SECRET LIFE SECRETS REVEALED

GAME OF LIFE & DEATH

In this summary Ben, begins to tell Chloe and Georgio, about his life beginning after he gets off the bus from Reno to Vegas. 

He has a few thousand dollars in his pocket, a travel bag with some clothes, the suit Gram bought him for Christmas, a disposable phone with pictures of 3-Jay  and Gram.  His only other items are a photo of his mom, and the last sonogram photo taken of his daughter the day before she died.  The first thing Ben decides to do when he arrives with his small belongings is go into the first casino he see's and places a bet.  Ben was shocked that he was that good at gambling back in Reno, and wonder's if the saying is true "Unlucky in love, but always lucky in cards.  Ben begins placing wager after wager at the black jack table soon he is in for a stake of $34,000.00.  He looks at the his cards with a jack on top of a 7 of diamonds, and says "hit me".  The dealer looks at him and shows the next card is a 4 of clubs.  Ben then begins to believe the saying.

His time in Vegas is fun, money and gambling take away all the memories of everything he went through in Glenn Valley.  He is winning up to $10,000.00 a day and sleeps in the best of the hotel's in Vegas.  He uses his winnings in Vegas to purchase legal documents to change his name.  He discovers that in Vegas as long as the cash was right he could be anyone.  He finds a man that has access to government records, and uses this access to get a false social security number that will  show up in the system.  He even found another Benjamen Helen who died, which let's him use the name legally. 

Ben is pleased with this news, and pays the man twice what he asked for the documents.  With that Ben gets a new drivers license, social security card, and falsified records, that claim he was an orphan.  To Ben it's almost true, since in his belief he no longer had a family.  He is happy in his new life, no one knows him, no one cares about him, and he can do whatever he wants.  He no longer has responsibilities to keep, rules to follow, or an image to maintain.  He is free to come and go as he pleases without having a father that controls his every move, and continues to force him to do things he doesn't want to do.  He never wanted to be friends with Ricky he was a jerk, but Leo forced it on him.  He didn't want to ask Amy, or Adrian to marry him that was Leo's dumb idea to help Amy  and Adrian from being humiliated for being pregnant in high school.  It was an outdated technique that people in his dad's day did to save face for knocking a girl up. 

He definitely didn't want to forgive Henry for sleeping with Adrian.  Adrian was understandable she used sex like a band aid, to make herself feel better.  But, Henry was different.  Henry was the only person he told about Adrian's problem and he knew that, and used it to sleep with her.  Adrian wouldn't have slept with himself if it weren't for that reason, and he was wealthy.  To Ben Henry was just a selfish prick like Ricky.  All any of them did was pretend to be his friend just to get to his father's money.  Leo was a bigger fool than him all he did was pay for this, and pay for that, because they would give him some sob story and Leo would shell out cash like a broken ATM.  He was Leo's son, and he never asked for  much money.  Leo was never smart enough to put two and two together. He could never realize all of them Amy, Adrian, Ricky, Henry, and even Alice used their relationship or friendship with him to gain his ear.  When he discovered Omar's newfound wealth, he had to look into it, and discovered Leo gave him an introduction to the company that sponsored his program, and he was a silent anonymous partner.  Leo thought he hid that well from other's, but Ben was no fool and hacking his father's computer was even easier than when he hacked Amy's.  Leo was so quick to give all of them money with no strings, but him his own son he used his money to control him like a puppet.  But now he had cut his strings.  Here in Vegas, the money he had was his own, and he could do what ever he wanted with it.  But, that was the problem.

However Ben knew that money could never buy him what he truly wanted.  What he wanted was to be with his mother, and his daughter for all of the crap that he went through in Glenn Valley to disappear, but no amount of money could erase that.  So Ben just did what most people had money but didn't know what to do with it did, he squandered it.  He would buy fancy rooms, buy expensive clothes, and order drinks for people he didn't know.  At the same time he would win back all the money he spent, or lose it in the flip of a coin at the slots, roll of the dice at craps, turn of the card in black jack, or bounce of the ball in roulette.  But he never cared, what was there to care about he had always had money and it never brought him happiness.