The Apartment

"Now, sit down, all of you, and the three of us will tell you the real story." Attorney Gilbert Christenson, who had just claimed custody over him, and in the next breath denied any intent to enforce it against him, had concluded what he had said with that enigmatic line, and wild horses could not have dragged Ray away from this explanation. A glance at the others told him that his boyfriend Andy – he still got a guilty, delicious tingle inside at thinking of Andy as his boyfriend – Peewee, and Pauly were equally eager for the explanation. Mikey was smiling but expectant, as well.

"My father," Gil began, "was the attorney for the Kirkland family. Our families were close. Donny was like a little brother to me, sometimes pesky, sometimes eager to learn, always wanting to follow along, whatever it was I was doing." He draped one arm affectionately over the shoulders of the tall, skinny, bespectacled boy; Ray saw the expression on Donny's face, and wondered.

"Has Donny told any of you why he became a runner?" Most of them nodded no. Chay bit his lip, and winced. Mikey nodded yes, and said, "The same reason as the rest of us, I think – he discovered he was gay, and his parents just wouldn't accept it."

"Yes," Gil said, "Don Senior was a man in charge of his world, and determined to maintain that control. His businesses ran just as he gave directions for them to, and so did his wife and only child. And mostly his judgment, his business instincts were solid. Father considered him as one of his best clients, and theirs was a mutually lucrative relationship, and a good friendship as well. Donny was twelve years younger than I, and he looked up to me. I tried to be the big brother he needed. Being young and foolish, I made some mistakes – ones that hurt Donny badly. I've tried to make up for them ever since."

"Donny came out to his father when he was fourteen," Gil went on. "His father promptly figured out what he needed to do to bring Donny back into the future he had mapped out for him – one that didn't allow for Donny's being gay, and one Donny had had no say in planning. It didn't go well. That night, Donny ran, and no one could find him."

"Don Senior hired private detectives. They didn't find him. That was the start of a downhill slide. Whether it was Donny being missing or just bad guesses, Don's business judgment became ... flawed. His businesses faltered, and failed. He couldn't handle it. We're still not sure if the accident was an accident or a suicide, but he and his wife – his car went out of control, and crashed. They didn't survive."

Gil, anguished by the memories, drew a breath to regain control. "Donny was still missing, and nobody had a clue where. Dad went to court, and, trading on their longtime relationship, had our firm appointed conservators of the estate. Donny was the beneficiary, if he was ever found. He dug in and liquidated the businesses, pushing through bankruptcies, selling them off, paying off creditors, and generally doing the best he could to salvage what had turned from a thriving business empire into a quagmire."

"I'd finished law school by then, and dug in alongside him. We didn't salvage much: a tiny trust fund, two apartment buildings, and a couple of other properties."

"I don't blame anybody but Dad for his heart attacks. He smoked too much, he drank when he shouldn't have, and he pushed himself when he should have delegated. He lived through the first one, ignored his doctors' advice, and the second one killed him. He wasn't an affectionate man, but I miss him."

Chay slipped over and rested his hands on the tall blond man's shoulders. The little Asian boy's face was a mixture of conflicting emotions; Ray wondered why. "I'll take it for a bit, Gil," he said gently. "Get yourself together."

Donny spoke up. "I learned fast what the world was like, how people use other people. It was an expensive lesson. But I never lost track of the determination I learned from Father, or the caring I learned from Gil. Whatever I had to do to make it work, I'd survive, and I'd help if I could. I tried to earn enough to buy food for the other guys, stuff like that."

"This body," Chay said, "was a liability and an asset. I learned fast that no matter how good I was at fighting, I was going to have trouble with bigger, stronger guys. But there were a lot of men with a secret letch for little boys, and some of them paid very well. Even if they got rough." He shuddered at the memory. "One man in particular was way too rough for me, and I came away from that one hurting big time. I honestly didn't think I was going to live, and I crawled into this old abandoned warehouse with the intention of making my peace with God and being able to die in peace."

