Chapter 1 - Consolation.
Brian was trying very hard not to cry. At the tender age of four he already knew that crying usually just made things worse. His father said that only sissy boys cried. Brian didn't want to be a sissy boy. He also didn't want his father to find him where he was hiding in the closet behind the pile of old suitcases.
He could still hear his father yelling from the kitchen. The tiny tract house they were currently living in didn't offer many good hiding places. There were only three bedrooms - Brian's, Claire's and the big one his parents shared - plus the kitchen and living room. There was a basement, but it wasn't finished and Brian found its dank, cobwebby emptiness even more scary than his father, so there was no way he'd try hiding down there. His sister, Claire, had already snagged the best hiding spot in the house - behind the towels on the bottom shelf of the linen closet in the bathroom - the only spot he knew his father hadn't yet discovered. His only hope was that he was small enough to evade notice back here behind the piles of unused old cases.
The terrified preschooler had been hiding in this spot for quite a while now. He couldn't yet tell time but it felt like he'd been there a really long while. However, he knew not to leave his hiding spot until he either heard his father leave, the squeaky metal screen door clanking shut loudly as the man slammed out the door, or until father fell asleep with his loud, uneven snores reverberating off the walls and filling the small house with a noise that had come to signify that 'all was clear'.
Brian already knew that tonight was going to be one of the Bad Nights. Father had come home already smelling of beer before dinner was even finished. His mother had called father a 'No-Good-Drunken-Lout'. Brian didn't know what a lout was, but he knew that it was a bad thing to say to his father when he smelled like beer already. When mother and father were busy yelling at each other with their backs to the table, Claire had waved at him and they had both slunk away from the kitchen table as fast as they could.
Unfortunately, Brian soon found out that all his efforts at hiding were wasted. The yelling noises started to get louder as his father stomped down the short hall towards the bedrooms. He could also hear his mother crying loudly as she ran into her bedroom before father could get there, slamming the door and locking it behind her.
"Claire! Brian! Get the fuck out here you two freeloading, useless idiots!" Father was yelling as his voice came nearer. "Get out here and clean up this fucking mess in the kitchen you Goddamn leeches! I work and work, day in and day out, and all you lot do is eat. At the very least you can damn well learn to clean up after yourselves."
Brian knew he was lost the moment he heard his bedroom door crash open, the door slamming into the nearby wall with a crack as the drywall caved in upon impact with the doorknob. Before he knew it, the closet door was sliding open and his father had grabbed him by the wrist. Father dragged him out of the darkness and down the hall as his feet desperately tried to catch up with his body.
"Get this fucking mess cleaned up, damn it," father yelled as he shoved Brian into the kitchen table which was still covered with the detritus from their interrupted dinner.
Brian scrambled to gather up the dishes and take them to the sink the way he'd seen his mother and sister do it before. He accidentally spilled some of the peas on the floor but he didn't stop to pick them up when he saw the way his father glared at him. However, when the slippery glass fell out of his hand and shattered against the edge of the sink, he completely froze.
"Useless, fucking piece of shit!" Father said with his face turning almost purple in anger. "Do you think I'm made of money, damn it? Get the hell out of here before you break something else!"
Before Brian could move though, his father had grabbed him by the shoulder and thrown him backwards out of the kitchen and into the wall by the stairs. The light-boned little boy sailed through the air like a rag doll. He ricocheted off the wall and tumbled headlong down the stairs to the basement, coming to rest in a heap at the bottom of the staircase.
"I knew from the moment your mother told me she was pregnant that you were going to be a useless waste of space. But Joanie was too good to get an abortion. Well, the Warden got her way and look what I got - you! Just a worthless drain on my bank account," Jack continued as he clomped down the stairs after Brian.
When the infuriated man reached the bottom landing, he took hold of the wailing boy by the collar of his shirt, pulled open the basement door and threw the child through into the darkness. Brian couldn't see anything in the dark, but he distinctly heard the latch on the door sliding shut, locking him into the frightening spider-filled cellar all alone. He crawled to the door and began to hammer on it with his left hand, his right arm hanging painful and useless at his side, obviously damaged in some way from the fall.
