Children of the Knight (51 page)

T
HE
front of City Hall at three o’clock that afternoon became the proverbial media circus. The mayor and city council had moved fast, Helen noted, eyeing the enormous scaffolding already rising along the City Hall side of the U.S. Courthouse building. The mayor obviously had some pull with the feds, because they’d agreed to erect a gigantic canvas eleven-stories high that would cover the Temple Street side of the courthouse. Thus the completed mural could best be seen from City Hall across Temple Street and maximize the attention Mayor Villagrana could milk out of it for himself.

Helen knew the mayor was a narcissistic camera hog who did nothing if there wasn’t some personal gain in it for him. However, she honestly believed this mural would benefit Arthur’s cause and be a powerful reminder of what the man and his message had been. And what better place to erect it than the United States seat of justice within the city?

Enrique, Luis, and Lavern brought with them almost thirty of Arthur’s kids of various ethnicities and ages who already had some mural experience from the neighborhood cleanups. Most were boys, but several of Reyna’s girls chose to be part of the mural crew. Enrique and Luis, long since over Reyna, immediately targeted two of these ladies for “extra special” attention.

The mayor and the entire city council posed for the cameras in front of the scaffolding, flanking the kids and making an extra big show of profusely praising them. Lavern and Enrique exchanged a knowing smirk, as the mayor flashed that phony PR smile and personally handed each child a “brand-new paintbrush!” Then he turned to the cameras and grinned, flashing those expensive, capped teeth he’d bought and paid for with taxpayer money. “Aren’t they just the greatest kids you’ve ever seen?” he gushed. Helen just wanted to vomit.

T
HE
summer flew by and the Mural Project rapidly took on real form and substance. A massive, billowing sheet hid the artists and the work in progress from curious onlookers, all the better to make the grand unveiling another huge media event. Or so Villagrana hoped. Arthur and his knights had continued to parade throughout the city, cleaning, improving, removing all the urban blight the mayor had allowed to fester for six years.

If this thing didn’t crash and burn soon, his mysterious benefactor, Mr. R., would be forced to take action. He’d told the mayor he was monitoring the situation, but Villagrana still worried. Another public relations disaster like the pizza parlor could damage his reputation beyond repair. Not to mention cut off the money he’d been promised for his senate run in two years and leave him just another washed-up public servant lifer who wouldn’t have a clue how to get a job in the private sector.

As for Arthur, he’d become embroiled in managing all the daily affairs of money and donations and moving his vast company from place to place, supervising the repairs and painting, chatting more often than he liked to media personnel, and
paying more attention to Justin and his boys and any other new recruits who chose to join as they wended their snaky way throughout the city.

Even into September, kids from all over Los Angeles eagerly folded into Arthur’s crusade, which seemed to them like one big, never-ending party. A few, after long hours of hard work, dropped out, realizing this party required too much personal effort. But most welcomed the sense of accomplishment and showed up each day, often ditching school, wherever the knights were to be found, and eagerly did their fair share of the work. Others joined the cleanups after school let out each day.

So busy had Arthur become juggling all these disparate matters that he’d begun spending less and less time moving amongst his kids and chatting with them individually. Some of them were too busy and excited by all the hoopla to notice, like Enrique and Reyna and Esteban and Lavern, but others, like Chris, felt the king’s absence painfully.

Of course, the hardest hit was always Lance, though Mark would have no doubt chosen himself as the most forlorn. Jack and Lance continued their daily attempts to try and cheer up Mark, and they played football with Chris whenever possible. Focusing on Mark and Chris helped make Arthur’s absence from Lance’s daily life slightly less painful.

However, despite the fact that Jack and Mark were his friends, and awesome friends at that, deep down, Lance just didn’t want to be
like
them, didn’t want to be…
that
way. It scared the shit out of him! During the day he could usually keep busy enough to quash such thoughts, so long as his eyes didn’t stray too often toward Jack.

