Coming Out

Chapter 7

Justin found his mother sitting at the kitchen table lost in thought. “Hey Mom, what’re you doing?” he asked, trying to come up with the best way to approach his mother with his idea.

“Hi honey. I was just sitting here thinking about Brian. That poor boy, what a shame. I don’t know what to do for him. I know he doesn’t want us to call the Police, but what else can we do? We certainly can’t let him go back there. That would make us no better than them. How’s he doing? Is he sleeping?” She asked with concern.

“Yeah, he’s sleeping. He was pretty worn out,” Justin replied with a small smile thinking about what it was that wore him out. Taking the seat across from his mother, Justin decided the best way to approach the subject was to just ask. “Mom, I think I know what we could do to help Brian. Why don’t we just let him stay here with us? He wouldn’t be that much trouble. Between work and school, he probably wouldn’t even be around that much,” he explained.

“Justin, we can’t just let him move in here. First of all, I’m not sure how I feel about taking on another child. I already have two of my own.” When Justin started to object Jennifer stopped him. “Wait, let me finish. Then there’s the problem of the Kinney’s. Do you think they’d just agree to let Brian live here? He’s still their son,” she pointed out. As much as she wanted to help Brian out, she wasn’t sure if his moving in was the answer. After seeing the way her son looked at the boy, she was beginning to think that her earlier fears about her him were justified.

“Mom, we have to do something. If he gets taken away, I might never see him again,” he exclaimed. “Please, Mom.” He hated sounding so desperate, but he had to get her to agree. Otherwise, he was going to lose Brian and he didn‘t think he could handle that. Before he could say anything else Craig walked in.

“Hey guys, what’re you two doing up so late?” He asked. Seeing the look on their faces, he knew there was something going on that he needed to know about. “Okay you two, what’s going on?”

“Sweetheart, we have a problem. Brian’s here. He’s asleep upstairs. He had a run in with his father while Justin was over there for dinner. Craig, Brian’s father has been abusing him since he was a little boy,” she answered. She shuddered at the thought of all that he had been though.

“That bastard. Did you call the Police?” He asked with concern in his voice. He’d only met the boy a few times, but he had really liked him. He was a sweet kid with big dreams for his future. Craig had spent hours one night talking to Brian about the scholarship programs at his school and what colleges were the better choices.

“Dad, we can’t call the Police. If we do, they’ll call social services and Brian will be taken away. He’d go to a foster home, losing his chance at getting a scholarship. You know how important that is to him. Can we let him stay here, please? I know it’s a lot to ask, but we can’t let him get sent away. It could ruin his life,” Justin pleaded.

Craig knew that Justin was right. If Brian was sent away, it could possibly ruin everything for him. He needed to talk to Jennifer and see what options they had. “Justin, why don’t you go on up to bed and let me talk to your mother. We can discuss this in the morning, okay?” He replied.

“But Dad…”

“Justin, we’ll talk about it in the morning. Let me speak to your mother and see what we can come up with.” He could see how upset his son was, but didn’t want to have this conversation in front of him.

“Alright. I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” Justin replied before heading upstairs.

“Craig, what’re we going to do? You didn’t see Brian tonight. He has a black eye and he was very upset. When I suggested calling the Police, I could see the panic in his eyes. He told me that it wasn’t a big deal and that he only had one more year left. He said he would just make sure to stay out of his father’s way and went to go back home. I couldn’t let him leave like that. I feel like we have to do something, but I don’t want to make matters worse.” Jennifer had tears in her eyes.

“Do you know where they live? I think I need to go have a talk with Mr. Kinney,” Craig growled.

“Craig, you can’t go over there. It will just make things worse,” Jennifer cried.

“How much worse could it get? The man’s been beating on his son for years. I’m just going to try to talk to him. Maybe if he thinks we are going to get the Police involved, he’ll back off and leave Brian alone. It couldn’t hurt to try,” Craig replied. They found the address in the phone book and Craig headed over to confront the bastard. He just hoped that he was doing the right thing.

Jack awoke out of a drunken sleep by the sound of someone banging on the front door. He got up off the sofa where he’d passed out earlier and staggered to the door cursing the person on the other side. When he opened the door he didn’t recognize the man standing there. “What the hell do you want?” Jack slurred.

“I’m here to talk to you about your son, Brian. Can I come in?” Craig asked, trying to hold his temper. It was obvious that Jack was still very drunk. He had a bad feeling about this.

“What the hell did my good for nothing son do now? I always knew that boy would be trouble. I told Joan she should have just gotten rid of him when she found out she was pregnant, but that would have been a sin. God forbid we upset the man upstairs,” he grumbled staggering back to the sofa allowing Craig to come in.

