Kinston Magazine

07/02/2024

-Titanium White and You-
Betsy a D.C debutante, father a writer, Stephen King stood on the line. Her mother a gorgeous brunette in a long bangless bob, elated eyes, and ready reach for my forearm during the chat up. Betsy was at Converse while I was at Wofford dating a smart young beauty who ran cross county with ease, Louise. Messy dirty blonde, uncharacteristically b***y for a runner, and perfectly puffy lips. She liked her body.

1981, we went to see Epcot over Christmas break, first grade.
Peter Pan's shadow stitched to heel struck a chord of curiosity from the playground of catching silhouette glances of my moving existence through space, in light. The Disney geodome tour rounded to a grey carpeted alcove with carpet boxes arranged into a semi-circle, corned in white stretched paper walls, and overlapping spot lighting. We stood for a flash and turned to watch our shadows suspended on the angled field, long enough to be inspected, hands lined up and matched before the grey form blurred with pink edges as it faded to nothing. Again, Again, Arms Out, Jump, Wave, cartwheel, study the eye lashes, the height, finally.
I see you.

Betsy called,

06/21/2024

-Txt Message 6/20/24-
Nice, I was there a lot over the last 2 weeks for Big Rock-work.
Long enough to get used to it.
The random people energy of a city supermarket during the
5 o’clock hustle for groceries and bag of morning coffee.
I visualized living there, and felt it.
That ocean, drifting in the slow roll of the ebbing tide, fresh salt, and the tightness of sunburn. I just love it.

Ben Harper

06/04/2024

-Saturday June 1st-
We burned the magnolia leaves and cut back the mimosa limbs that had advanced over the greenhouse.
Blew off the back patio turned basketball court. The concrete clean and warm underfoot. Gardenias seem to be everywhere.

Ben Harper

05/11/2024

Hit the ceiling of contrived ai targeted social media,…for the day.
Opened the kitchen window after having moved the little East Fork wood fired vase on the ledge with the lavendar and rosemary. Scooted the alexa speeker over the oven, closer to the window opening with the live Bob Weir from Colorado.
Went outside with a slam of sceen door, and watched clouds in high vilosity winds cruise overhead with glimpses of a perfect starry night.

01/20/2024

Big Week, Jim rang the bell at 11 Wall Street, and might could hit 18 degrees on Sunday. About due for a music review in time for the hunker down of warm socks, heavy blankets, and steaming pasta.
These are the 7 albums that drew me back in loops over 2023.
Ask Alexa nicely... it's that simple.

Hands down something special in all ways, fame will find:
1) 2022 "Time Turns Everything” by Mikayla McVey

The Bob Dylan concert you've always wanted with perfect sound and a mature mix of time and electricity, all of it, released November of 2023.
2) 2023, "The Complete Budokan" Live in Tokyo 1978 by Bob Dylan

An original and creative favorite.
3) 2023, "Broken Sky" 7 Inch vinyl by Ray LaMontagne

Because I love it.
4) 1978, Dire Straits by Dire Straits

5) 1968, Truth by Jeff Beck

6) 2010, Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows Songs of John Prine by Various Artists.

7) 2022, Dripfield by Goose

-Ben Harper

01/05/2024

-Windswept-

09/23/2023

-Lost in Translation-
I had forgotten.
The strobe of social video blankets time and relationships thin and busy.
The rain sounded so good that I qued a real movie.
Lost in Translation directed by Sophia Coppola 2003.
Her Daddy owned New York City with the Godfather trilogy so her escape to Tokyo made sense. Her seductive treatment of natural light and speechless visual story sequences also added up. The quiet shot of Bill Murray walking to the tees to hit his morning drive with Mt. Fuji fading in blue hues was funny and beautiful with undertones of Caddyshack. Scarlett Johansson is in the fold too.
Scarlett and Bill. You feel the crush in real time and it's nice.

I now understand why Scarlett married Colin Jost on Saturday Night Live.

The movie won the Oscar for best screenplay and was nominated for best picture, best director, and best actor.