At night, however, within the almost suffocating quiet of the storm drain, fidgeting uneasily on his bedroll, Chris breathing softly beside him, Lance’s thoughts always drifted back to the “g” word, and his breath tightened painfully in his chest.

His eyes would settle on the small blond boy nesting beside him, the little brother who idolized him as a hero. Even though Lance never saw himself in such grandiose terms, Chris did. What would the little one think if he found out Lance was…
that
way? Would he still admire him as an awesome big brother? What would he say if he heard someone called Lance a faggot? Would he laugh? Lance knew it would tear his heart out if he heard that. Shit, would Chris even wanna
sleep
near him anymore? Or would he suddenly be… afraid?

And what of Esteban and all the others who had accepted him and willingly agreed to follow him and take orders from him as needed? What would they think? He’d gained Esteban’s respect and that of the other hard guys through strength and force. How would they look at him if he turned out to be
that
way? Gay.
There, I said it!
He knew the macho mentality of Mexican guys, and
most
guys, for that matter, when it came to gay boys. At best, they were held in contempt and at worst they were shunned or beaten up.

Arthur said he didn’t care if Lance favored girls or boys, that he’d chosen him for his character. But the others
would
care. He knew that. If he turned out to be gay and everyone found out, would that be the end of the crusade for him? Would he suddenly be a nobody again, like he was when Arthur first found him? Or would he be, in the eyes of his new family, even
lower
than nobody?

He desperately wished he could talk with
someone about his worries, but Arthur was always too
busy, and he feared the king might be disappointed in him, maybe even think him weak and a poor choice after all for First Knight, and decide to choose someone more “manly.”

He couldn’t tell Jack either, partly over embarrassment for his conflicted thoughts regarding the older boy, but mostly because Jack was already suffering too much pain over Mark and didn’t need any more. Of course, Mark wasn’t an option, either, obviously. Despite opening his heart to him that one night, Mark had since shut himself off from the world, and from him. He had all too quickly lost the friend he’d gained, and that hurt too. A lot.

It was now October and Lance was tired of the gap between them. It had gone on too long. He’d grown up apart from friendships and didn’t really know how to navigate his way through issues like this, but he felt a desperate need to do
something
. He knew from hints Jack had given that Mark’s melancholy had something to do with Arthur, and suspecting Mark’s feelings toward the king similar to his own, he sought the boy out one night when everyone was asleep, and a peaceful silence blanketed the tunnels.

He found Mark seated on the cold concrete in one of the side tunnels, resting dispiritedly against a wall beneath a hanging lantern, which framed his blond head in a glowing halo. He let out a nervous breath, then approached and gingerly slid down the wall to sit beside his friend, who didn’t even acknowledge his presence. The drip, drip of water was so omnipresent that it no longer even registered as sound.

Lance’s eyes swam with memories as he gazed at the brooding boy beside him, wild blond locks tumbling loosely about his gentle face and draping his shoulders like waves of falling snow. How many months had it been since he and Mark had become friends, since he’d confessed his long-suppressed secret, and Mark hadn’t laughed or mocked, but just accepted him unconditionally? Lance wanted
that
Mark back—needed him back—but didn’t know how to do it.

“Arthur’s been super busy, Mark,” he tried lamely, as much for his benefit as Mark’s. “You know that. I miss him more than you.”

The emptiness in his soul, the absence of Arthur’s smile and words of encouragement, coupled with his other doubts and fears, often pulled tears from his eyes when he least expected them. He fought them off now. Mark needed his strength, not his weakness.

Mark’s legs were pulled up and pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around them as though afraid to let go. His deep blue eyes brimmed with tears. “I don’t think so.”

His reaction confused Lance. “Well, I mean, in the beginning it was just him and me, remember, and… well, you know, I kinda started to think of him like my—” He stopped himself, and dropped his head between his own knees, suddenly feeling small and awkward.

Mark looked at him forlornly. “Like yer what?”

