Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 05:57:49 -0500
From: Extreme Writer <extremewriter9@gmail.com>
Subject: Lifeline: Chapter 3.

We shall blame the long delay for this chapter on life's intrusions, and a
broken cable modem, because those were the things that were responsible for
the delay in the posting of this chapter.

***Disclaimer***

This story contains writings in which things of a sexually explicit nature
performed between males are portrayed. If this material offends you, then
read no further. Also, the characters in this story have no resemblance to
anyone. Not your friend John, your cousin Harry, or that guy across the
street who always keeps his blinds shut. For those of you who have decided
to stick around, you may E-mail comments, questions, suggestions, or
anything else your hearts desire to: extremewriter9@gmail.com. Now, with
all that out of the way, I present to you readers...

Lifeline: Chapter 3.

Mark woke up the next morning with a feeling of purpose. He walked back to
town, and spent part of the day until the sun started to go down under his
favorite stand of trees. Then, he went to the only place in the city that
he was a bit scared of. It was an alley between two old buildings. Mark had
only two friends in the streets, TC, which was short for Timothy Chambers,
and Brock. They had apparently come from similar home situations than Mark,
so he felt comfortable with them. They promised him from day one that they
always had his back.

Mark had to stay at the spot and just hope that they would show. They had
no means of summoning each other, which was a blessing in a way. It made
them less suspicious to prying people. Finally, after an hour of standing
there, Mark heard a familiar voice talking in hushed tones to someone
else. He heard the other voice reply in kind, and it was also familiar to
him. Excellent! TC and Brock were together!

"Hey Mark," TC said quietly. "How's it goin'?"

"Badly," Mark replied. "I feel like my life is going nowhere. I felt like I
ought to let ya'll know, because I don't think I'll be around here much
longer. You guys have always had my back, though, so I felt like I ought to
at least let you know."

"Damn, Bro," Brock said, sounding a little sad. "You leavin' us?"

"Yeah," Mark replied. "I'm sorry. I don't even know where the hell I'll go,
but I can't stay here."

"Hey Bro," TC said. "Whatever ya do, try to stay alive, okay? We wanna see
ya again some day."

Mark didn't comprehend. It wasn't good to develop bonds on the streets like
this, because your friends could get shot or busted for drugs at any
moment. Mark let it go, though, and just told them he'd see them
sometime. He turned and walked away, without looking back.

After Mark left TC and Brock behind, he walked back to his field one last
time, crying. He hadn't cried in a very long time, and it somehow made him
feel better about what he knew he had to do. He hated feeling sad and
useless all the time, going to the same places day in and day out, and
doing absolutely nothing because he was afraid to.

He placed his backpack underneath a tree, careful with it as always. He
didn't know why he did this, but it felt right to him somehow. After saying
a last quiet farewell to the field he had called "home" for so long, he
walked, caneless, back to town. He found a busy street, and stood there
along side it, gathering his courage and determination around his soul like
a cloak. He stood there until it got completely dark. Then, with a heavy
heart and what felt like a two-ton sandbag in the center of his stomach,
Mark stepped into the street. He lay down so that his feet were at one side
of the street and his head was at the other. His right side was directly in
the path of oncoming cars, which is exactly the way Mark wanted it.

Mark heard an approaching car's engine, and his heart began to pound.

"This is it, Mark," he mumbled to himself.

The car came closer and closer, sounding to Mark like it was moving in slow
motion. Millimeter by agonizing millimeter, the car approached Mark.

The next thing he heard was a squeal of tires so loud that it felt like his
right ear was going to burst, and a loud yell of "shit!" from the
panic-stricken driver. He heard the driver turn off his engine, and jump
out of his car so fast that his feet slid on the gravel at the shoulder of
the road. Mark heard the guy run around to his left side, but didn't move.

"Hey, what the fuck are you doing in the middle of the road like this?" the
guy asked, sounding really pissed, but Mark knew it was from complete
shock, not anger. Mark wasn't surprised. He figured he must look a sight
lying there in the road in a frayed shirt, torn jeans, and shoes with so
many holes in them that it was amazing that he gained any foot protection
from them at all.

Mark turned his head to look in the man's general direction, as his face
was obscured by Mark's greatest enemy, shadow, and asked in a horse, shaky
voice, "why didn't you hit me?"

The man put a shaking hand on his chin, and twisted Mark's head further
around. Mark could smell the fear, panic, and sadness rolling off the guy
in waves.

"I couldn't have lived with myself if I had hit you, son," the man said. "I
almost didn't see you, which is the way I'm sure you wanted it. That's
probably why you waited until dark. I don't care right now why you were in
the road or anything. All I want to know is if you have any stuff, and if
so, where is it?"

Mark told him the location of his backpack as best he could, and the man
put him in his car and told him to stay there until he got back. Mark
didn't argue. By that point, Mark could care less where he was going. He
figured if he ended up being taken to another orphanage, he'd find a
better, more effective way of ending his life.

Mark sat there for what seemed like forever before the man came back.

"Damn," the man said. "Whatever you got in here, it sure is heavy."

"They're the only things that I felt were worth taking when my mom told me
to leave," Mark said. "They're of no use to me right now, but they might be
at some point, so please be careful with them."

The man put the backpack carefully on the seat beside Mark, just as he had
asked.

"I figure you might be wanting to know a couple things about me," the man
said. "My name is Brett...Brett Chancellor. I am in the police force, and
was just getting off patrol duty when I almost ran over you. By the way,
I'm sorry, but no matter how much you wanted to die, I couldn't be the one
responsible.

