“All Better” Chapter 2 “The Thing About Billy Joel” JUSTIN P.O.V. The thing you have to know about Brian Kinney, is that to him, Billy Joel is god. Yes, hard core crazy punk rocker Brian Kinney, is in love with singer/songwriter Billy Joel. This is no lie, and Brian is not ashamed of admitting his infatuation to anyone at any time or place. Most people don’t know what to think of him when he breaks into a lyric from a Joel song out of no where. I almost don’t notice it anymore, and I am sure I even do it on occasion. What can I say, it rubs off on you. And, I too share a great appreciation for the man. Not nearly as strong as the love as the Brian has for the piano man, but almost. Brian and I met when we were in the seventh grade. I had just moved from Chicago to our shitty small town and I hated it!!! The only decent radio station we even had at the time was an oldies station that played the same six C.D.‘s on a loop. One of them was thankfully Billy Joel. It was the end of my first week at school, and to be honest with you, I really hadn’t tried to make friends. I never look around my classrooms. I just sat there and did my work and waited for the day to be over with. I ate lunch in the cafeteria the first day, but on the second a group of what appeared to be 8th graders came up to me and stole my lunch money while I was standing in line. I was just at four feet tall and they were almost six, so without an utter of protest I gave them my money and took off down the hall to go sit outside. I sat out on the bleachers everyday after listening to my walkman. It was either listen to the only tape I had cool enough to bring to school a million times, Green Day’s Dookie, or listen to the radio. So I did. I sat on the bleachers over looking southern Illinois’ poor excuse for a playground, which consisted of a track and grass in the middle of that. It was pretty hot, but compared to being inside with all the smelly jocks and the giggling girls, it was heaven. Lunch time happened to be the same time that the oldies station played Billy Joel’s ‘Stranger’ album. I would sit in the hot sun and blast the music in my headphones, trying to just get away from everything. By Friday of that first week I pretty much knew every word to every song. “Holy Shit! I love this song!” A voice shouted in my ear. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Suddenly, one of my headphones were pulled back away from my ear and there was another boy’s face touching mine. His ear as close as he could get it to listen. I got a little frustrated and decided to just hand them to him. But that was my big mistake. He smiled at me. His teeth weren’t so crooked then, and his smile was genuine. Something I would later realize only happened when I was around. I felt my breath catch in my throat and a tingly feeling all over my body. I watched him, dumbfounded, and even a little frightened of this beautiful boy who sat so close to me singing softly and in perfect tune to Billy Joel. “Thanks.” He said taking them off and handing them to me when the song ended. “I’m Brian Kinney.” His accent was a little odd. It was so unlike all of the other ‘hicks’ I had heard speak. It had a country accent but also a little Irish in it. I remember repeating the way he said his glorious name in my head over and over before telling him my own name. “So you are new here.” He said this in that accent and it was beginning to make me weak in the knees. I was so lucky to have been sitting down with my book bag across my lap. I had the feeling for a while that I was gay. But sitting next to this gorgeous silly boy was definitely the clincher. I couldn’t help but notice his body. It was not a body of a normal thirteen year old. That night I would find out why. But for that moment I just sat there and unabashedly stared at his long jean clad legs that were propped up on the seats before us. My eyes travelled up to his crotch and I forced myself to continue looking up and was granted the pleasure of seeing a tiny bit of skin revealed where his shirt had ridden up. Oh, god, I know that I had never been so hard in my life before than at that moment. A little patch of dark hair started below his navel and disappeared below his jeans. “Get yourself a nice look?” I jumped at his words yet again. My hard on immediately deflated and I felt like I was going to puke. I was sure he was going to kick my ass. But he didn’t. Instead, he leaned in close to me, put his calloused fingers on my chin and turned my face to look into his hazel eyes. “It’s okay, you know.” My head was spinning, I was sure that he was joking. But his face looked serious, grateful even. “I’ve been checking you out for the last four days of school.” I laughed. Surely I thought he was kidding. I was nothing to look at. I was plain, looked like the perfect nazi kid, acted like it too. My parents had always told me that I was nothing special, my older sister and younger brother, now, they were the special ones. Not me! I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to look at me the way he was. “Why don’t you eat lunch inside?” He asked. “Well, I. I’m not really…” I wasn’t sure what to say to him. “Yeah, well, now that we’re friends you are going to start sharing my lunch with me. Mom always