Lance let his hair fall like a curtain across his face, his old defense mechanism, and eyed Mark from behind it. “Nothing. It’s stupid.” He tried for that smile the media loved, but Mark’s expression of profound loss pierced his very soul, and the smile faltered. “Look, Mark, I know it seems like he’s ignoring us, but—”

He stopped when Mark leapt to his feet abruptly and ran off into the darkness. Lance gazed after him, mystified, wondering what he’d done wrong.

A cleared throat drew his eye to a different tunnel, and out of the shadows stepped Jack, dressed for sleeping in just his drawstring pants and no shirt. Lance sucked in a breath as he nervously eyed the dark-haired boy’s chest and abs, forced his eyes up to Jack’s face, and then cleared his own throat. “Did you see all that?”

Jack nodded, padding his way across the chamber to drop down beside Lance. Even though
he
was fully clothed, he felt oddly exposed next to Jack’s near-nakedness.

He wanted to move away, but then he didn’t want to. He fought against his fluttering heart and forced himself to focus on Mark.

“What’s wrong with him, Jack? You know, don’t you?”

Jack pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. “Yeah.”

When he didn’t say anything more, Lance prodded, “Well? I thought we were all buds.”

Jack nodded. “We are. It’s just… you can’t tell Arthur, okay?”

Lance nodded. “Okay.”

“Mark’s in love with him.” It was almost a whisper.

Lance took a moment to process that, and then his lower jaw dropped. “Arthur?”

Jack nodded, his heart tight, his breathing almost coming in gasps.

Lance was stunned. He knew Mark idolized Arthur like he did, but he’d thought it was for the same reason. That’s why he’d been a little jealous. But this? He’d had no clue. It made him feel… he wasn’t sure, but his heart beat faster.

“But,” he began, almost stammering, “but Arthur’s not, you know, gay.”

Jack nodded again. “I know, and so does Mark.”

Jack reached with tremulous fingers to push the hair away from Lance’s eyes so he could gaze right into them. He needed his friend to understand what he was saying, not just so Lance could comprehend Mark, but so he could understand him too. Those haunting green eyes gazed at him from beneath the flowing hair like uncertain question marks.

Jack sighed. “It sounds crazy, I know, but Mark and me, well, we hadn’t, you know, had sex with anyone before being out there on the streets, so all the guys we been with were older, like Arthur, you know… grown men. So that’s what Mark’s used to, ’cept he’s used to men treating him like shit. I never got as much shit cuz I’m big, and the johns figured I might beat the crap outta ’em. But Mark, he’s small and sweet natured and… anyway, Arthur’s a good man who treats Mark like he’s special. So, Mark fell for him.”

Lance turned away, dumbfounded by this news, but suddenly replaying in his mind Mark’s up and down moods these past weeks beneath the light of these new revelations. He looked at Jack and shook his head with incredulity, thinking how horrific these guys must have had it out on the streets, and feeling deep down a powerful kinship with them because of his own past. But at least
his
torment had ended when he was nine.

His dazed heart tight with insecurity, Lance asked, “What can we do for him?”

Jack shrugged, and his own eyes welled up. Despite his skittishness at touching Jack’s naked torso, Lance cautiously slipped his arm over his friend’s shoulders, and they sat together. The closeness felt good to Lance, natural and necessary. After all, pain needed to be touched before it could be healed.

“You still haven’t told him, have you?”

Jack shook his head again, not wanting to look up, not wanting Lance to see his tears, not wanting to look weak. Instead, he threw his own arm over the younger boy’s shoulders and pulled him in tightly.

Lance shivered, both loving and hating that embrace, that press of Jack’s strong arm wrapped around him, the warmth of Jack’s skin seeping beneath his tunic and filling up his heart. He felt fluttery and dirty all at the same time.

He hated himself. But he didn’t resist.

He couldn’t push Jack away, not in his hour of need. And he didn’t want to, anyway. He liked holding Jack and comforting him. He liked the closeness.

No, needed it.

And so, like Lance had done with Mark so many weeks before, they sat huddled together in mutual pain and despair, each deep within his own thoughts, each pondering what the future held for all of them.