-Ben Harper

07/28/2023

-Good Heat-
July currents of humid air are pushing into town, I love it. The plantation shutters are closed tight, dark, with afternoon slivers of light. The cool rooms feel like perfect sheets.
So, it's Grand Marnier with vanilla ice cream on the back porch this evening.
The can of Del Monte sliced peaches in the fridge will be breakfast.
-Ben Harper

07/15/2023

The spotlights were high in the trees, oaks. Bark had grown over the cables in dips and runs from the switch box fastened to the bottom of one tree, above our heads. We would turn the dial with a hard slow snap in the cascade of snow flurries, hot faced with sleds in hand.

-Ben Harper

05/03/2023

The last time I saw him was The Soul Bar in Augusta, it was New Years. He met her in Hawaii, she was drop dead, wearing black leathers, had straight-cut auburn bangs with the perfect features of a video game chick. She talked so close that I could smell her makeup. I was with his sister and it was so crowded, the heavy bass, white flecks of light rolling across the tin ceiling and down onto the people from the mirrored balls. We were on the catwalk. Tim knew the owner.

12/25/2022

Our first dog’s name was Dixie after Winn Dixie. She was such a terrible biter that we gave her to our church minister so that she could run on his farm with the other dogs. I don’t think of her much within the 5-year-old block of memories from Columbia. The high dive drops and bigwheel curb jumps at the bottom of Bobwhite outshine the brevity of Dixie. I do remember visiting her after church. First we pulled a sack of corn and then caught up with her and the dogs on the other side of a ranch fence looking like an auburn knot of summercut torsos vying for our attention in the lush heat. She was happy and didn’t know me. When the password question asks for first dog’s name, I type the shakespear for the west highland white terrier.

Merry Christmas Kinston

11/05/2022

11/05/2022

-Glimpsed Memory-
It was the Amaco at the City Marina.
I pulled in to hear it on the radio, parked.
Downtown Charleston.
The Marina gas station and the BP on Meeting near the new library were the only on the Peninsula at the time.
The Cherokee was the last by AMC, 1987, Black, 2 Door with a silver graphic fade along the base and “4x4" by the front tires. The back windows didn't roll, they vented with a vertical pop.
The drummer from Nirvana had new band, and the song was Everlong.
The water was no longer noticed as much, not like the marsh.
She had finished Smith and we lived in the Pink House on the corner of Montagu and Pitt. 1785, first U.S. Treasurer. The ballroom floor apartment's twin set of french doors opened to the broad front porch of the forward facing colonial which pre-dated the long house neighbors. She worked for an upstart Greek attorney from Mt. Pleasant, Porsche. Moonlighting her humanity at Fast & French on Church Street. Rachel. Brunette with a high forehead, actively expressive brows, hazel golden eyes, effervescent pale skin and perfume selected during her year in Geneva..
The hot metal tray of escargot with melted butter, roasted garlic, parsley, plate of cheeses, and stumpy glass of Bordeaux are why I go to SEWE now. The Fast & French dining experience in the narrow room with fireplace, and high seated reverse horseshoe shaped black & chrome countered seating is unchanged by time with newspapers and magazines showcased in the track lighting of the foyer corner. The scents like olive oil and rice wine vinegar with grated ginger on fresh broccoli , the interesting people shouldered up.

06/17/2022

-Early Summer-
The hot winds blew in last night through and around the magnolia. It's shedding blossoms swirled like soft serves rustling into the corners of the basketball patio, fireplace, and rosemary bush. It was nice out there in the dim evening after I had grilled flank steak, peppers, freshly dug spring onions, and tortillas for a shoot on a firepit-grill. It'll be 100 today, or so. The kids are in Asheville for a mission trip week, and the golf course is empty again after the purposeful strides of the LPGA hopefuls accompanied by caddys or push carts, and random trail of spectators peering with importance for the white ball and story to tell at the next dinner party. Lucy Li took the Epson Tour victory and $30,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield big check. It was cool to see the vitality pump through the course over the tournament week laying up to the Kinston County Club centennial in 24'. This weekend it’s all about the first deep sunburn and salt water soaked pulley pulls of Big Rock.