The frightened and hurt little boy eventually gave up pounding at the door when he realized nobody was going to come for him. He was too scared to move away from the door, though. So he just sat where he was, crying from the pain in his shoulder and petrified at the thought of being alone in the creepy, dark basement. After a long time he stopped crying, mainly from utter exhaustion.
As his crying petered out, slowly turning into random isolated sobs, Brian gradually became aware that he was no longer alone. By the tiny bit of moonlight leaking in through the dirty basement window, he saw that there was someone sitting on the floor next to him leaning back against the locked door. The only feature of his new companion that Brian could really make out was the figure's white blond hair which gleamed even in the faint moonlight. Rather than becoming more frightened by the appearance of the stranger in his basement, though, the child was comforted by the knowledge that he was no longer alone.
"Hello, Brian," the shadowy figure whispered to the boy. "I know you're scared and that your arm really hurts, but don't worry. I'll stay with you till your Mom comes to get you. You're going to be just fine."
"How do you know my name?" was the first thing that came to the child's mind.
"I've always known you. I was there the day you were born," came the simple answer.
"What's your name?" the child asked next.
"Justin."
"How'd you get in my basement?" Brian inquired.
"I don't know," the shadow replied. "All I know is that you needed me so I had to come."
"I don't like it down here. It's dark and it smells funny," Brian admitted to his new friend with a hint of a whimper in his voice at the end.
"It's not so bad. It's just a little musty," was Justin's more cheerful response as he scooted closer to the boy, gathering him into his arms to keep the child warm and safe. "It could be a lot worse, you know. We could be brave knights, captured by the Saracens on our way home from the Crusades and thrown into a dungeon until we raise our ransom of gold and jewels."
"What are Cru-crusads?" the boy asked as he settled back into the welcoming arms of the storyteller.
"Crusades," the smooth, comforting voice explained. "They were these terrible wars fought hundreds of years ago in Europe. All the bravest knights went there to fight and prove how courageous they were. . . "
And the rest of that long dark night was filled with wonderful, entertaining stories about knights and princes who rode beautiful horses and did all sorts of brave deeds. Brian fell asleep listening to the calming voice of his new friend, comforted by the feeling of strong arms wrapped around him and too caught up in the fantastic tales to remember to be scared. He woke up the next morning when his mother finally came looking for him after his father had left for work. His friend from the darkness was gone.
His mother took him to the hospital where the doctors reset his dislocated shoulder. On the way home, Brian started to tell his mother all about his friend, Justin, who had sat with him in the basement all night and told him about the knights in the Crusades. His mother told him that he shouldn't make up stories like that because lying was a sin. Brian didn't really know how to respond to that so he just sat quietly for the rest of the drive home.
~**~**~**~**~
Brian was laughing so hard at the antics of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd on television that he didn’t even hear when his father came home early one Saturday afternoon. His mother had taken Claire with her to church and they weren’t back yet. The rambunctious six year old had managed to squeak out of joining them by acting up at breakfast, pretending that he was too hyper to sit in his chair and whining incessantly until his mother declared that his punishment was to be that he wouldn’t be allowed to join them at church this morning. Brian wisely waited until Joan and Claire left to laugh out loud at Joan’s idea of ‘punishment’. Then, the independant youngster happily plopped down on the couch, not bothered in the least at being left unsupervised for the morning, free to watch cartoons by himself.
Father had been gone early that day, his favorite college football team was playing and he was meeting the guys down at the Union Hall to watch the game on television. It was just past noon when Jack stumbled drunkenly back through the front door, already pissed off at having lost $50 to that asshole, Bob, when his team lost the game. “Goddamned refs were fucking blind!” Jack mumbled to himself as he fumbled with the zipper on his jacket, eventually managing to take off the coat and toss it unsuccessfully towards the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
Jack tripped down the one step from the kitchen to the family room, catching himself before he fell to the floor, and noting through his inebriated haze that the kid was watching those fucking annoying cartoons again. The volume on the TV was ridiculously loud. His head was already throbbing and the noise really didn’t help. He trod over to the small cabinet in the corner where they kept the liquor bottles and pulled out a fifth of cheap whiskey. As he sloppily poured out a shot glass full of the pungent amber liquid, he yelled over his shoulder to the boy to shut off that god awful noise, then slammed back the first shot.
