This was originally written for speedrent challenge 95, but my Internet cut out and I didn't get to post it.

Ok, we know that Mark went to the Scarsdale JCC and the his mum lives there during the play, but nothing specifically states that he spent his entire life there. (Aah, the elastic clause!)

Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just playing with the characters.

"What? Why? No!"

Mom sighed. "Roger…"

I knew that tone all too well. She was a good person. She was the type to work hard, scrimp and save, cut coupons and go without. She would cry when I couldn't see and endure my sighs and complaints.

All I can say in my defense is that at the time, I did not know. I didn't understand. I was thirteen and selfish. All I cared about was myself; all I thought about was music and sex. If I had known what my mother went through, or understood that love she held for my father—the love I scorned for a man I hated—was more than a lack of self-reliance...

But I didn't. I sat at the table and complained, complained, complained.

"Roger, it would be a nice thing to do," Mom said.

I shoved my fork into a piece of potato. We always had potatoes, or pancakes, or beans, foods that were cheap and filling. "I don't care." She had long given up telling me not to talk with my mouth full. "I won't do it."

"Honey, please. You know it's hard for me to make friends, and she's a nice woman. And you might do well with a friend, too, someone nice."

She made him sound like a boyfriend. That more than anything pissed me off. "So make friends with her! That doesn't mean I need to get along with her geekwad kid!"

Mom sighed. "I didn't want to stoop to this, Roger. She'll pay."

That piqued my interest. I tried not to let Mom know, just chewed, swallowed and asked, "How much?"

She sighed again. Money was tight for us, so I assumed it was for them, too, or why would they live here? We were in a duplex, me and Mom on the ground floor, the new neighbors on top. There had previously been an old lady, Mrs. Morris. I liked her. She was old and sick and believed in the Bible, which I didn't, but she was all right. She taught me how to cook and play guitar, and gave me chores to do—grocery shopping, cleaning—and paid me. She died, though, and a new family moved in, a woman and her kid.

"She said her usual rate is four dollars an hour."

It seemed fairly piddling to me. "How old is the kid?"

"He's nine."

Nine's not too bad. He would be fairly self-sufficient, wouldn't need my help going to the bathroom or anything. I could probably set him up with a video and work on my music. "Okay. He's not, like, retarded or anything?"

---

I was supposed to pick him up from school and walk home with him, then stay with him until his mom got home. It seemed easy enough until I was standing outside the elementary school with a bunch of soccer moms giving me the evil eye, G-d only knows what for. I wasn't wearing anything inappropriate, just jeans and a Wings T-shirt. The clothes were a little tight, but nothing was showing. Well, okay, except my biceps, but those were nice!

One little boy caught my eye. He was being pestered by a girl, a little Hispanic kid wearing a skirt over blue jeans and a dark blue shirt a little too small for her. I couldn't make out the words of the little Spanish chant she teased him with, but I was fairly certain it was derogatory. The strange thing is, the boy wasn't doing anything. The girl kept taunting and taunting, and she would run up every so often and tug one of his ears, and wouldn't even retaliate.

"Hey, kid!" I gave a sharp whistle, and the girl looked up. "Fuck off," I told her. She looked from me to the boy, tossed a handful of curly brown hair over her shoulder, stuck out her tongue and scurried away.

"Are you Roger?"

I looked down. The kid was about as high as my armpit, on tiptoe, eighty pounds soaking wet if I had to guess. He was formal, a lot more formal than the other kids, wearing pants that were neither torn nor denim and a button-down shirt with a collar. He had thick glasses that had been glued together and big, blue eyes that were not as nervous as those of the soccer moms.

This kid did not belong in the barrio. No wonder the girl pestered him.

"Uh-huh."

He shifted his books to under his left arm, pushed up his glasses and offered his hand. "I'm Mark. Cohen," he added.

"Hi." He wanted to be a little adult, which was fine, except that I had to practically bend double to shake his hand. "Okay, let's go."

We were about a block away when he started up another conversation. "Do you know where I live?" he asked. "Did my mom tell you?"

I laughed. "I live downstairs, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. My mom says it's vulgar to whistle."

I scowled. Whistling is what I do. It's how I try out tunes that I like and might want to do on the guitar. "Yeah, well, I'm not whistling, I'm makin' music."

"Oh. Is that different?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's art," I told him. That's right, I'm an artist. At my school that means 'fag', which is why I'm the fightingest son of a bitch in the ninth grade.

Mark nodded. "Oh." He didn't seem to understand, but he said it like he was going to think about this idea of art. "I do that, too."

"You write music?"

"No, I write movies. And some day I'm gonna buy a camera. I know which one, too, I saw it in a junk shop, it's really old, but I like it a lot. Then I can make my movies. Mom said if I can get half the money then she can give me the other half for Hanukah. I've been saving for a while. Oh. But I'm not supposed to talk about money."