-Ben Harper

05/07/2022

Tonight's rain on the soil smells like summer. They say a cold front is moving in Sunday with lows in the 40's. The Derby horses run tomorrow at 6:57 on NBC

02/27/2022

-Lauren-
She was raised in the brick house on the corner of Battery and Council Street. Her Daddy, a lawyer of moderated temper and trim build bought the handsome home on Charleston's battery when it was like any other small community neighborhood, with his girls attending the episcopal school that many students walked to. The salt and sun brightened her blonde hair year-round and gave her skin a fresh warm glow. Charleston's social scene tones facial muscles, defining cheekbones and laugh lines with ever present smiles. Lauren's brown eyes were lit with intelligence,.. why Stephen liked her.
This was before the year in New Zealand and before her Christie’s job in NY, Stephen with the publishing gig, and John doing the moonlight scramble to wedge into acting while working investment banking at Citi. All from their Williamsburg apartment with roof access for the grill and views of Manhattan.
This was during Wofford. I had transferred to Charleston after Wofford sophomore year seduced by a summer in the holy city's opportunities, and leased a loft above the college bookstore on King Street a block before Calhoun Street with a recently graduated SAE fraternity brother. This was the summer Gordan died, a week into his medical residency in Augusta.
Morris Island is an undeveloped stretch of sand, marsh grass, and maritime forest at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, south of Ft. Sumter. Prime oceanfront real estate that has eluded the backroom deals between politicians and general contractors. A miracle really. The battle of the 54th Massachusetts blooded the sand of Morris during the Civil War. It's a place of extraordinary beauty and escape from the teams of tourists. My buddy Robert had one of those jetboats, propelled like a jet ski but scaled and shaped like some sort of amusement park boat ride you would see in the kids' section. It was fun and would carry 4 people, uncomfortably. We'd pile in like a clown car when the water was smooth as glass and wind low. If the water was choppy, the small craft was like riding a jackhammer. Maybe it was July, and we were determined to make the trip from the James Island boat club ramp to Morris Island across the harbor. First off, Robert and I had to make a run to the Marine parts store for a new throttle line and swap it out. Always something. So we a had late afternoon start and the wind forecast had changed. It was the Aiken crew of myself, Robert, Patrick, Stephen and Lauren with room for a small cooler of iced beer. The billows of white cumulus clouds had begun to move into the cobalt sky for the daily 5 o'clock rain. The aqua fiberglass vessel skimmed across the ocean with a hard bobbing, knees knocking, sudden bursts of surf spray, and the comical and pointless grabs to steady ourselves with someone's leg or nearest boat side. It was ridiculous and rough and beautiful. We landed on the Northern tip, the sliver of sand dark as pluff mud, and cuffed by summer green marsh grass on the harbor side. Fields of shade moved over us from the drifting clouds giving our eyes eased and sharpened focus on each other in the volley of jokes and lounging with beers in the tidal pools. Lauren wore a one piece silver bathing suit. Not Roxy shiny, more the neutral of your grandmother's sideboarded sterling. Gorgeous and natural in the shimmering ebbed greys of the salt water, her amber tan, messy blonde, and flashed laugh.
It was time.
The cascade of storm clouds on the horizon had reached the particular depth of darkness to signal the circle-up to pull anchor and haul ass back on the already vacated expanse of Charleston Harbor.
I've been caught in high seas off Key West, barracuda fishing. The kind when the math of making it back to land doesn't work out with walls of water rising in an unbroken roll above the boat so close you can reach into them, defying the laws of physics and logic. I'd climb onboard that trip any time over that ride back from Morris Island. The wind crested white tops and chopped the ocean into a chaos that we hurdled in the jet boat, our shoulders on knees grasping for balance between the comedic relief shouts of "Son of a Motherless Goat! ", "You Have such a Nice Big Boat Rob!" with each substantial bow pound against the head breakers.
We made it to the James Island boat club and tumbled out onto the dock like we had been in a dryer. The sun was shining through the patches of light rain. Robert's little brother was there hanging with his buds and agreed to take the boat back to their father's house.
The five of us loaded into Patrick's old Nisson Pathfinder to ride back to King Street for showers and dinner. We felt like we had been in some sort of heavy metal mosh pit. The afternoon rain stacked humidity, we were sandy, and our salted skin stuck to the seats. Patrick driving, Rob called shotgun, with Lauren, Stephen, and I lined up on the narrow backseat of the sport utility vehicle with the windows down. As we climbed the arch of the Island Connector over the water to downtown, the Simon and Garfunkel song, Cecilia, began playing on the radio.
Patrick turned it up over the roar of the open windows. The song begins with the simple percussive beat of pounding on a piano bench while patting knees, joined by an acapella chorus, "Cecilia You're Breakin my Heart, You're Shakin my confidence daily.". I began keeping beat on my thighs within the rhythm of driving over the concrete seams of the bridge.
Lauren did the same,
and she sang,
"Making love in the afternoon
With Cecilia
Up in my bedroom
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed
Someone’s taken my place."
The entire vehicle followed suit singing, “Celia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees
I’m begging you please to
Come on home
Jubilation,
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I laughing
Jubilation
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I laughing
It was that moment in time that a part of me too, fell in love with Lauren. She and Stephen are married with three beautiful babes in Atlanta.

