None the Worse ✓

16) 'Gay Or Just European?' And Other Questions You Don't Need The Answers To...

"Hey, it does fly!" exclaimed Thijmen, and reached out to grab the binoculars Ben brought in his red satchel bag. He stole them from Heston once, without actually thinking that he'd use them. Heston only bought them because he thought that his neighbor across the street had a meth lab upstairs, and wanted to investigate further. When the neighbor was in prison a month later for precisely that, Heston didn't see the point of them anymore. So one afternoon, they accidentally ended up in Benjamin's bag, and they had been there ever since.

For the next ten minutes, the binoculars were glued to Thijmen as he discovered bird after bird after bird. And they all flew, too.

Benjamin sat and watched Thijmen's head turn back and forth and up and down like the thumbstick on a Playstation controller.

After a while, Benjamin spoke up, "How... how about we—"

Thijmen grabbed the back of Benjamin's neck and pulled him closer, and basically slammed the binoculars over his eyes. "You've got to see this."

Benjamin felt more and more proud of his decision to go birdwatching.

Through the binoculars, three birds, all white and bigger than the other ones, flew around in the sky. They flew and they had wings and they had feathers. That was all. Benjamin couldn't quite decipher what it was that he just had to see.

Nevertheless, he rasped out, "cool."

The next second, Thijmen's lips touched Benjamin's cheek, to which his entire face heated up to the ultimate temperature for frying things. He also realized that Thijmen probably didn't have anything in particular that he wanted Benjamin to see.

Benjamin smiled to himself.

Thijmen removed the binoculars from Benjamin's eyes. "You saw it?" he asked and smiled.

Benjamin felt like he was being tested for something.

He nodded.

Thijmen's eyes glimmered before he turned his head to stare at some birds for a while.

It was all good. Thijmen wasn't bullying the birdwatching. He was enjoying it. Which felt good.

Again, for a while.

And then it just felt like Ben was competing against the birds for Thijmen's attention. The birds clearly had the upper hand, given their wings, of course. In that moment, Benjamin wished that he actually was working on getting a pair for himself. It could be pretty useful. However, until then, birds seemed to be the superior species in Thijmen's eyes.

Benjamin sighed.

"Hey, Thijmen," he started, and then realized that he had nothing to continue the sentence with.

At least it got Thijmen's attention. "Yes?"

Notice me.

"Well..." he trailed off.

Mercifully, Thijmen noticed his failed attempt at conversation and started a new one. "Why do you have binoculars, anyway?"

The whole Heston-goes-spy-kid seemed too exhausting to tell, So Benjamin tried to pull off telling a short version instead. "Got them from Heston... something about drugs..."

Thijmen's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"His neighbor..." And Benjamin swore never to tell the short version of a story ever again. "I mean, Heston's neighbor supposedly had this sort of drug business, and Heston wanted to spy on him to stop it. Like, he was super duper passionate about it. I think. He couldn't stop talking about it."

Thijmen looked down. "You know, I think I'm kind of proud of him for once."

Benjamin didn't quite see it like that. "I mean, he was really obsessing over it. Meth here, drugs there. Bla bla bla."

"Yeah, and that was good of him."

That button that limited Benjamin's speech was suddenly broken. "He was getting really annoying," he said. "Heston didn't even know that neighbor. And he never seems to have an opinion on anything, but when it came to drugs, I guess he did."

"I know the feeling," Thijmen said. And his eyes got wide again, like he wasn't really supposed to say what he just said. Benjamin knew that feeling all too well.

Thijmen massaged his own neck before mumbling, "I mean... just in the matter of hating drugs. Because I do. I do despise drugs. You don't do that stuff, do you? Of course you don't, nevermind."

Thijmen shrugged. Benjamin wanted to remind him that the strongest drug he had ever seen with his own eyes was Aspirin, but chose not to.

So he just sat in silence.

Suddenly, Thijmen spoke up, "Hey, I bet you ten bucks that bird has wings," and pointed to a bird sitting in a tree.

"I... You want me to bet against that? I can see it has wings."

"Guess you'll have to pay me ten bucks then."

"That's not how it works."

"It is in the Netherlands."

"Is it really?"

"What do you think?"

"Well... I don't know. I've never been there. I've heard at least half the population is gay. Is that true?"

Thijmen folded in on himself with laughter. "Who told you that?"

"I don't know—Martin?"

"Of course that's not true. How could there be so many fucking people in that country if everyone were gay? You know, that'd actually be a good idea. Would make it a lot less crowded."

"They should do that in China—become gay. Because there's not enough women."

"That's a great idea! Write them a letter."

"The Chinese? All of them?"

"Yes, all of them. Better start working on those billion letters."

And from there, it was laughing and fun and plans to write letters to everyone in China. Benjamin had Thijmen's full attention again, and he hoped that the birds were jealous. Before they finally left, he made sure to stick his tongue out to the birds. Because he won.