We were outside the house now; I unlocked the front door. "You can talk about whatever you want," I told Mark. The kid was chattering his head off and yeah, bugging me a little, but he seemed okay.

---

We were in the flat two hours later. Mark was sitting at the table with his hands in plain sight, like he was being arrested. I was leaning against the counter. He had finished his homework already and then read quietly. I've never babysat before, so I didn't know what to do. He was watching me, waiting for me to move. I stared back at him.

"May I have a snack?" he asked.

"Okay, what do you want?" I asked.

Mark blinked, unused to having questions answered with questions. "I dunno. You're in charge." It was another sign of a boy who didn't belong in a poor neighborhood. He said 'may' and ceded to the authority of a thirteen-year-old simply because he was told to do so.

"Okay." The flat was exactly the same as my mother's. I turned and opened a cupboard: mostly canned food, no surprises there. "How about cookies?" I asked, reaching for the top shelf. "Cookies are a good snack."

"Those are for the weekend," he said.

"Why?" If I had cookies, I would eat them all almost immediately. Or maybe I would eat one every day. I don't know. We had cookies a lot when I was younger, but then everything went to shit.

Mark shrugged. "It's just the rule," he said.

I shook my head. "Whatever, little man." He squirmed when I said that and kind of smiled. "What, you like that? Where's your dad, anyway?"

"Where's yours?" he asked.

"Prison."

Mark's reaction almost made me laugh: his eyes went almost wider than his glasses rims, his hands disappeared to clutch the seat, his back slammed against the chair. He gasped. "Kid, I'm not gonna hurt you." Mark liked 'little man' much more than he liked 'kid'. "Look, my dad… he did some bad shit a couple of years ago."

For a long moment Mark was quiet, watching me like I would blink first. After about half a minute he looked at the table and whispered, "You shouldn't say that word."

Mark wouldn't look up again, just kept mumbling to the table. "Are you allowed to have honey?" I asked. He nodded. I may be a badass and contrary to popular belief fighting does not mean that I have no emotions. I know how to have candy without candy. I also know that Mark's mom was a lot better off than mine.

I gave him apples and honey, candy and fruit in one. Mark glanced at me, then took a piece of apple and bit off the end. "Thank you."

"Mark."

He glanced at me again, then back at the table.

"What are you?" I asked. I didn't know why I was saying it, but watching this kid was like watching an alien or a drag queen in boys' clothes. "Seriously, what… what are you? You… you have fruit in your home and your pants are ironed. You're trying to buy a video camera. You care about things like whistling and you freak out 'cause my dad's in prison. Mark, you don't belong—" I shut up. He had started to cry.

Oh, fucking great, Davis. My first babysitting job, and I make a nine-year-old cry. "Mark."

He raised his head and pushed his glasses up over his eyes. "I didn't want you to come," he said. "I can take care of myself, you know! I'm not a baby!"

"Nobody said you're a baby."

"Everybody says!" he shouted. "But I'm gonna be ten. That's not a baby." I shook my head and agreed with him. "I don't need a babysitter. But Mom thinks I do, and she said you could be my friend! You're not a very good friend."

It occurred to me then exactly how pathetic we were: a couple of kids in a half-inhabited apartment, a couple of kids whose parents had to bribe them lies about friendship so they wouldn't be alone. I've seen kids who are alone all the time. They don't shower and they cut themselves and they let anyone fuck them just for attention.

"Yeah, well, that's 'cause I'm an asswipe."

Mark seemed like a good kid. He was almost cute, a little grown-up, a little artist. He needed to feel better, which meant that he needed to understand that I was definitely not a very cool teenager. I was a grade-skipping, A-grubbing, needy little latchkey boy. And what right did I have to hurt anyone?

He stopped crying and squinted. "What's an asswipe?"

"Uh… it's kinda self-explanatory."

He thought about it for a moment. "Oh. Yeah, you kind of are an asswipe."

I nodded. "Yeah, I am. So, uh, feeling better?"

"No."

"Maybe if you get cleaned up. Come here." He didn't want to, but did anyway. I lifted him onto the counter and twisted on the tap, waiting for the water to warm up. "I'm gonna take your glasses for a minute, okay?"

"If you break them we're both in trouble."

"I won't break them." I soaked a dishtowel in warm water and told Mark to close his eyes while I washed his face. He did. My dad did this for me when I was younger, right up to the point he got his sorry ass thrown in prison. I didn't tell Mark that, just washed his face while he sat quietly, kicking his heels against the counter.

"Better?"

He nodded.

"Okay. Come on." I lifted him off the counter and set him on the ground.

"You're okay," he told me, "even though you're an asswipe."

"Mark Elijah Cohen!"

We both looked up. Mark gave one of his shocked gasps: his mother stood in the doorway, aghast. I smiled and patted Mark on the shoulder. "Welcome to the barrio, little man."

The End!