Thinking about how Benson was a traumatized victim of CSA and a queer man living in the rural south in the early aughts. He saw so much of himself in Randy, and when Randy started getting pushed around and bullied, it was himself Benson saw being hurt yet again right in front of his eyes.
He was raised poor and by a single mother. Likely never came forward about what he was subjected to as a child, never developed any coping skills or received any sort of therapy. Just years of pent up pain, smoldering under the layers of himself he kept packed away inside like winter clothes, just waiting for the seasonal change that would never come so that he could finally shake the wrinkles out and examine it.
But then he saw himself in this scared young man. He knew who he’d become, even if no one else did, and the thought of seeing someone set on the same path when he had the power to help redirect his course and save him was lead-heavy on his spirit. So Benson, without any emotional regulation skills, who simply didn’t know what he didn’t know about healing, saved Randy in the only way he knew how.
Deep down he knew he needed comfort and healing and closure for the ghosts that never fully died and continued haunting him all these years later, his mind a decrepit and condemned house of horrors that he couldn’t afford to move out of or exorcise. So he did for Randy what he’d needed done for him, but laced with the anger and violence he’d come to associate with moving on. A cornered dog showing a puppy how to snarl and bite.
And when the literal face of his trauma was in front of him, speaking to him, not even recognizing him, whatever rational thought was still in the driver’s seat bailed out, and the anxiety and trauma and deep, visceral fear took over. Yes, the bullying at the beginning of the day triggered his PTSD, but coming face to face with the reason he became this way to begin with pushed him fully over the edge, and for literally the rest of his life Benson would be in the throes of reliving the trauma that had plagued him for most of his life.
He wasn’t an inherently violent person. He became this way because he didn’t know what or who else to become. The anger felt not just inevitable but like the only option. He never realized softness and vulnerability were an option outside of the wood paneled walls of his cluttered childhood home, where he could safely kiss his Ma on the forehead and bring her pastries and cigarettes. But he brought Randy there. Let him wear his clothes and meet his mother. Took him to breakfast and wiped his tears and told him It isn’t your fault, you were just a kid. Assured him that There is nothing wrong with you for being a virgin, and it’s a good thing that you’re the one in control of your body and sexuality. Encouraged him to Stand up for yourself, don’t let other people hold you back. Randy was a safe place for softness, and Benson was trying to fight against everything in himself that tied vulnerability to victimization despite how badly he wanted to be not only a comfort for Randy but comforted by him.
Benson felt he was too far gone, but Randy wasn’t. And maybe in helping Randy he could help himself. Randy could be his comfort and closure and peace.
But then Sheppard happened, and Benson’s mind turned on itself. He tried to fight back, but became only more distant from reality, retreating into himself while simultaneously trying to escape himself, spinning his tires in the mud and only finding purchase and movement when a bullet -his bullet from his gun- ripped through Randy’s shoulder. And his peace, his boy, was looking up at him with wide, wet eyes, scared and hurt, and Benson never wanted him scared and hurt, had only ever wanted to help. But now, freckled in blood and bathed in the red and blue lights of squad cars, Benson’s brain finally, finally, after all these years silenced, and he saw his life and himself for what they were.
He was a scared little boy whose last goal in life was to be a giraffe before his fate had been decided for him. He wasn’t equipped for adulthood or juggling the complexities that came with it. He was only ever rolling with the tide and surviving by caring for Ma and flipping burgers with a head full of trauma and a trunk full of bullets. His life had been driven by fear and violence, and his lot had been decided for him in the third grade. He never had a say in it. He was never in charge. A scared lamb without a sheepdog to keep the wolves at bay or a flock to insulate him and, not knowing what else to do, he threw himself to the wolves as a sacrificial omen, his last utterance the name of the man whose altar he was laying his body upon.