-Ben Harper
Kinston Magazine

02/13/2022

-Bold As Love-
She wore sandals that laced up her ankles like a Roman, a khaki wrap-around skirt, sleeveless white linen with lace beneath and Yves Saint Laurent Paris perfume for the late August heat. I had spent the summer on Madrid clay courts and Malaga's topless beaches. We were 15. Alphabetically, we were assigned desks next to each other in the stripes of morning light for our history class. She was new. Or back. She had tried the public arts school for ballet.

There were 100 of us in the upper school. 18 in our class. By Junior year it was clear. Juniors ran the lunchtime concession stand selling snickers and cokes to raise money for prom. You'd volunteer in two's to cover it. She and I put our names in together. 10 minutes before lunch you were permitted to leave 3rd period early to prep the candy cubby of the tabled room designated for lunch when it was raining. 10 minutes when we knew where everyone was while precisely knowing when they would be headed our way in the separate and long-empty gym building. We all played a sport or three, so no Phys.ed offered. She sat behind me in math and would begin digging her pencil eraser into my shoulder blade at a quarter till, and would run it down my spine until the big hand was on 10.

-Ben Harper
Kinston Magazine

02/06/2022

-Gotcha-
The underground game didn't have a name.
It's administration was quietly passed to a well connected 11th grader each year.
There was one rule, not on school grounds.
That was the only rule.
You locked your second-story windows and took quick showers with eyes open.
You eliminated routine.
To win the kitty you'd make it through to Spring.
You'd have to get close, real close, to make the kill.
I loved it.
Our team of 4 made it to Spring.
This is how it worked. Ante Up $100 per team of 4. Last standing takes all. The pool included the two primary highschools in town. The teams were composed of your core buds. The brackets were set by the administrator, who happened to be on my team. The September Ante deadline and oath of silence were non-negotiable. Everyone wanted in, girl teams too. Cash stacked. The designated weapon was the toy pistol that shoots tiny yellow balls 10 Feet if the wind is right and 2 feet for accuracy of the one surprise shot you had before all hell broke loose. Over-turned chairs, door slammed, flat out foot race to the safety of locked car doors and scrambled key crank. Each round your team was given the four names of the opposing roster. This was before social media and amazon. Sometimes you knew who the kids were, sometimes you knew the name only, or if they were from across town you had no idea. Saturday bonfire meet-ups rang with boisterous strategy, talking through the name list with your friends covering neighborhood locations, what sports they played, what they drove, who their girlfriends were, etc, Where the girlfriend lived was always easy pickens in the early rounds. Dude would drive her home after school, walk her to the door, and you'd wait crouched behind his car for the walk back. Iced. Working in twos could be clumsy, loud, but it carried the benefit of a front tackle. If you got shot, you lost your gun for the round. However you could tackle and hold the enemy for your teammate to shoot. Zombie action. Did I have an advantage by having the administrator on the team when it came to bracket picks? Yes, Shut up, It's who you know. Did my team have an advantage because I went to a private school across the state line? Yes, It's where you are. In the late rounds none of that mattered, you were up against the obsessed psychopaths. This is the difference. Round 1, Ding D**g, "Hi Mrs. Robinson, is Danny home?"Yes, just a minute let me get him." Danny would bolt out of the back door while you were on the front porch and your buddies would be there unloading like a turkey shoot. Or as soon as Mrs. Robinson walked away, you would run into the house, upstairs, and shoot him while he was doing his trig homework. Late Rounds, if it was pouring down rain Friday night you knew they might not park their car down the street in the cul'de-sac to walk home through the woods and slip in through the kitchen door soaking wet after scouting the perimeter. He might get sloppy and park in his driveway.