"That was where I was hanging out," Donny said. "I'd sold myself again – that's what it felt like; I wasn't just selling sex, I was selling who I was, and like Father, I was paying for bad judgment with what capital I had left, and using myself up. So I came back from selling myself, twice, and there was my little friend, the plucky little guy who'd become my friend in school, back before I ran, lying there bleeding and exhausted, saying he was going to die and didn't care."

"He picked me up, hoisted me over his shoulder, and walked three blocks to where the clinic was then, carrying me like a sack of potatoes," Chay said, with a wan smile at the memory."

"I didn't know about his parents then," Donny added, "but I knew I couldn't let Chay die."

"They lucked out," Gil said. "It was Dorothy and Van on duty that night, and neither of them would ever take it on themselves to send a street kid back to whatever it was he'd run from. It was a pretty close thing for Chay, but between them and Donny, they pulled him through – and struck up some unlikely friendships in the process."

Chay chuckled a bit at that description. "Two weeks later, I was back on my feet, and Donny and I were fast friends again, like our having to run had made no difference. Jack was hanging out at the warehouse sometimes, and Donny being Donny, he was trying to talk him out of the risky stuff he was doing – drugs, rough sex, the works."

"Then we saw a kid being pushed out of a car, and flop down on the ground," Chay went on. "Naturally we ran to see what we could do. He'd been roughed up some, and hit in the stomach – that was why he was lying balled up like that – and we knew we had to help."

"I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life," Peewee said, picking up the story. "After Momma died, Auntie said she had to take me in, and I had to do all the cleaning and cooking and stuff for her, to earn my keep, and she knocked me around if I didn't do right, or if she'd had too many beers. So I ran away. It was a nice night, so I found a roof to sleep on. The next day, I was hangin' around, and I was gettin' hungry, and this guy asked me if I wanted something to eat. I figured he must be a nice man, so I said yeah. Well, he took me to Denny's, and got me this enormous omelet, and it was go-o-o-oood!"

"Then he asked me when I needed to be home, and I told him I'd run away. Hey, what can I say? – I was little and naïve then!" the 11-year-old said. "So he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I said sure. So we took off."

"He asked me if I'd remembered to bring along a change of pants," Peewee went on. "I told him no. So he asked me what size I wore. So I pulled down my pants to look, 'cause I didn't know. He stopped at a K-Mart and bought me a pair of pants, and a change of underwear too. I thought he was really a nice guy. Then he drove us out into the country and stopped, and he told me to go ahead and put on my new stuff. I thought that was cool, and so I took my pants off and my underwear too. And of course I was showing off for him, so I went sproing!"

"He asked me if I wasn't embarrassed to be showing him my boner, and I said no, I kind of liked doing it. And he told me it looked cute. Nobody'd told me that before, that my wiener was cute, I mean. I pulled on my new stuff, and thanked him. He looked sad when I put my new stuff on, so I gave him a hug and told him I liked 'em a lot. Then I got to thinkin', he'd liked seeing my wiener and looked sad when I put the stuff he got me on, so I got it back out and asked him if he wanted to look at it some more. He seemed surprised and happy when I did that, and he asked if he could touch it. Well, you know how good it feels when you touch your boner, so I said sure. And he started playing with it, and it felt good."

"So I asked him if he wanted me to play with his, and he got this big surprised-and-pleased look on his face, like when I asked him if he wanted to look at mine more, so I reached over and got his out. He had a boner, so I started playing with it, and he really liked that. Then he asked me if I'd do something special for him, to pay him back for my new clothes. I said sure, and he said he wanted me to suck it. I knew about that stuff, 'caused I'd spied on when Auntie had a man come home with her and sent me to bed early so they'd have some privacy."

"So I said sure, and started doing it for him, and he was moaning and told me I was a really good little cocksucker, and that made me feel good. Then came the bad part. He started pushing up with his hips and jamming it into my throat, and I gagged and bit down. I didn't mean to, honest, but he got so mad, and he started hitting me. Then he got hold of himself, and said something about not getting caught, and drove back to town. I was curled up on the floor 'cause he'd hit me in the stomach, and it hurt. And he pulled over, and yanked me off the floor, and pushed me out, and took off in a hurry. I was trying to tell him I was sorry for biting, it was a reflex and I didn't mean to, but he wasn't listening."