Craig couldn’t believe that anyone would announce to a complete stranger that he felt his son should have been aborted. What kind of man was Jack Kinney? It amazed Craig that Brian turned out to be such a good kid with Jack being his father. Now he knew exactly what needed to be done. There was no way Craig would let Brian come back here.

“Mr. Kinney, Brian hasn’t done anything. I came here hoping we could talk man to man about the way you treat you son.” Craig was trying to keep his wits about him and not just haul off and punch him out.

“What’s it to you? I don’t believe it’s any of your business,” Jack spit out.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Kinney. I’ve made it my business since it’s my house he came to after you beat the shit out of him,” Craig yelled.

“Well you can just tell him to get his worthless ass back home and then you can go back to minding your own business,” Jack yelled back.

“Why, so you have someone here to beat the shit out of when the mood strikes you? Does that make you feel powerful, beating up on you own son?” Craig asked.

“What the fuck do you know? You can’t just walk in here and talk to me like this in my house. Go back and tell Brian to get home, and then stay the fuck away from us,” Jack growled.

Craig heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs and turned to find Joan Kinney staring at him with a blank expression. He knew immediately that she would never even try to protect her son from his father and that thought saddened him. Parents were supposed to protect their children at any cost. Not only was Brian’s father hurting him, but his mother was allowing it to happen. Craig’s decision had been made.

“What seems to be the problem here?” she asked.

“The problem is that your husband likes to beat on your son and you don’t do anything to stop him,” he yelled not letting the shocked expression deter him. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. Brian is a very intelligent boy who has a bright future in front of him, despite being raised by the two of you. I can’t believe I came here hoping to talk to you and try to fix things for Brian. I can see that I was wrong in thinking that I could reason with you. It’s obvious that you don’t love him the way he needs to be loved. It’s my guess that you don’t love him at all. So this is the way it’s going to work, I’m going to go out to my car because I can’t stand the site of either one of you. You, Mrs. Kinney, are going to go pack up Brian’s things while I wait. Brian is moving in with my family. Maybe we can make up for some of the pain you have caused him,” Craig replied hoping he was doing the right thing.

“You can’t just walk in here and tell us how to raise our son. What makes you think that we would just let him go live with you?” Joan asked, still holding on to her cold exterior.

“Because if you try to stop me, I’ll call the police and have you both arrested for child endangerment. You have ten minutes Mrs. Kinney. I advise you to make it quick. You don’t want to keep me waiting,” Craig ordered before turning away from the shocked pair and walking out the door.

Craig walked in the house thirty minutes later not really sure what he got himself into. He planned on being able to talk some sense into the Kinney’s, prepared to threaten them with calling the police if they didn’t stop hurting Brian. Of course, once he saw the hatred in Jack Kinney’s eyes when Brian’s name was mentioned, he knew there was no way he could let the poor kid go back there. Craig was sitting in the living room trying to think about what to do next when Jennifer walked in.

“Craig, I didn’t hear you come in. What happened at Brian’s house?” she asked with concern in her eyes.

“Honey, it was horrible. I couldn’t believe what a bastard Brian’s father was. There was no way he would listen to reason. What’s worse was the way Brian’s mother tried to make it sound like Brian was to blame. It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep from beating the shit out of both of them,” Craig sighed.

“So I guess we are back to where we started. What’re we going to do?” Jennifer asked as she sat down next to her husband. Her eyes were filled with worry for her son’s friend.

“Well, see, that’s the thing. When I went over there, I had every intention on making the Kinney’s see that what they were doing was wrong. I was going to tell them that if they continued to keep hurting Brian, I was going to go to the Police and report them. Once I saw how bad the situation really was, I knew that there was no reasoning with them. If Brian goes back home there is no doubt that he would be hurt again. I knew I had no other choice, so I kind of told them that he was going to be living here. I know it seems like a lot to take on another child right now, but Brian isn’t really a child. He’s almost eighteen and can pretty much take care of himself. There was no other way. Justin’s right, uprooting him at this point in his life could be devastating to his future. I don’t want to see such a bright young man have his future ruined because the people who are supposed to love him should never have been parents. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first Jen, but there was nothing else I could do.” Craig stopped talking to look at his wife. He saw tears in her eyes and wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“Oh Craig, I love you.” Jennifer exclaimed, as she threw her arms around her husband.

She had been thinking about the situation ever since Craig had left and decided to suggest Brian should indeed move in with them, if things couldn’t be worked out. Although she worried about the feelings she was having about Justin, she knew she couldn’t let Brian suffer anymore then he already had. If her suspicions turned out to be true, she would deal with that when the time came. Pulling back to look into Craig’s eyes, she felt an overwhelming sense of pride for her husband.

“Come on honey, let’s go to bed. We can work out the details in the morning,” she whispered before leading Craig upstairs to bed.


End of part 7
6/8/03

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