By Halloween the toy stores were sold out of guns and ammo. You'd have to go on road trips to restock the arsenal of yellow shot and buy extra guns. Cheap toys so they broke, and you learned that you needed one everywhere and on you at all times. One hand on the soap and the other on the gun in the shower. Mothers complained about the yellow balls being everywhere, in the dryer, in the sofa, vehicles, rugs, and against baseboards. "Mom, don't throw those away I need..." Yall have got to stop".
There's a lot of commotion in household mornings. A lot of distractions with everyone getting ready for work and school. Doors were unlocked to get the morning paper while the coffee ran, toaster popped and TV talked. They had no idea you were in the house. Sunday before church was the sweet spot. Dads with gun collections garnered a different approach. But the parents knew what was up, still pi**ed, though many had done it too in the 1970's and were proudly pleased to see it play again.
The truth is the experience bonded the teenagers of town together with shared stories of action, tactics, plenty of bloopers, and perfect kills. You would talk to different circles of people at parties from across town and share laughs about the hi-jinx. Our first round opponent was a team of girls with one b***y beauty who lived a few doors down. Easy kill. Waited in her garage in broad daylight after school. She pulled in the driveway, walked in through the open garage door and I chased her into her family room for two in the chest while she laid on the floor after having tripped on the carpet.
Come summer, the two of us were jumping our country club's pool fence for midnight swims.
So how did it go down? For me, I left the house about an hour earlier than the kids in town in order to drive across the state line, around 7a.m. This created an inherent barrier and mystery to my unavoidable routine for my opponents. That and my living in a manned gated community added a layer that would have to be accessed to get to me. Didn't matter much by the final round. My front door had the best open visibility to check windows from the inside before exit. Nothing much to hide behind out there other than the side of the house, an attack that would give time for my reaction. I can't express how the paranoid behavior had become second nature by this time, how quiet you walked with precise and careful movement. The side door of the garage was closest to my Cherokee. I never used that door anymore. I had parked with the bumper up against the wood privacy fence not allowing any space for a person to squeeze into,... front of vehicle clear. My backpack was on one shoulder and I carried 2 books. One gun in my left hand, and a second gun on top of the books. Walking around from the front of the house gave sight of under the car, driver side, and shotgun, of the 2 door Jeep. It was Spring with plenty of morning light.
There they were.
Hunched down in hoodies along the side of the fence line that ran into the woods. They were 8 feet from the driver's side door.
Hesitate and die. This was the final round.
They hadn't seen me with their noses against the wood fence.
I silently hustled forward on the driveway to the back right tire of the Cherokee. Set down the books and the backpack. Gripped the second gun. Jumped up and ran straight at them shooting both guns. Killed the nearest, and the other one went running into the woods with me sprinting right behind.
The dense pines of the empty lot broke to a lush green backyard of the neighbor's house. I slowed to understand the new landscape with a head full of adrenaline. He was near the garage pulling himself together for a standoff. I could see the fear in his face.
I took off right at him pulling triggers.
Bamm, I was on the ground. Damn Zombie.
The first one had caught up. I bowed his jaw and was back on my feet with his arms still around my legs.
I needed the target to come closer.

Now you know how to play.
Have fun.

-Ben Harper
Kinston Magazine