packs way too much. She wants to make me fat or something.” Brian let out this laugh that turned my insides into mush. I laughed too. “Thanks, but I have lunch money.” I said politely, not wanting Brian to think I was some kind of charity case. For a moment I wondered if I had some kind of visible bruise from my father that might have made him feel sorry for me and initiate this whole conversation in the first place. I thought about it and realized that my father hadn’t had time to beat on me too much since we had moved to Maroon and that most of my fading bruises and scrapes were in places my clothes covered. “Yeah, I know. But I take it some asshole’s stole it on Monday and that’s what sent you out here.” I blushed feeling like the worthless idiot I was sure that I was. “Well, that won’t happen again. Now, you can save your lunch money and help me eat all of this.” It was then that I noticed he held a small red Rubbermaid cooler. He opened it and started to dig through it. Tossing me one of the zip locked sandwiches, a bag of chips and then a can of pop. Which I soon learned the southerners called soda. “You a fan of Billy Joel?” Brian asked before slurping some of his pop down. I nodded my head. “Yeah, sure.” I mean, I was now. He smiled again. “I play music too. He’s my favourite artist.” Brian said proudly. I sat there wondering how many times you could fall in love with someone in one day. “Mine is Elton John.” I told him. “Yeah, he’s amazing too.” He laughed and grabbed some of my chips. “Sometimes I am not sure who I like more, but then, with Billy Joel, well, there is a Billy Joel song for every situation. You know?” He said profoundly. Quite profoundly for a thirteen year old. “Mmmhmm.” I mumbled through my chewing of the ham sandwich. Even though I really didn’t know. Not then. But I was sure that Brian would show me. And he did. The thing about Billy Joel is, that his lyrics seemed to be a guide through both me and Brian’s lives. Two years later we were up in his tree house. I was sketching him rolling a joint. “Would you stop moving Brian?” I said with a laugh. He gave me an annoyed look. “Do you want me to roll this?” He asked. I closed the sketchbook and crawled over to where he was. “Sorry, it’s just that, I don’t get a chance to draw that often.” He looked at me thoughtfully before returning to his joint. By the end of our first week of friendship I was spending the night at Brian’s house on any night that wasn’t a school night. I soon found out that he was adopted when his mother and father had died in a car accident where they lived in Ireland when he was four. His parents, Jack and Joan, were really his aunt and uncle, but he called them mom and dad, and they were wonderful people. They took me into their home right away. I felt more love from them than I did from my family, and I really loved them. It turned out that Brian was really fifteen when we had met. He had suffered a brain injury in the car accident that affected his learning abilities and wasn’t able to start kindergarten until he was seven. So, that explained why he looked so much more grown up than I did at thirteen. A month after our friendship started Brian noticed the bruises on my back. It was still warm at the end of September and we were getting ready to swim in his parent’s lake when he walked up behind me and ran his soft fingers over my discoloured flesh. I tried to walk away, to put my shirt back on. But he wouldn’t let me. He kept touching my back softly. I’ll never forget those tingles, or the way his body fit behind me so perfectly, holding me against him. His breath on my neck as he whispered. “I wouldn't leave you in times of trouble We never could have come this far I took the good times, I'll take the bad times I'll take you just the way you are.” Brian was right. Those word’s seemed to heal me a little. I went limp in his arms and he held onto me as I cried and told him about my family and the way I was treated. He pressed soft kisses to my face. I was nearly drowning with emotion, but he was my life raft, and once again he sang those words to me. His soft Irish Country accent beautiful to my ears. I took a deep breath and sang back to him. “While in these days of quiet desperation As I wander through the world in which I live I search everywhere for some new inspiration But it's more than cold reality can give If I need a cause for celebration Or a comfort I can use to ease my mind I rely on my imagination And I dream of an imaginary time I know that everybody has a dream Everybody has a dream And this is my dream, my own Just to be at home And to be all alone...with you “ At 13 that was as close as I could get to telling my best friend how much he meant to me. He took my hand and led me into the cool lake water. We splashed around and played like kids for the first fifteen minutes, but soon we had begun to drift towards each other and I felt my cock harden, my trunks doing nothing to hide it and then in an instant Brian was close to me. Pressed up against me. I could feel his hardness too. Which was much more substantial than mine. He leaned down and kissed my lips. After a moment I groaned and opened my mouth to let his tongue in. We kissed and groped each other’s bodies until we heard his