A Ben Monologue--Crying
by: M-A
Contrary to popular belief, I am not afraid of crying. I simply choose when and where I shed tears and whom I share them with.
My eyes fill with tears fairly regularly. It's the spill over that is rare for me. The kinds of tears I shed for Victoria were not common. It is rare for me to weep.
But tears and I are no strangers. There were tears when I learned of Diefenbaker's impending execution. Tears of Janet Morse. And, yes, tears for Denny Scarpa. Perhaps those were more for me. All those times.
Ray Vecchio once said something to me that he felt I didn't want to hear. That people cry. I was confused by that statement. I cry. I just do not feel at liberty to cry before him.
It is different with Ray Kowalski. He is so unafraid of being open with me that I can only do the same with him. There is no way Ray Vecchio would have found me in the men's room at the precinct, eyes red rimmed as I splashed cool water on my face in a vain attempt to wipe away all trace of my tears.
How could Ray Vecchio and I have been through so much and still be utterly unable to share the intimate details of our lives with the other? How can men be so close as we are but still have between us a chasm so wide it cannot be breached?
Gram was the one who taught me out to cry. Safe in her arms, at home, it was all right. But, in public, tears were to be saved. Gram taught a lonely little boy to only share his tears with people he trusted. The man I am now still does the same.
What is it in Ray Vecchio that I don't trust? I fear to dwell upon for it might make me seem like I am not his friend. I am. I am his friend and I love him. But I realise now, now that I have Ray Kowalski, that I never truly liked Ray Vecchio. I never could like people who can give nothing freely.
I wonder what it says about me, and about us, that I did not cry at Ray's leaving. That no night, warm and safe in the Consulate, did I release a floodgate of emotion at his abandonment. Abandonment, only in my eyes, of course. He was just doing his duty. I would have done the same.
Now that I think of it, I did not cry for my father either. My father too, whom I loved more than anyone in the world, I also did not like. The heart is a fickle organ. Nonsensical.
Ray Kowalski cried many nights ago. He didn't try to hide it or even excuse it. It was easy for me to give him comfort. There are no walls between us, no differences separate us. With Ray Kowalski, I, like him, am just a man. With Ray Vecchio we were always our careers. Him, the cynical, street smart Chicago detective. Me, the `naive' Mountie from the north. I ask again. How could we have been so close and yet been so distant?
After we caught Muldoon, I was free to let out a tidal wave of emotion. So much had happened in the last days. Ray Vecchio had come back. I found out Mum was murdered. I saw her. Dad left. Tears came many times in those days, but it wasn't until a cold March night, warm and snug in a tent lying next to Ray that was I able to let them fall.
They came slowly at first, then more quickly. It had been a long time since I had wept like this. Years. Ray rose quietly, shuffling over to my bedroll to wrap his arms around me.
He didn't have to say a word. He knew what it was that made me so sad.
Crying is a cathartic experience. I do not have nerves of steel. Like anyone else, I need catharsis occasionally.
I cried for the little boy who had lost his mum when he need her most. For a premature loss of innocence. And I cried because I had found again a man who was once my best friend and whom I no longer wanted to be associated with. I cried for changes which made me who I am, not necessarily worse, but no better, either.
Ray's arms were warm and solid, just what I needed, and when his shoulder was soaked wet, he gently guided me to the other.
After, we didn't speak of it. Nor did we skirt around the issue. When morning came, he asked me if I was okay, and when I said yes, Ray knew this to be the truth and we left it at that.
A wise person once said that true friends can sit together in silence. I can add that they can also sit together in laughter, and in tears.
End
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