Mark gave an involuntary jerk when Brett mentioned his involvement with the
police. Mark was still determined that he didn't care where he ended up,
but his fear of the police was very deeply inbred into him. First from his
father, then later from surviving for two and a half years on the
streets. His father had always told Mark as a young child, "Marky, don't
talk to them big bad police. They don't give a fuck about you. They just
wanna know if you got some pot or somethin' equally bad on ya. They don't
care about your well-being at all." His father had said this to him so many
times that Mark had the speech engrained into his brain like a mantra.

"Don't worry," Brett said, breaking in upon Mark's memory real. "I'm taking
you back to my house, at least for this evening. You don't have to talk if
you don't want to until we get there. I do want to know about you,
though. I haven't known you for long at all, less than an hour, in fact,
but you have promise. I can see it in your haunted eyes. The spark of life
is still very much in those eyes of yours, and you almost gave it up. I'm
not gonna let that happen to you, and I mean it."

Mark sat there, still as stone for the whole thirty minutes that it took
them to get to Brett's house, scared despite all his earlier
self-resolve. This wasn't how he'd thought things would go.

When they arrived at Brett's house, Brett handed Mark his backpack and
started to walk up the sidewalk, forgetting for a second that Mark would
need help. When he turned his head to let Mark know to follow his voice, he
saw that Mark was right behind him.

"Go on," Mark told him. "I can follow the sound of your footsteps. If it
were full daylight, I could follow your profile."

A bit confused, but nevertheless satisfied, Brett continued walking up the
sidewalk. Mark knew to step up when he heard Brett's footsteps get slower
and more pronounced, as if entering under a roof of some sort, so he had no
trouble negotiating the steps.

Mark stood there, waiting for Brett to extract his keys from some hidden
place on his person and open the door. He was filled with a sense of slight
dread mixed with a certain amount of curiosity at what awaited him behind
the door of Brett's house.

When Mark walked inside, the first thing he noticed, as was always his
habit when walking into an unfamiliar place, was the smell. It smelled
clean, but also well lived in. He could smell faint odors of Cologne,
after-shave, and the wood of the floor over which he walked. Mark guessed
that the wood in the entryway was new, and when he asked Brett if it was,
discovered that he was right. Brett said it had been put in a week earlier
by his own two hands. The way Brett said things made Mark smile for the
first time in a very long time. It felt strange to Mark, as if his face had
remembered after all this time which muscles to move, but Mark himself had
forgotten.

Brett gave him the tour, which actually took a while. It took longer than
it normally would have because Brett's two Golden Retrievers, Timber and
Ross, were constantly underfoot getting use to Mark's presence. The tour
also took a while because Brett's house was a pretty good size for just one
person. Mark figured Brett must do rather well for himself, and wondered
how. 'Surely he doesn't make that much money on the police force,' Mark
thought. Mark kept his mouth shut on that subject for the present,
though. He figured it wasn't his business and if Brett wanted him to know,
he would tell him.

After the tour of the house was over, Brett sat Mark on a sofa and asked
him if he was hungry or thirsty. Mark found he was not hungry, strangely
enough, as he had not eaten at all that day, but he was thirsty. Actually,
it wasn't too strange that Mark was not hungry after not having eaten all
day. He was use to only eating every two or three days. He hoped he could
break that habit if he was going to be staying with Brett for any length of
time. Mark hadn't known Brett for even 24 hours yet, but he could already
tell that, for whatever reason, Brett would do anything he could for him.

When Mark told Brett that he was thirsty, but not hungry, Brett didn't seem
to be bothered by Mark's lack of interest in food. he just ran down a list
of things that he had to drink, and Mark finally decided on Tea.

Handing him his Tea, Brett sat on Mark's left side, as silent as a tomb.

Mark let the awkward silence stretch out for a while, and finally said,
"So, what do you want to know?"

Brett didn't speak. He couldn't figure this kid out. He seemed so scared,
but confident, and willing to open up to an almost total stranger. He
finally asked Mark to start at the beginning, and keep going until he
either got tired of talking or ran out of things to say, which ever came
first.

Mark told Brett about his father's death from AIDS-related complications,
his mother's slow withdrawal into herself, and her eventual request for
Mark to, "get the fuck out of my house and never return." He went on to
tell Brett about the beginnings of his orphanage life, including the reason
why he got kicked out of the last one. He told Brett about his street life,
leaving as much gory detail out as possible, for no other reason than it
was too painful for him to remember at the present. He brushed over the
uncertain nights when he wondered if he would even be able to continue on,
why he was even bothering to live at all. That was when he met TC and
Brock, who gave him a purpose to live again, for a time at least.

"So, now," Mark said, "I'm here with you, and have just poured part of my
heart out to the first person to listen in two and a half years."

"You left a lot out," Brett said.

"Yes sir, I did," Mark said. "I'm sorry, but I can't bare to think of the
finer details at the moment. Maybe some day when I've had a chance to leave
it further behind me, that is if I even get that chance, I will tell you. I
can't right now, though, and I'm sorry."

"Mark," Brett asked, "I'm wondering, because of the man at your last
orphanage, did you ever sell yourself on the streets for extra money or
food?"

"No," Mark said. "I vowed never to do that. As suicidal as I was at times,
I vowed that getting a sexually transmitted disease like my father was not
the way I was going to go. I stole from people or garbage cans as often as
I could, and even congratulated myself when I made a particularly good
steel. All the congratulations in the world were not able to mask the guilt
I felt every time I stole something, however. Even if it was from a garbage
can that didn't care what I did to it."

Brett held Mark close to him then, trying not to cry. He couldn't even
begin to imagine the hell that Mark must have gone through, but from that
day forward, Brett Chancellor vowed that Mark would never have to go
through anything of that sort again.