"Then there was this big kid looming over me, and I was afraid he was going to be mean too. And then a kid no bigger than me was there. And that was Donny and Chay."

"I saw all this happening," Mikey said. "I was down the street a ways, trying to turn a trick to get dinner, when this car pulls up and somebody pushes Peewee out like a bag of garbage. Well, I'd gotten a little hardened by then, 'cause you've got to take care of yourself first on the street, but that was just a little bit too much. And then there was the Odd Couple converging on him, and I had no idea what they were up to, but I could see it was a kid, and he was hurt, and I threw caution to the winds, and ran to try to protect him."

"The first time I ever saw Donny's face, there were tears running down it because somebody'd beat up a little kid he didn't even know," Mikey said. "It doesn't matter how long I live, that's one picture that's burned into my mind forever. And I asked him how I could help, and Chay said we had to get him to the clinic."

"So we did."

"And when we'd told Van what happened, and got Peewee bedded down and knew he was going to be okay, Donny asked me if I'd had anything to eat," Mikey went on. "And he and Chay took me back to the warehouse and shared what they had. I knew, then and there, that this was something I needed to be a part of – street kids that cared for each other."

"And that," said Chay, "was the start of what we've got here."

"That's what I thought we were all about," Andy said. "But all that bit about Mr. Christenson here having custody of us, and the bit with Mrs. Schwartz – that doesn't add up. And – no insult, sir – but how do I know you won't get up tomorrow morning and decide I need to go back home and get beaten some more?"

"I know damn well you won't believe my word," Gil said, "but for what it's worth, I would never do that, and you do have my word on it. Maybe someday you'll be able to believe me and trust me."

"Good answer, Gil," Chay said. "I didn't trust you, either; remember?" Gil nodded reminiscently.

Ray had been wondering if he'd have to run again, and if there was some way to keep in touch with Andy if he did. Now he spoke up. "So if you know we can't afford to trust you, what's the 'real story' you promised? So far we've got Donny and Chay and Mikey staying in a warehouse, and Peewee in the clinic with Van and Dorothy."

"My turn," said Gil. "The Bar Association requires that we do some pro bono work – that's stuff we don't charge for, to help people who need a lawyer for something and can't afford one – " he explained, seeing the blank faces. "After Donny ran away, and then his parents died in that accident, and nobody could find him, I salved my conscience by offering my pro bono work to the clinic. If I couldn't help Donny – and I half thought he was dead by then – at least I could help other kids in his shoes, and the doctors and nurses that were trying to help them."

"Well, I walked in, and Dorothy grabbed me by the elbow and set me down in a vacant office and gave me an earful. Peewee had told her his story – lost his mother, lived with an abusive, alcoholic, promiscuous aunt who barely cared about him at all, ran away, and got molested and beat up his first full day on the street, all at age 11 – and told me I was going to figure out what to do for him. Not asked, told."

"I can just see Dorothy doing that," Mikey said with a grin. Gil chuckled and nodded.

"So I went to talk to Peewee – my first thought was to get assigned as his guardian ad litem, and get him a decent foster home – and in come these three boys, and he's suddenly excited and all over them, telling me they're the ones who'd rescued him and brought him to the clinic. And of course it was Mikey and Chay – and Donny!"

"I got all excited and went to hug him," Gil went on, "and he didn't trust me. In his mind, at that point, I was part of what he'd run from, and I'd be taking him back to his father. Well, you can bet we had a long talk, and I didn't come off very well in it – I was all, 'I know what's best for you, and you're coming home with me', and he was angry and resistant."