Bugs and Elmer were singing opera at the tops of their lungs and acting out wacky scenes from their version of the Barber of Seville. Brian was laughing at the pair so loudly that he didn’t hear his father’s command to turn off the television. He only noticed that Jack was home again when the older man neared the couch, his refilled shot glass clutched in his hand and a scowl on his lined face. But, as drunk as Jack was, he was still fast. By the time his father’s return had registered in the boy’s startled brain, Jack was already aiming a blow at the back of his son’s shaggy head.
The first slap to the back of his skull knocked him right off the couch and into the old wooden coffee table, which unfortunately splintered to pieces at the impact. The sight of the broken furniture infuriated Jack even more and he began to roar at the child, aiming random kicks at Brian’s huddled form as the boy tried to scuttle backwards away from the enraged man. The only thing that saved Brian this time was that Jack was so sloshed he tripped over his own two feet as he tried to step through the remains of the table. The man fell leadenly, only barely missing landing on the frightened youngster. Jack was a bit stunned by the fall and, instead of getting right up and continuing on his rampage, he lay there muttering and complaining for long enough that Brian was able to get to his feet and escape through the nearby patio door.
Brian ran as fast as he could down the block, heading in the vague direction of the park but not really minding where he was going as long as it was away from Jack. He had no idea if his father was following him or not, but he wasn’t going to slow down long enough to check. Brian’s only thought, like any other frightened animal, was to find a place to hide. As soon as he glimpsed a tight stand of trees and bushes on his right, he dashed towards the site, diving between the branches of a hedge and squeezing through the railings of a rusty old iron fence. When he spied a dark hole in the greenery, he scrambled as fast as he could into the shadowy spot and then hunched up as small as he could between the brush and the cold stone of a building.
For the first several minutes, all he did was concentrate on quieting his breathing so as not to give away his hiding spot if his father was looking for him. He listened intently for any sounds of pursuit. After a long while, when he hadn’t heard anything, he finally relaxed a little and moved so he was sitting more comfortably with his back leaning against the wall behind him.
Brian had no idea where he was but it seemed like a good enough place to hide for the time being. He didn’t intend to go home anytime soon. But, it was late fall and the weather was cold and damp. Brian obviously hadn’t stopped long enough to grab a jacket on his way out of the house and the shady nook where he found himself rarely got any benefit from the weak autumn sun. Soon, his sweaty skin began to cool and he realized exactly how cold it was outside today. He rapidly started weighing the relative merits of returning home to a second round of beatings versus staying where he was and freezing all afternoon.
“Better cold than bloody,” a hushed voice said, startling the already terrified boy whose head torqued around to see who had spoken.
“Shit, Justin!” the boy huffed in relief as he watched a familiar form rounding the corner of the building behind him. “You scared me to death.”
“Sorry about that, Buddy,” the young blond man whispered as he squeezed past a bush and hunkered down close beside his small friend.
Neither of them said anything more for a while. Conversation between them wasn’t necessary. Brian snuggled against the older boy’s side and was instantly comforted by the warm arm that wrapped around him. Brian wasn’t sure how he managed it, but he knew that Justin would always turn up whenever he was scared and hurting. Justin had always been there for him ever since that first night that Brian was locked in the basement when he was only four. The lonely boy had never questioned how his friend managed to appear whenever and wherever he was needed. Brian just accepted it and relished any time he got to spend with the kind-hearted older boy who seemed to be the only person in his world that showed him any love at all.
“Have I told you before about Robin Hood and his band of merry men who had to live in a forest just like this after they were made outlaws by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham?” Justin spoke softly into the boy’s ear as soon as Brian had warmed enough to stop shivering.
