, I’m sure; ours comes from charity. Once a week, every Wednesday in fact, Eugene Simmons and his two young boys, I think eleven and thirteen, come up with their buckets. They fill the two copper reservoirs, one behind my house and the other on the side of your rectory. That way we have runnin’ water like the rest of society. Eugene’s pa, Xavier Simmons, and I go back a ways. He used to do it for me as a favor, seein’ as how I’m all alone and cahn’t rightly get my own water up here. Yep! Nice o’ his boy to continue the favor for me. I throw their dad a couple o’ bucks every now and again. He says he don’t want it, Eugene that is, so I give it to his sons. They even help out A’gyle Hobbs an’ bring water up for the rectory. Your Father Carroll never appreciated the ha’d work those two boys do. He’d tell them that God would reward them in heaven for their efforts!”
    The priest nodded in response to Mr. Benson, who had put out his cigarette and begun lighting a fresh one. “Well, sir. Since our water comes from the same charitable source,” Father Poole began, “I’ll be happy to split the cost with you.”
    “I already told you he don’t accept no money,” Benson snapped but in a playful way. “I just give his two sons a few bucks, and that seems to keep everyone happy. No need to fix somethin’ that ain’t broke!” He flicked a short ash from his cigarette and put the butt back