"Well, I got him home, and Mother was being all motherly and socially proper and such. And Donny was locked inside himself. I finally sat him down and got a glass or two of wine in him, and he unwound enough to tell me what he'd been doing, and how he'd been supporting himself. I was shocked. And I was even more shocked by what he wanted to do. He was not going to go back and finish school and go to college, like his parents had planned out for him and I naively expected he'd be ready to do. He wanted to open up a shelter for kids like he'd been. And he wasn't hearing no."

"That was a side of Donny I'd never seen. He was always the little puppy willing to tag along wherever I wanted to go. Now he was compassionate, and passionate about it, and stubborn – whatever it took, he'd find a way to do it. Well, okay, I owed him that. So we went looking around, to find out what was working, as a model for what he wanted to do."

"I got an education. Foster homes? Yeah, there were a few good ones, but they were the exceptions to the rule. Even the people in it for the right reasons had no idea how to relate to kids who'd been on the street, who'd been thrown away by society. And for every kid who appreciated what they were getting and took advantage of their new chance, there were nineteen who saw it as society's second chance to force them into a mold they didn't fit and didn't want to fit, and were biding their time,or rebelling, or running. Outreach centers? Bandaids. Kids come in for a meal and a place to crash, then back out to work the streets again. If they had any programs, the same faults as the foster homes – they were trying to make the kids fit a mold, not trying to fit the programs to the kids. Residential care? The worst of both worlds. The key problem was one-on-one peer support. It was all adults trying to shape kids into what they thought they needed, or adults being ineffective at trying to minister to kids on their own level. Donny and I both got depressed by it."

"And then one morning, I woke up, and Donny was not there."

"My turn!" Chay said with a touch of belligerence. Gil grinned and waved acquiescence; Chay grinned back.

"From my perspective," Chay said, "I felt abandoned. My best friend – my only friend, really – the guy who'd saved my ass in school and then my life – we'd gone and picked up this little kid who'd gotten beat up and taken him to the clinic, and when we went to see how he was doing the next day, this big blond lawyer's there, and tells Donny he's going with him. Donny puts up a good argument, but he finally gives in. And he's gone."

"I went back to the warehouse, but he didn't come back," Chay went on. "I was totally bummed out. I just wanted to die. Mikey tried to cheer me up, but it wasn't working – we'd just met him, and I didn't know him, not to trust him, yet."

"I couldn't get through to him," Mikey said. "Losing Donny was like the world had come to an end for him. And when I heard his story, I understood why. I made him eat and drink, but nothing seemed to bring him out of his funk."

"Then, a few mornings later, Donny was back. Chay came back to life – that's the only way I can think of to say it – it was like he'd been dying and an angel showed up and worked a miracle to bring him back to health."

"Donny told us what had happened to his family, and what was on his mind," Chay said. "And we kicked around what was wrong with the programs he'd looked at, and in the course of that, somebody mentioned Jack, and what would be his reaction to those programs, and then what would work to get through to him. And suddenly it was clear in everybody's mind."

"What was clear?" Andy asked, feeling frustrated by the long-winded explanation when he was worried about his own future, and Ray's.

"Patience, grasshopper, all will be made clear," Mikey said in an absolutely horrible send-up of a Shao-lin master. That broke the tension, and none of them could help it; they all broke into a deep and soul-cleansing belly laugh.

"I'd better wrap this up, before Andy decides we're stringing him along, and takes off on you," Gil said. "The bottom line is that Donny inherited a very small trust fund – it would have been much larger, but his father started borrowing against it when his businesses began crapping out – two apartment buildings, and one or two other pieces of property. He wasn't rich any more, he couldn't set up the help-the-street-kids facility he'd hoped. But he had a passable income."

"More importantly, he realized that what he really wanted to do would only work with hands-on work from kids, kids who'd been there and knew what it was like, ones who could relate to other kids in the same boat. What he had to work with was a small income, mostly from two apartment buildings – this one, and the one next door that we just evicted Bernice Schwartz from."

"I'd been checking with the clinic, in between turning tricks, trying to keep food in the warehouse, and trying to take care of Chay," Mikey said. "Peewee was ready to be released – but Gil hadn't done what he'd said he would. Dorothy was fit to be tied."