mother yelling from the house that our lunch was ready. Breaking apart he once again took my hand and led me up to the house. From then on we kissed and fondled one another whenever we got the chance. We would often do it in the lake, I was still young and couldn’t shoot cum yet, but enjoyed my dry orgasms as much as Brian and I enjoyed his wet ones. We continued this way for two years. We hid who we were and what we meant to each other from everyone. But that would all change too. At 17, and 15, I am sure Brian and I looked silly all cramped up in his tree house. But it was the easiest place for us to be alone. “You know you could always move in here when you turn sixteen Justin.” Brian said matter- of fatly. I laughed. “In this tree house, yeah, right.” Brian licked the paper and pressed the joint together before lighting it and lying on his back. “You know that’s not what I meant. If you told…” “No Brian!” I yelled and crawled next to him. “I’m not telling on them. They wouldn’t believe me anyway. And my dad already said that he would drag me back home if I tried to run away again.” I said, frustrated with everything going on in my home life. “But it wouldn’t be running away, not if you did it legally. They would take you away and you could get emancipated, mom and dad already said you could stay in my room.” Brian was looking at me with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Brian, I doubt that your parents would want me living in your room with you if they knew that we were both…..” I trailed off. I still did not have the courage to say what it is we both knew we were. “Gay Justin. We…. Are…..Gay!” Brian said with anger in his voice. His eyes changed into fury. “Can’t you at least fucking say it! It’s just me and you!” His voice echoed inside the small walls. “Shah…“ I told him. “Your Mom or Dad could hear you!” I made a move to sit up and leave the fort, but was pulled down to my back. Our bodies are twisted then and our stomachs touch. “I don’t care Justin. I don’t care who knows.” He says simply. “But it could get us killed Brian.” I tell him sadly. Chills run up and down my spine. “I want to protect you forever Justin.” He says with a laugh. I know how he feels. “But I don’t want to have to hide what we are.” “We won’t have to forever. You’ll see.” It’s not often that I am optimistic, but when it comes to us, I must be. He nods his head. “You see?” He says gruffly. I’m not sure if it’s the weed or this conversation that is getting me light-headed but I suddenly come to the realization that I am. I feel his cock next to mine and his warm breath on my face. “There is a Billy Joel song..” “For every situation.” I finished for him. “What words of wisdom did Billy Joel have for a couple of gay kids in hiding Brian?” I asked jokingly. He looked at me with a hurt expression and then pushed me onto my back before handing me the joint. “They say there's a heaven for those who will wait Some say it's better but I say it ain't I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints Sinners are much more fun... And only the good die young.” When he got done singing he was kneeling before me. “I want to live forever.” He said. I nodded my head and reached out to hand him the joint. Thinking of the lyrics he just sang so beautifully. “Me too.” I told him. He crawled toward me then and took the joint between his lips. His long lean body laid on top of mine and one of his hands were stroking my hair. I parted my lips and he leaned down and gave me a shotgun. The joint was nearly done so he put it out beside us on the floor. “I don’t ever want to die Justin.” Brian said staring into my eyes. There were times when I was at home that I would wish death upon myself. But never when I was with Brian. He was the only person that made me feel alive, and want to be alive. “Me neither.” I told him. “Then we have to be really, really bad Justin.” Brian said. His hot breath was on my neck now as he started to nuzzle it, breathing my scent deeply. Tingles went through my body, jolting out of my toes at his touch. I was rock hard and in need of release. My heart seemed to beat with his as I ran my fingers up and down the silky skin of his back. “I want to be bad Brian. I want to be a sinner.” I told him. “What’s the greatest sin you’ve ever committed Justin?” My best friend asked, looking at me with so much lust. “I haven’t committed any sins Brian.” I said. “Except, one, that I haven’t yet, but want to commit.” He smiled then, “And what would that be Sunshine?” His hands were now holding my face, his thumbs brushing against my full lips. “You.” I told him quietly. “Me?” He whispered back. “How am I a sin?” He said playfully, his lips touching mine as he talked. “Because, you are my sin. You are who I want to commit the worst sin with.” I told him. MY hear was beating frantically at this point. There was no turning back “I want to make love to you. Make me a sinner Brian.” I said. Years later, I now know that no sin will ever make you live longer. No matter how many times you committ it. No matter if when you stop committing it, that feels as it is a sin itself. But the thing about Billy Joel is, he really has a way with words, he makes you believe in them, when there is nothing else to believe in.