Brian hunched forward, pulling his jean jacket tighter around his hurting ribs. He could still feel Jack's knuckles working him over, and cursed the drunken asshole viciously under his breath. The sun was shining, and hordes of kids, their moms, and nannies were there playing and feeding the ducks. Not a lot of dads in sight.
Wincing at the throbbing pain from his left cheekbone, Brian took a sharp turn to the right after entering the park. The cheek was going to bruise come evening. Brian was usually very good at dodging Jack's blows to the face, but today the bastard caught him off guard.
Brian was heading for the back part of the park, a place no one used during the daytime. The park bordered on Liberty Avenue, the gay part of town, and that end of the park was shunned by 'decent' people like his mother and father.
Brian snorted. The words 'decent people' and Joan and Jack Kinney did not belong in the same sentence.
Brian neared the hedged-in area that he had first heard of through the gay community grapevine. At night it was a rendezvous place for the horny and the underprivileged, aka a business place for the area hustlers.
As Brian walked through the opening between the hedges, he noticed evidence from the previous night's activities. The area underneath the greenery was littered with used condoms and condom wrappers, spilling out onto the sparse grass. The four picnic tables nearby were usually relatively clean, and it had rained earlier that morning. Brian couldn't identify any nastiness on the nearest table, so he sat down with his back against the table top. Sitting back on his elbows, Brian let his eyes close and relaxed for the first time in hours. The sun warmed his face, but as always Brian didn't really feel it. The sun and brightness were no concern of his.
On days like this he would normally go to Mikey's house and let Debbie fuss over him a little, but the Novotnys were in New York visiting Debbie's brother Vic. At least he had this place to himself until dark, when the hustlers would arrive to claim their territory. Brian was not one of them, and never would be, even though the things Brian had had to do in order to get a scholarship weren't a far cry from what they were doing; a fact Brian again pushed to the back of his mind.
Jack and Joan had been proud of him for earning a scholarship and becoming the first Kinney to go to college, but that hadn't prevented his father from kicking the shit out of Brian just a couple of hours later. Forgetting to lock your door when Jack was drunk was always a bad idea.
Thank God there were only a few months remaining until he turned eighteen and finished high school; then he could go away to college.
Brian fished out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his right pocket; his eyes still closed, he placed a cigarette between his lips. He found the lighter in his left jeans pocket. Lighting a cigarette, he peered up at the early, blue, spring sky for a brief moment before closing his eyes again, exhaling the smoke in his lungs before once more relaxing against the tabletop.
Brian had lost all sense of time and was floating in a kind of no-man's land, with the sound of the wind rushing through the hedge, the children's laughter, and an adult occasionally scolding one of them in the distance.
The sense of drifting and thinking of nothing for more than a split second was slowly giving way to an awareness that there was something amiss. Something was scratching away in his brain, or was it his ears?
The smoke long gone, Brian pushed his way back to full consciousness and opened his eyes. Sitting up, Brian looked towards the direction of the scratching sound where another picnic table was located.
Several feet away, sitting on the other table with his head bent over a sketch book, was a blond-haired little boy. He was concentrating so hard that his tongue was sticking out, and his brows were knitted together. He didn't seem to notice Brian watching him.
It was unusual for breeders – or their offspring – to be in this area of the park, so Brian's curiosity was piqued. Deciding to find out what the kid was doing there in the first place, Brian silently got up from the picnic table bench and started towards the little boy, with his gaze fixed on the soft tendrils of bright, golden hair covering the boy's eyes.
As Brian neared the boy, he peeked up through the blond locks and froze, eyes widening in fear as he scrambled to cover the sketch book as much as he could with his body. Brian put up his hands palms forward to show no ill intent.
"Didn't mean to scare you. I'm Brian," he introduced himself as he plopped down next to the frozen boy, offering one of his seldom but charming smiles, while repressing the urge to wince in pain.
The boy's eyes left him for a second, darting toward the sketch book and then back up.
God, those eyes!
Brian had never seen quite that color before. They were blue, but in a very intense, almost electric way. Brian felt drawn into the depths of them. It was hard to believe they belong to someone so young.
The boy didn't offer up his name, but a shy smile broke out on his face. Brian could swear that the sun got even brighter as it reflected on the boy's face. It was one of the most beautiful things Brian had ever seen: the boy sitting there, smiling.
He was still hiding the sketch book with his little hands firmly pressed down over the middle.
Brian felt uncharacteristically curious towards the boy and decided to find out more.
"What are you drawing?" he asked, gesturing towards the sketch book as he smiled again. "May I see?"
The boy reluctantly removed his hands covering the top page and gently slid the book over in Brian's direction.
"It's you," the boy shyly revealed.
And Brian could actually see that it WAS him, leaning back on the park table with his eyes closed, even though the sketch was obviously made by a kid.