"This apartment was vacant," Donny said. "I went to Gil and told him he was going to become guardian for four kids, including me – he'd planned on being mine, anyway – but he wouldn't be able to do the crap the foster care people were doing. What worked was places like the warehouse, where kids helped each other, not because they had to but because they wanted to, where they respected each other and cared about each other."

"The apartment would be a hangout like the warehouse had been," he went on. "Gil would take care of the legalities, but he'd work completely through me, with Chay available in emergency so the place wouldn't fall apart without me. He wanted to set some house rules. We told him no, they were good rules but we'd set them, not him. If he thought we needed to do something, he'd tell me, or Chay if necessary. He was to keep hands off – and I knew how to make that stick." Gil nodded ruefully.

"We scrounged together some furniture," Mikey said, "Gil bought the stove and refrigerator, Donny picked up the microwave, and we moved in. Gil became Peewee's guardian, with him staying with us – actually, he's the legal guardian for all of us, but it doesn't show, and it won't."

"A week or so later, I met Pauly. I brought him home a few days later. Then we brought Jack in. And then Donny met Andy, and shortly after he moved in, Pauly finally accepted who he was, and we became a couple. And then finally there was you, Ray."

"How'd you get a judge to agree to all that?" Pauly asked.

"Two ways," Gil said. "First, my father was good friends with Judge Markham, and our law firm still has a certain amount of influence – as you may have noticed from the cops' attitudes."

"And," Chay added with a big grin, "Judge Markham has a thing for little Asian boys, especially ones with big dicks!"

"I can understand that," Ray commented, smiling. Andy punched him in the arm.

"We agreed," Mikey said, "not to let on to anybody else what the real arrangement was, because if it was something set up to help, any street kid would be leery of it. It was to be a place where kids could come to hang out, for an hour or for as long as they wanted, where kids would help kids. That's what works, so that's what we did."

He looked at his own boyfriend. "Pauly, I've wanted to tell you the truth about this place, a lot of times. But I made a promise, and I keep my promises. And really, it doesn't make any difference – it works the same both ways. Knowing Gil has some legal fictions doesn't mean he's going to suddenly swoop down and get all bossy on us."

"Oh? What guarantees that?" Andy asked. Gil cringed; Donny gave him an affectionate look.

"I don't suppose I can ask you to trust me on that?" Donny asked.

"Um, no," Andy said. "There's been too much that wasn't what I thought was true happened already."

"But don't you see?" Chay exclaimed. "It is what it was set up to be. It's a place for street kids, by street kids, just like we told you. The fact that Donny owns the apartment, rather than us squatting in it, doesn't matter. Your worries are just why we kept all this a secret – we knew kids who have been burned by the system would be scared, so we made it what we wanted it to be – something that would work and not scare people. We've shared chores because we all agreed to share chores, we talk each other out of doing things because that's how we all feel about it – just like before. None of this really matters – it won't ever hurt us."

"Sorry, I'm having trouble buying that," Andy said, with sadness in his voice. And Ray knew he'd be leaving with Andy, if Andy decided to leave – if Andy couldleave, he realized with a start, feeling the old walls come falling down around him again.

Chay was looking worried. This wasn't going the way he'd hoped. "Andy, Ray, how do you feel about Van?" he asked.

"Huh? What does that have to do with anything?" Andy did a double-take at the apparent non sequitur. Ray, however, had an idea of the erratic way the Asian boy's mind worked. "He's a nice guy, a good doctor and a pretty good person, right, Andy?" he answered. Andy mumbled something he took as agreement.

"Gil, they know what Van charges for his house calls," Chay said with his warm smile turned on full. "They need to know why to trust you."

Gil drew a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah. But I'm not the one you need to ask for permission," he said.

Chay's expression went closed. "I've already hurt him enough," he said.

To be continued....

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Editor's Notes: Ok, mister, that is just plain mean; leaving us with that kind of ending to a chapter. I wonder where I put that address for the cliffhanger police. This situation certainly deserves some scrutiny.

Darryl AKA The Radio Rancher