“Yeah. But tell it again. I like that story,” Brian begged as he nestled even closer into the loving arms of his companion, looking up at the same time into the brilliant crystal blue eyes that always shown on him with so much love.
“Well, you see, Richard the Lionhearted was away at the Crusades at the time and his brother, John, was supposed to be minding England while the king was away. But, John was evil and instead of taking care of the citizens of England, he raised their taxes so high that many people were unable to pay . . ." Justin started his storytelling, which always helped while away the time so easily, filling Brian’s mind with so many happy images that the pain and fear his father had caused was always crowded out.
Several hours later, after the sun had started to set, Justin concluded his tales for the day and the two boys finally crawled out of their little nest. Brian looked around, completely disoriented and unsure where, exactly, he was. He didn’t recognize the woodsy area where he’d been hiding. He’d been fleeing in such terror earlier that he really hadn’t been paying any attention to where he was going and at this point he really had no idea how to get home.
The boy’s fears weren’t alleviated any when, after walking around for a bit, the child noticed the rows of stone markers stretching away into the distance. He turned around and noted that the small marble-sided structure they’d been sitting against had a name carved into the stone over an ornately carved wooden door located on the other side of building. With the leafless autumn trees, the gravestones and the mausoleum nearby, the scene reminded Brian, especially now that it was dusk, of a scary Halloween movie he'd seen a few days earlier. However, just as the boy seemed about to start panicking about the scene around him, Justin came up to him and laid a hand on the younger one’s shoulder in an amiable gesture.
“Don’t sweat it, Buddy,” Justin quietly commented, his voice alone reassuring to the boy he’d helped out of fearful jams so often. “This place isn’t so bad. It’s . . . kinda my home. . . at least for the moment.”
Justin had been gently guiding the small boy down one of the rows of markers as he spoke. About a third of the way down the row, the older boy finally stopped, looking down at a particular tombstone with what Brian thought was an odd look on his handsome pale face. Brian followed his friend’s gaze, which had focused on the words written on the stone:
‘Justin C. Taylor
1/6/53 - 5/5/70
Beloved Son
Taken From Us Too Soon’
“Justin? Is that . . . is that you?” the child asked his silent companion, not sure what to say or how to react to what he was seeing - it was clearly something beyond his mere six-year-old understanding.
“Not really, Buddy,” Justin said with a small frown as he shook his head, although he continued to stare at the stone. “It’s just who I used to be. I’m still Justin; I’m still me. I’m just not THAT Justin anymore. But, I’ll always be YOUR Justin, Brian. Don’t ever forget that. I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”
Brian smiled up at his friend. Justin HAD always been there for him - he’d been a friend, a guardian, a comfort in the dark, a protector, a distraction from his fear and pain and so much more. The boy didn’t understand what the name on the marker meant or, for that matter, what Justin’s words meant, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he trusted Justin with his whole heart.
“Come on, Buddy. Let’s get you home. I’m sure your dad is already passed out so you should be okay now,” Justin finally said, hugging the smaller frame to his side as he turned them both around and started to walk towards the cemetery’s exit.
The two friends walked hand-in-hand for several blocks, Justin guiding Brian back along the forgotten path towards the child’s home as they chatted about inconsequential things. When they reached the block where the Kinney house stood, and Brian finally recognized his surroundings, he turned to smile brightly up at his guide, ready to express his thanks. But the young man who’d been tenderly holding his hand just seconds before was already gone by the time the boy turned his head to the side. Brian could still feel the residual warmth against his palm from the now missing hand of his companion.
The boy didn’t worry though; that’s how it always happened with Justin. One minute his friend was there and the next he was gone. But he always returned whenever Brian needed him. His confidence that Justin would always be there for him was the one thing that kept him feeling safe no matter what his father might do. So, with a small sigh and reluctant feet, Brian shambled towards his family’s house, his mind still swimming with the tales of Robin Hood.
~**~**~**~**~**~
The Rabbit of Seville - seven and a half minutes of the most zany fun you can have to classical music. My favorite Bugs Bunny Cartoon of all time. After that sad chapter you should watch this to get your spirits back up. TAG