Fuck! How old WAS this kid? Three? Four? This was one talented little boy.
"I can see that," Brian answered and smiled at the boy again, despite the pain. "It's very good. Do you take lessons?"
"When I turn eight, my mom says that I can go to art class. That's a looooong time from now, though," the boy replied, looking like he was going to explode with impatience, even jumping a little in his seat.
"How old are you?" Brian asked, rolling his tongue in his cheek.
The boy looked like he was three, but he had to be older, considering the sheer control of the pencil he was exhibiting in the drawing. Not that Brian knew much about kids, but he had dabbled in drawing himself, and knew it was not that easy to draw people so they were recognizable.
"Five and a half. And soon I'm turning six," the boy declared proudly, showing Brian a fist full of fingers and a bent finger on the other hand. Brian felt a surprised chuckle escape him, and the boy beamed back, making Brian feel warm and fuzzy inside.
God! Five years old.
Brian couldn't even remember being five. Brian's eyes dropped to the sketch again, taking in the lines and the composition. Brian felt flattered and had to ask. "Why did you make a sketch of me?"
"Because you're so pretty."
As soon as the words spilled out, the boy looked almost terrified, clasping both hands over his mouth as if he were trying to push the words back while he pulled away from Brian, almost falling off the bench. There were tears brimming in the blue eyes, and his hands moved towards the sketch book as he tried to take it out of Brian's hands, shrinking even further away from him.
What the hell!? What spooked the kid?
Brian was befuddled for a moment, but almost immediately recognized the signs of someone who was afraid of being hit. Brian moved away a little and slouched somewhat to seem less intimidating.
"Wow…. Wow, relax… I'm not going to hurt you," Brian spoke low and calmly, slowly stretching out the hand holding the sketch book, which the boy snatched out between his fingers in seconds. The boy studied Brian nervously; gone was the sunlight, and his eyes kept going back and forth between Brian's hands and eyes, assessing the potential danger. Brian felt bereft of the little splashes of sunlight the boy had surprisingly engendered in him, simply within a few moments of their acquaintance, and he desperately wanted it back.
"I'm really not going to hurt you. Here… see? I'm sitting on my hands now. Why would you think I'd hurt you?" Brian asked, genuinely puzzled as he placed his hands under his thighs. He kept his eyes on the boy's blue orbs.
The boy tentatively scooted over a little closer to Brian on the bench and seemed to be contemplating what to answer, or maybe even if he wanted to answer Brian's question. When Brian didn't move and gifted him with a friendly smile, it seemed the blonde came to a conclusion that somehow this young man could be trusted. He put the sketch book back down on the table as he peered speculatively over at Brian.
"You aren't going to beat me up?" The boy asked, obviously needing reassurance.
"I would never hurt you. That's a promise," Brian vowed, and to his own surprise he lifted his hand up to pinky swear.
The boy started to giggle, and just like that the sun was back. Astonishingly, Brian didn't even feel silly as they pinky swore. Smiling back at the blond, he repeated the question.
The boy's smile dimmed a bit as he explained, "I'm not supposed to call boys pretty…. My dad says that telling boys they're pretty will get me beat up…. and that it is wrong…. and that only girls are pretty and beautiful." The boy looked confused at his own explanation, too young to fully understand.
"But I don't understand. Because my eyes tell me that some boys are pretty… like you…." His brows were knitting together, uncomprehending. Brian felt flattered, even though he would have preferred "hot" to "pretty." For some reason, though, with this young boy, he didn't take offense.
"My dad even pinched me real hard one time because I told my friend Daphne that her cousin Jake was pretty," The boy confessed, subconsciously rubbing his right arm.
"You're right… some boys are indeed pretty, and there is nothing wrong with that. And as for getting beat up for saying so…. Well…" Brian lifted a brow as he studied his companion, the words slipping out before he had time to consider them. "You are honestly the prettiest thing I have ever seen," he told him, waiting for the boy's reaction with his tongue in cheek.
The boy's eyes lit up, and he even blushed a little. God, he was truly one of the most beautiful things Brian had ever seen in his life.
"Does what I just told you make you want to beat me up?" Brian continued.
The boy's huge smile returned and he shook his head. "No."
"…But to be safe, be sure to only tell those that truly deserve it," Brian instructed him quietly. He didn't want the boy to get into trouble with his dad or anybody else. The thought of someone destroying that innocent, trusting, and beautiful soul made Brian uncomfortable.
The boy held up his hand for another pinky swear, and Brian obliged, feeling oddly happy.
Suddenly, the boy shot his head up, listening for something.
"I've got to go; my aunt is calling…bye!" he chirped. Abruptly rising from his seat, he grabbed the sketch book and ran off in the opposite direction of Liberty Avenue.
Not long afterward, Brian left the secluded area of the park, humming Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) by the Eurhythmics.